Despite all the initial pomp and circumstance, I was the only one let into that room with my father; in fact, we were the only two people in there at all, and I couldn’t help but feel a chill overwhelm me for a moment as the door slammed shut behind me with a crash that made me jump.

His throne room. He hated it when I referred to it in those terms, but that’s exactly what it was. The room where he brought all our visitors to show off his might and strength and power. I could see the appeal of it – the giant windows flooding the place with light, the intricate tapestries hanging up on the wall behind him that had been passed down through generations of shifters just like me – but standing there, opposite the man who had kicked me out of this place, I couldn’t muster up much in the way of awe. No, as I stood there staring him down for the first time since I had been exiled, I felt nothing but fury pulsing through my veins in response to the way he was looking at me.

“You’re back,” he remarked coolly, his voice carefully devoid of any kind of emotion. I straightened my shoulders, pulling myself up to my full height; he was sitting in an ornate throne. One I hadn’t seen before, and I wondered how much time and money he’d spent on having that commissioned when there was a war going on just outside our doors.

“I’m back.” I nodded, pushing all those angry little thoughts that were clouding my head to the side and focusing on the task at hand. If I ever found my way back into his good graces, I could ask what he was spending his time and money and resources on. For the time being, I needed to find a way to get on common, stable ground with him, and that meant ignoring all the nagging feelings at the back of my head that told me that something in him was amiss.

“Why?” He got to his feet and strode towards me; he paused about ten feet from me, close enough that I could see the flickers of grey in his hair, of doubt in his eyes. I wondered if he was wavering on having cast me out, but then the doubt was gone. He straightened his back, same as I had done, and stared me down across the floor.

“I need your help.” I softened my voice and moved towards him, praying that there was still some kernel of goodness deep in there that I could appeal to. I was still his daughter, after all, and I wanted nothing more than for him to believe me, for him to help me despite his pride.

“You know that I can’t give you that,” he replied without even a second thought, turning his back on me just like that.

My stomach dropped.

“Just hear me out, will you? Not for me, but for you and your people, Father,” I pleaded, my voice harsher and firmer than I had intended. He came to a halt but didn’t turn around, and for one awful moment, I was sure he was going to chase me out once again, threaten me never to return. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned slowly and met my gaze, taking his seat once more, and lifted his hand to indicate that I should go on. I took a deep breath, and thought of the three men waiting outside for me.

They needed me right now, and I couldn’t choke.

“So after I…left,” I began, figuring it was best to gloss over the details. “After I left, I ran into these four males out in the forest. They took me in. They kept me alive. I don’t think – no, I know, that if they hadn’t found me, someone else would have by now and I don’t think I’d be here to tell you about it.”

He regarded me with an impassive expression, unmoved, and I sucked in a sharp breath as I tried to reformulate my strategy. I supposed appealing to his sense of love for me as his daughter had proved a weak-ass plan as soon as he’d kicked me out of this place. I would need to find a different approach, one that was a little more compelling.

“And let me guess,” he sighed heavily, shaking his head. “One of them went nosing around their compound and got captured by the MacLarens? That’s what Ivan said. I can’t help the stupidity of-”

“No. One of them got captured trying to break me out of there,” I cut him off quickly. “They captured me when I was – when I was out for a run, and they took me back to their compound and locked me up in there.”

“You were-” He broke off and stopped talking, his face returning to that carefully impassive expression that he seemed to have cultivated especially for this encounter.

“And now he’s stuck there, same as I was, and it’s all because of me,” I pressed. “Cora is there as well, Father. She’s in imminent danger and--”

“You can confirm that you saw Cora there?” He leaned forward suddenly, and it was like, at last, I had managed to catch his attention with something that seemed to stick.

I nodded. “Yes. I saw her with my own two eyes,” I confirmed for him quickly. “I wasn’t sure how they got hold of her but she was there, and I think they’re keeping her in the same place that they’re keeping Rafe, so if we just work together we can…”

I trailed off, knowing by the way he sat back, that shuttered look on his face again, that going any further would have been a waste of my time. I closed my eyes for a moment as his words rained on me like physical blows.

“I’m disheartened to hear about Cora. We had hoped she was holing up somewhere, waiting for a good time to return to us. It’s a shame, to be sure. But you shouldn’t have come back here.” My father sounded as though he was on the brink of shutting down this conversation for good. “You are no longer a member of this pack.”

“I’m offering you help in defeating your enemies and getting back one of your own. The three men who are with me are good, strong shifters and I know they’d be of great use to you when it came to getting Cora back from that fucking place. And I’m sure we could find some way to repay you afterwards if we’re able to get our man out of there while we’re at it. We aren’t packmates any longer, but we can be allies in this.”

He regarded me for a long, silent moment, and I shifted from side to side where I stood. There was a seat behind me, but I had ignored it, wanting to stay loose and quick on my feet. I still didn’t feel entirely safe in this place, and I wanted to know that I could blow out of here at any moment if I needed to.

I wondered where the others were – had they been taken somewhere, split up to make sure that they weren’t going to try and pull anything now that I was out of the way? Maybe they had already been locked up, suspected of some imagined wrongdoing.

My heart beat faster in my chest. The thought of being ripped away from all four of them like that was impossible to bear. Jesus, I’d led them here. I had to turn the tide in our favor.

“There’s more,” I managed at last, even though I had hoped beyond hope that I wouldn’t have to dredge up those awful memories once more. I closed my eyes, and forced my brain back to that moment, the moment when Rissa had emerged from the darkness of the shadows in her cell. The overwhelming feeling of horror, of dread, was as fresh as it had ever been.

“More?” My father leaned forward again, his interest renewed.

“When I was in the MacLaren camp,” I began slowly, trying to give myself time and not just plunge headfirst back into those bad thoughts. “I found someone they – I came across evidence that they had been doing genetic testing.”

That seemed to get his ears pricking up with interest.

“What did you see?” he prompted as I tried to remember the details of it, pulling up the scattered memories that my brain seemed to be trying its best to protect me from.

I shook my head. “Not much, but enough. They are trying to make super soldiers, I think.” I wondered if I should tell him outright about Rissa, about what I’d seen and that, if we were going back there, then there wasn’t a chance in hell I was leaving without her. Or anyone else hidden in those horrible cells.

But I kept my mouth shut, for now; there wasn’t much to be gained in laying out every inch of my plan to him, not just yet, not when he could still cast me out at any moment. I tried to remember if there had ever been a time in the past when I had stood up to my father like this before the day I’d been exiled, and came up blank. Some time away from the pack had really changed me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

“As I understood it, that’s where they were taking Rafe – the male I know who’s stuck there – and Cora,” I went on. “That’s the last thing I heard them say, that they were taking the two of them away to be experimented on.”

I stared at him for a long moment, silent, hoping to God that I had done enough to get his attention this time around.

“I knew they were up to something,” he muttered, pounding his fist on the arm of his throne, eyes blazing with something far too close to satisfaction. “I knew it. And now this just proves I was right.”

“You can’t seriously be happy about this,” I cut him off, furious.

My voice was louder than it needed to be but I felt like I was on the edge right now, threatening to teeter and fall off if I didn’t get a grip on myself.

“One of your packmates, one of the most loyal shifters in this fucking place, is trapped there suffering God knows what at the hands of the people who hate you most in the world. Why are we still even sitting here talking? Why aren’t you using everything you have to go in there and get her out?”

“Arianna,” he cut me off with an expression of false pity, “you always were such an idealist. I know you miss your boyfriend, but you can’t expect-”

“No, this isn’t just about Rafe,” I interrupted him. “You have no idea the things I’ve seen out there. You haven’t been stuck in that place. You’ve been hiding out in this compound, letting other people fight your war and pretending to everyone that you have even the remotest idea of how the world works outside these walls.”

He leaned forward, and there was a fury on his face that told me everything I needed to know.

This conversation was over.

I’d blown it.

“Get out,” he growled, his voice low and threatening. “I met with you out of the kindness of my heart, and my duty is done now. If you hadn’t been my daughter, my guards would have torn you and your little fucking friends apart on the spot. And now, I will allow you to leave unharmed. You wanted a favor? There’s your favor. You’re welcome.”

With nothing to lose now, I threw caution to the wind. “So you’re going to abandon Cora?” I squared up to him. “You’re going to leave her behind? What kind of message does that send?”

“I’m going to deal with Cora how I see fit. Because, as you seem to keep forgetting, I’m the head of this clan,” he replied, narrowing his eyes. “Now get the fuck out.”

He stared me down, not letting his gaze waver from mine until I looked away in disgust. I couldn’t waste anymore time on this.

I turned for the door, pausing for one more instant, praying to God that he would stop me. But he didn’t. He didn’t say a word. I grabbed the door, pulled it open, and to my relief, found Anton, Ethan and Luke waiting outside for me. They must have seen my father’s answer in my face because Luke’s eyes darkened at once and he looked beyond me, to the spot where my father was sitting, and glowered at him.

“Nothing?” Anton asked.

I shook my head slowly and tugged the door closed behind me. I felt so bad for wasting our time like this. I don’t know what I had been thinking, believing that my father would help me when I needed him the most. He’d turned his back on me once. What would stop him now?

I’d hoped common decency, but I’d been dead wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my jaw set tight. “I’m sorry for bringing you all down here and wasting your time.”

“What kind of asshole-” Luke started, but Anton held his hand up to silence him. He knew as well as I did that that wasn’t going to do us any good.

“We need to get out of here,” Anton said, his tone sharp. “Back to that cabin. Figure out what we’re going to do from here.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to pull myself back to the here and now, instead of dwelling on my failures. Crying wasn’t going to help Rafe or Cora. “Yup.”

“Agreed,” Ethan muttered, the angriest I’d ever heard him. And with that, we turned to make our way out of this place that I’d called home…for the last time.