We ate quickly and in silence, barely even looking up at each other. I found myself clenched with the awkwardness of it, with knowing that someone around this table likely resented me for what I was making them do. If it had gone to a vote, I wondered, what on Earth would the outcome have been? Would they have all gone along with Anton out of loyalty, or would there have been dissent in the ranks? Did they all value me as much as he did?

When lunch was done, the men cleared away the dishes and I found myself pacing up and down the house once again as they all packed. It wasn’t like I had anything to take with me – and I didn’t want to arouse their suspicion by packing anything, anyway. They might have caught on if they saw me packing a bag, caught on to the plan I had already come to terms with. I had come here with nothing and I would leave here with nothing – well, not quite nothing. I looked at the four closed doors as the men packed their things, and allowed a small smile to creep onto my face. I had the four of them. That was far more than nothing.

It had been so long since I had truly felt desired the way these men made me feel. I mean, I had dated before, but when I was with the clan, but it had never felt like this. That had been more like a matter of course, the assumption that I was going to get together with someone high-up in the clan in order to keep my father’s line going. And I did my best, I truly did, to try and uphold my end of the bargain – I slept with men, I tried to dredge up some sincere interest from my side in the hopes that I would find someone to settle down with who my father could be proud of, who would produce good, strong heirs to the throne after me. But I had never felt anything like what I felt with Anton, Ethan, Rafe, and Luke. Even the memory of their hands all over me, in that hot tub, was enough to get my pulse racing once more. The effect they had on me – maybe because they had never tried to have an effect at all – even now, made my knees a little weak.

I pushed the thought from my head. Now was not the time to think about that. This was a somber day, a mournful one, and not the time to be paying so much attention to my libido, for certain. I took a seat on the couch and tried to pull my mind in a different direction, but instead I found my head heavy with the thought of what could have happened between us in that tub if I’d just let things keep going. I had no idea what the logistics would have been for all four of them at once, but I knew for damn certain that I’d have been very interested in finding out…

I forced myself to my feet. No. I had to be respectful. These men were leaving behind their home, everything they’d worked for, for so long, to take care of me. I spotted a small bookcase at the other side of the room and headed over to it; I wondered who the reader was out of the four of them. I would have guessed Ethan, but I could imagine Luke, up late at night when he couldn’t sleep, slipping out of bed to pick out something to read, too. The thought of it made me smile. I wished I could have seen a little more of their domestic lives, of how they functioned before all of this washed up on their shore. Oh, to have played the watcher to them back in the day, before I had rolled up and ruined everything. I wondered if they all got on as well with each other, or if they divided themselves off into little pairs to hang out.

I ran my finger absently along the spines of the books on the bookcase, and brought my finger to a stop randomly and without paying much attention to what I had picked out. I grabbed for the book and looked down at the cover – Robinson Crusoe. Seemed appropriate, given that I was feeling more and more like I was stranded these days. I took a seat in the living room, tucked my legs up and under myself, and began to read.

It had been a long time since I had just lost myself to a book like that. I used to love reading, back when I was a kid, but the duties I was expected to take on as the daughter of the head of the pack soon took precedence over everything that I had once enjoyed. I let the story absorb me – the language was a little old-fashioned at first, but I soon tuned my ear to the way the narration played out and found myself actually enjoying the book, happily forgetting everything that had been going on the last few hours. Occasionally, it would plague the back of my mind, making itself known in that ugly, aggressive way, that a nightmare seemed to creep into your waking mind, but I was quick to put it down every time it tried to come back. I just wanted a few more hours to myself, a few more hours before I had to face up to the truth and everything that my arrival in this place had wrought.

When I lifted my head from the book, it was getting dark outside and the fire had smoldered down to a few glowing embers opposite me. I yawned and ran my hands through my hair. The guys had come and gone but none of them had bothered to disturb me, perhaps understanding that I needed this time to myself, to let myself get lost in a story. I was about halfway through but my eyes were beginning to droop and I knew I needed to stretch my legs. I felt a small pang of sadness as I carefully returned the book to the shelf, as I realized that I would likely never get a chance to finish it.

It was cold outside but I didn’t care. I stepped towards the door, glancing around to make sure that none of them were going to stop me – they must have known as well as I did that I was risking a whole hell of a lot by stepping out by myself, without the cover of any of their scents to keep me safe, but I needed some fresh air, to feel the cool breeze on my face once more without being flanked by the four of them. Even the few days I’d spent out in the woods by myself before the lot of them came by to save me had been more independence than I’d ever had before in my life, and I had to admit that there was some part of me that craved the same thing all over again. I wouldn’t be apart from them for anything in the world, but I would have liked a little more time to just…be myself. To learn who I was outside of the pack.

The snowy vista sprawled out in front of me and I shivered as I stood there in my bare feet, letting the cold seep into my bones. I knew it was a bad idea but I couldn’t stop myself. I just wanted to feel it on me, against me, within me. It was one of those ways that I could remind myself I was alive, the ice-cold breeze against my skin. I loved it. I would never have traded it in. Even for a shifter, I had an unnatural adoration of the cold, even when it came in the form of the thick blanket of snow that was laid out in front of me now. I just wanted to shift and run out into it, to roll around and get it all up in my fur, then to dry off next to the fire wrapped in a thick blanket afterwards. That sounded like heaven. I would have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for the fear of getting my scent all over the freshly-fallen snow; I knew that they would be keeping their noses to the ground for me, the MacLarens, and that anything I did to leave my scent behind would only end in disaster.

I wondered if my father would come for me if they took me. Because that’s what they’d be relying on. But my father had kicked me out of the pack for good – if he came after me to help after doing that, he would look so weak, so full of favors for those close to him. But if not…would he really leave me out there with the MacLarens? To die? Or, God knows what else that they might do to me first? I thought back to the look on my father’s face when he had condemned me to a life outside the pack. Even then, it had been written all over his features that he didn’t want to do this, that he would have found some way around it if he could. The thought made my stomach clench once more. I missed him. I wish I could reach out to him, beg him to let this feud with his enemies go so I could live in peace with the four of them…

But if decades of fighting hadn’t solved anything, then the pleas of his exiled daughter were hardly going to help. I sighed and stretched, my breath forming a puff of steam in the air before me, and the sight of it reminded me of us in that hot tub, the hot water morphing to steam around us with every movement. I glanced over at the tub – it was black and switched-off for now, but I wanted to wring every last drop of enjoyment from my time here while I still could.

I headed over to the hot tub and, in the soft glow from the cabin, found the controls and switched it on. It sprang to life at once, bubbling the water and instantly giving off a dimly warm heat. I glanced over my shoulder, making sure that I was alone, and began to strip down.

The cold air pinched my skin and made me wince, but it only made it all the sweeter when I slipped beneath the deliciously warm water and lost myself to the feeling of it. Oh, yes. That felt good. My muscles were always sore after I went out for a shifted run, and I had done two in as many days. This was a relief. It was heaven. It was the last time I would probably get to relax until all of this was over, and I had no idea when that would be – or what my world would look like once it was. I leaned back and let it soothe my muscles, allowing my head to drop backwards and letting out the smallest little moan of pleasure. I could almost remember how it felt to be in here with all of them, the heat of their bodies, the chemistry crackling in the air as I felt the first hand working up the inside of my thigh…

Suddenly, I heard the door to the cabin open and my head snapped up. I realized I had allowed my hand to sneak up the inside of my leg, like I was mimicking the way it had felt when Luke had had his hand there instead. I was craving touch, even though I knew now was the worst time to go to any of them needing anything other than help with packing.

I flushed when I saw Luke coming through the door, followed by Rafe. They could have walked in on me touching myself if I hadn’t been careful. Not that I would have minded, but I wanted them to know that I was taking all of this seriously.

“Mind if we join you?”