“This place really is an ugly little shite-hole, isn’t it?” asked Luna as she swept a mound of volatile dust bunnies into the far corner of her new flat’s tiny living room. She paused and put a hand on her hip as she looked around, trying to sort out if there was any way to actually make the run-down place look nice. A ratty-looking couch sat against one wall adjacent to a set of large windows, but other than that, the place was almost bare. “Listen, Brother, I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything better. This was the best I could afford in the area.”

Slouching even more than usual, Silver stood in the middle of the room, looking around as if he was also trying to figure out how to improve their living quarters.

“You’re kind enough to let me stay here for very little rent. I have no intention of complaining,” he said in a colourless voice. “I won’t be here long, I promise. In the meantime, the only problem with this flat is that it needs more furniture.”

“We’ll get some once we’ve got a little cash flow from the club,” said Luna. “The deposit has already eaten away at most of our savings, so I suppose it’ll have to wait until the tips start rolling in. Damn Ripper. If he’d been a responsible Alpha, we’d all have some money to spend. If he hadn’t brought us to a hole in the wall town like Bonham…”

“But he did bring us to Bonham. Anyhow, I’ll look after it,” said Silver. “Once I’ve built up a little income, I’ll pick up a few things. For now I’ll sleep on the couch, if that’s all right.”

“Always so accommodating,” said Luna, who was leaning her weight on the broom handle to look at her brother. She wondered, as always, what was going on in his head.

The enigma that was her brother threw her a quick smile before letting his face settle back into a frown. He never smiled for long, never looked properly happy.

No, of course he didn’t. Neither did she, after all. They were both prisoners, both victims of a stupid fate. Both controlled by a nasty Alpha hell-bent on using them as the means to whatever ends he sought.

“Are you okay?” she asked, leaning the broom against the wall and stepping towards him. Maybe if she cornered him she could get some answers.

“Fine,” he said, tightening visibly as if he was afraid of her coming too close. Luna stopped, seeing his discomfort. “I suppose I’m even a little glad to be in London,” her brother added. “I’ll admit that I was getting tired of living in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.”

“Good,” she replied, shifting her gaze towards the large, curtain-less window to her left. The sky was darkening, the autumn days growing shorter. “I’m glad you’re glad. So listen, speaking of London, I was thinking of going for a wander and getting to know the city a little. Maybe I’ll grab a pint at a pub. Want to come with on my wee adventure?”

Silver shook his head. “Ripper wants me to come down to the club tonight and help prepare it for tomorrow. So thanks, but no. I think I ought to stick around here. Maybe I’ll lie down for a bit.”

Always lying down, Luna thought. Always lethargic. The Silver she’d once known was long gone, his energy sapped by some invisible force. It was as though someone had drugged him and stolen his life essence away.

“You don’t always have to do what Ripper wants, you know,” she said, her tone harder than she intended it to be. “You’re not all submissive Wolf; you’re half human, and that half is meant to have free will. You can say no on occasion, and I’ll bet he won’t even bite you for it.”

“He’s the Alpha of our Pack,” Silver replied dully, his eyes staring into space as they always did when he was hiding something.

“Alpha, my arse. He’s a fucking cocksplat.”

Silver chuckled and looked into her eyes, and for a second he looked like the brother she’d once known. Finally, a semblance of good humour. “That may well be true,” he said, “but that cocksplat’s got me over a barrel. I have no choice but to do what he wants as long as…” He cut himself off mid-sentence and turned away, his smile fading fast. Luna could tell that he’d come close to opening up. So damned close that she could taste it.

“As long as he doesn’t what?” Luna reached for her brother’s arm. “Silver?”

It was high time he explained what hold their arsehole Alpha had over him.

But her sibling flinched away as if her touch burned him. “Nothing.”

Luna pushed out an exasperated sigh. “Damn it, I’m so fucking tired of all this secrecy. When are you going to tell me what the hell is going on with you?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Ripper’s in charge of my life, just as he’s in charge of yours. I have to remember that, and so do you. He’s the boss, and soon he’ll be paying us a salary, which makes it an extra-terrible idea to piss him off.”

“Okay. Fine.” Luna slipped on a hooded fleece jacket and tossed her long red hair behind her back. “Just don’t let him be a wanker to you. He’ll have me to answer to if he tries anything.” She shot him a glance, hoping for a smile, a wink. Anything. But instead, her brother’s shoulders slumped even more, his soul sucked away into some invisible vacuum.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he muttered in a voice barely louder than a whisper, his eyes meeting hers for a brief moment, throwing out some silent plea. “Don’t you ever challenge him. Don’t make him angry. The way you push his buttons, he’s bound to lose his temper one of these times.”

“So let him lose it. I enjoy pushing those buttons,” she shrugged. “The bastard is far too big for his britches. He needs to be taken down several notches, and apparently I’m the only Pack member with large enough balls to do it.” Come on, Silver. I just emasculated you. Get angry. Yell at me. Fight, damn it.

But Silver didn’t get angry. He just kept mumbling. “Luna, you don’t understand. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He won’t just give you a good talking to if he gets really pissed off.”

She threw both hands up in despair. “This is the sort of thing you do that drives me insane. What the hell do you know, that you’re not telling me?” She moved towards him again, reaching for him. But again he flinched away.

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking as though he was trying to look strong and defiant. He was still a handsome man, but he’d lost the look of power he’d once had. Even when he managed to straighten his spine he looked withered, somehow, like the trees outside that had begun to lose their summer leaves. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t know anything. I just want you to be careful. You’re too reckless. You always have been. I just want you to be careful.”

“Ripper won’t hurt me. He’s never lain a hand on me,” she said. She leaned towards him, narrowing her eyes up at his. “Besides, I know perfectly well that if he did, my big brother would punch him in the balls.”

“I hope my hand and his balls never get so close as that,” Silver replied, letting the left side of his mouth tick up in another all-too-brief smile. “Just promise me you won’t do something idiotic.”

“I promise,” Luna said, moving to the door with a flourish of her arm. “Sort of. Either way, don’t you worry that pretty silver head of yours. Listen, I’ll see you later, Brother. Don’t wait up if you get home before I do.” With that, she slipped through the door and shut it behind her.

* * *

When Luna had stepped out onto the street, she turned left to head east. She didn’t have any firm destination in mind, though she’d heard that there were some nice pubs in Paddington. The district lay just on the other side of Notting Hill from the district where her flat was situated. She was probably looking at a half hour walk in the crisp evening air.

The Wolf inside her craved trees, grass and open spaces. She hadn’t shifted since the long trip from Bonham, and her inner beast was growing restless. Perhaps tonight, after she’d satisfied her desire for a drink, she would let her déor free for a run.

As she strolled, she thought about London’s mysterious, unseen population of Dragons. She’d never told the rest of the Pack that she’d been standing next to Kirith’s home the night they’d left Warkshire. About what the Dragon had done before her eyes. Perhaps she’d been too distraught to talk about it, too disturbed, too tempted to pretend that it had been nothing more than an ugly dream, a memory that should fade into oblivion.

Anyhow, Kirith was only one Dragon. If he was truly evil, it was possible that he was an anomaly. Ripper had always told the Pack members that his kind was cruel, callous, that they would attack a Wolf as soon as look at it, bloodthirsty beasts that they were. But somehow, London’s Dragon Guild sounded different. From what Luna understood from Silver, the Dragons had rid London of a great threat over the last year or two. They’d also helped a Wolf Pack in Cornwall to defeat the Forsaken who were threatening them. It was a little hard to fear the very shifters who’d protected her own kind.

It made no sense to see them as her enemy, but she intended to find out the truth once and for all. For now, she would keep an open mind. There was only one Dragon that she had any reason to fear, and he was far away.

“However horrid they may be, there’s no way Dragon shifters are bigger shites than Ripper,” she muttered under her breath, pushing her hair over her left shoulder as she assessed the façade of the first pub she saw when she’d reached Holland Park Avenue. A typical London establishment, the glow emanating from the pub’s windows was warm and welcoming. Best of all, it smelled of fish and chips.

She slipped inside quickly, rubbing some warmth into her chilly hands. She should have been wary of wandering into pubs alone; the men who frequented them tended to be at least partially inebriated at any given time of day. But of course a shifter, even a smallish female one, had nothing to fear from a human male. No man would lay a hand on her unless she wanted him to. If he did, he’d have to deal with some very quick reflexes and a swift kick in the family jewels. She’d have the bloke crying for his mother before his fingers had ever made it near a breast.

Confident in her ability to fight off anyone in the place, Luna stepped over to the bar, her eyes focused on the bottles behind the man who was slowly pouring a pint for one of his customers.

“What’ll it be then, love?” asked the middle-aged bartender, a friendly smile on his face.

As she contemplated the question, she glanced down at the tattoo on her right hand, rubbing it with her left thumb as if attempting to erase it. “Irish whiskey,” she replied. A pint of ale didn’t seem sufficient to face the days and nights ahead, when she’d no doubt be selling her soul to work for Ripper as an accomplice in his dastardly business.

One day soon, she would need to figure out how to extricate herself and Silver from the Pack once and for all. It was time to rid themselves of the menace that was their leader. But even more than that, she needed to see her brother happy.

If she never accomplished anything else in this life, she would find a way to achieve that goal.

After a moment, she had her drink in hand. She drew it under her nose, savouring the powerful aroma. The first sip would be a silent toast to potential freedom.

Today, she vowed, would the first day of the rest of her and Silver’s lives. Once they were free of the Warkshire Pack, maybe her beloved brother could finally revert to the man he once was. The man he was always meant to be.

But her silent resolve was quickly cut short when she swivelled on her stool to assess her chances at a finding a free table. Her gaze settled on the back of an enormous man who was seated across the room, pulling her mind immediately away from thoughts of freedom. Or anything else, for that matter.

He had to be a shifter. His shoulders dwarfed the back of the chair, which was barely substantial enough to hold his form upright. Shifter or not, he was powerful, enormous, his muscles threatening to tear through the seams of his jacket as he hunched over a pint of beer.

As Luna watched from behind, he ran a hand through a head of short-cropped light brown hair and let out a loud huff. Frustration. He was fed up, exasperated, at the end of his rope; she could tell without even seeing his face.

He was too big to be a Wolf. Grizzly was a possibility, but he seemed too large, even, to be one of them. Which left very few options.

Blimey. It seemed entirely possible that her first jaunt out to a London pub had already resulted in the discovery of a Dragon shifter. Well, this was a stroke of luck.

The question was, good or bad luck?

Well, if I were an obedient little Pack member, she thought, I suppose I’d follow him, figure out where he’s going, and report back to the Pack. Ripper would want to know he’s here.

Yes, that was it. She should pursue him, like a private investigator on the prowl. Seek out his hiding place, report to the boss. It was a dangerous proposition, but it could actually be quite a lot of fun.

On the other hand, she could think of at least ten things that might be even more fun.

Since she’d never been much good at the obedient Wolf thing, she slipped off her stool. Swallowing hard, she focused her eyes on the behemoth, who was still hunched deep in his seat.

Slowly she stripped off her jacket and draped it over her left arm, picked up her drink and took a quick swig for courage.

Walking into the mouth of the beast, she thought as she put one foot in front of the other and made her way tentatively towards him. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve done something stupid, and it probably won’t be the last.

She stopped a foot from him, shifting her weight so that her left hip jutted out slightly to enhance her feminine form. Be sexy, she told herself, despite the fact that she had no idea how. It wasn’t as though she’d had a lot of practice with the Pack.

Stop doubting yourself. Just…be intriguing.

Adhering a fake smile to her nervous face, she swallowed a deep breath.

“Hello there,” she said to the back of his head, trying her best to make her voice sound sultry and sexy. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re alone. I was wondering if you’d like some company.”

Slowly the man pulled up, his spine straightening, and pushed two massive, tight fists into the table. When he turned her way, Luna gasped audibly.

Oh, God.

In the split-second when her eyes found his, she came close to losing her balance. She lurched backwards, terror sweeping through her body from head to toe and back again.

Luna, the one her brother called Lunatic because she was so stupidly fearless, was overcome with horror for only the second time in her life.

Now she knew for certain that the man was a Dragon shifter. One she’d seen before, many times.

Outside of his cottage, chopping firewood.

Above Warkshire Forest in his Dragon form, torching his home as the family inside burned.