We ran hard to the Kellum stronghold. So hard and so fast I was surprised that my paws weren’t bleeding by the time I arrived there. As we crested the hill that stood over that magnificent place, I felt that pain in my chest once more, the one that told me that we were likely making a huge mistake coming back here.

Cora nudged her snout into my shoulder, letting me know that she knew how I was feeling and didn’t blame me for it. The rest of them weren’t far behind us, keeping ranks, making sure that we weren’t being pursued. I had tried to talk them out of coming at all, but after what had happened with Joseph, they weren’t going to so much as let us get out of their line of sight until they absolutely had to.

With every heartbeat, I was aware of the time passing, aware of the fact that time might be running out for Rafe. He could already be dead, though I refused to let my mind linger on something so horrible. He could have already been the subject of their awful experiments, which might have been even worse. Or he could have been sitting up in that cell all alone and convinced that we had all but forgotten he existed, which might have been the worst outcome of all. The thought of him, sure that we had left him behind, was impossibly painful to imagine. With every breath, I sent him my promise – that we would get him out of there, no matter what it took.

They arrived behind us, Ethan and Joel carrying bags in their maws, and came to a halt. They must have sensed the tension in the air and understood that we had finally arrived. Ethan dropped the bag that contained our clothes next to me, and I shifted back into human form.

I dressed quickly, without looking at anyone around me. I couldn’t do it – I was so sure that I was about to let them down once more, about to fail in delivering what they needed, and the thought of doing that again was just too hard to linger on. Cora touched my shoulder once she had shifted back, same as she had done in her wolf form, in an attempt to comfort me.

“It’s going to be alright.” She tried to make me feel better, but it didn’t exactly work. I shook my head, bitter.

“Yeah, if they don’t tear us apart on the spot for coming near their turf again,” I pointed out.

“They won’t touch any of you as long as you’re with me,” she replied firmly. “I’m still part of the pack, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I agreed, still eyeing the compound from afar. My father was in there somewhere. I wondered if he’d given any thought to what I had told him the last time I came down there, or if he had brushed it off as insane rantings in an attempt to ingratiate myself into the pack once more.

“Let’s do this.” She nodded, and looked around to make sure all the men around us were dressed; I noted that her gaze lingered a little on Marcus, just for a moment, as though she was enjoying the sight of his half-naked body. I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the sight of it; Cora and I hadn’t discussed in any great detail the nature of my arrangement with the guys, but maybe she would have a better understanding of it than I gave her credit for.

“Are we ready?” I looked around, my heart sinking as I realized I couldn’t put this off any longer. Cora nodded.

“We’re ready.”

And with that, we started on the long walk down to the gates of the compound. I would have preferred to go down in shifter form, but Cora had pointed out that if they saw a pack of wolves they didn’t recognize coming towards them, they would likely send out guards to pick us off and make sure we didn’t get too close. I had to agree, and so we went down unprotected, our flesh soft and our claws short. I hated it. I felt so vulnerable like this.

We reached the gates, and Cora and I found ourselves looking up at a pair of guards who were staring, open-mouthed, at the group of us.

“Cora?” one of them called down to her and she nodded, holding her hands out, as though it would be enough to sooth them.

“You need to let us in,” she called back. “I’ve returned from the MacLaren compound. I have information I need to share with our alpha.”

They turned back, and the one who had recognized her called back out to us. “You can enter,” he replied. “But the rest of them stay behind.”

“The two of us,” Cora said, catching my arm. “I’ll make sure she’s no threat.”

The guards briefly conferred amongst themselves, but it was clear from the moment they laid eyes on her that they weren’t going to turn her away. That was the power of the clan, I supposed – maybe Cora had been right, and exploiting it would be enough to get us through that door.

“Fine,” he replied, voice terse. “He agreed to see her before so she can come with you. The rest of them stay outside, though.”

Luke let out a low growl and I shot a warning glance over my shoulder at him. This situation was precarious enough as it was, and the last thing we needed was him making it worse when I’d already instructed them to stay outside.

The guards heaved open the gate and the two of us made our way inside, walking slow; Cora let out a long breath as soon as she was back inside the compound, as though she’d been waiting for this as long as she could remember. I followed behind, my humiliation in this place still fresh enough in my mind that I couldn’t much appreciate being back here.

As soon as people started registering that Cora was back, a flurry of whispers passed through the crowd, same as when I was here. She wasn’t part of any specific family – none of us really were, all raised as part of one enormous group to form attachments to clan first instead of relatives – but she was one of the more respected and well-known members of the group, loyal to the Kellums to a fault. I could see that she was doing everything she could to keep herself together and I knew how hard this must have been for her. Their alpha had failed to come for her in her time of need, and now she was here, appealing to them to help her. To hopefully bring an end to this war and save the people we had to leave behind.

“Cora.” A woman I recognized burst out of the crowd and ran towards her. “Cora!”

Cora turned and the woman stared in shock. Tia was her name. I hadn’t known her well, but she and Cora had been friends.

“We thought you were dead, but then they said the MacLarens had you,” Tia began, the words tumbling out of her mouth as though she had no real control over them. “They said you were gone for good. They said-”

“They said a lot of things,” Cora cut in grimly. A crowd had gathered around, and I knew they were shocked to see her and all wondering what I was doing with her.

“Why is she here?” Tia glanced over in my direction, her nose wrinkled in disgust. I could feel the same sentiment coming off the rest of the crowd in waves.

“She’s with me because she saved my life,” Cora replied firmly, and she looked over at me and smiled. “Arianna saw that I had been taken and she risked everything to get me out of the MacLaren compound.”

“Your father told us there was no way.” The woman seemed confused. “He would’ve sent people-”

“Wrong. I went to my father,” I assured her, jumping in. “I went to him and told him that Cora was in there and tried to get his help. And he turned me down.”

“She’s lying.” Another voice emerged from the crowd, this time from a man I had never seen before. “She’s a traitor. We can’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth.”

“I trust her,” Cora shot back at him, voice firm. “If it hadn’t been for her, I have no doubt that I’d be dead by now. They would have left me in that place to die.”

“She’s turned you to her side.” Someone else came out and pointed a finger directly at me, her hand shaking as though she couldn’t believe she was actually in my presence once more. I couldn’t believe how quickly these people had turned on me; not long ago, they had been my friends, my family, and now they were looking at me as though I was some kind of grotesque monster lurking in their midst.

“Ask him,” I fired back in the direction of the person accusing me. “Ask him what happened the last time I was here. He’ll lie to you and tell you that I was trying to twist his words, but it’s true. He wouldn’t send anyone to help Cora, so we had to do it ourselves.”

There was a large crowd gathered around by now, at least fifty people, likely more. They were listening to me. I glanced around, sure that someone official was going to show their face any moment and break this up before it got out of hand, but for the time being, we had the floor.

“We need your help.” I raised my voice and tried to catch the eyes of as many people as I could out in that crowd. I knew most of them would dismiss me out of hand, but I had to try. “We need you to – I have another friend still trapped in the MacLaren place. And we need help to get him back.”

“Why should we help a friend of yours?” a man called out to us. He was older, sturdily built – the kind of man you could tell would be a good fighter just by looking at him.

“They’re doing things there,” Cora spoke up at last, her eyes going glassy as she recounted what she’d seen. “Horrible things. Things you can’t even comprehend. Conducting gruesome experiments on shifters just like you and me to make super soldiers.”

There was a murmur of shock around the crowd. Cora went on, pressing the point home.

“I was ill for much of my time there, and my perceived weakness spared me, but what I saw in that place will stay with me forever,” she went on. “I don’t know how many of our kind have been taken there and trapped there as nothing more than…than trinkets for them to play with. I’d still be there now, if it hadn’t been for my best friend. You know who I am. You know that I’m one of you. I wouldn’t lie about this.”

She looked over at me and nodded, the look on her face giving me the strength to pick up where she left off.

“Up until now, these experiments have failed, but every time we let another person be subjected to that agony? So do we,” I continued. “It’s time to say no more. All is not fair in war.”

I shot a glance around the crowd again, and realized we were getting through to them at last. Suddenly, I was filled with this fire that I had never felt inside me before. I lifted a hand, pointing at the sky, commanding the attention of everyone in that crowd.

“I am the daughter of your alpha and this is your trusted packmate. We’re here together asking you to break with him and come with us. I can’t promise that all of you will make it back alive, but I can promise that we will not allow the atrocities taking place at the MacLaren compound to take place a moment longer. If you’ve lost someone, if there is someone out there you were sure you would never see again, join us as we try to bring them home.”

There was an almost eerie silence after I was done, my words hanging in the air and echoing away into nothing. A few people were looking around, as though they half-expected it to be a trap of some kind.

“Who’ll join us?” Cora called into the crowd, looking around, narrowing her eyes at everyone around her and giving them each these long, hard looks, as though she was judging each and every one for not stepping forward. Pride filled me as I watched her, now a true leader at heart. For a long moment, silence reigned, heavy and thick.

Then, at last, there came a voice – it seemed so small against the quiet, but it was something.

“I will.”

A man stepped forward, a man I recognized – Tristan. His eyes were bright and terrified, but he was going to do it. I beamed at him, a tremor running through me.

That was one.

“All right, then. I will, too,” Tia said, nodding resolutely, taking me by surprise.

“Me, too,” another voice called out. Then another. Another. Another. Tens. Dozens. And, soon, almost the entire crowd.

I stood there, surrounded by them, by these people who were going to help me in my plight to get Rafe out of there and to put an end to the awfulness of the MacLaren compound for good. I didn’t know what would come of the clan, when so many of them had defected; they couldn’t toss them all out into the cold the way they had with me, or else there’d be almost no one left.

I looked over at Cora and she was gazing at me expectantly, as though waiting for me to deliver an order. I blinked, not sure what I should do next.

“Let’s go,” I finally managed. I could feel the passion pulsing off this crowd, the excitement, the fear and nerves and readiness to finally take care of what should have been taken care of a long time ago.

I started to march towards the gate, wondering why no one had stopped me – and when I glanced up, I saw him. Standing on one of the turrets, nearby. How long he’d been there, I had no idea, but there was no doubt that he had seen us, had seen all of us. His mouth was set in a hard line, and I couldn’t read his expression, but all I knew for sure was that my father wasn’t trying to stop us. Whether he was worried the crowd would turn on him or worried that he wouldn’t be able to call them back to his side, I couldn’t know. But as I caught his eye, his face seemed to flicker with something like grudging respect.

I tore my gaze from his and moved onwards, towards the gate. The guards who had let us in were still standing there, eyes wide as they saw us approaching.

“Where are you all going?” one demanded weakly. I looked back at the crowd behind me, at all the people committed to this quest, and then back up at the guards.

“To end a war,” I replied firmly. And with that, they opened the gate, and I stepped outside.

The start of the end of the longest, hardest journey of my life was here at last.

Time to get Rafe.