“The four of us will approach with the army some yards behind,” Anton said softly, his face a mask of concentration.

Luke glanced over his shoulder, at the pack of a hundred or so shifters still in wolf form waiting for us to give them their orders, and I knew what he was thinking. Army was a generous word. It was a small group, to be sure, but they’d had many hours to work up their anger and zeal about this cause, and they were practically vibrating they were so ready.

“They’re strong and they’re committed,” I reminded him, and went to pull on some clothes. “Come on, get dressed. We’re going down there.”

We put on our clothes quickly and in silence, as though speaking would acknowledge the outright dangerousness of the situation that we found ourselves in – no, it was more than danger, it was straight insanity. I still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.

When I was dressed, I stood upright, and looked down at the sun setting over the MacLaren compound. My heart was tight in my chest and it was making it hard to catch my breath.

“Cora, you stay in form and lead them if things go badly.” I shot a look over my shoulder at my friend. Still in wolf form, she chuffed her comprehension, and stepped forward to lead the still-shifted group behind us.

“Are we ready?” Anton asked.

“We’re ready,” I replied with a nod, and started my way down the hill to the MacLaren compound.

I wasn’t sure what I expected as I headed towards the compound in broad daylight for the first time – for the lot of us to be picked up on the spot, maybe. But there were too many of us to mow through all at once. Strength in numbers. I reached for Luke’s hand and squeezed it, and he squeezed back, reminding me without words that he was here and that he would be here till the end.

We arrived outside the gates and I looked up and saw a couple of guards staring down at me. I pulled myself up to my full height and called up to them.

“I want to speak to Rickland to discuss a truce and the release of all prisoners,” I declared. “Bring him out here. Tell him that this is the only place we’ll talk to him.”

One of the guards vanished, and all of us waited there for them to return. The air was crackling with tension, so full and so heavy that I could almost taste it on the back of my tongue.

I closed my eyes and tried to center myself, but it was nearly impossible knowing how much was at stake – not just all these people who had believed in me and trusted me, but Rissa – Rafe. This was the last chance we were all going to save the people trapped in that place, to reunite the five of us once more. I had to do this right. Shame that I had no idea what that looked like.

Finally, the guard returned. The two of them lifted the gate, and to my shock, someone actually walked out. It was him.

Rickland MacLaren.

I couldn’t believe it; he had answered my request. Sure, he was surrounded by a cadre of guards, but he’d come. Was it possible he would actually consider negotiating a truce?

My body tensed upon seeing him again, the first time we had been face-to-face since he’d had me trapped in that fucking cell. Well, this time was different – I had an army at my back. No matter what happened, I was something to these people, and he couldn’t strip that away from me.

“Arianna,” he greeted me, speaking slowly, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah, well, surprise,” I snarled in his direction. It was hard to keep my rage under control, but I had no choice. “I’m here to offer you a way out of this,” I went on, forcing myself to keep calm.

“A way out of what?” he replied with an arched brow and a grin, obviously trying to rile me. I glanced over my shoulder at the army at my back.

“That,” I replied simply. “If you release all of the prisoners, we’ll leave. You won’t see us again.”

“You really think you stand a chance against us?” He let out a bark of laughter. “You know how long I train my men for? You know how hard they’d fight for me?”

“How many of them know what you do behind closed doors, huh?” I demanded through gritted teeth, pushing my face closer to his. “About your experiments?”

“I don’t need to answer to the likes of them or you,” he replied, but I could see that I had riled him – his cool exterior had started to give a little, much to my satisfaction.

“I wonder what they’d think of you, the mighty MacLaren, if they saw what you were really doing in there.” I jerked my head towards the compound. “Maybe I should tell them?”

“This isn’t going to go the way you think,” he responded, his voice low but quivering with fury. “You should get out of here before-”

“Before what?” I demanded. “What else are you going to do to me, to us? You going to keep torturing us for your own sick ends? You can’t carry on like this forever, even you must know that. End it now. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

He looked past me, to the crowd of people still gathered behind me. I saw that flicker of unease and it gave me new strength.

“I’m not leaving here without Rafe,” I shot back.

“Rafe?” He let out a snort, and leaned in close, making sure that I wasn’t going to miss a word that came out of his mouth. “I don’t even know who that is.”

Rage lanced through me. There was no negotiating with this psycho. It was a shame, more blood would be shed, but we had no choice. I glanced over at Anton, Ethan and Luke, and then behind me to Cora, who had her back arched and her lip pulled back into a snarl.

They were ready. We all were.

“Go!”

The group behind me surged forward as one; the men around me shifted quickly into their wolf forms and I closed my eyes as they moved past me. These were my orders which meant I was responsible for whatever happened next.

God help me.

I opened my eyes again, to see that the man I had been speaking to had dived to safety, hoisted atop the gate by his guards. I glanced up at him but knew I would have to deal with him later; a plan was forming in my head, something to mitigate the bloodshed that I knew was inevitable with this kind of attack.

We burst into the compound like a tidal wave, the scent of shifters filling the air – the place had been quiet until we’d arrived, only a couple of dozen people hanging around this late in the evening, but seeing the way their faces contorted with fear was enough to remind me the gravity of the situation. I lifted a hand, attracting the attention of my makeshift army.

“Don’t attack until I give the command,” I called out. “The guards, around the cell blocks – chase them away. Get rid of them.”

The group split off into a few rag-tag sections, all of them snarling and snapping at the MacLaren civilians populating the main square before they located the cell blocks. The handful of guards who had presumably been assigned to defend them shifted at once, and my heart sank. They weren’t going to give this up without a fight. He had been right, after all – these people were loyal to him, to the end. But if they knew what they were being loyal to…

“Let me through.” I marched towards one of them, looking down at him; his back bristled and there was saliva dripping from his teeth, letting me know that he was ready to strike, just looking for the chance to go for me. I didn’t move, but my hands were trembling; I knew Luke and Anton were close behind me, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

“Please,” I begged with the guard. “Please, don’t make me do this-”

But before I could finish my sentence, he lunged for me. I tried to jump back but he caught hold of my leg, sinking his teeth in – I let out a scream of pain, the agony shooting sharp and savage through my body, but before I could shake him off, Luke leapt on him, forcing him to the ground and attaching himself to his throat. Ethan, Anton, and a few other members of our pack soon followed, and before I knew it, the guard had stopped moving, his eyes glazing and his jaw dropping open. My leg healed quickly, but the splatter of blood on the ground in front of me put an end to any hopes I might have held that this thing was going to be relatively bloodless.

“We don’t have to hurt you.” I turned to the rest of the guards. “If you just-”

But before I could finish what I was saying, they had moved for me as one, all five of them. Before they could get close, the crowd behind me surged forward protectively, and I was knocked from my feet and scrambled towards the door of the cell block – I was doing my best to ignore the sound of squeals and barks that came from the melee going down behind me, but I knew they would sear themselves onto my memory. I didn’t dare look. We overwhelmed them in numbers, but knowing what that meant for them was almost worse.

The smell of blood began to drift over from the crime scene behind me as I pushed open the door to the cell block and threw myself inside, ready to fight. Much to my relief, there were no guards in there. There were stirrings in the cells up and down the corridor.

“I’m here to help you,” I called out.

“Arianna?” a voice came from down the hall and I recognized it at once.

“Rissa?” I scrambled towards the sound of her. “You’re still alive!”

I finally arrived outside her cell, and was relieved to see that she wasn’t in any worse shape than the last time I’d seen her – she was still walking and talking, at least. And now, her eyes were filled with hope.

I didn’t know how much time I had before more forces came forward.

“On the edge, in the cubby next to the door.” She pointed, her trembling hand snaking out of the cell to direct me. “They’re the keys for every door in this place.”

I grabbed them quickly, and went through them as fast as I could, the sound of the melee outside just as intense as ever. As soon as it started dropping off, I knew I was in trouble. I had a matter of minutes at most before the MacLarens mobilized the rest of their forces against us.

Finally, one of the keys worked in the lock; the door swung open, and I grabbed Rissa by her spindly arm and tugged her towards me. She threw her arms around me, as though she couldn’t resist it a moment longer, and let out a long sigh.

“I never thought I’d see that door open again,” she murmured against my shoulder, and I pulled away from her quickly, even though all I wanted to do was promise her that the worst was over now. I tossed the set of keys to the cell next door.

“Here, let yourself out and release everyone else, too,” I ordered the surprised-looking young man who had crept from the shadows to watch me at work. And then, I turned back to Rissa.

“Is there any way up onto the roof of this place?” I asked her urgently. She nodded, and pointed to the back door.

“Set of stairs, out that way, I think,” she replied, and I hurried down towards the door, opened it, and found what I was looking for. I turned back to her.

“I need you to come with me.” I extended a hand to her, but she hesitated and held back. I closed my eyes. I knew why this must have been difficult for her, but I needed her to do what I was asking right now if I was going to pull this off.

“Please,” I begged. “I know that letting their own see what they’ve done to you is the only way I’m going to be able to put a stop to all of this. You understand that, right?”

She stood there for a moment longer. “It’s just been so long…”

She trailed off, fell silent, and the sound of the fight outside drifted in through the doors. That seemed to be enough to remind her the stakes on show right then and there. She took my hand; her fingers were so small and so weak that I could feel the bones protruding through them.

“Come, quickly.” I hurried her towards the door and up the stairs; her pupils contracted violently against the bright light, and I wondered how long it had been since the last time she had seen real sunlight like this.

“I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.”

She was repeating the words over and over again to herself, as though she was attempting to convince herself. She followed me up a narrow set of steps, onto the roof of the small building, and I tucked an arm around her waist to guide her to the spot where I knew everyone would see her. Those wings, broken and leathery and dangling from her shoulder blades, had all but rotted away to nothing since the last time I’d seen her. It was clear just from looking at her that she wouldn’t have lasted much longer in there – even out of the cells, I didn’t know how much time she had.

“Hey!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I reached the edge of the building. I had a full view of what was going on below, and the sight of it made my heart sink with horror – dead wolves, scattered here and there, guards from other cell blocks still locked in combat with our army. I couldn’t see how many of our lot were injured, but I could see at least four of their guards crawling away from the fight or sickeningly, silently still on the ground below me. I had to stop this, now.

“Hey!” I called out again and this time it seemed to catch hold of their attention.

Everyone turned, slowly, as though they weren’t sure what to expect looking up at that cell block – but as soon as they laid eyes on Rissa, a dead quiet took hold of the compound. I couldn’t have counted how many people were out there, wolves and humans alike, but it was so silent that I could hear my own breath as I went to continue what I was saying.

“This is Rissa,” I tightened my grip on the woman at my side, “she’s been a prisoner here for longer than she can remember. And this is what you mighty MacLarens have done to her. You see? You all want to take a good long look?”

I fell quiet once more, watching as the horror passed across the faces of everyone around me. I pressed my lips together, searching for the strength to keep it together.

“These are the experiments they’ve been conducting on your own kind,” I continued. “Is this what you want to be a part of? There are a half-dozen more cell blocks just like this one and I would put money on each and every one of them being full of people just like Rissa. Don’t you want to put an end to that?”

As I spoke, the door below me opened, and the rest of the subjects who had been all locked away in their cells ran up to join me. I turned to watch them scurry onto the roof behind me, their bodies bent and broken but turned to the sun. They couldn’t deny it, these MacLarens, what they had been party to. I just had to hope that being presented with the results of their apathy would be enough to turn the tide of this battle.

I stood there, in silence, surrounded by the people I had just rescued, the subjects that had been so destroyed by the MacLaren experimentation.

“Join us,” I went on. “Join us, and leave this all behind. Please. This isn’t about clans or wars, this is about doing the right thing and stopping this…this evil. We are one people. Wolf-shifters separated only by land and territory. But we are the same. Would you see this done to your own? To your child or sister or mother or father?”

I watched as more people emerged from buildings, MacLarens in human form – a few of them had their hands up, as though to indicate that they meant no harm to us or our army. They approached the building slowly, carefully, and I gestured for our army to part to let them through. They needed to see this up close.

And then, I spotted a face that I recognized – James, the MacLaren heir who had helped me because I’d freed him back at the Kellum compound. It seemed so long ago, now. The event that had started it all. His face was set hard and I couldn’t read his expression, but he was looking straight up at me. He came to a halt a few feet below me, staring at Rissa and the rest of them. Everyone was watching him. He turned, slowly, and lifted his hands.

“Release the rest of the prisoners,” he announced loudly, firmly, clearly. “And if you face any resistance from my father’s guards, do what you have to. My father and his advisors who allowed this to happen have fled. Abandoned us and this compound. He is a coward and a monster.”

My breath hitched in my throat as the words came out of his mouth, and relief washed over me as I saw the people around me spring into action – people were hurrying towards the other cell blocks, shifting and squaring up to the guards. This was happening. It was actually happening.

“Rissa, there’s somewhere I have to be.” I turned to her, catching her face in my hands and looking at her intently. “But I’ll be back, alright? Stay up here, people will come to take care of you-”

“I’ve got it from here, Arianna.” Cora’s voice pulled my attention, and I turned to find her marching up the stairs towards the people I’d just freed. “You go find Rafe.”

“Thank you,” I breathed to her, glad that I could finally go and find the man that I’d come here for in the first place. And with that, I shifted, lowered my nose to the ground, and launched off in search of one of my lover.