The run toward the Kellum compound felt like a lifetime, even though it was only a day and a half as we chose the longer, winding route to avoid any MacLarens still searching for me.

The light came and went and the frigid ground burned beneath my paws, but I knew we couldn’t slow down, couldn’t stop. If I gave myself or any of these three a chance to think about what was going on, about whether or not we should do this, I knew there was a very good chance we’d turn back.

We had to rip it off fast and clean, like a bandage.

As I got closer, I felt my heart twist up in my chest, both horrified and somehow hopeful at the thought of returning back to the place that I had been cast out of so recently. It felt like years had passed since I had left, but in truth, it had only been a couple of weeks.

The others ran beside me, the only thing that kept my rubbed-raw feet moving as I got exhausted, as the cold seemed to move inside me and make a home in there. I could feel the doubt radiating off them, my senses so attuned to their every twitch and every motion. I could tell that Anton, especially, was still very ambivalent. The closer we got to Kellum land, the further he dropped back, running a little behind us, as though he expected an ambush at any moment. Truth be told, part of me did, too, but I at least hoped that anyone who tried to pounce on us would have the good sense to hold back on killing me for fear that my father wasn’t quite ready to give me up yet.

Finally, I saw it in the distance – the place that I had called home.

I came skidding to a halt in the snow, on top of the enormous hill that overlooked the compound. I could smell them, all of them, filling my senses. For a moment, it was overwhelming and I had to hold myself steady, my legs trembling from beneath me, but then the three of them came to a stop next to me and I felt this strength fill me up once more. No, I could do this. I had to. I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from trying to get Rafe and Cora the help they needed.

Least of all my own stubborn pride.

I snorted and jerked my head in the direction of the compound, letting them know that we were here and that we should advance as soon as we got the chance. But before I could move, a few shapes caught my attention out of the corner of my eye and I whipped around once more.

Guards. Five of them. We were exhausted and they were highly trained, but we could still take them. That said, we were here on a mission of peace. Fighting would hardly help our cause. During these precarious times, though, they were much more inclined to attack first and ask questions later. I needed to get through to them before things got violent. They were bearing down on us, faster than I could think in my shattered state, and I had to act now.

I pushed aside my exhaustion and broke into a sprint towards the compound. The others were on my heels, sticking close behind me, the four of us barreling towards the guards. I could see the saliva dripping from the fangs of the one in front, his lips drawn back and wobbling.

Suddenly, he was only yards away, ready to pounce. The rest of them were close behind and stood their ground, tethered by an invisible string, waiting for the order, just dying for the chance to attack, to prove their worth. But, as their leader turned on me, I saw it. A flicker of recognition.

Come on. You must know who I am…

He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes bright, his lip still pulled back into a snarl as the guys behind me snarled back and began to advance, ready to tear his throat out even though they must have been exhausted from the run we’d just put in. They hadn’t wanted to do this, but they would fight for me. For Rafe.

I had no choice – even though it would make me more vulnerable, I had to shift and show myself.

I closed my eyes and let the change come over me. All at once, the cold became a hundred times worse, my body bursting into shivers. I was naked before them, as exposed as it was possible to be, my vulnerable human flesh all too ripe for the picking. I stared him down, the one in front, my heart thumping hard in my chest.

After a tense second or two, he shifted, too, and I found myself faced with one of my father’s most prized guards – I didn’t know his name but he accompanied me on many a run when I had been a young shifter and couldn’t properly look after myself out there.

“Arianna,” he greeted me, his voice soft and stoic.

I felt something give inside me, a pang of pain when I realized that he would have seen me as nothing more than an enemy if I had stayed in my wolf form. Now that I was no longer part of the pack, my scent had changed. My bond here was well and truly severed.

The guard lifted a hand and the four wolves behind him shifted, too, into the familiar fleet that usually acted as guard dogs for this place – three females, one more male, all of them eyeing me with distrust. I couldn’t imagine the stories that must have spread about me in my absence, as they always did when someone was kicked out of the pack. They had likely painted me as an irredeemable monster by now.

“I’m here to request a meeting with my father,” I said, trying not to cower before his stare as the Robicheaux brothers flanked me more closely. “I know he exiled me, but I have important information for him that pertains to the war.”

He scratched at his jaw and eyed me doubtfully. “What kind of information?”

I had hoped my declaration would’ve been enough to at least get me in front of my father, but, apparently, I was going to have to show my hand.

“The MacLarens have one of your pack, along with a friend of mine, and we need his help in getting them back.”

The guard looked beyond me, at the three guys behind me who were still firmly in their wolf form. I didn’t blame them for sticking it out. Clashes with clans had never ended well for them, after all, and why should that change now.

A response was slow in coming but eventually the guard nodded. “I’ll speak to him, but I can’t make any promises. Meantime, there’re some spare clothes in the hut on the left side of the compound. Go in there and put some clothes on. We’ll come get you shortly and let you know what he says.”

“Thank you.” I breathed a sigh of relief, and realized that my legs were threatening to give out on me – whether it was the relief or the exhaustion, I wasn’t sure, but I would be glad to get into that cabin and away from the real world for a moment, long enough that I could gather my thoughts.

We made our way around to the cabin and found some spare clothes there, and quickly dressed ourselves; I avoided their gazes, more worried than ever that my plan would fail, but they weren’t going to let me off the hook.

“Is this how you thought it would be?” Ethan asked softly, taking me by surprise. I turned to him and forced a smile.

“What do you mean?” I asked, wrapping myself in one of the blankets that had been left out and tugging it tight around my shoulders, as though it could protect me from their scrutiny as well as the cold.

“Did you expect them to not recognize your scent?”

Trust Ethan to cut right to the heart of the matter.

“I don’t know what the hell I thought it was going to be like,” I sighed. “I mean…I thought they might tear me apart on the spot, so I guess that was a small win.”

“We wouldn’t have let that happen,” Luke cut in forcefully, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he wasn’t fucking around, that he really meant it. I smiled at him, silently thanking him for always having my back with the intensity that he did.

“We’re not out of the woods yet and there are no guarantees, but we’ll deal with things as they come,” I said. “Only thing that matters now is that they didn’t take us apart on sight. We’ve still got a chance.”

“Whatever you say,” Anton replied grimly, raking his fingers through his hair. I could tell that this was making him uneasy, that he wasn’t sure about being in this place, but I knew that he trusted me enough to believe that this was the right choice. I reached out and touched his arm, letting him know that I heard his worries and that I knew how he felt.

“It’s going to be okay.” I nodded to him. “Whatever happens, it’s going to be alright.”

He finally met my gaze and gave me a smile – tight, but sincere, which was all I needed to see right at that moment. Before I could say anything else, the door to the cabin opened and I found myself faced with that same guard once more. What was his name? I groped around in the back of my mind for it, knowing it was in there somewhere. How many people from this place had I already forgotten? More importantly, how many had forgotten me? Maybe not my name, but who I’d been before I’d betrayed them.

“He’ll meet with you.”

I raised my eyebrows in shock. I exchanged a glance with the guys and they seemed as surprised as I did.

“Really?” I blurted out before I could stop myself, and then quickly acted to pull myself back together. I straightened my back, rolling my shoulders, and nodded.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Now?”

“Now,” he said with a curt nod, stepping aside to let us pass. “I don’t think he’s going to give you long, so you best know exactly what you need to say.”

“I do,” I replied firmly, and followed behind him as we made our way toward the entrance to the compound.

Now that this was happening, it was all I could do to keep myself together. Panic warred with fear as I thought about being in there again after everything that had happened. Ethan, Anton, and Luke flanked me again, and their presence was enough to calm me down, at least a little. The guard came to a halt outside the door and let out a whistle, and it slid open – how often had I fantasized about getting out of this place, about sneaking away and finding a life of my own? Well, I had done it now, against my will, and part of me still missed this place terribly. But the other part of me railed against it. It was physically painful, like someone was trying to force me into a hole that was no longer there.

“It’s okay,” Anton murmured, and I glanced over my shoulder at him; was my discomfort that obvious? It must have been. That wasn’t the image I wanted my father to see. I furrowed my brow and straightened, walking into that compound again like I owned the place. And as soon as I was through the door, I felt what must have been hundreds of eyes on me at once.

I could hear the whispers, and I did my best to ignore them, refusing to meet their gazes. Refusing to see which old friends looked at me with pity and which looked at me with hate. None of that mattered. I had to fight through my own jumble of emotions and get the job done.

For Rafe.

For Cora.

No matter how uncomfortable it got, this was our best chance of getting them out of that godforsaken place without being captured or killed ourselves, and I knew I had to keep my head in the game. Maybe that was why my father had made sure the others knew I was coming before he saw me – maybe he wanted to throw me off, wanted to remind me what a pariah I was to everyone here. As though I didn’t know it well enough already. But it still hurt, the underlining of the fact that every single person in this place probably saw me as a traitor and a liar and the kind of monster who would release one of our political enemies. I wished I could explain it all to them, explain what life was like outside a pack like this, but I couldn’t. I just had to keep on walking and hope that my father would see the light.

We arrived outside the chambers, the same ones that Cora had led me into only a few weeks before when I had been tried and exiled. A moment later, we came to a halt, and I looked around at the guys. Their expressions were blank, but I knew that they must have noticed the people around us staring, commenting. I sent them silent apologies and hoped to God that all of this would turn out to be worth it.

“Wait here,” the guard said. “I’ll see if he’s ready for you.”

I kept my face forward, silently praying with every fiber of my being that this meeting would turn out the way we needed it to turn out.

It had to. It was our only hope.