“So, how do we do this?” I stood at the entrance of the inn, the name that Tristan had given us the night before clutched in my hand. We were back in the real world now, far from the fantasy that we had been living in this morning, and now we needed to figure out how to get those mercenaries to help us.

“Give it to me.” Anton tucked his hand into mine and pulled the paper from it. I glanced up and bit my lip as he strode over to the barman and thrust the piece of paper out and under his nose.

“You know anything about this name?” he asked, keeping his voice low. The place was pretty quiet that morning, except for a group of four men lurking over by the far edge of the bar. They were shooting little looks at us, as though they didn’t quite trust us yet and wanted us to know it. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. As if that wasn’t obvious. I wasn’t sure anyone stopping through here had anything much going for them. If they did, they would have run through the night to get home to their packs and their families. This place was a stop-off for people who didn’t have either or didn’t want to have either, like us.

“Marcus Allotford?” the barman read out loud, his voice loud enough that the heads of the group of men sitting across from us all whipped around at once. “Can’t say it means much to me-”

One of the men stood up and spoke, taking me by surprise. “Means something to me, though.” He was tall, a solid six foot, with a thick, stocky build and a tattoo that ran all the way up his neck and behind his ear. I raised my eyebrows at the sight of him.

“Oh, yeah?” Anton lifted his chin and looked the guy in the eyes, challenging him, daring him to come out with something more. “You know who he is?”

“That’s me.” He nodded to the paper in Anton’s hand. “I’m Marcus. And I’d like to know where the hell you got that name from.”

Anton glanced around at Luke, Ethan, and me and gave us this nod that told me everything I needed to know. He waved us over and we gathered around him quickly, pushing towards the group opposite us. Marcus stood his ground and the other four didn’t move, though I could see how carefully they were watching us.

“We got it from a man from the Kellum compound,” Anton explained, holding out the paper to him so he could see it. He narrowed his eyes and then returned his gaze slowly to Anton, who he looked slowly up and down as though judging whether or not he could take him on the spot. I wasn’t sure who might have won in a fight between the two of them but I figured it would be a hell of a match.

“And why did he give it to you?” Marcus asked. One of the guys behind him finished his drink, tossing it back in one gulp. All four of them looked tired, and I wondered if they had been running through the night for something or other. Maybe that’s why they were drinking so early, because it was closer to night by their telling of the time.

“He gave it to us because we need help.” I stepped forward, noting the way that Anton was responding to this guy’s questions and assuming that it wasn’t going to end well if we continued to allow him to take the lead. Marcus turned his gaze to me, and a smile curled up and over his face as soon as our eyes met.

“Interesting.” He leaned back on the bar, letting his gaze trace up and down my body. “Pretty sure I can help with anything you need, pretty lady.”

I stared him down for a moment, letting him know that sex was the last thing on my mind right now – and sex with him even further removed. He grinned, as though saying well, you can’t blame me for trying, but his approach was enough to get Luke moving to stand right next to me, to make sure that they understood the lay of things here and knew that there was no way they were getting away with talking to me or about me like that.

In response, one of the guys who had been sitting at the bar and nursing his drink this entire time got to his feet, reluctantly, as though he didn’t want to get involved with this but knew that he couldn’t leave his leader out there by himself. It was clear that Anton was the alpha of this little group, but all of them looked as though they could have run a pack of their own; they were all the kind of strong, tough guys that I knew my father would have killed to have as part of his pack, and I wondered why they hadn’t been snapped up by someone already.

“We need your help breaking a friend of ours out of the MacLaren compound,” I went on, and Marcus went pale and glanced around the place.

“Come on, don’t announce shit like that when just about anyone could be listening,” he muttered, and Ethan bristled next to me, his fists clenching by his sides. I knew that the guys noticed it – they couldn’t not. For all that we needed their help, I knew for damn certain it wasn’t going to be easy to manage all the testosterone in the room. For better or for worse, our two groups were clearly used to working on their own, neither playing well with others. So, I would have to find some way to bridge the divide between them.

“Fine, then where can we talk about it?” I looked at him expectantly, and he gestured over to a table at the opposite end of the room, far from the barman and far from the door. We made our way over to the table and squeezed around it, Luke and Anton on either side of me and Ethan pacing the ground next to us. The four men seemed slightly more at ease, but I could still taste the tension in the air and knew that one wrong move on my part would be enough to send this deal crashing into disaster.

“Who are you?” Marcus asked, and he stared me down once more, but this time I felt the other three doing it, too. I tried to ignore their attentions and stay focused on him but it was hard given how blatantly they were all eyeing me up. It was like some kind of power move, like they were trying to let the men around me know that they could have had me any time they wanted, even though that was about as far from the truth as it was possible to be.

“I’m Arianna.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. I wasn’t stupid enough to say that loudly. I knew that news of my exile wouldn’t have spread to every corner of this area quite yet, and if people cottoned on to the fact that I was the daughter of the Kellum alpha, there would be a hell of a lot of trouble. I would likely end up kidnapped, held for ransom – fuck, I hoped that these guys weren’t going to take advantage of that. Luke squeezed my knee under the table, sensing my discomfort and telling me to go on at all costs.

“Arianna Kellum?” one of the guys piped up from next to Marcus. Marcus turned to him, a furrow in his brow, and waved his hand to indicate that he should explain what the hell he was going on about.

“She’s the daughter of the Kellum alpha,” the guy continued. He had pale blue eyes, almost icy, and looked a little younger than the rest of them. Marcus raised his eyebrows and turned back to me slowly.

“Do they make them all like you over in that Kellum place?” he asked flirtatiously, and I decided that, for the time being, the best thing I could do was indulge his flirtation in the hope that it would get him on our side.

“Sure do,” I replied, and I heard Anton let out this long, low growl beside me that I tried to ignore. Easy, buddy.

“Anyway, this is Luke, Anton, and Ethan.” I pointed to each of the men around me in turn. “And a friend of ours, Rafe, he was taken by the MacLarens.”

“And I don’t see how that’s any concern of ours.” Marcus shrugged. “We keep our noses firmly out of that clan bullshit as much as we can.”

“That’s not what I heard. You’re mercenaries, aren’t you?”

“Who told you that?” Marcus leaned across the table.

“An old friend of mine,” I replied. I still didn’t know what kind of people these guys were, and I wasn’t about to dump Tristan in the middle of it when he’d gone out of his way to help us. “That’s not important. What’s important is whether you’re going to help us with this or not.”

Marcus leaned back in his seat, and he glanced up and down the row of men on either side of him. I felt a pang of sadness as I looked at them. Four of them. Just like there had been with me, up until a few days ago. I wondered if they had partners, if they had women, back in the place that they called home. Not that I got the feeling there was anywhere that these guys called home. They struck me as the traveling type, the type who liked to feel the snow under their feet.

“How long has he been there?” Marcus asked.

“A matter of days,” I replied. “Less than a week, that’s all. Though I don’t see why that’s important.”

“I heard rumors,” another one piped up. This one was the tallest of the bunch, with a shaved head and a tattoo the same as Marcus that swirled up his neck and over his ear – I could see now that it was a snake, obviously meant to exude discomfort and portray this image of a bunch of guys who were not to be messed with. But there was a softness in his brown eyes that told me there was something different about him. Marcus glanced over, prompting him to continue.

“What rumors?” he demanded.

“I heard they were doing experiments on people up in there,” he explained quickly. “Don’t know how much of your man might be left by this point.”

I closed my eyes. Every time I thought about that possibility, it was as though someone had punched me straight in the gut. I would never be able to cope with it, never. The thought of him in the same state that Rissa had found herself in…I would love him just the same, but I wasn’t sure what that would do to his psyche. If he, like her, would want to be left behind to rot as the thing he had become.

“I know that,” I replied quietly. “Trust me, I know that. But we think we’re still in time right now. We don’t have much of it to waste. So are you going to work with us or not?”

“Money.” Marcus raised his gaze to meet mine. “We’ll need the money to justify the risk. And I don’t think you could possibly-”

I pulled the purse of gold from my pocket and slammed it down on the table in front of us, making sure they could hear the weight of it as it jingled inside the fabric. Marcus’ eyes widened and a smile spread across his face as he tugged the purse towards him and opened it, the soft glow of gold apparently satisfying him. He tipped it out onto the table and counted what was there, the others falling completely silent. Ethan planted his hands on the table, his jaw set tight, and stared down at them as we waited for a response.

“The MacLaren compound?” Marcus repeated, looking up at us. I nodded.

“And all we have to do is get your man out?”

I had a feeling we were getting close and I didn’t want to blow it by mentioning Cora, but I also wanted to be honest with them.

“And a friend of mine. A woman.”

“Well, shit.” Marcus shook his head, and glanced around at his packmates, who gave him nods of acquiescence. “Fuck it. We’re in.”

“Thank god,” I sighed, and stuck my hand out over the table. “To the end, right? You’re loyal to us now?”

“I’m loyal to whoever can give me that much gold,” Marcus replied, taking my hand and shaking it enthusiastically, a playful grin passing across his face. It seemed as though the tension that had overtaken us all just a few moments before had passed all at once. Well, Luke’s jaw was still tense as he sat next to me, but that likely had more to do with the fact that Marcus had been flirting with me that whole time. I knew Luke was possessive when it came to people outside our little group coming on to me. The way he had looked at Tristan told me that.

“Marcus.” He stuck his hand out across the table to Anton, obviously sensing his alpha nature. “This is Killian, Joel, and Joseph.”

He pointed to the blue-eyed one, the shaven-headed one, and the last one in turn; they all eyed Luke and Anton, while Ethan started pacing once more.

“We have an ice cabin, about a day’s run from here.” I stood up. “I say we head down there and use it as our starting point.”

“Agreed.” Marcus nodded. “We’ll leave as soon as we’ve finished our drinks.”

The tension should have dissipated but it was still as present as it had ever been. I let out a long sigh. Part of it was relief, but part of it was trepidation at the thought of getting these two packs of stubborn shifters to work together.

Things had been tough until now, and I had a feeling they were only about to get lot tougher…