Staines spoke again, with the first hint of clear emotion that I think I’d heard in him up till now. “He’s not your Lord. You don’t have the privilege to call him that.”

Well, I was hardly going to lose sleep over not having that ‘privilege’ any more.

“Oh no,” I muttered sarcastically, unable to help myself, then immediately inwardly cursing at my stupidity. Five seconds into the ‘conversation’ and I was already letting my emotions get the better of me.

I turned back towards Staines and the glowering malevolence that he was shooting at me, and raised my eyebrows. His body tensed, about to launch out a hit. Fuck it. I prepared myself to block with my shoulder. Even with my hands tied behind my back, I could take him.

“You can go now, Staines.” Corrigan’s voice was so quiet that I barely heard him.

Staines blinked and immediately relaxed, bowing his head and moving past me towards the door. My mouth hung open slightly in shock. Jesus, Staines had been ready to murder me a scant moment ago. That was some serious self-control. My eyes followed his departure, opening the wooden door behind Corrigan and stepping out, shooting me just one quick look of undisguised hatred, before he closed it and disappeared from sight. Corrigan for his part didn’t move a muscle.

“That’s what loyalty is, Mack,” he said softly. “Something that seems to be in short supply as far as you’re concerned.”

I stared at him, my mouth suddenly clawed to the roof of my mouth. Despite his calm voice, the tension seeping from every muscle of his body coupled with the hard glint in his eye belied his anger. He took a step towards me. I took a step back.

Running an irritated hand through his black as night hair he spoke again. “You do realise that I almost caused an interagency war on your behalf?”

I regained my voice. “Er…I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

“The mages. I thought they’d captured you.” He smiled mirthlessly. “I was coming to rescue you. But of course I didn’t know that you actually were one of them.”

I almost howled. “Corrigan, I’m not fucking one of them! They’ve done something to a friend of mine and I’m trying to make it right.”

He folded his arms across his chest. I tried not to notice the way his muscles bulged and rippled. “So explain to me, Mackenzie, how you suddenly happen to have magical powers.”

“I don’t have magical powers! How many times do I need to say that I’m not a fucking mage? As I said to your bitch slapped minion there, some witch up in Scotland put this necklace on me. Now I have freaky green flames that shoot from my fingertips. Up until last week, the most magic I could perform was pissing off everyone I came into contact with.”

A ghost of smile flickered across his face but was gone so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. “Well, I’ll give you the part about pissing people off, sweetheart. And yet,” he paused, his green gold eyes flashing sparks of ire, “you also appear to inspire the most bizarre acts of loyalty.”

“I thought you said that loyalty was in short supply as far as I was concerned.”

“Oh, on your part certainly. But tell me, if you are not a mage then why do your little Cornish friends refuse to open their mouths to state one single truth about you, even when I compel them to do so?”

I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to meet his. It was now or never. “It’s a geas, Corrigan. My mother dumped me with the Cornish pack when I was a kid and some kind of geas was placed on everyone to prevent them from revealing that I was human. It’s not their fault. It’s not the fault of anyone in Cornwall – they had no choice. You can’t invoke Brethren law against them when they couldn’t have done anything about my being there even if they’d wanted to.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You expect me to believe that you’re human? You can take down otherworld creatures that send the best of my shifters running for the hills, and you’re human?”

I shrugged and tried to smile. Corrigan circled the room with visibly coiled feline grace, before stopping right in front of me.

“I suppose on one level it makes sense. You never did smell quite right. You refused to shift for so long as well. And the alpha - Anton? That’s one of the reasons why he hates you so much.”

I jumped on the opportunity to put the Cornish pack in the clear. “Yes! He wanted me gone for years. We know it’s forbidden for humans to have knowing contact with the pack. He wanted to protect them. So, you see, Corrigan, it’s not their fault, you can’t hurt them.”

He looked momentarily puzzled. “Why would I hurt them?”

I stared at him as if he was stupid. “Because they harboured a human.”

The cloudy expression on his face abruptly cleared and Corrigan’s tired eyes suddenly gleamed. “Ah, yes, I see. And you think it’s against the law for shifters to consort with humans. There’s an easy way to solve that, you know.” He smiled predatorily. “I’ll just transform you. I don’t know why no-one did that before. Did your previous alpha not consider it?”

I let out a small squeak. Yes, he’d fucking considered it. He’d even tried it, but the bloody dragon part of me had rejected the change.

Corrigan’s eyes raked over my body. “I’m quite sure that you’ll end up being something slightly different to the were-hamster you were passing yourself off as. Problem solved.” He made to move towards me and I panicked and scuttled backwards until my back was against the wall.

“What’s the matter, kitten? Do you have something against shifters?”

“Fuck off, Corrigan. No, I don’t have anything against shifters. I consider my family to be shifters.”

“Nobody else has dared to tell me to fuck off for years,” he mused quietly, moving towards me until he was bare inches away from me. I prepared to move to my right to get away from him, but he placed both hands on the wall around me, effectively creating a cage. I could smell his deep musky scent and felt the bloodfire inside me respond with instinctual feeling. Oh god.

Corrigan tilted his head and seemed to see the state of my face for the first time. A strange expression flitted across his features. “You’re hurt,” he said softly, brushing his fingers against my wounded cheek.

I flinched and he scowled.

“Well, that’s what happens when you get shoved into a cage and tortured by a crazed mage with nothing but blood vengeance on his mind,” I said lightly.

The steely arms on either side of me tensed and I saw, not just sensed his shoulders jerk back with anger. Why the fuck was he angry? I was the one who kept being taken bloody prisoner by every single faction of the sodding otherworld.

“The Arch-Mage assured me that you were alright,” he growled.

“And I am.” I’d have stretched out my arms at that point to prove just how alright I was, apart from the fact that they were still bound tightly behind my back – Corrigan’s arms were still caging me against the wall.

“I will have words with him.”

“Jesus, Corrigan, I’m not a shifter. You don’t need to get all worked up on my behalf. I’m just a human. Now, please, tell me that you will leave my friends alone.”

I stared into his face, praying that he’d give me – and them – some leeway. He leaned in even closer, until I could feel his hot breath against my neck.

“As I said, kitten, I will transform you and then there will be no debt to be satisfied. You will become a shifter and stay here in London.” He paused and then licked his lips. “At my beck and call.”

Oh dear god. “You can’t do that, Corrigan.”

“I’m the Lord Alpha. I can do whatever what I want. Besides, your transgressions mean that you owe me. You owe the Pack.”

“Yes, but…” I started to stutter.

He interrupted. “But I can’t transform you. Not because you don’t want to be a shifter, but because you physically can’t be transformed.” He looked straight at me, confirming the truth of his words before continuing. “And the only reason that couldn’t work would be because you’re already not human. Your scent already tells me that. And I assume that this is your real scent that is assailing the air not some faked aroma that you have cooked up somehow. Not only that but you can hear and initiate the Voice. No human could do that. Do you think I’m a total idiot? You might have played me for a fool thus far but the buck stops here. With me.”

The look in his eyes was suddenly absolutely terrifying. I swallowed.

“So, Mack, if you are not a mage, and you are not a shifter, then what the fuck are you?”

“I said it before, Corrigan,” I obfuscated. “I’m nothing, no-one. I’m not trying to cause you or the Pack problems. In fact I’ve been doing my best to keep the hell away from the lot of you. Now, please, tell me you are going to leave Cornwall alone.”

He snarled at me. “Tell me what you are and then I will leave them alone.”

Goddamnit. The bloodfire rose in my stomach in nervous panic. I tried to think. It didn’t really matter if Corrigan knew that I was a Draco Wyr if it meant that Julia, Tom, Betsy and the rest would be safe. But Iabartu had thought I was important enough for her to come to this plane to fight for. And Solus thought that my blood could be of use to the Fae. What if the Lord Alpha thought that he could use me to for some kind of nefarious Brethren means? It wasn’t as if I knew him all that well and now that he knew I wasn’t a shifter he’d have no reason to care whether I was dead or alive. I had no idea what the extent of my dragon blood actually meant, only that some people – some demi-goddesses at least- would kill for it. And my mother had abandoned me with the Pack apparently because of it, too. What if I told Corrigan and then he still destroyed the Cornish pack anyway and then took his newfound knowledge and did something terrible with it?

“You don’t trust me.” He said it matter of factly but the tic in his cheek was back again.