In the meantime, Lachlan and Kendrick set up their hidden Shiftertown, chose trackers, established a hierarchy, made sure cubs were kept with parents, and that orphaned cubs were matched with adults who would care for them.

Different species who hated each other in the wild came together, willing to work to keep their families safe.

It was a heady feeling in the early days, Shifters joining together to be stronger, without having to surrender themselves and their entire lives. They made plans to grow the community, and in time, rescue every single Shifter from captivity.

And then Lachlan turned out to be insane.

It started with small things. Lachlan would make decisions—about whether a mate-claim would stand or a cub would or wouldn’t accompany his parents into town—without consulting Kendrick. The decisions were arbitrary, and Kendrick received complaints.

Then Lachlan began to change his stance in the matter of Shifters breaking rules.

It had been agreed that a Shifter who broke one of the small laws of the community, such as taking a step into another’s territory or getting into a fight, would be brought before Lachlan, who’d mete out justice.

At first Lachlan was reasonable—a territory violation meant an apology and the offending Shifter owing the offended a favor, to be called in at any time. An unwarranted fight had the two parties agreeing to let Lachlan or Kendrick listen to grievances and settle the question. Or, set up a controlled fight if the two Shifters simply had to battle it out.

Worse transgressions—hurting a cub, trying to force a female, robbery, assault—rarely happened, but when they did, the Shifter in question was banished on threat of death if he or she returned.

The simple justice worked. Then Lachlan decided to punish a Shifter who had borrowed another Shifter’s motorcycle and then wrecked it, with a flogging. Kendrick had been away and had only learned about the flogging when he returned the next day. The punished man’s family had cornered Kendrick about it, and Kendrick had confronted Lachlan.

Lachlan argued that making the transgressing Shifter buy the other another motorcycle was too tame. They needed to learn to take care of each other’s things or there would be chaos.

Kendrick argued with him, until Lachlan became angry and said that Kendrick should be judge and jury by himself for a while, see how he liked it.

Things settled down, until a wolf cub got lost in the dead of winter. A search was made, the cub finally found deep in the frozen woods, and restored home alive and well. Lachlan decided that the father of the cub should be put to death for not watching him better.

Lachlan backed down quickly when Kendrick countermanded his decision, Lachlan explaining that he’d been very angry and worried about the cub. Now all was well, but in Lachlan’s opinion, another Shifter should move in with the family to watch the cub.

As the winter wore on, Lachlan kept inventing transgressions that the cub’s father had done, and finally claimed that he himself was the cub’s sire. This was why he’d been so angry when the cub had gotten lost.

The cub’s mother wasn’t there—she’d been taken, Collared, and they’d been unable to rescue her. Therefore, she wasn’t able to say whether Lachlan had fathered him. A DNA test was out of the question, because when a human lab saw Shifter DNA, they’d be betrayed.

Lachlan wanted to settle it with a fight—winner took the cub. The father protested that he was the true father but agreed to the fight. Kendrick forbade it but when Lachlan and the other Lupine met in secret and the Lupine was killed, Lachlan claimed the cub for his own.

When Kendrick confronted Lachlan, Lachlan said that the fight was just a battle for hierarchy. From now on, he said, claims on cubs and females should be settled by this method, which had worked for centuries. What bothered Kendrick was that other Shifters agreed with him.