Owen paused on the pebbled walkway leading to the shack and took a deep breath. Apologising to women was an art he hadn't quite mastered which was strange considering how often he had to do it. Pissing women off was something he had mastered and done so very early on since his little sister had been born.

He continued on his way and stopped again wondering how to get her attention. Max's back was to him while she tended to an outdoor fire. The orange and yellow flames flickered and silhouetted her figure giving the dark hair that blowing in the wind an unearthly glow. He was reminded of illustration a book he'd once read about witches. Or was it one about banshees? He hadn't been very interested in the book really.

He wondered if he should do something; make some noise, step on a branch to make her aware of his presence. She reminded him of his girls too often and surprising a raptor wasn't a good idea and he didn't think surprising her was one too.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Her voice dry as usual sounded and he almost jumped. She turned and he saw on her lips the same sharp, amused smile he'd seen before and with the light and shadows falling on her face sharpening angles he didn't know were there, creating hollows under her cheekbones that made her look absolutely unearthly.

"You knew I was there?"

"Owen you may think you're quiet but you're really not." Owen did not relax. He was in fact very quiet, stealth was one of the many things he'd learnt as a marine. Barry and his girls were the few who were never surprised by him creeping up on them but they were a rare group. "And your motorcycle can be heard a mile away."

He had a feeling she was just giving him that out but he would take it. She didn't hear him but the motorcycle.

"I, uh, just wanted to apologise for…for-"

"Laughing in my face till tear works started?" She wasn't offended at all, just amused. It made him wonder if he really needed to apologise at all.

But he had laughed in her face and he had continued to do so until tears started and after she had walked off he had continued laughing until he had to sit down on the ground.

Because the minute she'd said he needed to hunt with the pack he had a vision of telling Claire exactly that, telling Masrani exactly that and the faces they would make were just so incredible to imagine. Then he imagined them agreeing to that and actually hunting with his girls and that's when the hysterical laughter had started. None of it was funny but he couldn't really think of another way of dealing with it except laughter.

"Yes, that."

"Don't worry about it, it's fine. It was very typically human of you which only served to make the difference between you and the raptors even more obvious."

"It makes sense but getting permission to go on a hunt would be difficult. If we were a bit farther with our training then we'd have Vic on our side but until then there's no chance of it happening."

Her face changed quickly as she made beseeching doe eyes and looked up at him through fluttering lashes. "Do you want me to talk to Claire for you?" She said, so soft and sweet it had him dazed.

"Umm what?"

"Do you want me to talk to Claire for you?" She repeated.

"No, I mean what are you doing with your face and –" His hand moved wildly to indicate her mouth and her face fell into the same slumberous predatory blankness he had come to associate with her.

"Practising being human. Did it not come out right?"

"Lady, how do you go through life?"

"Usually by avoiding places with the population of a large city but obviously that won't work here."

"You don't like people?"

"The first time I met 'people' was when they separated me from my pack injuring them in the process because my pack quite obviously defended me from the humans that were forcibly separating me from them. So no, I don't like people, they did not make a very good first impression." For a moment he saw anger, pure unadulterated rage before it dropped off and he shifted uncomfortably. She noticed and gestured at the log asking him without words to sit and he didn't quite know how to tell her that sitting wouldn't help his condition.

She was just really hot when she got angry and it was affecting him in ways his body couldn't hide.

"So you were really raised by wolves?" He asked, desperate for a change of topic but also curious. The psychology of a pack mentality made sense to him but while he was able to implement it in ways, he couldn't entirely submit to it. It would just never make complete sense to him and here he had someone who might be able to explain it to him in ways that books and mere observation couldn't.

"I wasn't raised by wolves I was a wolf. There were physical dissimilarities of course but I never truly knew them. I wasn't treated differently by them and…when you're pack you're pack. You hunt together, you sleep together, you run together, you breathe together. You are reprimanded for something you've only just thought of doing because it is obvious, everything you think, you feel, it is worn on your skin and on your body. There is nothing you can hide and there should be no reason to because that is how deep the trust goes." She bit her lip, eyes alight with something she couldn't put to words. Or maybe she didn't want to, it was pretty obvious that this was personal in so many ways.

"So-"

She bulldozed on, ignoring him. "You don't trust your pack, you are afraid of them, you keep secrets I honestly don't know why they give you the latitude they do. They are kept in a cage and they get to see you walk away and be free. It is ridiculous."

Owen swallowed hard. When put like that…but she was still talking.

"You're afraid that they'll kill you and eat you or that they'll damage you when playing with you, fine, but at least don't call yourself the alpha of the pack because you just demean alphas all over the world when you say that."

"Wait, playing with me?"

"They bite each other too and that's really just play, same with the pushing each other around, it's just like when siblings fight."

"Only with claws and sharp teeth." He said flatly. He had a deep scar running across his torso form when Blue had grown too large to be played with anymore.

"Well it's not their fault you can't handle it. You're the alpha you should be able to handle it and you should be doling it out that's how you reprimand them, that's how you keep them in line."

"But I can't do that." He said slowly. He had no claws or teeth, guns were absolutely out of question and they had been tased by one too many idiots who thought they needed to be prodded like cattle when they had been shifted to the bigger facility. Owen was still furious about that, he hadn't been informed at all and his girls had been terrified without him there.

"Which is why I told you to hunt with them." She imitated his drawl. "We can set up a perimeter limit and get the raptors some trackers. Get some herbivore herds that can be corralled and really properly hunted because a good run will help them with their cabin fever and when you take the first part of the meal they'll know you're alpha."

"I'll need to do some more research before I can pitch this to Claire."

"But you'll try?"

Owen suddenly realised he wanted to do this, he wanted to show in his actions that he would be there for his girls. He couldn't talk their language, he had failed them once before and he didn't want to do it again, whatever he had to do he would have to do but first he needed to convince Masrani and Claire.

"I'll try."