Wolfblood
Honesty
Maddy Smith woke up to the sun streaming through her bedroom window. It had made it to the point now where this was the norm for her. Rhydian came over twice a month to sleep over. Once was for the full moon, but the other day was all theirs. Nowadays, it felt normal to wake up one day each month with her head using Rhydian's chest as a breathing pillow. Still, just because it was starting to feel normal didn't mean it felt any less special.
"Good morning, Mads." Rhydian muttered, sitting up a bit straighter as he adjusted her position slightly so that he could plant a kiss on the top of her head with the added bonus of her elbow not being pressed into his ribs anymore. He went to get up, but she let out a soft growl in protest.
"Stay with me." Maddy muttered sleepily.
"Maddy, I think it's a good idea if we got at least partially dressed." Rhydian reasoned. "If your parents walk in now, what the hell are we going to say? We've barely got anything on."
"For a start, we'd ask if they'd ever heard of knocking." Maddy shrugged as she leaned back into Rhydian and buried her head in his chest again. She rolled over onto her side and Rhydian wrapped his arms around her.
"Can I at least get something on now?" Rhydian asked. Maddy rolled her eyes, but got up slightly so that he could look around a bit. He found his clothes in various positions around the room, so got up and dressed himself.
"Come on, I'm freezing over here." Maddy cast her Bambi eyes his way, causing him to shrug.
"Why not try putting your radiator on?" Rhydian asked as he found Maddy's top and threw it to her. She shrugged it on before burying herself in her duvet again. Rhydian put the radiator on before going back over to the bed and wrapping her in his arms. Maddy instantly cuddled into him again.
"You know, you're much warmer than the radiator." Rhydian looked down to see her drifting off to sleep again. He really couldn't understand why she was so comfortable with him. That wasn't to say he didn't love her. There was no doubt that they were inseparable. But when he held her, it felt to him almost awkward in the way she chose to lie. Actually, they were quite out of synch in everything they did. But it also felt quite natural as well, working together in that disjointed yet efficient way they had.
Just then, Rhydian was snapped out of his thoughts as he looked up to see Emma peeking into the bedroom. Noticing that he'd noticed, she crept in to avoid waking her daughter.
"How is she this morning?" Emma asked him.
"She's doing fine." Rhydian replied as he adjusted their position so that she could cuddle into him further. "She's just being lazy. After Jefferies' history quiz on Friday and Miss Fire's impromptu math test the very next lesson, I honestly can't say I blame her."
"That's the sort of thing they used to do when I was in school." Emma muttered. "I know for you that must mean back when we were carving things into stone tablets, but to me it still feels recent."
"You're not that old, Emma." Rhydian had to bit his lip to kill off the laughter so as not to wake Maddy.
"Regardless, I still say the same as I did then." Emma said. "There should be a law against those kinds of tests one-after-another unless they're GCSEs."
"I agree there." Rhydian muttered.
"When she's up to it, you can both come downstairs and have breakfast." Emma told him as she backed up to leave. "I have sandwiches under the grill keeping warm for you."
"Do I need to ask what kind of sandwiches these are?" Rhydian asked.
"I think you can guess." Emma gave Rhydian a pointed look, confirming what he already knew.
"Yeah, I guessed when I caught the scent as you opened the door." Rhydian grinned. "How the hell do you stock up on so much bacon without people asking questions?"
"We use one of those wholesale price markets." Emma told him. "The employees are so bored there that they never ask questions."
"Okay, that's just genius." Rhydian leaned back a bit more as Maddy's arms tightened around him.
"I'll just leave you two alone." Emma made it to the door and turned to leave. "By the way, I wouldn't wake her up before she's ready unless something serious happens. When a Wolfblood gets clingy like that, it's a sign of extreme stress."
"Okay, thanks." Rhydian nodded. Once he heard Emma go downstairs, he pulled Maddy close again before resting his head on hers.
It was about thirty minutes later when Maddy lifted her head off the pillow and looked up at her boyfriend. Her hazel eyes met his green ones briefly before she leaned up and kissed him. No words were spoken, yet many were exchanged in that one moment.
"Do you think we should get up?" Maddy asked.
"Well, it's ten-thirty so we've already missed half the day." Rhydian shrugged. "Emma's got the usual keeping warm under the grill. Do you want to go running afterwards?" Rhydian stretched out, his back audibly protesting.
"Yeah, I'd love to go running." Maddy replied as she rubbed her own back, feeling muscles realign. "Maybe we should visit Jana in the caravan. It's been a while since we've seen her outside school."
"That's not a bad idea actually." Rhydian realised that they actually hadn't visited in nearly three weeks.
"Okay then, let's get some breakfast." Maddy got up and shrugged her bed sheet off as she stood up.
"Do you really want to go downstairs like that?" Rhydian asked. Maddy looked down at herself and realised that she was still wearing barely anything.
"Okay, change of plans: You head down and tell my parents I'll be down in a second." Maddy blushed slightly, realising Rhydian had been right. All she was wearing was a pair of pyjama shorts and high-cut top. The heat the previous night had been stifling so she'd worn the least covering things she had to get rid of as much heat as possible, not caring about the cold the next morning.
"Okay then, I'll let them know you're coming." Rhydian laughed as he opened her bedroom door. As he was just about to head downstairs, he caught the scent of something unfamiliar. It was both sweet and yet bitter at the same time. "Can you smell that?" he asked, turning back to Maddy. As he looked, he noticed Maddy wasn't moving. In fact, she was hardly breathing. Rhydian could see an almost glazed look in her eyes. "Maddy, are you okay?" he asked. Rhydian reached out and placed one hand on her shoulder. The moment he touched her, she darted forwards and wrapped him in a bone-crushing hug. As he hugged her back, he noticed she was also crying. In the end, he gently picked her up and sat on the edge of her bed, resting her on his legs gently. Maddy burrowed her head into him again and stayed there until she'd stopped crying.
"You were just about to leave me." Maddy muttered.
"What?" Rhydian was confused. "Maddy, I was only going downstairs. It's not like I was stranding you up in the Canadian mountains and leaving you there."
"I love you, Rhydian." Maddy blurted out.
"I love you too, but what's brought this on?" Rhydian asked, gently stroking her hair as if it were a delicate string of brown pearls.
"Just... I don't know." Maddy hugged him close again.
"It's okay, I've got you." Rhydian held on until Maddy's grip slackened off. When Maddy looked up at him again, her eyes burned yellow for a split second before shutting down.
"What's wrong with your wolf?" Rhydian asked as Maddy's eyes lit up briefly again. "It's like it can't decide what to do with itself."
"It just feels normal to me." Maddy shrugged. In response, Rhydian took her hand in his land lifted it in front of her face. Black veins were trying to spread up her arms, but were coming and going sporadically.
"This is never right." Rhydian muttered. "We need to talk to Emma and Dan, see if they know what it might be."
"Okay, I'll get dressed and we'll head downstairs." Maddy nodded.
"I'll wait just outside with the door open." Rhydian got up and walked to the door. "If you need me, I'll be just outside."
After a few minutes, Maddy walked out to see Rhydian leaning against her doorframe.
"You weren't peaking, were you?" she asked.
"Well, someone had to make sure you weren't freaking out again." Rhydian replied cheekily, earning a punch in the gut. "I'm joking, Maddy! Of course I wasn't looking!"
"I believe you, thousands wouldn't." Maddy growled as she started to walk downstairs.
"Good morning, cubs." Emma grinned.
"I'm not a cub!" Maddy snapped.
"Maddy, she was only joking." Rhydian wrapped one arm around her shoulders.
"Sorry, I just have a throbbing headache." Maddy muttered.
"That's come a bit suddenly hasn't it?" Rhydian wondered aloud. "You looked alright only ten seconds ago."
"I'll get you some paracetamol." Emma cast a worried look at her daughter before going to the cabinet in the corner and getting a packet out. "Do you still want your bacon sandwiches?"
"I'm not that bad." Maddy replied. Emma placed a glass of water and two tablets in front of her as the teen wolves sat down. Maddy swallowed the tablets just as Emma put the bacon sandwiches in front of her. She reached for one, only for her hand to stop dead.
"What's wrong?" Dan asked. Suddenly, Maddy jumped backwards as though she'd been shocked. She leaped up from her chair as black veins raced up her arm.
"What's going on?" Rhydian asked. As they watched, a small brown wolf picked itself up and stood where Maddy once had.
"Okay, I've seen this before." Emma nodded.
"Would someone care to enlighten me?" Rhydian asked, trying not to sound like he was begging. He loved Maddy to pieces and if something was wrong with her he wanted to know. At that precise moment, Maddy changed back and stood up again.
"Well... last night was fun." Realising that everyone was staring at her, Maddy chose to try and shrug it off like it was nothing. "What?"
"Maddy, how do you feel right this split second?" Emma asked.
"I feel like I want to go find my school teachers and rip their heads off in the nicest possible way." Maddy replied.
"Okay then." Emma nodded before going over to the cabinet she got the paracetamol from and getting out a bottle of foul smelling red liquid. Maddy instantly knew what it was.
"There is no way in hell I'm going to take that stuff again!" Just the thought of it made Maddy want to vomit. "I swear that stuff is ipecac that's just dressed up to look like Rescue Remedy."
"You swear it's what?" A confused look crossed Dan's face.
"Ipecac is a kind of syrup made from plants." Rhydian jumped in. "Mrs Vaughan used to be a first aider years ago back when they used it."
"What does it do?" Dan asked.
"Basically, if you swallow any of it then it's going to come out again along with anything else in your stomach." Rhydian rolled his eyes. "It was used to drive poisons out of people's systems until they stopped making it back in 2010 when it was found that it harmed in the long term more than it helped in the short term."
"Do you remember that awful chicken you ate out the bin one full moon?" Emma asked. A look of horror crossed Dan's face.
"That's what you used!" he realised.
"How did you know all that?" Maddy asked.
"Jefferies was going on about it in History." Rhydian replied. "It was homework one day when you were off sick and I came over after school to look after you."
"God, if it's the one I'm thinking of I remember that well." Maddy muttered as she grabbed a sandwich and took an aggressive bite. "I literally felt like I was dying."
"Well, thank god that didn't happen." Rhydian rubbed one hand on Maddy's shoulder briefly.
"Still Maddy, I think you should have some before you go running." Emma placed the bottle on the table. Maddy carried on eating and pretended not to notice the dreaded bottle as Rhydian joined her. After a few minutes, they finished eating and Maddy instantly made a break for the door. Rhydian followed her, grabbing a bag in the hallway that had some supplies for Jana that they'd meant to deliver ages ago. Just as Maddy reached the door, she bumped into Dan, who'd gone upstairs for something at Emma's request.
"Maddy, I know what you're trying to do." Dan cast a knowing look at her before holding out the bottle of red liquid. With a horrified look, Maddy turned to face the table and noticed it wasn't there anymore. Dan must have grabbed it when he went upstairs and taken it with him. "Come on, down the hatch." Maddy grimaced before taking the bottle and tipping some into her mouth. She handed it back to him as she desperately tried not to throw up.
"Come on, Mads." Rhydian took her by the hand as he gently led her off towards the Moors. As they climbed up a grass verge on the other side of the road, they looked over to see a van a ways down. They ran towards it, keen to check it out. Just as they'd thought, it was a removal van. They darted behind a bush conveniently situated on their vantage point as a teenage girl hopped out. She looked about sixteen with rusty auburn hair.
As they watched, she stood there supervising as the removal men carried a precious looking vase into the house. While two of them were making sure the valuable light stuff didn't get broken, the last man was left to tackle the issue of a three-seated sofa that looked unreasonably heavy.
Just then, the girl's head snapped up as an awful noise filled the air. The taste of the Rescue Remedy had been sitting on her tongue the whole time, and it had finally proven too much for her. Rhydian moved to rub her back as she vomited against the tree. He looked up again to see her running towards where they were crouched with an almost superhuman agility. She easily vaulted the grass verge and landed beside them.
"You weren't spying on me, were you?" she asked.
"We were about to go for a run." Rhydian defended. Subtly, he took a breath in through his nose. She didn't smell like a Wolfblood. Quickly, he ran the numbers in his head. Could Maddy vomiting be interfering with his nose? No, the wind was blowing the other way. "Who taught you to move like that?" he asked.
"I used to be a gymnast." The girl extended a hand for him to shake. "I'm Ellie by the way."
"I'm Rhydian." Rhydian shook the girl's hand. "This is Maddy." Rhydian pointed to where Maddy was trying to pull herself together. "She'll probably introduce herself properly when she's more able."
"Wait here and I'll get some water." Ellie turned and looked back towards her house. "I think the cups should still be on the van. This won't take a minute." As Rhydian watched, she jumped down most of the verge in one leap and raced to the van. She easily jumped into the back and emerged twenty seconds later with a green plastic cup. She raced inside and filled it at the tap before running back out to Rhydian and Maddy, who'd managed to pick herself up and had moved over to the next tree and laid her back against it.
"Thanks." Maddy took the water gratefully before rinsing her mouth out with the first sip. She downed the rest at her own pace before Ellie took the cup back.
"Was it something you ate?" Ellie asked.
"No, it was this Rescue Remedy stuff my parents give me." Maddy sighed. "So, are your parents on their way down now?"
"No, it's just me for the time being." Ellie shrugged. "I just turned eighteen but my parents and I don't see eye-to-eye. I decided to move out as soon as I got the chance and they're going to check on me this weekend. Still, you're welcome to come over in a couple of days once I've moved in properly. Anything you could tell me about the village would be great. I like to know the place I'm living in quite well."
"We'll definitely think about it." Rhydian plastered a smile on his face as he helped Maddy up. "We need to get going now though, so we'll see you soon, yeah?"
"Okay, well it was nice meeting you." Ellie waved goodbye as they left, but Rhydian's smile had vanished the minute they turned around.
"What's the stone face for?" Maddy asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
"She wasn't a Wolfblood, but I still don't like her." Rhydian replied as he pulled some tic-tacs out of his pocket and gave one to Maddy. "There was something about her that I couldn't put my finger on. But if I did, I'd have to wash my hands."
"How did you get tic-tacs to fit in your pocket?" Maddy asked. "What else have you got?"
"Not much really." Rhydian shrugged. "I've just got my phone, keys, wallet and a multi-tool."
"How the hell do you manage it?" Maddy asked. "My pockets are so small that my phone leaves a stress mark on the fabric and you can forget about putting anything else in them. I can't have my key on a key ring with loads of other stuff, just the key and some sort of identifying tag. Otherwise, they end up sticking me in the leg or worse."
"What could be worse than that?" Rhydian cast a glance her way.
"Sometimes they make a hole in my pocket and my key drops out." Maddy added.
"Okay, that's a bit of an issue." Rhydian nodded. They were going to say more, but they'd reached Jana's caravan. They approached cautiously, noticing that there was a second scent trapped in the woods. It stank of chemicals and flowers, but it was vaguely familiar. They crept over to the door and heard someone else other than Jana in there.
"What do we do?" Maddy whispered. Without missing a beat, Rhydian hammered his fist into the door.
"Jana, do you want some meat?" he asked loudly. The caravan rocked dangerously as they heard Jana swearing in Celtic.
"I'll just be a minute!" she called over. Just then, the Maddy and Rhydian heard someone cry out and swear in English as the audibly hit their head on something in the caravan.
"God, you can barely move in here!"
"Is that Katrina?" Maddy whispered over to Rhydian.
"Do you think they can hear me?" they heard Katrina ask.
"Yes, we both heard you, Katrina." Maddy called through the door.
"Just give me one second." Jana opened the door and welcomed the pair inside. "So, what's this about meat then?" Rhydian burst out laughing. "I didn't mean we had it now. I was asking if you wanted any. If you're short on anything, then list it down and we'll get it for you."
"Okay, thanks." Jana grabbed one of the pens Rhydian had given her as well as the receipt from her last shopping trip.
"So, how does this work with you staying out here then?" Katrina asked.
"My dad lets me. It's my own pet project." Jana said; using the back story that Maddy and Rhydian gave her. "I fixed it up and I stay here for a couple of consecutive nights each week to prove to him that I'm capable of living on my own. I bag up my dirty clothes and wash them back home and I'm working on getting the mini shower working. For now, I just wash in the basin. I've got every basic essential out here with no bills. When I turn eighteen, we're going to hook it up to a car and go on a drive around the country."
"That's going to be great." Katrina nodded approvingly.
"Maybe if we play our cards right, I'll let you come along." Jana said, a teasing note creeping into her voice. A shocked look crossed Maddy and Rhydian's faces. Why was she inviting Katrina on something that wasn't going to happen?
"Maybe it'll do me good to get out more." Katrina shrugged. "Anyway, I should be heading back to the Kafe now. I'll see you later." To Maddy and Rhydian's surprise, Katrina leaned over and planted a kiss on Jana's cheek. Jana moved past them and saw that Katrina got to the safer area to walk back home before rejoining them.
"So, how long has this been going on for?" Maddy asked.
"About two months." Jana replied as if it was common knowledge that she was dating one of the girls who'd bullied her on her first day of school.
"Umm, good luck to both of you?" Rhydian clearly wasn't sure whether to be happy for Jana or annoyed because this raised the probability of Jana or Katrina being hurt by the other two Ks.
"Thanks, Rhydian." Jana said, totally oblivious to his uncertainty. Maddy, on the other hand, picked up on it instantly.
"Don't worry, Rhydian. Katrina's going to treat Jana well. She'll answer to us if she doesn't."
"It's the other two I'm worried about." Rhydian replied before turning to Jana. "Has she told the other two yet?"
"She was planning to tell them when I told you." Jana explained. "We were going to break the news at school."
"Well, let's just hope it all goes well." Maddy looked over to Rhydian who took the bag off his shoulders and took out the supplies. There was some shampoo, a pack of sausages and a phone charger.
"Thank god for that!" Jana grabbed hold of the phone charger and put it in the top cabinet. "Now I can charge my phone at school."
"Yeah, you can sit in the library and charge it while pretending to use the computers for school work." Maddy said.
"Don't get me wrong: I'm still not fond of it." Jana replied. "But I know that I need it in case of in emergency."
"To be honest, I'm not too fond of them either." Maddy muttered. "Anyway, that's everything. Was there anything specific you needed?" Jana handed Maddy the list she'd been writing. There were a few things on it like Bacon and Batteries, but nothing really major.
"Okay, we'll go shopping during the week." Rhydian nodded as he leaned over Maddy's shoulder and looked at the list.
"Thanks, guys." Jana grinned. "You know, I love it here. I wasn't lying to Katrina either. If one of us learns to drive, then when we turn eighteen and we've fully fixed this thing up and got the shower working I want to go on a drive around the countryside and stuff. I'd like to take her too if things work out for the best."
"There's only one obvious question I have." Rhydian added. "What about being a Wolfblood? You'll have to tell her at some point if you want to get serious with her. She'll want to do all this romantic stuff and everything that falls on the full moon you'll be ducking out of. You can't keep making excuses or else she'll probably go whining to the other two. If one of them- and it'll probably be Kara- is smart enough to connect the dots, they'll spot the pattern."
"I know I need to look at telling her." Jana replied as Maddy and Rhydian got ready to leave. "I'll do it when I feel I can confide something like that in her. I know if you're dating someone you need to be truthful with them, but secrets like ours are a big measure of honesty."
Epilogue!
As the quiet chill of night settled over Stoneybridge, a girl with rusty auburn hair stood outside, watching as the half moon rose. Her yellow eyes blazed as bright as that moon. As she crouched down and watched her arms become paws, her jaw elongated. Fur covered her body as her skeletal structure reformed. The wolf that now stood where Ellie had once been let out an aggressive howl. She started to run at high speed, heading for the Moors.