Vivir

by horrorgay

My 2014 NaNo draft. Basically, a half-human half-wolfblood hybrid girl Taylor was attacked by wolfblood hunters. She and her mom travel around the UK until finally ending up in Stoneybridge and joining Maddy's pack. No season 2. There will be femslash. I'm American so tell me if my British slang is wrong. I do not own Wolfblood but I do own the Morgan, Volkov, & Luna families.

I widened my eyes in apprehension, pressing my lips together tightly to resist a giggle before whispering anxiously, "Sir? Are you sure about this?"

"Of course, Oliver! All I need to do is to connect this wire here with that wire there, and we'll have the first ever working time machine."

"Sir, wait!" I pleaded.

"Oh ho ho! Fire!" cackled Mam.

"Sir! Put it out!"

"But Oliver, look what a unique color it is! Such a lovely purple...Oliver, wait! Don't put it ou...darn." I could just picture my mother's beautiful face twisting into a mock pout.

"Sir, with all due respect, you're absolutely insane," I deadpanned.

"Oh, I know Oliver. Isn't it fun?" Mam chirped, dissolving into chuckles. I took a final, careful bite of steak, wishing I could just wolf it down (yeah, I know, wolf it down) before joining her. Neverending Story wasn't even that funny, but when you had only one other person consistently in your life, you took your humor where you could get it.

Mom finished her pork chops, relishing the warm, juicy flesh. Meat, these days, was also something you took when you could get it. There was a brief pause. "Verdad, Taylor, necesitamos salir. Tus tíos Maya y Cedric quieren nos ser a su casa a las nueve de la mañana, y las ocho de la noche ya. Necesario dormir."

I nodded. "I'm going to the washroom."

She put a hand on mine, lowered her voice to a whisper and said teasingly, "Be careful."

"I will brave the stench of the strange with all my might," I told her gravely, unable to stop a snort of laughter. I reached my hand around tentatively on the weathered wood of the pub windowsill until I picked up the white cane next to me.

"Wait, Taylor," Mom said. I stopped and turned back to 'look' at her. "Do you need any help?"

I shrugged. "Um, well...yeah. I do need to find the washroom."

She got up and put a hand on my forearm, already knowing exactly what to do. I laid the cane gently down on my chair.

Yes, I was blind. But much of the time, I didn't really need my cane. And with my mother by my side, I didn't need to pretend to.

After supper, we took the bus back to our cramped, dusty rented room above a tiny yarn shop. It had been our home for the past two days.

"So, honey, are you excited?" she asked rhetorically.

I shrugged. "Excited, nervous, happy. This is going to be the longest we're staying in one place since..."

I didn't need to finish. We both understood.

"I know, Taylor," she said quietly. "And we're going to stay there, yes?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed.

"That's my cub," Mam responded affectionately, and I knew from the rustle of fabric that she'd folded the covers back for me and spread out my extra blanket. "I have to go now, little love."

"I know," I murmured, clutching my tiny stuffed wolf Lupe. She was the one thing, other than clothes, that I'd taken when we fled Dawnmoor. Her once-beautiful fur was now filthy and matted, her stuffing was escaping, and she only had one eye, but I loved her. My dad gave her to me for my first day of preschool when I was four and she'd been a comfort to me ever since.

Mam slipped quietly out of our little room, down the stairs, outside. Feeling the drafty early September night air over me, I lay down to sleep. My last thoughts as I drifted off were of the fresh, sweet grass and rich soil rustling under my mother's paws and how it would someday rustle under mine.

The next morning, Mam shook me awake and the smell of apples filled my nose.

"Up, cub, we need to start our day," she said affectionately, placing some fruit next to me on the bed. "There's..."

"I know," I interrupted, sitting up and taking a bite.

"Okay, Taylor, you know I just worry," she replied, smoothing my brown curls. "Sorry it's not meat."

"It's fine," I said, getting out of bed and feeling Mam watching me cautiously. A whiff caught my nose. "Steal them from the grove, did you?"

"Around seven this morning, while Nathaniel was distracted," she admitted.

"Can't say I blame you," I muttered, unzipping my satchel and pulling out clothes. That farmer had been nothing but rude to us since we arrived in this village two days earlier.

You might be wondering how a blind girl could get dressed on her own. How would I know if I wore something hideous? In truth, Mam picked out my clothes - things from pauper's wards and such. I wore mostly dungarees, with basic tees and tanks. Neutral colors, mostly, comfortable things. Clothes that wouldn't make me stand out, which we inherently did. Mam barely looked thirty, too young to have a fifteen-year-old daughter...let alone a son who would have been twenty-two. And in the tiny villages we preferred to frequent, I was often the only one there who wasn't white, one of the only ones with a disability. Put those things together, and what you got was a fat lot of self-righteous, belittling whispers about my mother and sympathetic murmurs for her poor little mixed-race daughter.

I hopped a bit as I carefully got into my pants, light blue kecks, a turquoise hoodie, and a tank top that my very limited vision - I was born with macular degeneration, then lost my right eye altogether when I was nine, leaving me almost completely without sight and completely without depth perception - told me was a dark green. Pulling on socks and my gray trainers, I picked up the hair brush and untangled my wild, light brown mane of thick ringlets, which I tugged into a high ponytail.

My mother was dressing a bit more posh. Wearing a light pink knee-length cotton dress, short light blue cardigan that accented her stormy gray eyes, brown Birkenstocks, and the only necklace she possessed, my normally lovely mam was stunning. With her easily tamed raven black pixie cut, she didn't need to brush her hair as much as I did. But, clearly anxious about seeing her older sister again, she carefully styled her hair and applied what little makeup she owned standing in front of the mirror. She looked like Snow White.

"Mam, stop that," I scolded. "You're beautiful."

She held and kissed me. "I just want to make a good first impression, Taylor. And, cub, I could never be as beautiful as you."

I shrugged, a bit self-conscious. Uncomfortable. "Well, you're not exactly making a first impression, yeah? She's your sister, Mam."

"My estranged sister, whom I haven't seen in over ten years. My sister, who is graciously allowing us both to stay in her home. I don't want your uncle Cedric and aunt Maya to regret their decision, Taylor. Behave. Please, Taylor love, behave. They don't know what to expect."

I raised an eyebrow, affixing an innocent smile to my face. "When have I not behaved?"

"Really, pet?" she planted her hands on her hips. "Taylor, I love you, but I can't afford for you to get mouthy right now."

I was about to make a cheeky protest, when I realized how tired she seemed, even more so than usual. And how frantic. This was a huge chance, for us both. "I'll be good, Mam," I relented.

"Thank you, Taylor," she said, hugging me. "I appreciate that."

"Of course, Mam," I responded. "You know I don't want to screw this up for us, any more than you do."

Mam relaxed. "I do know, pet. And I love you."

"Love you too, Mam."

With the slam of a lorry door, Mam stepped onto the grass of our new home, then stepped around to help me out of the car and get my foldable cane, which was on the floor of the front passenger seat in front of me. I could usually get around pretty well on my own, but when I was somewhere new, I did need to learn the lay of the land.

As I unfolded my cane, an adorable little girl with curly auburn hair, maybe five or six years old, darted up to us and instantly started chattering away. "Hi! I'm Lucy! What's your name? Are you my cousin? I didn't know I had a cousin! Hi! Oh wait, I already said that!" With that, she giggled and ran out back of her house, yelling for her parents and someone named Adrian; I guessed he was her brother.

When Lucy next returned, it was with a redheaded man, a black-haired boy, and a woman who could have been Mam's twin...though I knew her to actually be ten years older than my mother. We all regarded each other silently, as if with suspicion. An awkward silence hung in the air.

Finally, my mother's doppelganger shook us all out of our sullen stupor with a hesitant smile. "Taylor, dear, hello. I...I hope you remember me, pet. I'm your aunt Maya. This is your uncle Cedric and your cousins Adrian and Lucy."

"Lucy," my mother repeated softly, almost involuntarily.

Lucy beamed up at my mother. "Hi!" she ran forward and threw her arms around Mam's waist. Mam hugged her back.

"Hey," said Adrian. From the corner of my eye, I noticed his gaze drift down to my cane before, embarrassed and not wanting to offend his new cousin, he snapped his eyes back to my face even though I couldn't see his.

His sister disentangled herself from Mam's arms. "How come you have a cane? You don't look very old!"

"Err..." I stammered.

"Lucia Branwen Morgan, that wasn't very nice," scolded Uncle Cedric, his face flushing as red as his hair.

"No, no, it's fine," I said quickly. I knelt down to what I hoped was Lucy's eye level, her face fading out of my field of vision. "I can't see as well as you can, so I need a cane to help me find things." I moved my head back and to the side, gauging her reaction.

Lucy cocked her head, but nodded. "Okay."

Aunt Maya looked deeply uncomfortable with her daughter's curiosity about my vision, and rapidly changed the subject (though, truthfully, the questions didn't bother me in the least). "Well, Anya, Taylor, let's get your things inside, shall we? Anya, you'll be in the guest room. Taylor, you have a choice between staying with your mother or staying with Lucy. The guest room has two beds, by the way."

"Mam, I suppose," I said.

Lucy pouted.

"It's okay, we'll see each other around the house," I assured the little girl, feeling bad. It was just that, well, I remembered being small, and I figured my cousin's room would have toys all over the floor. At night, when I had to go to the bathroom and was too tired to get my cane or focus on my surroundings, I could hurt myself by tripping over her things.

"Okay," she said, taking my free hand.

"Adrian, help your aunt and cousin with their things," Uncle Cedric ordered his son.

Mam smiled at him. "Oh, it's alright. We can manage."

"We didn't really bring much anyway," I explained. "Only our bags and purses, and a pillow and blanket." I paused, then added with a smirk, "And my cane."

Adrian looked a bit chastened by the mention of my cane, obviously having figured out that I'd seen him staring and wondering how. I offered him a more gentle, genuine smile to let him know I wasn't angry or offended. Sometimes new people got uncomfortable when I made blind jokes or called them out on staring at my cane. While I normally reveled in their discomfort, I didn't want to risk making things awkward between me and my cousin when I was moving into his house.

"If you're sure you're okay, Taylor," Adrian said hesitantly, and it took me a moment to process the tension between my uncle and cousin, the glare directed at Adrian. I realized that, since I didn't really know this family, I couldn't judge. The only father-son relationship I'd ever really been exposed to was that of my own gentle father and Holden, and the distance between this other father and his son was strange to me.

"I'm sure," I said, trying to sound breezy. As I turned to get my backpack out of the backseat of the car, I noticed Mam frown slightly. Uncle Cedric and Adrian's tension hadn't been just my imagination. "But if you could help me learn my way around the house, so I can be a bit more independent, I'd appreciate that."

"Of course," Adrian agreed quickly. A smell all too familiar to me seeped from his pores. My cousin reeked of fear, and it was clear by the concern on my mother's face and Aunt Maya's glower at Uncle Cedric that they'd noticed it too.

After Adrian showed Mam and me to the guest room, where we set down our things, Mam went off to talk to Aunt Maya. I folded up my cane and put it on the dresser.

Adrian stared at it. "Don't you...well..."

"What?" I demanded.

"Don't you need your...er..."

"My cane?" I asked. "You can say it. I don't have any depth perception because I use a prosthetic right eye, or central vision because I have a disease in my left. So yes, I sometimes do. Especially when it's dark, because my night vision is poor. But my other senses are really sharp, so that helps. And I don't need it when I have someone with me."

"Your...your cane, then," he said.

I smiled. "See, was that so hard?"

He rolled his eyes. "I suppose not."

"Good. Now how about that tour?"

"Alright, let's go."

"...And that's the downstairs bathroom," Adrian finished. "Any questions?"

"Not at the moment, but if I think of any I'll let you know," I said.

"Okay. And with that over...there's a stretch of woods behind my house. Want to run?"

"Doesn't every wolfblood? All the time? But you know we can't. What if we get spotted?"

"It's pretty secluded, and I'll let you know if I see anything."

"Thanks."

"So you can run safely, right?"

I nodded. "I can. I just...I never do."

"Too much risk?"

"Yes," I confessed.

"That bloody sucks," he said.

"Language, young man," yelled Uncle Cedric from somewhere else in the house.

I winced in sympathy.

"I know," Adrian muttered. "So are we going to run or not?"

We exchanged a grin. Oh yes, we were indeed.

"Have you had your first change yet?" Adrian asked.

"No," I said. "I mean, I'm half-human, so I don't even know if I can. If I'll ever be able to."

"I think you can," he told me. "Your mam's more human than you, and she can still change. My dad's a halfie, like you, and he can. I'm...well, I'm something."

"Does mean I'll be able to."

"Mixed-bloods usually can, it's just harder for us to control it."

"Whatever. Can we just run?"

"Yeah."

"Of course."

"So let's just do this."

And we took off.

Maybe it was the fact that I'd never run, never really run, before, but I was loving this. Letting adrenaline slam through my body, smelling the fall leaves, simply enjoying my natural instincts as they set themselves free. Maybe I didn't have fur, maybe it wasn't the full moon, maybe I was half human and might never transform, but I was all wolf and nothing had ever been so beautiful. The early autumn leaves smelled rich and lovely as they crunched under my feet and Adrian's, the sun shone brightly but not too hot, and animals bolted in fear as we approached. We were kings of the forest, forever dominating the hunt.

I lost track of time, but maybe twenty minutes after we started off, my legs began to ache. I ignored them and pushed on, determined to dominate and win, determined to be the alpha. So I forced myself to go as hard as I possibly could, and then harder.

About ten or fifteen minutes after that, Adrian noticed my struggle. Like me, he was a bit winded. But he was in better shape than I was and that infuriated me. It made me feel like I was somehow losing, though we hadn't actually raced.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I waved off his concerns. "I'm fine."

"If you want to turn back..."

"No, I'm fine, really."

"Look, Taylor, if you want to turn back, say so."

"I don't. Really."

"Okay, okay."

We pushed on, forcing ourselves to our limits, and half an hour later, the pain in my legs began to catch up with the joy of running, and it started getting hard to breathe. I felt a selfish glee in seeing that Adrian was more winded than before. But I was still smaller and younger than him, and I hadn't transformed. I knew I couldn't keep up.

"Hey, Taylor, I don't think I can go much longer." He was doubled over and had started coughing. His face was turned away from me, so I couldn't tell if he really was in pain or he was just trying to spare my pride, going easy on me. What I could tell was that he knew about my eyes, and likely figured (correctly) I wouldn't be able to focus on his face.

I glared at him, my right eye going wolf. With the brown prosthetic in my left socket, my eyes appeared two different colors when I was angry or frightened. I'd always loved how that looked.

"By Jove, that's chilling," Adrian told me, straightening up immediately and speaking between coughs.

I rolled my eyes. By Jove? Really? Was he an old man in the body of a seventeen-year-old boy?

"Okay, Taylor, I was mucking around with you. I admit it. Happy now?"

I kneed him in the crotch, hard enough to cause intense pain but not to do severe damage. "You bloody arsehole!"

So much for behaving. Guilt rushed through me, not for kicking my cousin but for breaking my promise to Mam. Still, though, for a one-eyed girl with no central vision, that was a fab hit.

Adrian collapsed to the ground, cupping himself between the legs and wheezing. After a few minutes, he managed to speak. "This," he said between gasps, "is not fake. You may not be able to run like I can, but if the way I feel right now is any indication, you're strong."

I folded my arms across my chest, looking down at my cousin. His expression was mainly excruciating pain, but I could tell he meant what he said. So I leaned down and offered him a hand. He looked at it warily. "You're not going to judo-flip me, are you?"

I sighed. "No."

He took my hand and pulled himself to his feet.

We started walking back in silence.

"Adrian?" I asked tentatively after a while.

"Yeah?"

"I...I just..." I stopped walking and looked up at him pleadingly.

"What?" Adrian was stopped too, staring down at me.

"Could you...you know...not tell your parents what happened here? Or my mam? I swear, I'll never do anything like this again...just please, please..."

"I wasn't going to," he replied, raising his eyebrows. "My dad's already trying to toughen me up. Last thing I want him to know is that I was brought to my knees by a girl half my size."

I couldn't decide whether to be offended or relieved, so I settled on just glaring at him petulantly. "You were not brought to your knees. You were brought down to the bloody ground. I heard that thump."

Adrian just laughed.

My curiosity and concern over what he'd said earlier won over. Remembering the scent of fear emanating from him earlier and how angry Uncle Cedric seemed, I couldn't help but worry about my cousin - no matter how much he pissed me off, we were still pack.

"Toughen you up?" I demanded. "What do you mean?"

He stared at me for a long moment, judging whether I could be trusted. "It's not like he hits me or anything, if that's what you're thinking."

I hadn't been thinking that.

"I just...it's embarrassing, okay?"

I could be nosy and impulsive and loudmouthed and stubborn and competitive, but I did know when to back off. "If you don't want to talk about it, I won't push you. We just met."

"I appreciate that."

Except for the sound of grass under our feet and forest animals scurrying into the trees, the rest of the walk back to Adrian's - our - house was silent.

As we headed up to the back door of the house (I accomplished this by staying close to my cousin and letting him be my...ahem...guide dog) a little red-haired streak that could only be Adrian's younger sister bounded to us, pink-faced and cheerful.

"TAYLOR!" Lucy yelped, throwing herself onto me from behind and wrapping her little arms around my waist. She couldn't really knock me over, but if this kept up it would be annoying.

"Hi, Lucy," I said, half-delighting and half-dreading my new role as pseudo big sister. Looking at her brother, I realized he was suppressing a smile at the thought of not being the only one who had to deal with this adorable yet hyperactive five-year-old. I glowered at him and rolled my eyes, wondering if I'd be doing that a lot from now on.

Adrian bent down and picked her up, relieving me of pseudo sister duty. She squealed and threw her arms around his neck, but then started wriggling.

"Taylor, come see my room!" she said excitedly.

Her brother's face flushed and he turned away from me at the reference to sight. I tried to catch his eye and let him know it was okay, but that didn't work.

So I simply smiled and said to Lucy, "Your big brother already showed me-" her face fell "-but I would love to see it again!"

Adrian's shoulders untensed and he turned back to face me, leaning down to whisper,

"Do you want me to help you up the stairs?"

"Thanks, yeah," I murmured back. "Just warn me or catch me if I'm about to fall."

"Sure."

Lucy showed me to her room, which seemed to be an explosion of pink, butterflies, and unicorns. Oh, she was so much like I'd been as a little girl.

She took our hands and led us to the toys seated in chairs around a little tea table - a brown bear almost as big as her with a ballet-pink ribbon around its neck, a baby doll in a purple satin party dress with a hot pink bow, and - of course - a stuffed wolf. I smiled, thinking of Lupe.

I saw Adrian turn in my direction and smile, a little too craftily for my liking, and began to move strangely. What the...?

Oh no, he doesn't!

"Adie!" screeched Lucy. "Don't you want to come to the tea party?"

"Yeah, Adie, don't you want to come to the tea party?" I said cheekily, realizing he was leaving me to deal with this little curly haired imp by myself. She was a cute kid, but I had very little experience with kids, let alone one as hyper as my newfound five-year-old cousin. "Princess Lucy here would be so disappointed if her Prince Adrian didn't join her for tea!"

He merely smiled at me mischievously, knowing perfectly well how to handle his sister. "Don't the princesses want some girl time? We princes have cooties, you know..."

"Ew!" squealed Lucy, giggling.

I was about to open my mouth to give a witty retort when Mam appeared in the doorway to Lucy's room, for some reason looking a bit teary-eyed...I may not be able to focus on her face, but I knew all too well when my mother was about to cry.

"There you are, Taylor," she said softly. Composing herself, she said in a stronger, firmer voice, "Another local wolfblood family, the Smiths I believe, has invited the six of us to dinner."

"Yeah, to kind of officially welcome you two into the pack," Adrian explained to me. "They have a daughter about your age, Taylor. Maddy. And there's a bloke they've sort of taken in, Rhydian Morris. An orphan raised by humans, never even knew he wasn't one of them himself till he changed for the first time."

"Welsh?" I guessed.

"With a name like that, I suppose he'd have to be," Adrian said. "But he hates being asked if he is, so don't."

"Alright then, I won't," I agreed.

Mam smiled, simply thrilled we hadn't gotten at each other's throats (I couldn't help but smirk a bit, thinking of that very fab kick from our run - which Adrian had so totally deserved for going easy on me - but I wasn't about to tell Mam about that). "Well, alright, I'll just leave you three to clean up for supper."

"Sure, Aunt Anya," said Adrian.

Mam smiled, mouthed behave at me, and left to talk to my uncle and aunt.

"They're not posh, Rhydian and the Smiths," Adrian assured me after Mam left. "I bet you'd hate that."

"I would indeed. Mam's just being a nervous wreck about this whole thing."

"I like Maddy," Lucy told us. "She's my favorite sister."

Adrian knelt down to her eye level. "But you don't call her that in public, yeah?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "'Cause the humans don't understand about us."

"That's right, and even though they're usually nice, we can't tell them what we really are," he told her.

She nodded solemnly and gave him a tiny, adorable fist-bump.

I couldn't help but fidget a bit, fiddling with my fingers and the fabric of my tank top. This whole big-brother/little-sister scene reminded me so much of Holden that I had to blink back tears (and yes, I can still cry). Obviously, the age difference between Adrian and Lucy was quite a bit wider than it had been for my own older brother and I, but Lucy looked up to Adrian just as much as I had Holden.

Hoping my voice wasn't thick or wobbling, I asked my cousins, "Do you know what time we're going to the Smiths' house?"

"Five o'clock, why?" Adrian asked, standing up. "Makeup, I suppose?"

I pretended to retch at the mere thought of wearing makeup, and little Lucy joyfully imitated me.

"I don't wear makeup," I told him. "Never have. Ever. In the first place, I've never owned any. I've never been interested, and anyway we could never afford much of it. Second, I can't borrow Mam's because her makeup would look ridiculous on me. Different coloring, you know."

Adrian looked baffled. Lucy huffed loudly, annoyed with her brother's lack of expertise in the feminine arts, which made me laugh.

"Whatever the…" he paused, glancing down at our resident impressionable small child. "Whatever the heck that means." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Let's get ready, go to supper, yeah?"

I was surprised at how old the Smiths' house was. Large and rambling, with big rusted gates and cobbled stone siding, it had probably been in their family for generations. I loved the antiquated feel of the gnarled, huge trees, twirled in vines and the Tudor - real Tudor! - architecture, and couldn't help but stare in awe at the house and grounds as I walked up to the front door with my mam, aunt, uncle, and cousins.

From the other side of the odor , a girl's voice called out, "I'll get it!"

The door opened to reveal a pretty brunette with big brown eyes. She was short, unusual for a wolfblood but not unheard of. By sniffing her subtly - I hoped - I discovered she wasn't a hybrid but a pure wolfblood, a perfect melding of wolf and human. Again, unusual but not unheard of. She smiled at us. "Hi, Maya, Cedric, Adrian, Lucy. This must by Anya and Taylor. I'm Maddy. Come on in, we're just setting the table."

We all filed in after the girl to see a boy, about Adrian's height but much paler, with spiky blond hair. He'd started fidgeting; he was either nervous or hyperactive.

He smiled tentatively at...one of us, I couldn't tell who. He was cute, I supposed, but not really my type. Whatever my type even was.

"You must be Rhydian," I told him, looking him 'in the eye' which for me really meant at his ear. But I wanted these new people to trust me and Mam told me that when people thought I was looking them in the eye (which I found rather a load of bullshit because I couldn't properly look them in the eye anyway), they'd trust me. Whether that was different with wolfbloods, I had no idea.

"Yeah," he said. "And you're Taylor."

We sniffed each other, less unobtrusively than I'd done with Maddy. I knew a bit of Rhydian's story now, and if anyone would understand the need to sniff everyone you met, it would be him. Offhandedly, I wondered how a human would react if another human tried to sniff them - but then, I was only half human. And with this new pack, I sensed that I could finally feel at home...this was the first place I'd been in a long time where there were others like me.

"What does everyone want to drink?" Mrs. Smith asked. "We have apple cider, milk, orange juice, or water."

Maddy and Rhydian wanted apple cider; Lucy and I wanted milk; Mam, Aunt Maya, Uncle Cedric, Adrian, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith all wanted ice water. With that, we sat down and started munching on heaven, which consisted of succulent grilled chicken, baked brown beans with sauce and brown sugar, and baked asparagus seasoned with garlic and parmesan cheese. Mam was a decent cook, from what little I remembered of her cooking, but this was the first time I'd had a made-from-scratch, balanced meal in ages. It was amazing, and I told Mrs. Smith so.

"Thank you, pet, and please call me Emma," she said, smiling warmly.

"And I'm Dan," said Mr. Smith.

I blushed, humiliated. Had I really made my utter delight so obvious? God, they must all think I seem like some starving orphan, I thought.

Rhydian chuckled. "It's okay, I was the same way when Maddy first brought me here."

Maddy flushed bright red. "My parents were sooo embarrassing. It was hog night - Wednesdays, we always roast a pig - and they kept making meat puns."

Adrian smiled at her. "Oh, come off it. Your parents are great."

"Yeah!" cheered Lucy.

"Thank you, kids," said Dan, exchanging an affectionate smile with his wife.

"Well, at least someone appreciates us," joked Emma.

"If only the kids could be as gracious with their own parents," Uncle Cedric chimed in, and laughter rang around the table.

"So, Taylor, Mam says you've traveled a lot, yeah?" said Maddy.

"We've mostly stuck to little villages, and we've never left the islands," I explained. "It's not like we've been to Cambodia or Egypt, or something like that."

"But you must have seen some really beautiful stuff," she persisted.

I nodded and smiled. Yes, the reason I'd spent the previous six years of my life traveling was horrific - but I'd never regret the beauty I'd seen and experienced, the adventures I'd had along the way. Living on the road had taught me so much about life. "I have. Do you remember that solar eclipse, back in July 2011?"

She thought back. "Oh yeah. I didn't see it in real life, but I've seen pictures."

"You were on the Holy Island back then?"

"I remember that," reminisced Mam with a sigh. "We'd been camping out under the stars for a week, and that night we stayed out under the stars with mugs of chicken soup and hot tea. There was music and dancing, and a festival to celebrate."

"Lindisfarne is one of the most beautiful places in the world," I said, remembering how much I'd loved it there.

"Well, one of the most beautiful in Britain anyhow," pointed out Aunt Maya. She and Mam exchanged a conspiratorial glance, and I knew they were remembering their childhoods in the former Soviet Union.

"And then there's Welsh fishing villages," I continued. "So beautiful, but so...smelly."

Mam grinned, reminiscing again. "Indeed. I do adore Wales, but there's no denying the stench of those fishing ports."

"And the really old villages in the Scottish highlands, with the Celtic names," I said with a smile. "I could never pronounce them...and I speak fluent Russian."

Mam, Adrian, and Aunt Maya, who were also Russian, snorted with amusement. Even we knew that our language was hard.

"You've not lived until you've eaten broiled sheep intestine stuffed with cow liver," Mam teased.

"The things those Highlanders did with meat," I cracked...which, since we were a species with a protein-based diet, got everyone howling (pun intended) again.

"Have you ever been to Stonehenge?" asked Adrian. "I've always wanted to."

"You're such a geek," teased Maddy.

"Yes, I have, and it's honestly the most beautiful at night," I told them. "Everyone talks about the stark beauty of the stones during the day, rising from the ground like...like I don't even know. But when they're casting shadows on the ground, looming up into a clear, starry night...God, it's amazing."

Maddy and Rhydian's faces creased into frowns.

"What?" I asked, and after a moment it occurred to me. "Oh, right. I can see, a bit." Tired of talking about my (legal) blindness, I returned to the subject. "Last May, we spent two months hiking through the white cliffs of Dover. That's probably the best fun I've ever had."

"More than camping on Lindisfarne during a solar eclipse?" Adrian said, aghast. "God, I've always wanted to see one of those."

"Okay, second-best fun," I amended. "I also went to a Specials concert...we crashed one, out-of-doors, a few weeks ago in Cornwall. That was my first real concert."

"We did go to that Scottish music festival in Glen Nevis during Samhain last year," Mam reminded me.

"We did," I replied. "But that wasn't a concert."

"How did you handle full moons, Anya?" Aunt Maya wondered aloud.

"Whenever the moon was coming, I'd make sure to find us a quiet, secluded place to stay," my mother said. "One where Taylor would be safe from any…"

Emma shot a frigid glare at Mam, stopping her in mid-sentence. Dan patted his wife's hand. I raised my eyebrows, wondering why this nice couple was suddenly acting so odd.

"Anya, can we talk to you for a moment in the kitchen?" Uncle Cedric said, noisily plunking down his water glass. Note that I say he said this, not he asked. Not rude, exactly, but he was making it clear that he was not to be effed with.

Adrian, Maddy, Rhydian, and I exchanged looks, thoroughly weirded out. Lucy, who was too young to understand, only teared up at her father's harsh tone of voice. Uncle Cedric saw his daughter's distress and immediately took her in his arms to comfort her.

Once she was okay again, though, all five adults left the room….and all five of us kids to our own devices.

"What are they doing?" marveled Maddy. "We're wolfbloods, even if only Rhydian and Adrian can change so far. It's not like we can't hear them."

"We can't if they're writing it down," hissed Rhydian, gesturing to the breakfast nook. Mam, Emma, Anya, Uncle Cedric, and Dan, who'd clearly had the same thought as Maddy, were passing around a piece of paper and pen...the only way they could have a conversation so close to us without us hearing. Without them hearing, that is. But I could.

I shushed the others. Maddy and Lucy had the sense to be quiet, but Adrian and Rhydian protested.

"What?" said Adrian. "It's not like we can hear them anyhow."

"Yeah, there's no point in…" Rhydian began to agree with my cousin.

I cut him off. "Just trust me. I know what I'm doing."

The boys exchanged skeptical looks but, thankfully, shut up.

After a few minutes, I'd heard enough. "It's about the...the wild."

"The wild?" Maddy asked me in confusion.

"I'll explain when Lucy isn't here," I told her.

What I'd 'heard', through the odd and fuzzy code of the pen scratching, was that Emma's cousin (I was pretty sure her name was Louise) had left for the wild; in other words, she'd abandoned human civilization to live among a human-hating pack in the forest. Because of that, she'd made Dan swear to never tell Maddy about the wild...and together, they'd forced Aunt Maya and Uncle Cedric to take the same vow with Adrian and Lucy. Rhydian, having been raised by humans, was naive in everything wolfblood-related and they were determined to keep him that way. And now I was the only one who knew this secret.

But Mam was a former wild wolf; she'd only come back to human life when she fell in love with my father. She, as a naive young girl still coming into her powers, had been fascinated with the savage beauty of the wild, not realizing just how far it reached into straight-up savagery. She'd suffered horrifying abuse from her wild pack in those years for being three-quarters human, and because of that she and Dad had always made sure to keep Holden and I informed. They knew we might need to someday defend ourselves against wolfblood supremacists who hated us for something we couldn't even control. I'd always known that ignorance wasn't necessarily bliss, and I hated the idea of letting my new pack-mates remain ignorant...but for now, I'd have to grin and bear it.

What I didn't understand was why Aunt Maya and Uncle Cedric hadn't at least tried to reason with Dan and Emma. My aunt and uncle were both hybrids, just like my parents. They knew the possible consequences of allowing their children, both of whom were hybrids (though, mysteriously, Adrian had more wolf blood in his veins than his sister), to not know about the wild.

I also wondered why Mam hadn't informed the other adult wolves about my hearing. She knew how much sharper my hearing and secondary senses were, even compared to those of a pure wolfblood. She knew I could translate the scratching of writing into human speech, but she hadn't told our new packmates - even though one of them was the estranged sister she desperately wanted to make amends with. Why not? Had she wanted me to hear them? And if so, why? What did she want me to do?

(A/N: Since they don't show Wolfbloodin America anymore, I have no idea what to write while I'm describing episode 3, which is what I'm hoping to write next. It'll have some Taylor/Rhydian bonding due to the fact that they've both lost family members and are caught between wolfblood and human, but don't worry - I'd never break up Maddian! Also, Taylor is gay, so there's always the little fact that they can't date...she is going to be paired with another character, though. I'm thinking either Kay or Shannon. Any ideas?)