Maddy was excited that night, she was bouncing about something and he figured it was about wherever she'd been going that afternoon. It reminded him of the time of the lunar eclipse where she'd jumped on his back and had him run around the house. He laughed quietly at the thought and she raised an eyebrow at him from her chair beside him at the table.
"What are you smiling about?" She quizzed, her accent had changed slightly, had gotten softer.
"Nothing, just a thought." Her mum was watching them across the table with knowing eyes, her dad was oblivious to everything but his dinner plate. He'd once told someone that his pack had been taken away from him when they'd left to Canada. It was true. Even though he'd had Shannon and Tom (even Jana), he hadn't had this. It seemed like so long ago that they'd had that first 'hog-roast'. She made a noise from beside him, one that said she'd be sure to ask again later, then carried on bouncing her leg. He paused, food halfway to his mouth. Dan and Emma had already begun another conversation between them at the other side of the table when he asked, "So what did you do today?" He knew there was suspicion lacing his voice but he also knew there was humour, because whatever she'd done, she was obviously itching to tell them. He'd only put off asking this long to tease her. She stilled for a moment before her face broke out into a huge grin.
"I got a job." It was her parents that congratulated her and began asking questions whilst he stayed silent. But he couldn't help it, that damned smile had floored him speechless. He never forgot how beautiful she was, but sometimes it caught him off guard, like now, she was smiling because she was proud of herself and somehow it just... it caught him off guard. Then she looked at him and frowned and it made him angry at himself for being the reason she stopped smiling. He matched her earlier grin,
"We'll see you in the Olympics then, yeah?" He watched her face go serious but he could see the humour in her eyes.
"I'll get you front row tickets." It had always been this way with them, easy and comfortable and fun and it tore at his heart to remember that there had been a time that he'd never had this and that there had been a time that he'd lost this. But as he watched them smile and laugh, his Wolf hummed with contentment, assuring him that he would never lose this again, never lose his pack again.

It was dark outside when he was leaving, the kind of dark you could only ever get in Canada. Where the shadows of the trees and the light of the moon mingled and danced together to form shapes in the night forest, as much alive in the dark as it was in the day (if not more so), and the stars were so clear and the moon so bright it didn't seem like it could possibly be the same one they'd howled to in Stoneybridge. But he wasn't paying much attention to the outside, not when she was stood so close to him. He watched as the frigid wind that seeped through the half open door played with her hair. Mesmerised as it curled away from her face and floated. He could see her watching him, watching him as he took a lock of her hair in his hand and tugged on it.
"Ouch," she laughed, the sound getting muffled then hushing altogether as he brought her towards him and kissed her. There was something different when he kissed her now to when he had that day she left. That day the kiss had been claiming, a goodbye and a hello, a promise. Now it didn't need to be, now she had him, he was hers. And he wasn't ever letting her go again. He'd have deepened the kiss but now wasn't really the time, even as his Wolf urged him on. Instead, he pulled away from her. He regretted it. Her face was flushed and he could her heart racing, he could sense her Wolf reaching out to his own and his predatory instincts told him exactly what she wanted. He took a step back because if he didn't, he would have given in to her.
"Goodnight, Maddy," he smiled, his own heart beating wildly.
"Goodnight, Rhydian," she said, but he was already racing away, to that lovely lovely forest and away from that beautiful beautiful girl, her words carrying on the wind.