Chapter 10 - Maddy and Rhydian's First Date - Part 1
I was practically leaping up and down. My wolf fidgeted on every level of alertness, giddy for him to arrive.
Rhydian, where are you? Rhydian! It was so early that a thick mist still smothered the trees. The faintest shimmer of sunlight cast a stripe on the horizon. Birds made their riotous early-morning symphony as I thought about the day's plans. I was standing behind Shan's house, looking out onto a vast stretch of woods. The plan was simple. Shan's older cousin Myra was visiting during her break from uni, and she'd agreed to drive all of us—me, Rhydian, Shan, and Tom, to Stirling after breakfast this morning.
My parents had let me stay the night at Shan's, which was a major godsend. It meant that I hadn't had to hide my anticipation around them, which meant I still hadn't told them about me and Rhydian being a couple. Now, with the excruciating wait and Shan still fast asleep, I just couldn't get Shan's words out of my head as I thought about last night's stay-over.
"Mads, if you chew your lip any more it's going to be bloody."
I threw my best mate a dirty look and groaned, putting my head between my hands. "I can't help it. I'm nervous about tomorrow."
Shan paused the movie we'd been watching, Shaun of the Dead, and moved over from the other end of the sofa, wrapping an arm around me to give a commiserating squeeze.
"You've got nothing to be worried about. Once we get to Stirling Castle, you and Rhydian can go off on your own, explore the whole place to your heart's content and then go out to eat afterward, have time to explore the whole town! It'll be an amazing date, Mads. I know you'll have fun and Rhydian's so taken with you. What's not to like?"
I rubbed a hand down my face, sighing. "Nothing. That's just it. Mentally I know that tomorrow should be amazing. I've always wanted to see the castle, so has Rhydian. No parents to worry about, no annoying classmates from school, no teachers, adults, whatnot. Any time I'm spending with Rhydian, that's all I need and all I want." I smiled ruefully, and Shan gave me that encouraging look which only a trusted girlfriend can.
"And yet…" she prodded, her chin lowering as she gave me this 'Out with it!' look.
I threw up my hands. "And yet, me feelings are all jumbled because I don't just want 'good' or 'amazing'. I want 'perfect'. That's what Rhydian deserves. That's how much I care about him. I want our first date to be that magical memory that he'll always have. That I'll have too."
Shan bolted from the sofa, twirling as she chuckled. "Oh, Mads. If only the rest of the world could have YOUR kind of problems. You do realize how silly that sounds?"
I readjusted my polar bear sleep shirt and the joggers I was wearing, grumbling something under my breath about unsupportive friends.
"I know, Shan. Logically, I know that wishing for some unattainable perfection like that is just dumb. It's setting up pressure we don't need either. As wolfbloods, we have enough of that just keeping our secret safe." I stood up, starting to pace, but Shan snagged my hands and trapped me in a hug.
"Maddy Smith, tomorrow you are going out on your first date with a boy who absolutely adores you. No matter WHAT happens, Mads, it will be a perfect date not because of the minutiae of what you do or what you see but because of how you feel towards Rhydian and Rhydian towards you." She smirked at me. "The boys' so smitten with you that I would bet all the cinnamon rolls in the universe that even if our van gets stuck in a ditch on the way to Stirling tomorrow and we end up having to sit for hours along the roadside, Rhydian will STILL be glad he's there because you're right beside him."
I balked at Shan. "Don't joke about that. I love cinnamon rolls." Hopefully the universe hadn't taken Shan up on that bet.
I came back to the present, looking out as the mist rolled in over the dew-laden fields between me and the forest. Rhydian and I had decided to get an early start on the day, to let our wolves run wild and free before the long drive to Stirling. Plus, as Rhydian had pointed out, this could be our 'pre-date', which was doubly brilliant because it meant that somehow in my heart's muddled-up sense of logic, that meant that I didn't need to feel nervous about this morning.
He was late though, and that was a pet peeve of mine. I stamped my feet in the crisp, autumn breeze. My breath fogged up the air as I blew into my hands and rubbed them furiously, displacing my annoyance. Rhydian, come on!
As if my thoughts had telepathically pulled him on some unseen leash, there he was! Rhydian loped out from the tree line. He was running hard, gasping when he came up short right in front of me. I went to hug him but he put his hand out, and that's when I saw it.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Mads." I saw real torment behind those eyes. Oh God. What is it? Our first date wasn't exactly starting out on the right paw.
Rhydian pushed a hand through his hair and gave me a look that I'd never seen before. It was so vulnerable, and so…raw.
"On the way here this morning I ran into a wild wolfblood. Her name's Ceri. She…she told me she's my mum."
A jolt slammed into my heart, my mouth went completely dry, and my hands tingled. Thoughts of our trivial date went slipping away, like water down a drain. At a complete loss for words, I searched his face to see what he was feeling.
"Do you need to go? I mean if she's your mum you should talk to her, you should…" I let the words trail off, trying not to let the selfish anger at our ruined date discolor my tone. Thanks Shan. Way to jinx us. I looked awkwardly at a clump of grass between my shoes. "If you need to go to her, you should. She's your mum," I repeated. I gathered up the strength to do the right thing. Rhydian needed to do this or he'd have regrets, always wondering. I raised my eyes to meet Rhydian's and I took his hand. I ignored the welcome heat that shot past my elbow as our fingers entwined. I was just doing this to comfort him, I reminded myself. That was all. He had to go and cancel coming with us today. He had more important things on his mind than going to see some silly castle.
"She tried to make me come with her. I told her off. I told her she was about a decade or so too late." Rhydian's blue eyes looked bleak, like a never-ending winter.
No. No, no, no. "Rhydian, you can't just do that if she's your mum. You have to give her a chance. You don't know anything, not really—about what happened, about any of it. You have to give her a chance! Keep an open mind."
Rhydian's lips curled as his eyes distilled into this brooding, restless resentment. "No, Maddy. That's just it. I don't. I'm not interested in her excuses. After some of the other things she said to me…." He shook his head, as if trying to wrest out a fly that had flown into his ear.
"What things?" I took a step forward as he did the one thing I wasn't expecting. His arms wrapped me up tight and he picked me up, his lips finding mine. I barely had time to prepare for it, my hands gripping his shoulders for balance. He tasted of the cinnamon bun he'd probably snacked on during the run over from the Vaughns'. Rhydian's citrus-pine scent enveloped me like a second skin. I deepened the kiss on instinct, my tongue tussling with his as we just kissed and kissed, as if we were both feverish, like this was the last kiss we'd ever share. We stayed like that for not quite a minute before he put me down.
The anger on his face had vanished, replaced by a Zen-like calm, as if Rhydian had become the first wolfblood Dalai Lama.
"The nasty things she said…it doesn't matter. You're probably right, Mads. I should give her the chance to tell me her story. To find out what happened to me and to my family." His eyes turned resolute. "But I made it clear to her that I have things here in Stoneybridge that matter to me very much." His fingers gently caressed my knuckles as he pulled me back in for a chaste but no less meaningful kiss. "Now all of this will get sorted out, one way or another. Meanwhile two things I do know. Stoneybridge is my home now, no matter what my new mum has to say about it. And second, nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to stop me from taking you out on our first date, Maddy Smith. Is that clear?"
I nodded at him, a stupid grin rearranging my face, my heart doing acrobatics that would have made most Olympic gymnasts jealous. The love I had for this boy had just grown like ten thousand flowers blooming all out once, tugging at me in a way that had me aching for what might come next. Even as he was going through something I couldn't even imagine with his long-lost mum, he was still thinking of me. I didn't deserve that kind of consideration, not when we'd only just started dating, did I?
"You're beautiful when you smile, Mads. You know that?" I blushed as he drew the back of his hand down my face, caressing my cheek. Then he took my hand in his.
"Come on. Are we going to do this or what?" The wicked grin on his face sent a thrill from my fingertips to my toes. We sprinted for the trees as the sun's tip cleared the horizon, and the second we were under cover of the canopy we let our wolves come roaring forth. My tawny-tinged fur brushed past a blur of foliage as I leapt over Rhydian and led him on a merry chase, his playful growl making me run faster and faster, ducking and weaving. We were two furry stones shot by some invisible slingshot, our wolves gliding through the forest as if the whole world were our hunting ground. I sniffed the air, redolent of the pines, cedars, aspens, birch trees, evergreens—all of it integrated into my wolf's senses, so seamless.
Being human might have been essential to who I was, but this was too. In some ways more so. This was a part of me that I could never live without. Wolfing out in the forest, running with these four powerful limbs churning the soil, feeling one with the earth as if every plant, every trickling stream or waterfall, was somehow part of my very blood. And best of all, I have someone to share this with. I looked back at Rhydian, hot on my tail and gaining. He growled in triumph as he rolled over me, sending me sliding into a nearby tree. I yelped playfully as he nuzzled me, pinning me with his bulkier wolf.
Got you. You're mine. That was the wolf-speak I knew, and it was funny…how wolves could communicate some things far better than humans. I gave him a wolfy grin as he let me wiggle my way out, and then the chase was on again, my paws kicking up a rainbow's assortment of dead leaves as I leapt over the nearest ridge and loped headlong through a dense patch of pines. My wolf's heartbeat thudded hard, all my muscles awake and warm now despite the early morning chill. Rhydian plunged down the ridge behind me, growling a promise that I wouldn't stay free for long. He caught up to me nearly at the tree line before a huge, open field. He nipped at my flank and I returned the favor. We nuzzled each other, tails wagging as our heartrates slowly returned to normal.
I saw him stiffen at the same time as I heard it too. Human voices, and familiar ones at that. My wolf gave Rhydian's a look that said it all: We are NOT going to help them or even talk to them, no matter what. I learned my lesson from last time.
As we changed back into our human forms, I put a finger to my lips. Rhydian nodded.
Liam's boastful voice carried to us as he stood with Sam and Jimi in the middle of the open field. I had forgotten that the vast forest behind Shan's family's land connected to Liam's, but it came back to me as I heard Liam talking. I instinctively strained to listen in because after the confrontation yesterday morning with Liam in the darkroom, well, he had been sending strange looks my way the rest of that day at school. Had he told Jimi and Sam about seeing my arms covered in blue-black veins? If so, had they believed a word he said? Why were they in the middle of a totally uninteresting field, for all intents and purposes the middle of nowhere?
Rhydian and I crept forward like two forest ninjas. I brushed strands of hair away from my ear to better listen, but I wasn't prepared for what I heard.
"I'm telling you, she's a werewolf."
"And I'm King Kong," Jimi laughed.
"Look, if you don't believe me…here, I have proof." Rhydian and I strained to see what he was holding up like a trophy. "After Maddy acted all weird when I confronted her about the blue veins shooting up and down her arms, I broke into her best mate's locker, just to rummage around and see if Shan might have a photograph of Maddy looking all messed up. I knew it was a long-shot, but you wouldn't believe what I found. This recorder." My heart stopped, I got dizzy. Panic made it hard to breathe.
"I listened to it, and in it you can hear Shannon Kelly describing Maddy turning into a wolf. Like she's taking notes, all clinical-like. I'm telling you she's a werewolf. Those veins I saw popping out on her arms, what else could it be except the sign of the change?"
I could hear the rapid thud of my heart galloping out of control as Sam's voice carried to me in the woods.
"You woke us both up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning and dragged us out here for this? Mate, if you call that proof you really have lost it." Jimi grunted his agreement before putting in his two cents' worth.
"Seriously, Liam. I don't know what you saw, Maddy's 'blue veins' or whatever. Maybe you secretly have a crush on her, this is just your sick way of showing it. You want to be some lame, monster-hunting nerd with no life, you can do it without us. Everyone knows Shan's completely obsessed with her 'beast of the moors' rubbish. She hasn't blabbed on about it recently, but that doesn't mean she's not still crazy-fixated on it. Maybe Shan and her little friends go out at night and roleplay out on the moors, humoring her ridiculous delusions." Jimi waved his hand at Liam as dismissively as anyone could. "Either way, I don't want any part of crazy. Werewolves? Get your head checked, mate. You want to join Shannon Kelly down the rabbit hole, be my guest, but you can go it alone as far as I'm concerned."
"Yeah, what he said," Sam chimed in, jerking a thumb in Jimi's direction.
"Wait!" Liam protested. "I've got more proof. That's why I brought you guys out here. In this very field someone found traces of a part-human, wolf-like skeleton. My dad's having someone come out to dig it up and analyze the bones on Monday. And get this—I found an old journal that shows my ancestors were werewolf hunters. This very skeleton has to be one of the monsters that my ancestors killed!"
The passion and excitement in Liam's voice made me sick. The idea that a fellow wolfblood had been brutally murdered a stone's throw away made me want to retch. But it made me furious too, and the anger was surging, soon to win out over all other emotions. You were wrong, Shan. That recording was not 'harmless', I realized bitterly. It still did no good resenting her, not now, not when I needed to come up with a plan. The wolf was too enraged though, the more I thought about that dead wolfblood lying somewhere in Liam's field, its family never getting the sense of closure it deserved. I went to stand up as Rhydian caught my arm.
"Wait here. Let me handle this."
Suddenly it hit me, something that just might work. I surged to my feet.
"No, I'm coming with you."
A/N - That's all for Part 1 of Maddy and Rhydian's first date, and please let me know what you thought if you'd like. Things are not exactly going as planned, but don't worry - they will make it to Stirling Castle, one way or another, and get the chance to have that proper date. Of course not before a few other surprises/mishaps intervene. Maddy just might have a clever idea or two to put Liam in his place. I should have Part 2 of Maddy and Rhydian's first date posted by this Friday.
Oh, and I have to give a few shout-outs:
Bella minkas - Your kind words of encouragement helped me get this chapter out as soon as I did, so a thank-you is definitely in order :)
Luckyduck22 - Kudos for correctly predicting that Shan's recording would indeed come back to bite Maddy in the bum.
Grandemocha - Thanks for reminding me about the angle w/ Mads' parents - I'm planning some very fun and awkward situations for the big reveal when Dan and Emma discover Maddy and Rhydian's relationship is getting serious.