"Three days," Malory sighed, her breath tangible in the air that had already begun to warm. "Then we can start hunting." Her words were nothing but a murmur in the breeze but they were all Wolfbloods here, gathered on the courtyard grass; herself, Malory, Isaac, Sam and James- everyone except Rhydian. And, as if her friend had read her mind, she asked "Where's Rhydian? Is he still drawing... or whatever it is that he does for art?" It brought her attention back to her friend for a moment. Yes, three days until they could start looking for him, the wild Wolfblood, because it was decided they would go after the upcoming full moon. They couldn't risk attacking, not without that sense of humanity that disappeared with the moon's light. But Rhydian, that's who was on her mind. She'd only been here a few days but already she had noticed his lack of... well, him. She'd asked Malory and the only answer she'd gotten was that he'd been like it since he returned, always with his head sunk into his work. It shouldn't have made her worried but she couldn't help the strange feeling that came with the thought of him, something- she'd realised- that came with the bond between them. They were aware of each other, their wolves understanding what the human in them could not, even when they didn't understand it themselves. She'd tried to ask him but he'd seemed so fine, so normal that she hadn't really known what to ask. But he wasn't with her now, when he usually would have.
"Yeah, probably," was all she replied. Isaac made some sarcastic comment but she knew the look in their eyes as worry and curiosity, so as Sam laughed she stood to go find him. Because with everything that had happened and everything that would happen, he was her constant and she just hoped that she could be his.
He was perched on the edge of his bed when she walked in without knocking, knowing he would have sensed her. "I'm okay, Maddy," he smiled up at her. That infuriating disarming smile that made her want to believe him, if not for the nagging sense of wrongness that she couldn't ignore.
"You understand that you can't actually fool me, right? Me?" She let her words escape with confidence, and in any other circumstances they might have been said while joking. But Rhydian knew her, they knew each other and no matter how minor it might be, she wanted him to rely on her the way she had this past month. Because neither of them could deny how hard it had been lately and that just because she was healed and they were back, there wasn't going to be those lingering repercussions. He smiled up at her again, reaching to grab her wrist and pull her down to him.
"This," he started, his breath whispering past her ear from where she sat beside him, "is what's wrong." He handed her a notebook, one of the many she'd seen littered around this room of his, and she opened it. At first, it was just images of wolves, wolves she recognised as the friends she'd made and grown to care for. Malory standing tall and proud, her ears twitching at a sound in the distance, her pack (Sam and James) behind her. Isaac baring his teeth, not in ferocity but in wolfish playfulness, at the viewer. Then her, so many small drawings of her, human and Wolf. It made her eyes tear up slightly but he didn't touch her, he remained where he was, hands folded in his lap. She touched the edge of the thick paper, and watched from the corner of his eyes as his hands whitened in a tight grip. The next page made her pause, made her hesitant to touch the thick paper, it's face marred with dark lines of graphite. It made her look at him, at his beautiful artists eyes, that saw too much and made him draw images that he couldn't forget because they remembered everything. She reached to touch his face, even as his face blurred from her vision. She had been hurt, yes, she had even died. But he had been hurt too, maybe not physically, but he'd been scarred by what he saw. It showed in his own watering eyes, that met hers without hesitation but still with regret, and it showed on the jagged lines that painted the scene of how he'd seen the wild Wolfblood that day, standing over a dark smudge that must have been her body, and how he'd found her laying in that bed in Thomas' house, unable to move or speak or open her eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" She asked, closing the book, not needing to see anymore. She would look again later, but not now.
"After everything you'd been through? I didn't want to hurt you, Mads. I just... I couldn't forget, not when I was asleep, not when I was awake." He paused, holding her hand to his face, "I still can't. If only I was faster..." His words pierced her heart like daggers because she could feel and hear the strain of them inside him, what these fears had been doing to him and how helpless he had felt. Because she could hear his own heart hurting and it made her Wolf struggle to be nearer to him. As though closeness could ease the separation that had been between them when she'd been lying there all those weeks, that had been between them as he'd raced to save her, and that had been between them as she healed. He hadn't told her sooner because of everything she'd been through, and not even when her scars had disappeared. He'd had to wait until they had left the confines of Thomas' house, until they were really truly alone. All those weeks that she had been stuck in that bed, he hadn't left her. More importantly, his Wolf hadn't left her, even going to far as to remain in his Wolf skin over night. He'd been unsettled and separated and it had driven his Wolf insane then just as she sought for closeness now. So as she placed the notebook aside, she moved onto his knee, wrapping her arms around his neck, forcing him to read every emotion on her face, forcing him to look at her. This was a talk that they had needed since she had woken but couldn't have, a finality to the events that had happened so that they could move on and focus on what was yet to come.
"I love you. Do you hear me?" She said, watching his gaze focus on her, watching the Wolf in his eyes focus on her. "Remember that day I had to leave?" Sadness seeped in now as he nodded. "It was one of the worst days of my life. It was the worst day. I didn't want to leave and yet, I ended up travelling so far. So so far that on nights when I couldn't hear the wind or remember the sound of wolves. I used to worry that I was too far away for you to find me and I'd be so scared that I'd never get to see you again." Her own eyes had started to tear up now, heat rising in her cheeks as she continued. "But you found me, Rhydian Morris. An ocean and a world between us and you found me. And I never doubt anymore, because even when I can't hear the wind, I can still hear you. No matter where I am and what happens, I know you're there. Can't you feel it?" She knew he could, knew he could feel that bond as strongly as she could, that frightening and electrifying thrum that bound them to each other in the way that only their wolves truly understood. He nodded, and she watched as his body relaxed, as the tears fell freely but his shaking hands had steadied, as his head fell to rest on her chest, as his breathing became steady and calmed.
"You're here," he spoke into her skin. "You're here and you're okay, I can feel that even if I can't see that." He lifted his head, an arm reaching around her waist to sit on her back while his other hand lightly touched his fingers to where the scar had been on her neck. "That was the worst day of my life, Maddy. Because even when we were separated, you were alive. This, what he did to you, that threatened all of that. It threatened you. And I felt it, I felt you slipping away and there was nothing I could have done. But even then, I know that I would have found you. I'm okay, Mads. I'm okay." They hadn't spoke about this before, about how it had affected him. But here they were, talking now, ending the torment they had both gone through, even if she still felt the lingering effects. They were quiet for a while, his head resting on her shoulder as she played with his hair, until a light laugh left her
"There was an awful lot of detail in Malory's picture. I didn't even realise she had a scar there, you must have been looking quite intently to find that one." He groaned at the sound of teasing in her voice, knowing that there wasn't actually any ounce of jealousy in it.
"Don't start," he said, humour - a sound she hadn't realised she had needed to hear until now- lacing his.
"No, really, do you find her as beautiful as you drew her?" She let out a fake gasp. "Do I have competition?" A small nip at the crevice where her neck met her shoulders made her shout out and laugh.
"Not nearly as beautiful as that sound," he paused to look up at her with a wicked grin that made her stomach flutter, "or this one," he said before pulling her towards him. His lips met hers with a slow fiery passion that she had come to expect from him, and she didn't even notice the moan that had escaped her lips until he pulled back and chuckled. "That one right there." Her face must have been red because he was suddenly laughing, a sound she had come to love and cherish. And a sound she would knew she would do anything to hear more of.
Everything would be okay. For the next three days, everything would be fine. If she told herself that, if she could just ignore the nagging sensation that Thomas' root had stopped working, everything would be okay. But the closer the full moon got, the less she could ignore it.