Disclaimer: I do not own Wolfblood

Episode Six, Part 1 - "Sad Moon Rising"

That night, all of the Smiths discovered that full moons were no fun at all when you were grieving the loss of someone.

Maddy already knew this, of course – losing Rhydian all that time ago had made her first few full moons in Canada excruciating – but Emma and Dan had yet to learn it.

They learned it that night.

When they knew it was time, the three of them plus Rhydian made their way down in to the den, locking the door securely behind them. They stood in a circle again, holding hands supportively before each of their transformations happened, but nothing was the way it was supposed to be.

Instead of running around the den like wild wolves, chewing and howling and playing, all of them remained quiet.
Emma and Dan moved over to one side of the Den and lay down silently, their eyes closing as if all they wanted to do was sleep for a really long time.

Rhydian watched as Maddy's dark brown figure slumped over to the very corner of the room. She lay down, curling herself in to a ball. Her golden eyes were still open and they looked sadder than Rhydian had ever seen them.

Rhydian followed her over, whimpering as he went. He hated seeing her in so much pain.
Full moons were supposed to be the best day of the month for them. These nights weren't supposed to be filled with such sorrow and sadness; they were supposed to be a happy occasion.

Lying just behind her, Rhydian licked the fur on the back of Maddy's neck in comfort and then rested his head over her shoulder. It wasn't much, but it was all he could do.
She seemed to lean further in to him and then her eyes closed, and the rest of the night was spent like that. Quiet, sad and tense.

"Are you sure you don't want some tea, Rhydian?" Emma asked, poking her head around the living room door.

Rhydian smiled slightly. "I'm sure. Thanks."

Emma nodded in acknowledgement and then went off to make some tea for her husband and daughter.

When she came back, the four of them sat in the living room together in complete silence, and for a moment it felt weird. The last time they had all sat together had been in Canada when nothing was wrong for them except not being at home.

But now they were back home, and everything felt like it was falling apart.

Rhydian and Maddy were on one of the small sofas, Maddy leaning her head on Rhydian's shoulder as she sat with her legs curled to her side. Emma and Dan were on the other in a similar position.

"Mam," Maddy broke the long silence, her voice quiet. "Are you two staying now? For good?"

Emma nodded slowly, taking a sip of her tea before looking at her daughter. "We have to."

"Why?" Maddy asked. "Not that I don't want you to stay, or anything…but just…why do you have to?"

There was an ominous pause. Maddy could hear Rhydian's heartbeat through his chest and he put his arm over her shoulders supportively.

"We have to stay, pet, because the Wildblood will be after us next," Emma started tentatively. Maddy's breath caught in her throat. "He might come after us, at least, and it's not safe for the two of you to be here on your own."

"But you guys will be safer if you leave."

Dan shook his head. "He'll come for us eventually, too. There's safety in numbers."

Instinctively, Rhydian started rubbing his hand up and down Maddy's arm comfortingly. But Maddy still felt panic run through her as she sat up straight.
She had been so devastated by the loss of her family that she hadn't even thought about the repercussions.

"What if he does come for us?" Maddy asked suddenly, her voice trembling slightly with a hint of hysteria behind it. "What do we do then? We can't run away again!"

"Hey, hey, shh," Rhydian soothed, reaching down and taking her hand tightly in his. Maddy looked at him. The fear in her eyes was indescribable. "I won't let anything happen to you." He said seriously, looking right in to her eyes.

Maddy's lip trembled and she looked over to her parents who were frowning too.

"We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it, pet," Emma said softly, putting her mug down on the table and then moving across the room to sit next to Maddy. She put her arm around her cub and Maddy leaned her head on her shoulder. "We'll work it out."

"…I missed you guys." Maddy admitted in to the fabric of her mum's top.

Emma smiled. "We missed you too."

Rhydian went in to school the next day, but Maddy stayed at home. Because there was no more Morwal in her – or at least none of it coming to the surface – she could see the logic behind her parent's decision to keep her home. And, besides, she was exhausted anyway, so school wasn't the best-looking thing on the cards right now.

However, Rhydian still had to go in to school. He didn't really want to, but he knew he should, and he knew Maddy would be safe at home with her parents. Had this been a week ago and it was just the two of them, no way would he have gone to school and left Maddy on her own after the state she had been in yesterday.

All day, he thought about her. Every lesson he spent wondering how she was getting on; if she was still feeling exhausted and upset or if things were starting to pick up. He knew she was scared about the Wildblood coming after her (to be honest, he was worried about it too) but he was hoping that her parents would be able to keep her worries at bay.

"How's Maddy doing? Have you heard from her today?" Shannon asked as she sat down at the lunch table with Rhydian.

Rhydian shook his head. "No, not yet. But she's okay…I think."

"Good. How was the full moon last night?"

"Not great."

"I'm sorry, Rhydian," Shannon said, smiling sadly and reaching over to put her hand on top of Rhydian's. "Are you okay?"

Rhydian shrugged. "I'm just worried about her."

"She'll be safe with her parents. You know that."

Nodding, he looked down at his lunch and tried to convince himself that he believed Shannon.

Maddy ran through the forest at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. She was running so fast that her legs seemed to be moving of their own accord; they were aching and her bones seemed to creak with every touch to the ground.

For a moment she thought she had gotten away, but then the sound of growling and snarling filled her ears, accompanied by the sound of thudding paws. Her parents had been killed ten minutes ago, but she was still running; although she wasn't sure she was ever going to get away from this Wildblood.

She was panting, her breath rugged as she ran through the woods, her brown hair whipping around her face in the wind.

And just as she turned around to check her surroundings, a huge, jet black wolf pounced at her, its teeth bared and a look in its red eyes that could only be described as evil.

"Maddy!" She heard a faint voice call out in the background. The wolf was flying towards her in the air as if in slow motion and she was almost too paralysed with fear to speak.

"Rhydian?" She called out, her own voice sounding much louder than the one that had called her name.

"Maddy, it's me! Wake up!"

Maddy's eyes flew open and she shot around in her bed to face where the voice was coming from, her eyes wide and beads of sweat covering her forehead. She was totally out of breath.

"Maddy?" Rhydian asked, crouching down by the bed in front of her, a worried look on his face.

"Rhydian…" Maddy whispered, her voice weak and strained with tears that were now pouring out of her eyes involuntarily. The dream had felt so real; it took her a moment to focus back in to reality.

"Maddy, what's wrong? I heard your heartbeat increase and then you started breathing heavily in your sleep," Rhydian said, his voice quiet so as not to wake her parents.

"I…I had a dream…he…he was coming after us…"

Rhydian knelt down on the floor and brought his hand up to softly stroke her hair. She was sitting up on her elbow, not quite able to meet his eye.

"Who was coming after you, Mads?"

"The Wildblood," Maddy answered, her voice trembling slightly. "He's coming for us, Rhydian. He's not going to stop until he gets what he wants." Maddy hadn't even noticed that she was crying; fat, salty tears falling down her cheeks.

"Shh," Rhydian soothed, standing up and climbing on to the bed beside her when she scooted over. "It's okay. You're safe." He wrapped his arms around her, letting her bury her face in to his shoulder. He held their bodies close together.

"It felt so real…"

"I know. But I won't let anything happen to you, okay? You're safe."

Maddy nodded rapidly, but she wasn't so sure.

Rhydian lay with her for a while as Maddy stayed awake, trying her absolute hardest not to fall asleep. She was scared that she might go back in to that nightmare, or maybe even start a new one.

The dream wasn't just a dream, and Maddy knew that. It was expectations; just a preview of what was to come. Like Eolas but in a dream.
She knew that tomorrow she would have to tell her parents about the nightmare.

There was a voice in her head telling her it was just a dream, that it was nothing to worry about. And with Rhydian occasionally whispering "it was just a dream" in to her ear when he realised she was still awake, she started to believe it. A little.

"Aran," Jana giggled, watching as Aran poked the kettle sceptically.

"What is this?" Aran frowned, utterly confused.

"It's a kettle. It boils water."

He turned to look at her, his eyes wide. "What? It…boils water? How!?"

"Electricity."

Aran looked slightly disgusted. "Humans make everything so easy."

"You've said that so much before."

Shuffling uncomfortably in his spot, Aran fiddled with the fabric of his top.

"And human clothes are itchy." He had borrowed one of Gerwyn's shirts; because Jana was so used to living domestically, Aran's wild scent had been overpoweringly bad for her and she'd had to get him cleaned up and changed.

"You will get used to it."

"I know."

"So…want to try some tea?"

"Tea? What is this…tea?"

"It's a hot drink humans invented. It's nice."

Aran frowned. "What is wrong with water?"

Jana giggled, hitting Aran playfully on the arm. "It tastes different to water. You're supposed to enjoy it. Now wait here, I'm going to get you a different top. This one is really itchy."

Aran nodded as Jana walked past him. He peeled the borrowed top off his body and left it on the worktop, confusedly looking through the different tea bags that all seemed to have different scents, his lip curled slightly in disgust.

When Jana came back a few minutes later, she laughed when she found him poking through the tea bags. He had been finding the adjustment to human life rather tricky and a little disconcerting. Occasionally she would walk in to find him pressing the buttons on the TV remote tentatively whilst perched on the arm of the sofa, his feet bare.

Or she would find him lying straight-out on his bed at night, the door wide open and the lights all off.

"Aran, you're supposed to lie under the duvet." She had said to him as she walked inside.

"The what?"

"The duvet. This thing. It's like the fur we sleep under in the wild." She touched the duvet softly with her left hand and Aran sighed through his nose.

"Oh. Of course."

Jana had smiled at him then and kissed his cheek before walking to her own bed.

"Here." She said now as they stood in the kitchen, handing him a soft cotton T-shirt.

Aran turned his attention to his Alpha, a small and grateful smile on his lips. He bowed his head once to her. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Jana watched as he pulled the T-shirt over his bare chest. Then she stepped back, admiring how the T-shirt looked. Surprisingly it suited him; it made him look a little more human (she would never tell that to Aran, of course. He would be eternally offended).

"It suits you." She said, smiling.

"Thank you," Aran smiled shyly at Jana and then leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "And thank you for tolerating my inability to live like a human."

Jana giggled. "You're doing well."

"I am not very good at adjusting."

Stepping forward, Jana took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to say something, the back door came flying open and Ceri walked in, her eyes wide and breathing rugged.

"Ceri?" Jana asked, panicking slightly. "What is it?" Just by the look on Ceri's face and the scent she was giving off, Jana knew something was wrong.

"I used Eolas," Ceri started. Her voice was rough and tense. "Something's wrong…something is really, really wrong…"

A/N: SORRY more cliffhangers :')

Also, sorry I updated this later than usual. It's been quite a hard week! Hope it was worth the wait though, and that you enjoyed it.

As always, thank you for reviewing! Do let me know what you think of this chapter; what do you think is wrong? What did Ceri see? I think you'll be able to guess this one! I'd love to hear your thoughts :) I'm so close to 100 reviews...if I could get to 100 by next chapter, that'd be incredible! :)

Love :* xxx