I have to admit I kind of scared myself writing this chapter...

Rhydian's P.O.V.

What. Was. That.

The noise makes me nearly jump out of my skin. It's pathetic, a tiny whimper of hopelessness and desperation, like a wounded animal or a starving person. I don't know what it is about it, but it chills me to the core.

I slowly sit up, extending my head above the dense scrub. I scan the land around me, my eyes turning yellow in the dark, but all I can see in every direction is heath land, bushes and trees. The night has fallen silent again, and I'm almost on my way to believing that I imagined the noise, when it comes again.

I whip around, standing. To the left of me looms the forest, strangely menacing in the pitch black of night. I wait a few seconds, squinting into the depths of the trees, until the whimpering sound returns, definitely from somewhere inside there. It's louder this time, almost as if it knows I've heard it, but it's just as desperate, just as anguished.

I steel myself and cautiously set off towards the edges of the forest a few hundred yards away. A half-hearted mist surrounds it, like it's trying hard to be scary and very nearly succeeding. Come on Rhydian Morris, you, scared of a few trees? But as I step closer, the mist engulfs me, and I begin to panic. I can hardly see a metre in front of me, and my feet begin to snag on the ragged heather at my ankles. Why the heck is there mist at this time of year? Is Wales determined to be constantly stuck in winter or something?

The noise comes again, and it's much closer this time. My heart beat plummets and I have to try hard to resist transforming. I turn around frantically. Where's the noise? Calm down Rhydian. Calm down Rhydian. Calm-fricking-down!

The branches reach out of the mist towards me, grasping, snagging against my skin, fingers of menace as cold as death. I stumble back into nowhere and find myself sprawled on the ground. My legs are tangled in thorny bushes and I grip the floor manically. My heart pounds out of my chest, overwhelming everything. Then there's screaming in my ears and all of a sudden I'm screaming too. What? What is it? What the heck…?

My head flips around. And I see it. Lying right next to my left ear. It's entangled in twigs and heather and for a second I think it's a bleeding doll, like from a horror movie. Then it opens its eyes and yells at me.

It's a baby.

I stop panicking and feel my heart rate slowly resume to normal. Then all I can do is stare. It's a little girl in a white dress, stained with blood. Her skin is ghostly pale in the moonlight but her ears are strangely elfin, pricked. She cries and cries and thrashes about, looking up at me pitifully with…with…

Alric's eyes.

I gasp, but manage to calm down and carefully untangle the baby from the heather. She's chubby, but freezing cold, and she grips onto me desperately, still bawling her little head off. A thin covering of fawny hair adorns her soft head and her cheeks are red with tears. I hold her closely and pat her back, but I have no idea what to do next. I've never even held a baby before. Let alone an abandoned one in a forest at night who's covered in blood.

I take off out of the woods, running and tripping and running and tripping until I'm back out in the open, under the silver light of the moon. I gradually stop shaking and collapse against a lone, wind-stunted tree in relief, jiggling the baby until her throat goes dry from crying and those huge hazel eyes stare up at me reproachfully. I exhale my fear and watch the little girl. She watches me back, following my every move, with eyes the same as Alric's and Jana's. But how is that possible? Is she really a Wolfblood? Why has she been left in the forest alone?...

Then the though hits me. I was left in the forest alone. This little girl, she's just like me.

I sit her on my lap and pull a few funny faces at her until a hint of a smile plays on her face. All of a sudden, I feel kind of protective. This could've been me seventeen years ago. She grabs my face with her little fat hands and makes an attempt to stand up-and that's when I realise, she's not injured at all.

But if she's not injured, then-

That's someone else's blood.

Thankyou for your reviews! Sorry I will probably not update for a few days, I really should get around to revising...:p