The dining room smelled of paint fumes, which Rhydian was using, stinking up the house. Dan was on his computer typing away, on the clock late in the evening, to catch up on his remote work. The clatter of the keyboard stopped making Rhydian look up from his work; a gruesome scene of a crow dropping a rock on an injured fox.
"Dan?" Rhydian asked, shifting to get a better look at him.
"You smell that?" Dan said as he rose from his seat and made his way to the slightly open window, where the scene of a brutal winter was being thawed into a beautiful spring. He couldn't. He'd been inhaling the noxious air for a while now, and anything that wasn't turpentine could have slipped past him.
Rhydian rose and followed him. He threw open the window to catch that smell.
It wasn't any of their pack or the other wolfbloods in the greater area. It was new. The scent had that musk and dampness that wolves held.
Daniel eyed him, eyes flashing yellow, and closed the windows and jerked his head toward the trapdoor. It was soundproof, so he sat on his bed, phone in hand, ready to text her in case something went sour. Maybe 10 minutes had passed before he looked at his phone.
Instead, his phone pinged with Dan's name flashing across the screen.
Segolia. Come up. It's OK.
He heard voices as he walked up the stairs. Nothing of substance, only pleasantries were being exchanged.
"How is the weather?" A female voice with an accent he couldn't place.
"Oh well, you know. Warming up." Dan replied.
Rhydian pushed open the cellar door and pulled himself out.
"Howdy," a man holding a cowboy hat said to him. He had a tan face ruddier by the sun and a mop of brown hair with the whisper of a beard on his chin. He looked like a broader and tanner version of the cowboy stereotype, which he had encountered plenty of times in the last few months here in Alberta. The woman who sat on the loveseat next to him was smiling at him. Her olive skin glowed and her square face and high cheekbones made her look permanently amused.
She raised a hand in greeting and turned back to Daniel. Rhydian mumbled a hello making his way to stand next to Dan who smiled politely at their guests. They introduced themselves as Stewart and Marion. "They have news. About going home". Dan said with a tight smile. Rhydian whipped his head to look at him. "Good or bad?" Rhydian asked. Daniel shrugged. They hadn't said anything, probably waiting for Maddy and Emma. Cue him, stressing out of his mind. He couldn't stand still, so he sat, then stood, then paced.
Marion chuckled at this, "thank goodness you ain't a wolf now, you'd be marking and tearin' the place up."
This made Daniel and Stewart laugh. Rhydian only huffed, which earned a pat on the back from Dan. This broke enough of the tension for Marion to start asking him the questions every wolfblood elder asked. How old were you? Mom or dad's side? The best full moon he'd experienced. Super chewer?
He'd encountered it first when he joined the wild pack, then again while he relocated to Canada. Even the coldest of the agents he'd worked with fussed over him to some degree. With their tightlipped nature, they still passed him extra food and were quick to update every part of the journey.
Here in Canada, they still felt a bit like outsiders, but that didn't stop the barrage of questions from every pack mother from surrounding packs.
Until he heard their truck Rhydian kept pacing, his wolf was slowly overpowering him. The next few moments went by slowly. With groceries in hand, Emma and Maddy entered the house with caution. Then another round of brain-frying small talk, then another anxiety inducing statement. They were here to deliver the news. Could they go back? Staying here permanently? Moving elsewhere?
He ducked his head and made his way to the basement. Keeping the pack safe meant keeping him and Maddy safe. After what happened back home, some things had changed, but other things stayed the same.
The basement/cellar stayed the same. Served as a space to turn, when the weather or their attitudes were bad. Otherwise, turning outside was an option. No humans were around for hundreds of miles, and the actual wolves stayed out of their way. Part of it was also his room.
Stewart fiddled with his hat as he looked Mrs. Smith in the eye. "Rhydian's parents have decided to move and Jana will be leaving the territory to work for us soon. Therefore, the territory is safe and open for your return." Sighs of relief escaped his pack, a laugh escaped him and he turned to face Maddy, who was grinning ear to ear. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard.
They were going home, and Maddy and Rhydian would have the pack whole. He could cry.
"Of course, to keep things in order, we want to monitor your return." He said in an even tone, as if expecting a fight. Rhydian couldn't even stop to process. He didn't care if he had to deal with stuffy Segolia employees for the rest of his life.
"But," Steward continued. Rhydian's good mood vanished. Of course, there was something. It was always something. Rhydian looked at the two wolfbloods. Both seemed to be around the same age as Emma and Dan. If not a little older, their features were relaxed, and appeared to be comfortable even in alien territory. Whatever they would share next was something they didn't think would garner a combative reaction.
"We will have to split Rhydian away from you temporarily—" Steward said, cut off by Rhydian's snarl. He could feel the buzz of a transformation coming on. Marion sighed and looked him dead in the eye, flashing yellow. "Hold your horses, you'll be away from them for a month, max. Moving your four together would be suspicious. We're going to go with the story that you were miserable here without the Smiths, so your uncle let you go back." Marion said.
Rhydian forced his shoulders to relax and to will the wolf away. He could do that. His fake uncle was already being depicted as eccentric and free-wheeling, giving Rhydian Canadian citizenship on a whim and allowing him to take uni-level art classes from home. He really liked his uncle.
Rhydian turned to look at Emma and Dan, whose faces were unreadable. It's not like they had a choice, really. "I just want to make sure I'm not gonna sit here for another three months waiting to see my pack again," Rhydian said, his voice getting loud.
The sounds of frustration made Marion laugh. "Don't go chewing on the sofa now, eh? Besides, pup, don't shoot the messenger." Marion said amused.
But Rhydian did not find it funny. He glared, which she ignored in favor of speaking with Emma. "Now we can get you back to your jobs and home, but the hard part will be reintegration…" Marion said with a wave of her hand.
Stewart picked up where she left off, "Rhydian is here because he's found family here in Canada, but you three just up and vanished. We need to start fresh and simplify the story."
That was easier said than done, but it would be much easier to go around dating his girlfriend and not his distant cousin. Which was gross, in hindsight. He'd only have to deal with questions about his fake uncle. And make it seem like he wasn't stalking Maddy.
Stewart pulled a USB out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the coffee table. "Here is all the reading material and logistics of returning. You three," he said, gesturing to the Smiths, "will leave in three days."
Rhydian suppressed another snarl. He really didn't like the idea of his pack being split up again. But there was a sense of finality with that little blue thumb drive. The Segolia wolfbloods left after their goodbyes.
Aside from the whirlwind of emotions which felt far too similar to the feelings that foster care brought him. The constant reshuffling and upheaval of his life. He couldn't help but feel glad. Rhydian found something wonderful in Stoneybridge that got torn from him. Now he was here, he went to school; he had a pack, and he had Maddy. Everything was fine, no one to bother them for miles and miles. Even if he wanted to go back, he didn't want it like this. The part of him that felt glad was the part that knew he didn't belong here in Canada. The wolfbloods around here were so different. They were broadly enough the same people like they all belonged to one big country, but each region had its own ways of being a wolfblood. Worst of all, Dan and Maddy seemed to be out of sorts in this wild that did not belong to them; their purpose to protect and serve the pack seemed to dim here. It made his heart hurt to see Maddy like that.
Instead of losing his cool about it, he sat down on the floor and pulled out Maddy's laptop stored on the coffee table. "Well?" Rhydian said, waving the thumb drive around. The three spectators sat down on the sofa behind him to get a look at the screen. He shoved it in and the screen blinked to life.
"You gotta stop leaving it in sleep mode, Mads," Rhydian said. This earned a small shove from her.
It was a lot. PDFs, PowerPoint, pictures, fake resumes. A whole digital life for his long-lost uncle Harvey.
The four spent the rest of the evening pouring over the material, the groceries from earlier still on their dining table forgotten instead of studying.
Rhydian and Maddy had taken the laptop downstairs to further examine the files after dinner. While they were looking at Rhydian's official accommodations, Maddy sat up to look at him. "This doesn't feel right. Something must have gone wrong. I thought we were going to stay here for… ugh!" Maddy threw her hands up in frustration. She swallowed and continued, "I just don't understand how they can send us back to the place where it all almost ended. How bad does it have to be to want to get a problem pack into a problem area!,"
Rhydian shifted to his side, propping his head up to get a good look at her. "We're going home. If Segolia is up to something, we will deal with it. They aren't going to put us in danger." He said, trying to reason with her.
"Maybe not dangerous, but you're going to be put in an odd position." She said with a half smile. Rhydian grinned and shrugged. "I can play the role of a lovesick puppy." He said, sitting up to kiss Maddy twice on the lips and then once on her forehead. "See? Oscar winning performance," He said, touching their foreheads together.
Maddy rolled her eyes but stayed there for a moment before pulling away to rub at her face until it started getting pink. When Rhydian gently pulled her hands off, he collected them in his own hands and held them there for a moment while they sat in silence.
The dinner table conversation played over and over again in his head. They all wanted to go home, where their pack belonged. The Smiths had ancestors buried there, in the den, and they had Tom and Shannon. But this felt strange, like Segolia was trying to fix something it couldn't. None of them liked feeling like the pawns of a corporation, but at the end of the day, it seemed like Segolia couldn't have kept the four of them here forever. Rhydian guessed there was something going on that Segolia would rather risk letting them return.
Instead of voicing his doubts, he said, "We'll be OK. We look after each other." He reassured Maddy, and then pulled her into a hug. Whenever they held each other, Rhydian knew if he could, he'd stay like this for years and years, but unfortunately, that wasn't how it worked. Maddy was the first to pull away. She picked up the laptop and slid it underneath his bed and then she pulled down Rhydian to lie beside her.
They didn't speak a single word until they both were fighting off sleep. Maddy made a noise that was an equivalent of "I love you," Rhydian smiled and replied in kind, and as they fell asleep despite everything Rhydian couldn't help but feel happy.