A.N. Thanks for continuing to read this, I hope you enjoy! I don't know anything about how wolves act so please take everything you read here with a grain of salt, it is all fiction with very little fact involved... Love every comment I get, so if you feel so inclined, I do appreciate them!

Chapter 13: Maddy

He didn't want her. That was the only explanation.

Of course her rational brain told her that this wasn't the case considering that he had initiated their tumble in the leaves, yet she still felt the sting of rejection. He couldn't even look her in the eye or talk to her. Was this her fault, had she done something to displease him?

Alarmed, Maddy shook herself out of that train of thought as she started to approach her house. Since when did she seek his approval so highly? Why was her brain telling her to think like this? Her stomach clenched at the increasing feeling of dread that had been growing since she had first started acting oddly. Not knowing what was wrong with her was becoming an evermore terrifying concept.

She just sighed and pushed the thought to one side before entering her house. Her dad looked up from where he was roasting some sort of meat in the oven. "Hi, where have you lost Rhydian today then?"

Maddy frowned and immediately slumped into a chair by the table. "It's not like we're connected by the hip, you know. He is allowed to do stuff without me."

Daniel huffed out a laugh, shooting her an odd look, "Of course not. I was referring to the full moon tonight, no need to get so defensive."

She couldn't help but blush at jumping to conclusions, her dad seemed to notice this but she quickly jumped up and sped out of the room before he could ask about her strange mood. Maybe he would know what was affecting her mood swings and causing her to wolf-out more, but the thought of sitting down to talk about it right before a full moon made her skin crawl.

In the hours that passed before the moon rose, Maddy tried to keep to her room and not overthink what she was going to do when Rhydian arrived. If he ever did for that matter.

When he had said he would catch her up, she assumed that he meant on the way home, not turning up five minutes before they had to move down to the cellar. He even missed dinner, and had her parents equally as anxious about what could have happened to him.

Thankfully, by the time that they were getting ready to go down, he arrived out of breath and with a sheepish look on his face. "Sorry, I lost track of time."

Well, they all knew that was a lie. They all shared the same heightened adrenaline and excitement for the moon every month, their bodies like ticking time bombs. However, her parents only glanced at each other in bemusement as Rhydian went to grab a chunk of leftover meat from their dinner and pushed his way past them into the den. He didn't even stop to say hi to Maddy as he passed, chewing loudly on his snack.

The sharp sting of rejection returned and she found herself catching eyes with her Mum, who definitely had noticed her face fall. Determined to not give her mother an opening to comment on whatever was going on between her and Rhydian, Maddy then quickly made to follow him downstairs.

As usual, they stood around in a circle in order to wait for the change, holding hands with her parents, and facing Rhydian. Thinking not much of it as this was how they always stood as they waited for the moon, she soon realised that this was her first good look at Rhydian pretty much all day. With nowhere else to look other than her face, he stared her down with the same analytical eye that she was giving him.

Before she could say anything to him, Maddy felt all the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stand on end. It was starting. She quickly felt the change come over her body, drifting out of her mind for a moment as her body rebuilt itself into its other form.

With the way that the moon took effect remaining unpredictable, when she next opened her eyes, she noticed that the only one to have also changed was her dad. Maddy's mum looked to be in the throes of the transformation, and it hasn't yet hit Rhydian considering the broad smile and the soft look on his face as he glanced down at her.

Knowing that her parents wouldn't be paying attention yet, as they always got so excitable, Maddy trotted forward to butt her snout into his hand, licking it softly when he moved to stroke her behind the ears.

Normally, she would hate to be treated as a dog, and the thought of a human touching her when transformed made her skin crawl. Yet with Rhydian, and her other close friends, she allowed such actions, even enjoyed them. She couldn't hold back a throaty hum of approval when he lightly brushed the tip of his thumb in the space between her eyes. Opening her eyes to look up at him earned her a look of such tenderness, that had she been in her human form, would have made her do a double take.

However, she didn't have long to appreciate the strange look in his eye before he finally began his own transformation into his wolf form, his consciousness also disappearing for a moment as the body changed.

Almost as soon as he opened his eyes as a wolf, his gaze snapped to her own, sniffing the air before approaching her. He usually greeted her before her parents anyway, so this did not surprise anyone. She yipped out a pleased bark as they brushed together in friendly greeting, just as they had done during her first transformation on Lindisfarne Island.

However this light feeling changed when he failed to turn around at all to greet the other occupants of the room and continued to sniff at her, rubbing his snout and flank against her side. It was only when he began to lick her neck that she sensed something was off and her eyes bolted across to regard the two wolves watching them.

Both parents stood a little away from them and watched warily at how Rhydian was scent marking their daughter. It was only when Maddy glanced at them and began to look more uncomfortable at the audience, that they stepped in.

Not really thinking about the repercussions, Daniel butted into Rhydian's side and huffed in warning, clearly trying to get him to think about what he was doing. Unfortunately, so wrapped up in his own instinct, Rhydian took that another way; as a rival male coming into his territory.

Rhydian's snarl was sharp and vicious, much more so than any he had directed at any of them before, but he appeared to barely notice this difference. Instead he started to push Maddy back against the far wall, placing his body between her and her father. The thought that connected the fact it was her father and so posed no threat seemed to be far from Rhydian's mind.

Once Maddy was far enough away, he turned back to the other pair, growling and snarling and standing his ground until they dropped backwards. Deciding that it was best to not intervene when Rhydian was acting so out of sorts, the Smiths just did as he bade and made to bed down as far away from the young couple that they could, well within eyesight if Maddy needed them.

More than aware that they were both still watching his movements, Maddy watched as Rhydian turned back to her and trotted over. She hesitantly inclined her head and sighed in relief when he brushed his flank platonically against her once more. This, of course to much embarrassment, came out of her snout as a sort of whine and she turned away from her parents eyes in mortification.

The crush that she had developed for Rhydian had slowly developed over a number of years until it was almost stifling in its strength. She had wished and fantasised of a thousand different situations where it would come to fruition, but never would she have chosen for that to be with an audience of her parents.

In her moment of weakness, Rhydian had begun to lick at her again, a decidedly less platonic gesture, especially when he focused at around the point of her shoulder, travelling upwards. He was making a quiet whining sound under his breath, as if he wasn't aware he was doing it and Maddy pulled her head away to catch his eye, wondering what she would find staring back at her.

The expression that she saw staring back at her was soft and searching, but Maddy noticed it seemed to have a glazed over look to it, almost as if Rhydian wasn't all there. Before she could whine or huff back in question, he touched his nose to hers and the action was so intimate and unlike she had ever acted with any other wolfblood in wolf-form that she was unsure what to do next. What was the etiquette here? Using her surprise to his advantage, his tongue slipped out and licked at her face, which was also new.

Before he got the chance to do anything more confusing, Maddy reared up and away from him in an attempt to calm him down and get him back to his senses again. Anything to make him look like he was fully present when she looked back into his eyes. Unfortunately he just huffed and followed her.

Attempting to initiate a game to burn off energy also failed, when he just followed her across the room again, a glint taking over his eyes when she would make him chase her a bit. The same glint that had overtaken him in the forest that morning, which she certainly didn't want a repeat of right here. At one point he even looked like he was bowing to her, tossing and tilting his head as he looked at her playfully.

Eventually giving up, Maddy went to lie down and just let him scent mark her as his instincts told him to do. He emitted a throaty hum of contentment when he flopped down next to her, curving towards her so as to get closer. Maddy just made herself comfortable and faced Rhydian and the wall so her parents would see less of them. How she would face them in the morning, would be tomorrow's problem.

Accepting that the best she could do was to rest as Rhydian continued his task, she shut her eyes. However, this didn't last long when he rolled her over to get to her underbelly, licking a trail in his wake.

She started fully awake at the movement, feeling her stomach fill with butterflies at being manhandled in such a way, but soon felt it drop in fear. Rhydian had moved downwards and looked like he was in no position to stop. Maddy batted at his face with her paws and his amber wolf eyes rose to meet her own in annoyance as if to say "Why are you stopping me now?"

In those depths she could see that he was not considering the intimacy of what he wanted to do, or the sexual nature within which it could be construed, only as a way of accomplishing the job of scent marking her whole body. He turned back to his path, sniffing the air, much to Maddy's increasing embarrassment, and she growled out a complaint, snapping her jaws in annoyance, drawing his eye once more.

As they kept locked on one another, she oozed every ounce of dominance she possessed. He may be overtaken by instinct right now, but she was still his alpha and she'd be damned if they did something intimate like this for the first time while he wasn't fully cognizant and while her parents were in the same bloody room!

Something must have clicked in his brain and he bowed his head to her authority, letting her roll over before pulling her towards his body once more. She let him, and then buried her muzzle into his neck for good measure. Maddy may as well enjoy what she could from this weird interaction, she thought as sleep pulled her in, it was very likely that he'd be too embarrassed to look her in the eye come morning, let alone offer a repeat performance.