Again, another chapter I wasn't going to write until summer, but then I saw we'd reached a thousand reads and I had to do something to say thank you.
As I've said before, living as rogues was not easy, especially in such a large group. That's probably why autumn always caused a mad panic to get everything ready for the snow and winter weather. We usually moved camp every other month or so, but, come winter, we made a more permanent camp until the spring.
Every year, that camp was in the same valley. Our few hundred shifters set up their tents in the ruins of a castle called Lle o Dristwch, a place with particular significance for our group. It was there that Caradoc died, the only Alpha ever recognised by rogues.
He united all the shifters in the north, west and south; the three divisions of where shifters live in our country. Nowadays, Caradoc was a role model for just about every Alpha, because getting rogues and packs to work together was about as easy as selling ice to Inuits.
The other reason we sheltered there in winter was because Caradoc happened to be Rhodric's great-grandfather, according to every wolf I'd ever asked. Granted, they were all rogues and very biased. They were also fond of saying that Rhodric could shift into a crow, turn off the sun and kill people with his mind — bullshit, of course. So I didn't quite believe the story, but I would have liked to.
That old castle was exactly where I was heading on the dreary Sunday night after our foraging trip. We'd stayed up in the cabin for the rest of the weekend: gathering food, collecting firewood and doing other general chores.
We might have also had a dog sledge race down a steep hill in wolf-form, abseiled into a ravine and completely covered a picnic table in raw fish just to see how much it confused the rangers. Okay, in my defence, the fish were already very dead and rotting when we found them because someone *cough* Rhys *cough* accidently dropped his entire packet of walnuts into a pond, which are toxic to marine animals, as it turned out.
We couldn't exactly just let all those poor fish's deaths go to waste, now could we?
Anyway, back to Sunday night. The sun had long since set and it was drizzling lightly, in accordance with compulsory British weather. We were on the northern edge of New Dawn territory, taking a little bit of a shortcut on our way to Lle o Dristwch.
Fion, having always been a keen plant expert, decided she wanted to take a detour to identify a rare type of berry, which was how we ended up standing at the edge of Riverside territory, while also being on the edge of New Dawn territory. These two packs were the only ones in the whole country who bordered each other so closely, and it caused no end of problems.
Rhys was leaping the river that marked the boundary again and again.
"Trespassing has never been this convenient," he said. "Look, now I'm on Riverside land."
He made another impressive jump considering he was in human form.
"And now I'm on New Dawn's turf. This is far too perfect."
He continued to mess around on the border line, oblivious to the fact that wolves were in the trees on both sides of the river and watching his every move with narrowed eyes.
"Trespassing on New Dawn, trespassing on Riverside," Rhys called out again.
Fion and I began a tactical retreat, leaving Rhys to piss off wolves from two packs simultaneously. When we were a safe distance away, I used my wolf senses to find out what was going on.
Rhys seemed to have finally realised he had an audience. At least eight wolves advanced from both packs, growling and snarling at my brother. As far as I was concerned, he found his way into this mess, and he could damn well find a way to talk his way out of it.
"Oh...hey guys," Rhys stammered, keeping his feet firmly planted on Riverside land because there were fewer wolves from that pack present.
"I'd love to stick around and play fetch with you guys, but...well, places to be, things to do, you know."
At those words, all the Riverside wolves growled at Rhys, but the New Dawn wolves assumed they were growling at them, so all started growling back. It seemed that these two packs hated each other a lot more than they hated us, which we could use to our advantage.
The growls quickly changed to howls for backup and full-on teeth baring, and Rhys took advantage of the confusion and noise to slip away and re-join us. It was very lucky for him that the two packs saw each other as more of a threat than a single rogue, and so didn't bother giving chase.
"That was a bit reckless, don't you think?" Fion asked in an undertone, but she was smiling.
"We can handle a few flockies," Rhys replied with a lazy grin.
The three of us stayed to watch in the undergrowth of no-man's-land until one of the New Dawn Alpha showed up. Even from a distance, I could tell we didn't want to be messing with that wolf, so we made a run for it.
We were several miles away from the packs before we paused for breath. I knew they would have someone on our tail to check we were off their turf, but that no longer mattered. I slumped next to a pine tree and made a futile attempt to calm down my wolf. Being around pack wolves always ticked her off to no end.
Rhys watched me with some concern while I regained my control but busied himself with filling up our water canteens. Meanwhile, Fion had spotted a glow of light coming from a cave not far from us.
A sensible person would have turned around and walked away.
But to be fair, I hadn't had the most ordinary life and hadn't seen all the movies that teach children not to go into the creepy cave in the dead of night.
So that's exactly what I did.
I almost instantly picked up that there were werewolves inside. Two male rogues who smelt like they were long due a bath. And one who didn't smell so bad at all. My wolf approved, at least.
Note to self: use overpowered werewolf senses to check for danger before entering the creepy cave.
I backed up really quickly, but not before the rogues noticed my intrusion. I ended up running straight into Fion, who had already smelt the wolves and looked ready to shift at a moment's notice.
"Come out, come out wherever you are," a voice called from the cave, which must have belonged to the rogues.
Rhys had caught up by then, and he quickly ushered us to one side. I'd long since learnt to let him handle situations like this. Rhys was got on really well with just about anyone who didn't belong to a pack.
"We're outside and friendly as long as you ain't flockies," he said, loud enough for anyone in the tunnels to hear.
A shadow appeared in the cave's entrance and peered at us. "We aren't flockies, that's for sure. Who the hell are you?"
This time it was me who answered him. "My name's Skye. The other two are my siblings — Rhys and Fion. But that's not what you were asking, was it?"
"Not really. I meant — which rogues are you with?" His voice sounded like an Australian accent smoothed off from years living in Wales.
"Rhodric, of course," Fion replied, probably just to get involved in the conversation.
The rogue fumbled with something in his pocket for a second, then a torch beam flashed in our faces. I squinted past the light the best I could but ended up having to fix my eyes on the floor. I stared just enough to see a boy about Fion's age with dark brown hair and grey eyes peering us. He seemed mainly focused on me, and there was a strange look in his eyes.
"Wait a minute, did you say Rhys?"
I nodded and the light was immediately fixed on my brother instead. After only a few seconds, the rogue smiled. "Rhys Llewellyn? Brandon's little brother Rhys?"
I knew Brandon was the name of Rhys's older blood brother who had been in the west for the past eight years. Sure enough, Rhys nodded slightly, looking impassive as he always did when his brother was mentioned.
"Well, I happen to be Brandon's second-in-command. Name's Leo. Don't suppose you remember me from when we were all kids?"
"You've grown up a lot, but yes — I remember you," Rhys replied, still completely shut off and emotionless. "Why aren't you still in Pembrokeshire with my brother?"
"What, you didn't know? Our whole group is returning to the north, albeit in dribs and drabs. Bran will be the last to arrive 'cause he had to make some arrangements before he left, but he'll be here by the end of the week," Leo explained. He was now joined by the two other rogues who had been in the cave. Both of them were watching us warily.
"No, I didn't know," Rhys almost growled. "Brandon hasn't bothered getting in touch since he left."
A flash in Leo's eyes made me think he knew the exact reason why that was and it was obviously a sore spot for both him and Rhys. It seemed like Fion and I were the only ones in the dark about the whole thing.
One of the other two rogues, who had introduced himself as Callum, turned around to go back into the cave without another word, calling over his shoulder as he left that any family of Brandon's was welcome to join him.
We had the choice of shelter and a warm fire or sleeping rough for the night, so it wasn't really a difficult decision. Within five minutes we were all seated in a circle, passing around a flask of whiskey. Rhys decided to stay outside on watch, obstinately avoiding his brother's friends. I quickly learnt that the third rogue didn't seem to speak at all —he lay down to sleep without even looking at us — but Leo and Callum were a lot friendlier.
By the amount of whiskey already missing from the flask, I could tell that both of them were pretty drunk, and it definitely showed. I took advantage of their lack of judgement to try and work out a little more about why Rhys acted so strange whenever his brother was mentioned.
"Did you grow up with Rhodric's group?" I asked.
"Joined them when I was about ten. Before that, I lived in Australia, but the climate there really isn't great for werewolves. Stayed in the north for two years, then I ended up going west the same time as Brandon did," Leo replied whilst taking another hefty swig of alcohol.
"Why did he move to the west?" Fion added, obviously sharing my curiosity about it all.
"There was a ... disagreement with Rhodric, but that story's not mine to share. You'll have to ask Rhys if you want to know any more."
That only sparked my interest, but I agreed with Leo about getting the story from Rhys himself. The flask was handed to me for a third time and I passed it straight on. It was far stronger than it should've been and I liked to keep my senses around me while around new people.
Fion also laid off the alcohol, as did Rhys when he reluctantly came inside. But Leo and Callum finished the rest of the bottle and half of another between them. They got increasingly drunk. The more his inhibitions disappeared, the more Leo stared at us. Especially me. I fancied his wolf was coming out a bit, with all the strangers.
I still wasn't sure about any of our new 'friends', but Rhys trusted them enough to leave Fion and me alone with them, so that was good enough for me. It was only when all three men were snoring loudly that I worked up the courage to ask Rhys about his brother.
"What happened between you and Brandon?"
Rhys grimaced and looked at the floor. "You really want to know? It ain't something I'm proud of."
I nodded with a sad smile. "If he's going to be here by the end of the week, I'd rather know if I should hate him or not."
Rhys clenched his jaw, but he did answer the question. "Bran and I used to get on really well, even though he was six years older. We did everything together, went everywhere together. I hero-worshipped him, because he was my big brother, you know? Then just after I turned nine, he took me swimming off Blackwater Falls."
I knew that river. We'd fished there often enough but never swam — it was rapids and dangerous even without the waterfall taken into account.
"We got into an argument over something really, really stupid, but it sure escalated. I hit first and he hit back, even though I was half his size. So we fought, and that was fine, until I lost my footing. Slipped straight down the falls." There was still no emotion in his voice, not even a drop. That was so unlike Rhys that I felt a twinge of worry.
"I fell twenty metres and broke my collarbone, half my ribs and my arm. But I was lucky — it could have been my neck. Dad blamed Bran, Bran blamed me. They had some dreadful arguments. The next day Brandon left for the west. As best I can tell, Dad exiled him. Neither of us have spoken to him since."
I didn't even know what I could say in reply to a story like that, because the pain in Rhys's eyes told me that he blamed himself and he always would. So I did the only thing I knew would stand any chance of cheering him up by wrapping an arm over his shoulder and leaning against him. Fion shuffled over from where she'd been listening and did the same on his other side.
Just then, Leo blinked blearily and raised his head, looking at us strangely.
"Hey, I just realised — you said Rhys was your brother when you introduced yourself," Leo said in a questioning tone, obviously wondering if we were some long lost relative of the Llewellyn's.
"Rhodric adopted me and Skye. We aren't blood relatives, but we're family," Fion replied defiantly.
I knew that Fion couldn't have been less wrong, because Rhys had a brother who'd nearly killed him, Fion had two parents who'd hit her on a daily basis and I had no one I knew of. We hadn't been so lucky when it came to relatives, but ever since the fateful day seven years ago when Rhodric had taken me in, we'd at least had each other.
"So you aren't actually family?" Callum asked, having also woken up.
My reply to that question isn't one I'll ever forget, because in time I would come to realise just how true it was.
"Family don't end with blood," I said.