Dedicated to ljcaples for your comments and votes.
I'm very sorry that this took so long, but maybe you'll forgive me if I do my best to upload again within a week? Hope you enjoy.
The next morning dawned dull and hazy, with cloudy skies but plenty of dampness left over from the night's rain. I sat up to unfamiliar surroundings and for a brief second, completely forgot where I was. A ceiling of rough stone and dripping moss above me brought back a rushing tide of memories: finding the cave and rogues, drinking with them, and finally, Rhys's story.
I was alone except for Leo, who was already awake and watching me blearily from a corner, while poking at the smouldering remains of the fire. His eyes had a hangover look about them, unsurprisingly.
"I was hoping you'd wake up," he muttered. "Your snoring was getting on my nerves."
I flipped him off and threw the nearest thing I could find, which happened to be a rock. Once a hiss of pain told me I'd hit the target, I started stretching my aching muscles. Sleeping on a solid rock floor doesn't exactly do wonders for your joints.
It looked like the others had gone to get breakfast, seeing as they'd left their backpacks, jackets and shoes. They were hunting in wolf form, then. Leo answered my unasked question by nodding at a pot heating up on the embers to cook whatever they brought back.
There wasn't much left to do except wait for them to return, so I decided getting to know Leo might be a good use of my time. My wolf certainly approved. She liked him more than the other two rogues. So did I, for that matter.
"What's it like in Australia? I'm guessing not much fun for a werewolf."
Leo winced slightly at my voice, probably because of a serious hangover, but squinted at me and replied at the same volume. "I was too young to remember much. Real dry, few shifters and far too warm is about all I can come up with."
I moved onto a slightly different subject to see if I could get him to open up anymore. Even having only known him for a night, I could tell that Rhys genuinely respected this guy. So naturally, I was curious about what made him stand out.
"And when you were in the west, did you live by the sea? Because I've never been to the coast in my life."
That seemed to hit the spot, Leo stared at me like I'd just told him I didn't know who Harry Potter was (which incidentally, I didn't). "You've never seen the ocean? Ever?"
I just shook my head truthfully. We'd never had reason to leave the inland forests and mountains, especially because most of the coastal land was claimed by packs.
"Yeah, we lived by the sea alright. Beautiful coastline over there, but it does tend to get overcrowded with tourists in the summer. You get any tourists up here?"
"Only the ones who want to walk in the national park. Most of them head over to Snowdon rather than come here." I was about to explain that they all want to climb the highest mountain in the range, but I was interrupted by Rhys bounding down into the cave in wolf form.
He held three-quarters of a rabbit in his jaws (which is even more disgusting than it sounds) and his tail was held high. In other words, he was extremely proud of himself.
"Breakfast is here!" Callum announced happily, appearing behind Rhys. Fion was with him. Both of them had done the smart thing — shifted and got dressed outside. Between them, they held several squirrels and a trout.
"But Jacob isn't?" Leo asked in concern, as Rhys dropped his prize triumphantly at my feet so I could gut and skin it.
I guessed that Jacob was the last of the three rogues, who hadn't spoken at all since I'd met him. Rhys went back outside to find his clothes while I set to work on his catch, a messy and smelly task that required a distinct lack of squeamishness.
"Jacob got a call through the link and left to join Brandon. Turns out he managed to leave the west a lot earlier than expected. He's nearly here." Callum answered the question with a definite lack of eye contact, which instantly put me on my guard, although the others seemed to accept his explanation.
Rhys returned from shifting wearing his usual grin for the first time since we'd run into the other rogues. "All the more food for us."
Having finished skinning the rabbit, I started tossing chunks of meat into the pot, while Callum did the same with the squirrels. Only twenty minutes later we were tucking into fried game, wild carrots and blackberries.
"So why exactly is Bran so far behind you all?" Rhys asked once we had all settled down to eat.
Leo scowled in reply and set down his bowl with unnecessary force. "I told you, he had to make some arrangements."
"Yeah, because 'making arrangements' doesn't sound shady at all," I muttered under my breath.
Even Callum seemed on the alert now, watching us wearily from narrowed eyes. If that wasn't suspicious behaviour, I didn't know what was.
"It was about returning sometime next year, not that it's any of your business." Leo sounded almost ... apologetic for the obvious lies.
"And that takes more than one day?" Rhys was on full alert as well but trying not to show it. Even a complete idiot would be able to tell they were hiding something by now, and my brother was anything but dumb.
Leo didn't quite seem to know how to answer that one, so Callum quickly cut in. "Complications with one of the packs, you know, permission to cross territory and all that—"
"Since when have rogues started asking permission?" I asked icily.
Fion interrupted tactfully, "Why don't we get going? I know Rhodric will be wondering where we are."
This gave us all the excuse we needed to turn away from the fire and start readying the backpacks, which meant that the rogues couldn't tell that we were mind-linking each other as we did it.
"We need to get back before all your brother's rogues arrive. Rhodric needs to know to be on his guard," I decided, having guessed that whatever Brandon's plans were, they wouldn't likely be to benefit us.
"Agreed. I don't trust these two as far as I could throw them." Fion added.
"Callum and Jacob are loyal to Bran, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if Callum sent Jacob back to warn him where we are. But Leo? He's always been a decent guy. If Bran is planning to hurt our group, you can be sure Leo isn't helping him willingly," Rhys told us while he stamped out what was left of the fire.
"You three coming?" Leo shouted down from the cave entrance. He had already finished packing. I followed him outside, then went off to shift behind a tree and pick up my rucksack in my jaws.
As soon as my paws touched the ground, I dove into motion, pushing my wolf to her endurance limit as I ran down the stony track. At best, I had a four-hour run ahead of me. At worst, it could take half a day.
I was vaguely aware of Rhys and Fion at my flanks, both of them matching my speed but never exceeding it. That was how we always ran together over long distances — with me in the lead, partly because I was the fastest, partly because Rhys liked to trip us up whenever he was in front.
But this particular run felt different because of Leo and Callum's presence. It was more like a pack travelling together, rather than a few friends on a journey. Having two additional wolves following my lead made me uncomfortable. We didn't know each other well enough to run together. My wolf particularly objected to Callum's presence.
That was why I spent the entire run thinking through the route to try and make it as short as possible, especially as we were already a day late returning. New Dawn territory lay directly between our current location and Lle o Dristwch, so we could cross it to cut an hour off the journey.
Trespassing was considered an unnecessary risk by most rogues, but the three of us had done it so often it was almost second nature by now. In just fifteen minutes, we were gathered at the New Dawn border. Fion was stood stock still, staring straight ahead with all of her concentration on brushing against the minds of the patrols.
She was mind-linking without letting them know she was there, so that she could find out exactly where they were and whether they would see us when we crossed. A few minutes passed like that before she gave us the all-clear signal by flicking her ears back and lifting her tail.
I trotted forwards a few paces hesitantly, then broke into a run as soon as I saw the path was clear. The others followed me for a few hundred meters before splitting up to confuse any pursuers.
What we hadn't anticipated was that New Dawn pack's decade-long war with their neighbours had left them overly cautious about trespassers, so much that they used double patrols. This meant that only a few minutes after each patrol passed, another smaller group would check over the exact same route.
Fortunately, being detected on pack land was pretty normal for us, which meant I had a full-proof plan for escaping the territory alive. A plan which we had already explained to Leo and Callum.
Basically, they would spread out and run circles in a wide berth to collect all the patrols. Meanwhile, I would make it look like the pack house was being attacked. A direct threat to a wolf's pups and mate would make anyone in their right mind head over to protect it. But instead of attacking, I'd actually just keep running straight through and out the other side of the territory to meet up with Rhys and Fion.
So that's exactly what we did this time as well, just with a few extra runners. I ran straight up to the pack house and dropped what I was holding in my jaws: a tape recorder. It started to play howling, which we'd recorded just over a year ago. Then, not even stopping to catch my breath, I dashed away again, safe in the knowledge that every wolf who had been chasing my friends were now heading there.
After that, getting out of the territory was almost too easy, although at one point I did catch the Alpha's scent not too far behind me. I was running so fast that when I finally skidded over the border, it took a minute to slow to a stop. To my relief, all the others had already made it out, and were waiting for me there with wagging tails.
We didn't stop to congratulate ourselves, though. I just rubbed muzzles with Fion and Rhys in greeting and nodded at the other boys, before we set off again. Another three hours of travelling later, we reached Rhodric's camp.
Rogue patrols had joined us for the last few hours of the journey, so by the time we entered the camp, there were over a dozen wolves at my tail. Despite my fear of messing up, I always enjoyed leading when I ran with other wolves, but back then I was never quite sure why I liked it so much. Later on, I'd come to realise it was an instinct which Rhodric had been drilling into me for a very long time.
It had been a year since I'd been at Lle o Dristwch, but entering the ruins always gave me a feeling of coming home. Of all the places that we stayed, it was the only one alongside the cabin that I really loved. Maybe it was something about the isolation or the crumbling walls that me a sense of safety.
But this time, when I trotted into the courtyard where I knew I'd find my adopted father, I was just uneasy. There were raised voices echoing around the place and every single rogue in our group was standing in the shadows of the eaves, silent and watching.
That was the first time I ever saw Brandon Llewellyn. He was face-to-face with Rhodric and arguing with him in front of over a hundred shifters. He looked just like an older version of Rhys, except with an unusually cold gleam to his eyes, and a smirk instead of Rhys's grin.
In that moment, I wish I'd realised just how dangerous that man was. I wish I'd known just by the way he smiled when he saw us that he meant no good, and killed him there and then.
But I didn't. None of us did. And I ended up regretting it for the rest of my life.