Maddy and her parents have changed in the months that they've been away – there's no point in denying it. The Smith family have always been a tame pack, a legacy stretching back generations in Stoneybridge, and the three of them weren't prepared for living near the base of Mount Currie, miles from civilisation and surrounded by the wilderness.

They've done well though. Maddy tells him, as they slowly meander down the slope towards their den, that they struggled in the first few weeks; it took their stomachs quite a while to get used to digesting raw meat in such large quantities and for days they all felt ill and sickly. They don't do it as much anymore though – they're careful when they light fires to cook meat, just in case somebody spots the smoke and comes looking for it, but they find ways to vary their diet.

Rhydian is impressed with their den when they finally reach it as the sun is beginning to set below the ridgeline. It's very well-camouflaged, really, and whilst he wouldn't have walked straight past the structure, he doesn't spot it until they're quite close. They've built a hut out of logs and branches where the ground drops off suddenly, making a natural hollow that's flanked on two sides by rocks. The roof is thatched and the cracks and joins of the walls are packed closely with dirt and clay, and when he ventures inside it's surprisingly warm. It's also been split into two rooms – one larger room with a bed in the corner and seating area on one side, and a smaller room with just a bed and tin basin of water. There's a few small, scrappy pictures stuck to the wall, and seeing Tom, Shannon and Jana's smiling faces looking down at him is like a warm wash of hot tea through his body. There's one of him with Maddy, too, that's dog-eared and dirty around the edges.

Emma and Daniel seem pleased to see him at least, which is almost more than he'd hoped for. He knows that they haven't always approved of him, or his relationship with Maddy, but they seem relieved that he's found them at least, and are keen to hear about what's been happening on Stoneybridge since they fled six months ago.

"So this bloke Kincaid, he was just going to wipe out our whole species?" Daniel asks slightly incredulously as he chews on a deer leg, the four of them sat around the campfire outside the hut in the fading light, and Rhydian shrugs in response.

"Well, he was going to start with our packs, but yeah. I guess he wanted to get rid of us all."

Emma tilts her head to one side. "So what's happened to him?"

"We handed him over to Victoria Sweeney, the head of Segolia's security. Obviously we couldn't exactly go to the police with what had happened, but she worked something out. I think he's ended up in prison for trying to sell the company's intellectual property."

He stares at the glowing embers of the fire as they finish their food. In truth, Kincaid had been raving about werewolves the moment that he was arrested and threatening them all with exposure, but Sweeney had planned ahead and already insinuated that he was unhinged and delusional. Nobody had believed him, despite his insistence that the police should run blood samples on the wolfbloods to see what they really were, but it was still an unsettling few weeks, and apparently Kincaid was still insisting that that wolfbloods were real. That wasn't something that the Smiths should have to be worrying about though – the whole business was over.

"So you became pack leader whilst I was away, did you?"

Rhydian glances to his left, where Maddy is pressed up against his side, with a hard grin on her face – he returns it with a chuckle and nudges her gently.

"Somebody had to take on the challenge! But don't worry, I'm not going to challenge you for it," he says with a wink. "It's like with you and your mum. You're alpha of a pack, but she's still your alpha. I might have been the leader of our pack for a while, but that doesn't matter. You will always be my alpha."

He means it very sincerely, and it's worth it to see the softening around the edges of Maddy's eyes. The glimpses of her that he'd seen with eolas were right – she's grown up a lot in the last few months, both mentally and physically. She's taller, for starters, but she's also much stronger; a diet consisting nearly completely of protein with plants and berries mixed in, along with constantly running around the wilderness, has made her much leaner and fitter than she once was and just like her parents, her face is more angular. She's told him that she keeps her hair tied back now most of the time, because she doesn't wash it very often anymore and it's either than or cut it; her laugh has a sharper edge to it and there's a glint in her eyes that he doesn't recognise, and when they talk her replies come quick and hard. She's changed – a lot – but it just makes her even more beautiful to him.

"You say that as though I'm going to come back and just restart life in Stoneybridge."

"You can, if you want," he says very simply. "Whitewood is working on our side now, and she's actually a nice person. Kincaid is in prison, and unlikely to be coming out – even when he does, he'll have learnt his lesson. It's as safe as it's been in a long time at home, and obviously we'd all love it if you came back. But you don't have to – none of you do. Only if you want to."

"We do appreciate that, Rhydian," Emma says quietly across the campfire. "We didn't want to leave, but the fear of exposure… it's a hard thing to get over. We have a new life here, even if it's not what we're used to."

"Well, I'm not in any hurry to get back. Nearly everybody thinks that I'm come out to live with a long-lost uncle, so they won't be expecting me back any time soon."

They don't leave the next day. Or the next. Or on any of the rest of the days that week.

But Rhydian doesn't mind. He meant what he said – they're under no pressure to return. He came here to find Maddy, not force her family to do something that they weren't happy to do. And if what makes Maddy happy is living in the wilds of southern Alberta, then he'll stay here with them.

He falls into their daily routine easily. Daniel is constantly looking for new ways to tinker and twiddle with their den and make it more structurally sound or warmer or just better in general, and he appreciates a new set of eyes to help him. Food has to be sourced every day, even when there's a backstock, just to make sure that they never run out – so Rhydian goes out with Maddy with crudely-crafted baskets to gather edible berries and plants whilst Emma hunts for meat. They hike a few miles down the valley one day to the reservoir and spend the afternoon fishing; when they return with full bellies and bags full of trout and whitefish that Emma smokes in front of the fire.

They sleep under furs at night, with Rhydian curled around Maddy in their small bedroom, the faces of their friends smiling down at them.

There's a small stream nearby that they use for their water supply, washing clothes, and washing themselves – and Rhydian soon discovers that in their months in the wilds, the Smith family has become quite unabashed about nakedness. Washing naked in the pool slightly further downstream is not only normal but expected, and although Rhydian is reduced to a horrified, stuttering mess the first time he encounters Emma stripping off and cleaning her skin whilst she cheerfully chats about the tourist season with him, he quickly learns to get over it. He's even more embarrassed the first time that he bumps in Maddy completely naked as she slides into the water, but when she turns and holds out a hand to him, inviting him to join her, he goes without comment.

"Do you want to go back?"

Rhydian looks up sharply from where he was skinning a rabbit and glances at Maddy. She's drawn her knife from its sheath on her hip and it twisting it in her hands, and studiously not looking at Rhydian.

"I told you when I first got here. If you want to stay, I'll stay here with you."

"Yes, but do you want to go back?"

He pauses, then folds the skin back over the rabbit's chest to keep it fresh and sets down his knife. She's still not looking at him, but there's a tension in the line of her shoulders and her mouth is set in a hard line. He's been living in the wilderness with them for five weeks now, and he's settled in more comfortably than he guesses they did, but he still doesn't know how long they're going to be here for. He keeps waiting for Emma to announce that they're going to leave, but every night another meal passes without that declaration and he's not sure if it'll ever come. And he's not sure if he's disappointed by that, either.

"Part of me does, I suppose," he says after a moment and he can see her gritting her teeth. "I miss our friends. I miss my brothers and Mrs Vaughn. I miss my parents. I miss Stoneybridge itself, but none of it is worth as much as you are. I will stay here for as long as you want to. You're my alpha, remember?"

Maddy grunts in agreement as she cleans under her fingernails with her knife, and Rhydian patiently waits for her to finish and look at him with an intense look.

"Mum and Dad aren't sure about going back. They said that it's just one thing after another – there's always going to be somebody trying to expose us, or worse get rid of us. They say that it's safer here, where nobody can find us and people leave us alone."

"They might be right about you being safer here, but that doesn't mean that you'll have a better life. You're really isolated up here, and the last thing that you want is to turn feral. Trust me, I've seen plenty of those wolfbloods, and you aren't one of them."

"But what would we do if we went back? Just restart our lives, pretend like nothing happened?"

"You could go back to school if you wanted, finish off your GCSEs. Jeffries knows about us now, he'd be able to sort things out. And once you've got your GCSEs, you can do whatever you want – you could go to college, or get a job, anything you want. You'd be doing exactly the same as everybody else in our class, just a little bit later. And even if your parents can't go back to their old jobs, I'm sure they'd find new ones."

"But Mum –"

" – is your mum. I know she's your alpha too, but they're your parents before that. If you want to come back home, then tell them. You have a choice – even if they want to stay, they can't force you to stay with them."

Maddy falls silent again, staring through the forest and down the valley floor below, and Rhydian shuffles across to sit next to her on the rock. She leans into him instinctively and he wraps an arm around her shoulders, and is startled to feel that she's shaking.

"I ran away when we first got here. I was so upset, and I was cold and lonely and I'd been stuck with just them for weeks, and my stomach hurt from all the raw meat… and I ran away in the middle of the night when it was pouring with rain and they wouldn't be able to catch my scent easily. I found a small cave and hid there. They found me around lunchtime the next day – Mum had used eolas. They weren't even angry with me. They were just sad," she sobs, and turns to look at him with red eyes. "I want to go home, Rhydian."

"Then we'll tell your parents that we're going to leave," he says gently and she starts crying in earnest, and tightens his hold on her. "And if they want to come with us… well, that's up to them."

Daniel isn't at around when Rhydian stumbles outside the next morning, bleary-eyed and with a headache. He doesn't think much about it though – he was alone under the furs when he had woken and assumed that Maddy had gone hunting with her dad, or perhaps on the weekly scavenge to the nearby campgrounds and towns. Two of the young wolves from the nearby pack appear as soon as he's finished his breakfast looking to play, and he quickly forgets about it as he shifts and chases them amongst the trees.

Maddy returns to the den around lunchtime, her pockets full of walnuts that she empties into a roughly-hewn bowl beside the fire.

"Where's Dad?" she asks a little shortly, clearly talking to Emma but not making eye contact. Maddy had insisted the night before that she would talk to her parents about going home alone, and whilst she didn't tell Rhydian how it had gone, she crawled into bed that night and immediately rolled onto her side away from him.

"I sent him to Canmore," Emma says lightly without turning from where she's pegging out some freshly-washed clothes on the rope that's strung between the hut and a nearby tree. Canmore means nothing to Rhydian, but it's clearly significant from the way that Maddy fumbles the last of her foraged walnuts and stares at her mother in shock.

"Really? When?"

"Last night, after you'd gone to bed."

"Maddy? What's Canmore?"

Maddy turns to him quickly, and it's the closest to the old Maddy that he's ever seen her – her eyes are bright with excitement, but there's none of the hard sharpness that he's fallen in love with over the last five weeks; it's pure, childlike joy and it makes his heart ache.

"That's where Louise Perry lives. Our contact over here, remember? She's the one who put us into hiding."

"So if your dad's gone to see Louise…"

"Then he must be organising for us to leave… Mum? Is he?"

"Yes. You were right, Maddy. Stoneybridge is our home, and it's as safe as it's ever going to be. It's a thirty-mile round-trip, so he won't be back until the morning. He'll tell us once he's back when Louise will be ready for us to leave, which might not be for a while yet. But we are going home, Maddy. I promise."

It's another week after Daniel gets back before they actually leave the den – they pack the few belongings that they have into a few dirty backpacks that had been shoved into a corner for six months and on the last day, break up the den as much as they can and scatter the materials that were used to build it. It's unlikely that anybody is going to ever find it, but just in case they do, the Smiths don't want any evidence that they lived here for as long as they did.

The hike from the den to Canmore takes twice as long with the family as it did Daniel by himself, but nobody cares – everybody is in such good spirits, and it's much less lonely that Rhydian's journey to find them, that the four days pass quickly. With the knowledge that a house with hot running water and a washing machine awaits them, they change into clean clothes every day – a simple luxury that they've been denied for six months. They eat well with the food that they've brought with them, smoked fish and strips of dried deer and whatever plants that they find along the way. They don't even try to be stealthy – if anybody were to come across them, they just look like a family who's been camping in the National Park and is heading home at the end of a fun week. It's not strictly untrue, but nobody would guess how long they've really been here.

Rhydian takes a step back when they finally arrive at Louise's place, and lets Maddy and her parents enjoy the carpets, the electricity, and the shower before he does; it's been a lot longer for them than it has for him. The three of them look very different once they're washed and dried and in brand new clothes, and Louise has expertly trimmed all of their hair and made Daniel shave – a strange halfway point between the wild wolfbloods that they'd had to turn into, and the tame wolfbloods that they used to be. Living in the wild has changed them yes – but it's only made them stronger.

Their flight doesn't leave until the morning, but Louise has a large house and two spare bedrooms that they retire too after an amazing dinner. Rhydian watches Maddy in the moonlight as she carefully takes the photos from the wall on her bedroom in the den and balances them on the windowsill where she can see them clearly, before settling down against Rhydian's chest with the starlight reflected in her eyes.

Maddy becomes more and more nervous with every passing minute on the aeroplane. She'd struggled slightly with the airport in Calgary, and all of the crowds, but it hadn't even been that busy – Rhydian is dreading how she'll react when faced with their one-hour layover in London Heathrow before they complete their journey up to Newcastle. Heathrow is a nightmare even when it's empty, let along at peak times, which is when their flight is due to land.

He's given up trying to convince her that everybody will be happy to see her, and that everybody has missed her. There was a brief moment somewhere over the Atlantic when she panicked and declared that she wanted to go back to Canada and live in the woods for the rest of her life, but a quietly stern talking-to from Emma quickly put that notion to bed.

They navigate Heathrow only by Rhydian keeping an extremely tight grip on Maddy's hand as much as possible, and finding the quietest corner of the new departure gate as soon as possible. At one point she and Emma actually go and hide in the toilets for a while, assuring the men that they'll hear any announcements about the flight and leaving Rhydian to keep an eye on a twitchy Daniel.

It's not until they're sat in a taxi driving from Ovingham train station to Stoneybridge that Maddy starts vibrating not with anxiety, but excitement – Rhydian's phone had started working again as soon as they touched down in Heathrow, and he'd sent texts to Tom, Shannon and Jana informing them of their arrival in a few hours. He'd heard nothing for half an hour, until his phone started ringing and suddenly Shannon was shrieking down the phone at him, demanding that she speak to Maddy immediately. Unfortunately it had been during Maddy and Emma's toilet-hiding stint, but he assured her that he'd keep her updated as to when they'd be arriving back at the cottage.

The sun is just starting to set as Stoneybridge comes into view, casting the town in pink and purple hues. Maddy is leaning over Rhydian's lap to press her face against the window, her whole face lit up with happiness as they rumble over the cobbles of the marketplace. Emma and Daniel are trying to hide it, but they have similar expressions of delight; Daniel especially looks particularly giddy.

The cottage is empty when they – Shannon had texted him to tell him as they rattled along the train tracks from Newcastle to Ovingham that upon hearing of Maddy and her parents' return, Mr Jeffries was more than happy to accommodate Jana, Ceri and Gerwyn for a few days until they could find somewhere new to live. Even though it's empty, it's warm and homely, with fresh milk and the fridge and bread in the cupboard. Having people living in the house whilst they've been gone has stopped the house from becoming cold and dusty and it will help with the transition, although Rhydian does spot Emma sniffing disdainfully as she walks around the kitchen, touching her hands to the worktops and furniture. He expects that there'll be a lot of scent-marking going on in the next few days.

The doorbell rings at exactly six o'clock.

"It's them," Maddy says breathlessly, her eyes bright and her smile wide, and she leans up to kiss Rhydian before running to open the front door and reunite with her friends.

end.