Make sure you've read chapter four before proceeding into this chapter. I updated last night and then again this morning. Also, sorry for the lack of proof reading.

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When Amber turned away from Daesung, she found herself facing Henry instead. The copper-haired delta had a frown on his face, as though he were considering what he had just overhead, as his gaze met the Goddess Touched’s. She had, in the excitement of seeing her alpha so happy, forgotten that Henry was with her, yet there he was….and he had heard everything. A grave expression settled on Amber’s soft features as she took a step towards the delta, closing the distance between them. “Do you want to talk?”

He nodded before moving away from the gaggle of Excelsior wolves, who were on the whole still reeling from Daesung’s news. Amber trailed along behind Henry as he meandered through the camp…through the common grounds…and all the way to the edge of the cliff overlooking a distant river, muddy and thick at the base of the canyon. Stopping a few feet behind him, Amber watched him as he shifted his weight from foot to foot; his mind was awhirl with the thoughts jammed tightly in his skull. “You’re leaving,” he said at last.

“I have to,” she agreed. “My pack can’t do without me.” And it was painfully true. As pack shaman, Amber was literally irreplaceable; it was a position that only death could release her from. If she were to abandon her pack, they would be lost – unable to seek clear counsel from the goddess. She could imagine ways in which that would cause the pack to destabilize, threatening their beautiful home and the safety they had fought so hard to achieve.

Henry curled his fingers tightly into the hem of his shirt. “So did you mean it, then? When you asked me to consider you as a potential mate?”

Amber blinked. “Of course I did.” She scuffed at a rock with the toe of her shoe. “I thought I’d made it pretty clear I was serious about my interest in you.”

At that, the delta turned to face her. “But you’re leaving,” he said, confusing written plainly across his features.

“Yeah. And I’d hoped you would come with me,” Amber replied, her soft voice gentle. “I’d always intended to ask you to come with me.”

That caught him off guard. “Wait, what?”

A little chuckle slid past Amber’s lips. “Henry, from the moment I saw you, I wanted to take you back to the mountains with me. I know I’m not much and you have no reason to trust me, but I know the Goddess brought me here to you. Please say you’ll come with me and be mine?”

--

Taecyeon had it both easier and harder than Amber. His desired mate had every reason to go with him: safety, food, family; but, that did not mean WooYoung would actually give him a chance. Actually, if Taecyeon were honest with himself, he seemed the most likely to fail. For whatever reason, WooYoung seemed utterly unimpressed with any of his attempts to demonstrate his strength or prowess as a hunter. It was as though he had been weighted and found wanting all without knowing what criteria he was being measured against! He was frustrated beyond words, and yet… And yet, he refused to give up. So, cutting through the afternoon crowds, the tall beta hunted for the slender alpha. 

WooYoung had apparently not heard Jiyong’s news yet: He was sitting on a rock working a piece of wood with a sharp knife. Taecyeon stopped short and watched the other wolf whittle; his knife moved with confidence as it seemed to peel the wood shavings off as though it were the skin of a fruit. He tried to puzzle out what he was carving, but the carving was not finished enough to reveal the artist’s intention. Shaking his head, Taecyeon rolled his shoulders back and took the remaining steps to approach WooYoung. A wide, toothy smile found its way onto his lips – even if WooYoung didn’t like him, the sight of the alpha warmed the jetty haired wolf right to his core – as he wiggled just a little closer. “WooYoung?”

At first, the only sign that WooYoung had heard him was the slightest hesitation in the knife’s movement across the surface of the wooden block. “Yeah?” he finally replied, glancing up at Taecyeon through the saddle brown lengths of his bangs.

And this was the difficult part. Taecyeon wanted to list off all the reasons WooYoung should be his mate and remind the handsome alpha how wonderful the mountains were; but, that did not seem right. If anything, WooYoung’s chilly behavior showed just how poorly that tactic had worked. “I’m sorry.” That made the wood nearly slip from between the alpha’s fingers. “I’m sorry if you felt I threatened your authority by courting you, and I’m sorry if I’ve annoyed you.” Taecyeon’s smile fell away from his lips as his gaze sank to the abandoned shavings scattered across WooYoung’s lap. “I was just so excited and wanted you to want me so badly – I can be overwhelming. But I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Silence.

Then, faintly, the scrape of blade against wood.

A soft sigh.

“You know, I thought you were chasing me because it’d be easy. Small alpha, big beta. Like I wouldn’t be able to boss you around or something.” Taecyeon’s gaze snapped up to rest on WooYoung’s face, which was caught in an unsettlingly serene expression. “Wouldn’t be the first time a lower rank tried to go after me for reasons like that, you know. They think just because I’m smaller I’m weaker.” He paused. “They were wrong.” The beta opened his mouth to say something – anything! – but the other wolf kept going: “I realize that any mate I take is never going to treat me normally. It’s my lot in life. You know, I sometimes envy Jiyong because he at least looks the part of an omega – nobody treats him differently from what he is. It’d be so easy, you know, to just…cut the mark right off my palm.” The knife swayed slowly in his grip. “But that wouldn’t change what I am. Who I am.” Raising an eyebrow, he looked up at Taecyeon. “Sure you want me for your mate?”

--

If Taecyeon had been nervous, Taekwoon was utterly numb. Anxiety had flared up throughout his body – manifesting in twitching fingers and clicking teeth – until it had simply become so much that his emotions had shut down, waiting until they were ready to reboot. Even though Hakyeon had seemed so receptive to his offerings and to his flittering, there was a sense of unease resting in the pit of Taekwoon’s stomach that he simply could not explain. There was some detail, some fragile element, that seemed poised to undermine all of the quiet dreams of happiness the delta had built the moment he had first seen Hakyeon’s face.

Ultimately, it was Hakyeon that found him, sitting – just staring up at the blue sky as it began to darken at the edges with the first hues of night. The alpha sat down beside him, tipping his head back to watch the distant clouds as they drifted towards the horizon – a pink blush beginning to color them the closer they came. “Soo said you guys will be leaving,” Hakyeon said, his voice far softer than it normally was. (Taekwoon had learned very quickly that the wolf at his side was usually very loud and very flashy – two things he never thought he would be attracted to.) It unnerved Taekwoon to hear the gentleness in the alpha’s voice; he had grown accustomed to the cacophony. He managed a slight nod. “Will... Do you think Chansung will take good care of Kyungsoo?”

Taekwoon had not expected that question, though he had imagined a hundred different possibilities. “Yes,” he said simply, his voice nearly impossible to hear over the distant noises of the other wolves.

The alpha let out a sigh. “Ah, that’s good. I am very glad to hear that.” Hakyeon nodded to himself, lips drawn into a tight parody of a smile. “Will you be happy to go home?” He looked over at Taekwoon. “I’m sure you miss your family.”

Hakyeon spoke as if they were saying goodbye; it sent a chill through Taekwoon. “Yes.” He began to twist one of the heavy rings on his finger. “You could come.”

A strangely bright laugh fell from Hakyeon’s lips. “Why would I do that, eh?” His shoulder bumped playfully against Taekwoon’s. “My pack is here.”

Trying to steady his breath, the delta turned to meet Hakyeon’s smiling gaze. “You could have a new pack. My pack.”

The smile on Hakyeon’s lips wavered before coming back twice as strong. “I know your alpha is kind, but taking on random pack members would be too much to ask –“

“-As my mate,” Taekwoon cut in, stuttering out the word before he lost all his courage. 

--

Henry’s lips pulled into a bright smile. “You serious?” The idea that an alpha – a Goddess Touched alpha! – would want him for a mate was nearly outrageous. He was a delta, and by all rights that meant he was doomed to be ignored by the higher ranking wolves; if he were lucky he might end up with a lesser beta. But no, here he was with Amber grinning at him with that delighted little twinkle in her eye.

“Do I have to do a song and dance number to convince you of just how serious I am?” she teased.

Laughing, he took a shy little shuffling step towards her. “No, you don’t. I just can’t believe you’d want me.” He wrinkled his nose as another laugh slid past his lips. “I’d be honored to be your mate, Amber.” 

--

“I’m sure,” Taecyeon said firmly. “I’ve never been this sure about anything in my entire life. It’s not because I think you’re weak or not an alpha; you’re maybe not the biggest wolf, but you’re strong in other ways. You’re clever and agile, you know when to push and when to pull, and you’re loyal. Why wouldn’t I want that in a mate?”

WooYoung shrugged. “Alright.”

Taecyeon had just gathered a breath to say more on the matter, to try to convince the alpha of his admiration, when the word caught up to him. “Alright?”

“Alright.” WooYoung went back to whittling. “You seem like a better option than what I’ve seen around here, and Jiyong… Well, I might as well stay with my cousin.” He glanced up at Taecyeon. “He is going to be your leader’s mate, isn’t he?” Stunned, the beta nodded. “Then sure, I’ll be your mate. I think we’ll be good partners.”

Partners? Taecyeon thought, the word leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He wanted them to be mates not partners… 

--

 A soft laugh, something that sounded more like a heartbroken shadow of a sigh, slipped past the full line of Hakyeon’s lips. “Oh Taekwoon,” he murmured. “Chansung…told me your pack believes mateships should be based on love. That he looked at Soo and knew he’d come all this way just to fall in love with him.” He hung his head. “But I don’t know that I can be that for you, Taekwoon. Not right now.”

The only thought that managed to flash across Taekwoon’s mind was that being utterly rejected did not hurt, if anything it felt like his ability to feel was simply removed from his body – as though joy itself had been drained out of his repertoire. And that was infinitely worse. He could imagine all of the others successfully winning their mates and leading happy lives together; but, he would be forever alone, abandoned by the one alpha that had claimed his soul from the moment he had first breathed life. Because, in the north, it was believed that every wolf was born with a single perfect mate, and to try to mate with another after you had met them was suicide. How could you be happy with the filtered weakness of the winter sun streaming through the thick clouds when you had once known bright summer in its fullness? “Oh."

“If there were more time,” Hakyeon choked, “time for my heart to heal, it’d be different. You are so kind and thoughtful, everything I could ever want. But I love him, Taekwoon.” The alpha buried his face in his hands as his tongue was stopped by the overwhelming flow of his tears. “Kyungsoo… I love him, but I knew – I knew I couldn’t be what he needed. And I just can’t…” Carefully, Taekwoon reached out to wrap his arms around Hakyeon, drawing him into a tight embrace. The alpha gasped, breaking free of his hands like he was emerging from a rock slide into the first breaths of freedom, and threw his arms around the brunette’s neck. Taekwoon carefully tangled his fingers in the soft auburn hair at the nape of Hakyeon’s neck and held him as he cried, spilling every salty piece of sorrow on the slope of the delta’s neck. Minutes wasted between them, perishing in stuttered gasps and shared agony, as the wolves were crushed beneath the weight of broken happiness. But even in the depths of his pain, the delta could not help feeling sorry that Hakyeon could not be happy – that he had to be parted from Kyungsoo. When the wolves went to the mountain, it was likely the broken little delta would never see his old pack again; the journey was too dangerous to be casually made. That was perhaps the worst of it: Knowing that Taekwoon was going to be leaving with Hakyeon’s happiness – his heart – and leaving the other wolf behind, alone, to wallow in the agony of losing the one he loved. And there was nothing Taekwoon could do to mend the situation. 

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Right...well, you get a double update. Kind of. 

Well, that answers some questions, I suppose. I feel like a terrible human. Taekwoon, what have I done to you? The next chapter will go into what exactly the threat is and finally we're going to the mountains. You don't even know how excited I am for the next part of the story. Is gunna be good. Feel free to leave your thoughts, rants, and compliments in the comments below. <3 Thank you for reading!