"I'm sorry, but we can't let you leave now that you've seen us." The boy took another step forward.

“Why- wait, we? Us?" Lina panicked.

The familiar sound of growls caused Lina to peek over her shoulder. The two wolves from before were glaring at her and growling viciously. Run, Lina, her mind screamed at her. Get away from them!

And for once, Lina did as she was told.

With surprisingly quick movements, the girl slipped past the two wolves and bolted into the unknown darkness of the forest. She could hear the twigs snapping underneath their feet, the leaves crinkling noisily. She could hear the heavy pants of the wolves behind her as their feet pounded into the ground. Worst of all, she could hear more wolves howling in response.

They're calls were steadily growing closer.

Lina tore through the dense trees, but she refused to stop or slow down. The panting of the wolves chasing after her was getting louder, their paws crunching loudly on fallen leaves and stray sticks.

Without breaking her pace, Lina peeked over her shoulder, positive that she'd seen a flash of movement.

Turning her head back to face the front, she immediately ran into a hard surface. Lina was instantly knocked off of her feet, landing hardly on the cold, hard ground with the air knocked out of her lungs. She laid there for a moment, desperately trying to catch her breath. Opening her eyes, Lina knew that her life was minutes from being snuffed out.

"Did you really think you could escape?" The boy from before asked, his red eyes glittering mockingly. Smirking, he leaned forward and hauled Lina to her feet by her collar as he waited for the wolves to catch up.

Suddenly, there were two more boys, making it three against one. Lina gaped at the new arrivals. "I guess we should explain," a boy with heart-shaped lips spoke, his voice low and quiet. The other freshly transformed male simply stared at Lina, his sharp eyebrows making him look incredibly angered, which didn't make her feel any safer in her current situation.

"We're wolves," the boy with the rectangular smile stated. Lina stared at him in a mixture of horror and disbelief.

"W-what?!"

The angry-looking male rolled his eyes. "We're wolves." He pressed, talking slow to make sure she understood. "It's why we're in the forest. Actually, we're the reason it's forbidden."

"Your people feel threatened by us, so they banished us here." Heart lips explained.

"Which is why we need you." The teasing male from before spoke up. "The townspeople hope that by keeping us trapped here, our race will die out and become extinct."

"And they’re getting their wish," The boy with the angry eyebrows remarked bitterly.

"They are?" Lina asked hesitantly, unsure where exactly she fit into all this.

"There are only twelve of us left. All males," The rectangular smiled boy stressed, serious for once. And then he grinned. "But now you're here."

"You're going to save us." All three boys spoke in harmony.

"How am I supposed to help?" Lina asked warily. Though she was all for helping them out if it meant getting out of the forest alive, her gut and the look the boy with the rectangular smile was giving her told her she wouldn't necessarily like the method the males had in mind.

Rectangle boy scoffed in exasperated amusement. "What are you, twelve? See, when a boy and a girl really like each other, they-"

"Shut up, Baekhyun." Angry eyebrows huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose hardly. With another haggard sigh, he lifted his head and locked gazes with Lina. "Look, if you could just convince them to allow us out a few hours a day, a week even, to just get out of these woods and live for once in our lives, we'd be forever grateful. That's all we want." His friends nodded silently in agreement.

Lina slowly glanced around at the half circle of boys standing in front of her. They seemed genuine. Normal, even. Just as that thought crossed her mind, Baekhyun flashed her a fanged, flirtatious smile. He even had the audacity to wink at her with his glowing, blood red eyes.

Well, not all of them. She amended.

The miniscule crack of twigs breaking behind her reverbrated through the now hauntingly quiet forest. Whipping around, Lina found herself face to face with the rest of the wolves, making twelve in total if she included the three boys in human form. They were large, but beautiful creatures. Intelligent, red eyes watched her keenly, a few cautiously leaning forward to sniff the air around her. A giant, dark gray wolf stood closest to her, it's tongue lazily hanging out of it's mouth.

A mouth smeared with spatters of fresh blood.

In the blink of an eye, the wolves simultaneously shifted before her, turning from wolves to Greek gods in the span of two seconds. The bloody wolf from before was a giant even in human form, the top of Lina's head barely coming up to his shoulder. He absently wiped his dirtied mouth on the sleeve of his white, long-sleeved shirt before offering his hand to her for a welcoming handshake.

"I'm Chanyeol," he stated pleasantly, his toothpaste-commercial smile temporarily blinding Lina.

"Lina," she answered back hesitantly. She reluctantly accepted Chanyeol's offered hand and gave it a few quick shakes, all the while never taking her eyes off the semi-dry crimson stain on his once pure white sleeve.

Each of the boys took turns introducing themselves. Some were nicer than others, but Lina liked to think that it had more to do with the fact that she was trespassing on their territory rather than them wanting to hurt her. Eyeing the rust colored stain on Chanyeol's shirt for the seemingly hundreth time, she once again felt the need to question her safety and sanity.

Why did I think this was a good idea?

"You'll really help us?" Chen asked dubiously, his arms crossed beside a blank faced Xiumin.

Lina, realizing he was addressing her, snapped out of her thoughts and nodded her head obediently. Luhan glared at her sourly from his positition in the middle of the pack. "How do we know we can trust her?" he demanded of Kris, who Lina assumed was the leader. "How can we be sure she'll keep her word? For all we know, she could run and tell the council that we escaped, or that we attacked her. They'll have our heads for this."

"Luhan,-" Kris started.

"No, he's right." She interrupted, forcing herself to maintain eye contact with the blonde, outspoken boy. "You can't be certain. We don't know each other well enough for me to ask for your trust. But I've been waiting my entire life to be here, to be able to go outside and forget about all the stupid rules they've created. So believe me when I say that I'll help you get out, because now that I've experienced freedom, there's no way I'm going to keep you guys from getting yours."

The boys nodded wordlessly in thanks.

"Baekhyun, make sure she gets back okay." Kris ordered, causing Lina to visibly cringe while Baekhyun smirked in delight. As the duo turned to leave, Lay stopped them.

"Wait!" he called out.

The two glanced back in surprise as the blonde jogged over to them. Reaching them, Lay speedily grabbed Lina's right hand and untied the bandage, dropping it carelessly to the ground much to the other boys' annoyance. Lay's hand hovered a few inches above hers, a soft blue-green light emitting from his palm onto her hand, immediately healing the long forgotten cut that she'd earned earlier that night.

She glanced up from her hand to stare wide-eyed at the two boys.

"Be mo