Part 2: Chapter 3

“So, what’s this story old man?” Kai asked as he sat at the foot of Kyungsoo’s hospital bed with his hands in his pockets.

Kyungsoo gave him a hard nudge with his foot.  “Kai,” he hissed.  “Show some respect.” 

Kai swatted back at him.  The old man seated on the room’s sole stool chuckled softly.  “Unfortunately, that is Kai showing respect,” he said with amusement.  “Do not worry, boy.  I will waste no time.”  Kai scoffed but said nothing as the old man began his tale.

“In the old days, there existed a race of men with two souls who lived in the shadows.  These men appeared human in the day time, but lived their nights as wolves.  In human body, these Wolf-Men had the strength, speed, smell and sight of a wolf.  In the wolf body, they had the intelligence of a human and thus the ability to control the wolf’s primal instincts.  To keep their secret from the humans, they lived under the radar of normal human politics and ran their own society with their own hierarchy.  But secrets can’t be kept forever. 

“The society the first wolf-men once created has since fallen and very few still survive.  The young that are born today don’t tend to survive until their 18th birthday because they have no guide to help them understand what they are.  There are very few of us left that are able to sense the wolf before the First Turn.”

“Us?!” Kyungsoo repeated.

“Old man, you can’t be serious,” Kai interjected with an eye roll.  “Don’t try to convince us that these wolf-men are actually real.  I wanted to know what’s wrong with Luhan, not some crazy tale.”

The old man looked at Kai and let his wolf soul rise to the surface.  The body his souls shared was old and weak, but the souls weren’t.  A wash of power ran through his aching bones and the old man knew that his eyes glowed red, much like how Kai had described Luhan’s eyes. 

Kai gasped his eyes going wide as he jerked back, nearly scrabbling onto the bed before he got ahold of himself.  Even Kyungsoo’s jaw dropped.  It wasn’t just the eyes.  A few of the wrinkles on the old man’s face had smoothed out and his curved back sat a little straighter.  When he spoke his voice held a new strength to it, a new power.

“I will not hurt you Kai,” the old man said.  “My wolf is a part of me but will not override me.”

But Kai still watched the old man carefully, more afraid of his body’s own reaction.  Something in Kai had moved in response to the old man’s transformation. It moved underneath his skin and sat like a weight on his chest.  Kai jerked his gaze to Kyungsoo who was rubbing his own chest.  He felt the same thing Kai did.

Kai looked again at the old man who was watchi