Sitting alone in the room with the strange man was uncomfortable. On top of him just being strange, he was also a magician, and he had also caused her family a lot of pain through his trickery. If Taemin hadn't told her to, Naeun never would have gone anywhere with Kibum. But obviously her brother trusted him enough to let them be alone together.

He looked just as uncomfortable, sitting across from her on the lounge chair and looking around the room in an attempt to find something interesting to focus on.

"This was supposed to be your room," the magician said, breaking the silence.

For the first time, Naeun took a good look at the place. It had been furnished for a woman, but it looked too lived in for her to believe it had been reserved for her.

"Of course, it's Taemin's room now. Or it was."

Thunder rolled in the distance, making that night seem only more ominous. She was still nervous about what she was doing. She knew Taemin wouldn't approve of her decision, but it hurt more than she realized it would.

If only he understood that he wasn’t the only one willing to make sacrifices for the good of their family. If making a deal with Minho and breaking his curse would save their father, and eventually bring them all together again, then that was her choice to make.

"Your family is something else, you know that," Kibum commented, smiling and very amused.

"How is that?" she asked, challenging him.

"You're all too selfless for your own good. Daevy was willing to die to protect you guys, Taemin was willing to give himself for his father, and now you're willing to exchange yourself for him...all for a guy who can't seem to shake his selfishness."

"We're a family. That's what family does for each other."

"Well I wouldn't really know," he said, "Magic was the only family I ever had growing up...and it continues to fail me miserably."

"I think you should rely on something else then."

He chuckled softly. "I suppose so." He rose from his chair and approached her where she sat on the bed. "We haven't been properly introduced. My name is Kibum." He held his hand out to her for a shake.

She cautiously held back.

"Don't worry. I'm not a monster."

"You threatened my father and tried turning my brother into a woman. You'll forgive me if I'm reluctant to touch you."

"Actually, I did turn your brother into a woman, however brief it was."

She wasn't amused by his humor. He eventually gave up and lowered his hand. "Fair enough. I'm a monster."

A loud thud sounded in the distance, interrupting their awkward time together. Puzzled, Kibum turned from her, in the general direction of the heavy sound.

"What's that?" she asked. Hopefully it wasn't the sound of Taemin murdering Minho.

It came again.

"Stay here," Kibum instructed, before slipping out of the bedroom, leaving her all alone.

For a moment, she just sat there, impatiently obeying his orders. As uncomfortable as it was having him in the room with her, it was ten times worse now that he was gone. She heard the loud thud again.

She wondered if it was Minho's beast form thudding through the house. If that was the case, where was her brother now? What was even going on between him and Minho?

She felt like she had been sitting still for far too long. She rose from the bed and followed the magician out. She wasn't sure of where he had gone, but she knew the way in which they had come there, so she followed it back out. Inevitably, the path took her to the foyer where Kibum stood...along with a troupe of a dozen men who had broken down the front door and flooded the entry way. They were armed with weapons and torches.

She knew immediately who they were. It was the hunting party from her village. There were men she recognized and right in the center of them was Jongin. He too had come to rescue his brother. And now his sister.

She knew she should have said something, but at the moment, she was too afraid. Death was the only thing on the hunters' minds, and Kibum was a man of mysterious powers.

"We've come here for the woman Naeun and her brother Taemin. Where are they?" the obvious spokesperson for the group demanded, facing down the magician fearlessly.

"I am going to give you one chance," Kibum said. The quirky man who had been speaking to her in the bedroom was now gone. The man who stood before the group was frightening, more because she knew what he could potentially unleash on them. "Leave this place before I kill you all."

"We are not leaving till you return our neighbors," the lead hunter replied.

Naeun stepped up to the railing that canopied the foyer. "Jongin, wait!" she called down to her brother.

"Naeun!" he exclaimed in relief. He broke away from the group and ran for the stairs, past the magician who didn't try to stop him.

But Kibum's gaze followed him and he was distracted for a moment, which was all the time the hunters needed. Without any warning, or any provocation, the lead hunter fired his crossbow. The bolt hit the magician's chest before he could even flinch.

Naeun screamed in shock and pulled away from the railing. Even Jongin looked surprised.

Kibum fell to the floor with a heavy thud and lay there, unmoving.

She couldn't believe what she had just seen.

He had been unarmed. He hadn't even tried making a move against the men. He had done nothing, but they killed him anyway. Without pause. Without remorse. Even Jongin couldn't believe it.

"Everyone here is a devil!" the leader of the group announced to his crowd. "Don't spare anyone. Let's find that beast and kill it!"

Immediately, the hunting party dispersed, going through the doors and fanning out through every corridor. Naeun was more afraid than ever before.

"Come on," Jongin said, pushing past his unease. He took her by the arm and led her toward the stairs, to the lower level where the magician lay. She yanked herself out of his grasp, unable to take one step closer to his body. "Naeun, this is your chance. You need to leave. I'll find Taemin."

"No!" she yelled, "Are you insane? What have you done? Those men will either be killed or kill everyone here!"

Jongin still looked frightened, like even he didn't know what he had just brought into that mansion. "That beast is dangerous. It needs to be killed," he said - the only justification for his actions.

"What if they hurt Taemin? They just killed that man! What if they do the same to him?"

"They won't. We're all here to rescue him. Now come on. It's your chance to get out of here."

"I'm not leaving without our brother!" she said firmly. "We're finding him together, and we're all leaving here together."

Jongin sighed in frustration, but he was smart enough to know when he faced a losing battle. He wasn't going to convince his sister to leave. "Fine. Come on."

"What was that?" Taemin asked as Minho pulled away from him. The loud thud shook the floor beneath their feet.

Concerned, he opened the door of the lounge and listened for whatever it was that made the loud sound. Not long after, it came again. It was like something ramming against a wall, or a door.

Minho's sharp gasp caught his attention. He turned back to the master, who was now hunched over and cringing in pain. Taemin just realized how late it was. Night was upon them, as was Minho's transformation.

Another noise, louder than the thuds, reached his ears. It sounded like the front doors shattering. Taemin was suddenly very afraid.

"Go," Minho said, waving him off before he began tugging at his clothes in order to get them off before they were ruined. Taemin was reluctant to leave him, but he was more concerned about his sister. He was half way through the door when Naeun’s unmistakable scream reached his ears.

 “Naeun!” Frightened, he immediately started running in her direction.

He made his way down the corridor as quickly as possible, but his path was blocked by three armed men before he could reach the foyer. He came to a skidding halt when each of their weapons him. He couldn't even guess what was happening at that moment, who the men were or what they wanted. He was too afraid and too confused.

"Where's the beast?" one of them demanded, leveling his crossbow with Taemin's chest. Warily, he stepped back from them. With all the weapons and the torches, they were likely there to kill Minho. Or at least to try.

"I don't know," he lied.

"Where can we find it?"

"I don't know."

"You must know where! Where is it?" the hunter demanded one last time, before he got his answer.

Minho emerged from the lounge, knocking the doors from their hinges in the process. His large bulk filled the hallway as he barreled through, growling and charging the hunters. Taemin ducked out of the way just in time to avoid getting run over.

The hunters fired their bows and the arrows stuck in the beast's hide, but they did little to deter him. He crashed into the men and knocked them all down with a few quick blows with his hands. He used his teeth to wrench the weapons from their grasp and used his menacing growl to frighten them off.

One of the three went running in terror. Taemin didn't get the chance to see the fate of the other two. He was already leaving the hallway behind, running in a different direction than the fight, to take an alternate route that would lead him back to the foyer and hopefully his sister.

He prayed she was alright, all while trying to understand how those hunters even got there. They must have been a hunting party from his village, but how would they know how to find him? Unless someone in his family showed the way. After Naeun left, Daevy or Jongin just might have been desperate enough.

The sound of a fight brought Taemin to another halt. He followed it into one of the secondary kitchens, where he found Jinki inside, struggling with two more of the hunters. Where they had knives and arrows, Jinki only had his pots and pans.

Taemin did the only thing he could think of and charged into the middle of the scuffle, grabbing the crossbow that the hunter was trying to aim at his friend. He yanked on it, trying to pull it from his hands to no avail. The distraction was all that was needed though. Jinki delivered a quick blow to his head with his pan, knocking the fighter unconscious.

The second man was taken care of the same way.

"What the hell is going on?" Jinki asked as he caught his breath.

"I don't know, but I think my family might be involved," he answered. "Where is Kibum? He has my sister with him. I need to find her."

"I don't know. He might have taken her to his room, or your room, or...I don't know. We need to find everyone. We need to stick together."

"Minho was attacked near the lounge," he said, as he backed out of the kitchen to continue his search. "I have to go."

"Wait!" Jinki called, running after him.

They both made their way through the lesser-traveled hallways, till they got to the foyer. Like he expected, the front doors were burst open, letting in the wind and rain. There weren't any hunters immediately nearby, but Jonghyun was there, hunched and sobbing over Kibum - who was on the floor with an arrow through his chest.

"Oh no..." Jinki said. He ran ahead of Taemin, down the stairs and to his friends.

Taemin could only stare in shock, before he forced himself to look away and shove his pain and heartache aside for the moment. He desperately looked for any sign of Naeun, but she wasn't there in the foyer. "Naeun!" he called.

As much as he wanted to join the others, all he could think about was his sister. He knew she might have left already, but her scream had terrified him and he wouldn't be able to rest until he knew she was safe.

He heard a series of screams not far away. Not a second later, Minho came running from one of the hallways. His mouth was covered in blood as he howled, as the energy from the fight enraged him. His yellow eyes met Taemin's briefly, before he turned to look at the rest of his friends. Taemin saw his rage disappear into the look of shock, before he quickly jumped over the railing and landed with a thud on the floor below.

For a moment, everything subsided as he looked at Kibum, as he took in his condition, as he realized one of his closest companions was killed. His rage then returned, increased ten-fold. His voice shook the walls as he howled in anger and grief, before he left the foyer and charged through the gallery, looking for more of the hunters to destroy.

"Minho!" Taemin called after him. He knew that the beast enraged could be hazardous, not just to the hunters but to any of his family who was with them. Besides, a killing spree was not something Minho needed weighing on his conscience.

He ran down the stairs two at a time, then followed the beast to the gallery. He heard the sounds of a fight before he even got there, accompanied by another one of Naeun's unmistakable screams.

Minho had run all the way to the ballroom, where another trio the hunters were gathered. It was nothing but chaos inside, with several of the men attacking the rampaging beast with their knives and arrows. The beast was resilient though, and his rage was enough to plow through them and do them more damage than they did to him.

Among it all, Taemin spotted his siblings. They were in the far corner of the room, anxiously watching the fight that was unfolding.

It was over within a few seconds. As armed and skilled as the hunters were, they were no match for the large beast. One was incapacitated when Minho vaulted him into the wall. The other was crippled when Minho bit into his leg, then left him to scramble away to safety. The last was too terrified by the condition of his companions and fled. With all the hunters taken care of, Minho turned his rage on his siblings.

"No!" Taemin screamed as Minho charged them.

Fortunately, he didn't attack. He just towered over them, growling menacingly while Jongin held up his torch to keep him at bay.

"Stop!" Taemin ran between them, stopping Minho's threatening growls and the swipes Jongin was taking at his face. "Stop, please," he pleaded as he pressed against the beast's furry chest, pushing him away from his siblings. Though he was still angered, Minho complied.

"Taemin," Jongin began, but he never gave him the chance to say whatever it was he intended.

"How many hunters did you bring here?" Taemin asked him.

"There's...There was ten other men."

"Why did you bring them here?"

"Why do you think? That beast took the both of you!"

Minho took a threatening step toward him again, and Taemin was forced to push him back, "He didn't take anyone. She came here on her own! I chose to stay here! Why can't either of you accept that?"

"Taemin!" Naeun called in warning.

He turned to see another hunter inside the ballroom, with his crossbow already prepared. He fired the bolt immediately and it struck Minho in the back, just as he jumped over Taemin and his siblings to shelter them all. They were thrown to the floor and Jongin's torch was knocked from his hand. Minho screamed, before he lunged at the lone hunter.

The man was already reloading his weapon.

"Stop!" Taemin begged.

He fired again and that time, the arrow hit the beast in the neck, causing more damage than any other hit. Minho stumbled and his voice gave out under the wound.

"Stop! Stop!"

Taemin pulled himself to his feet and ran at the hunter, not afraid for himself in any way. He ran in front of Minho as quickly as he could, blocking the man's target as he reloaded once again.

"Get out of the way, kid," the hunter said as he leveled the cross bow with his head - or more accurately, with Minho's head behind him.

"He's not a monster. Please, you can't kill him."

"Get out of the way!"

"He's my friend. Please!"

"How can he be your friend? He's a beast!"

"He's human. He's a cursed human - that is all!"

"Magic and devilry, that's what he is. Now move aside!" Having lost his patience, the hunter struck Taemin in the side of the head with his weapon, forcing him to the floor.

For a moment, everything went black.

A/N: O_O

Cliffhanger.

Comments are appreciated! <3 (Even the ones in that involve yelling, swearing, or flailing in frustration.)