Wolves generally did not have hallucinations. At least not normally. Luhan wondered how he had ended up hallucinating, because that had to be the only rational explanation for Minseok walking into the Angel Café and stalking straight over to him.

“We need to talk”

Luhan was not sure if he should try to pass his hand through the obviously fake Minseok or just stay silent.

“Minseok hyung! What brings you here?” Jongdae greeted the newcomer, putting down the coffee pot he was holding mid pour.

So Jongdae saw him too? Then…

“Hi Jongdae. I need to talk to Luhan.” Minseok said quickly, turning back to Luhan, “Can we talk here or…”

So he was real.

“Uh, we can go in the back.” Luhan motioned for Minseok to follow. Now that he knew he wasn’t hallucinating he was filled with anticipation – why would the one wolf who seemed to completely hate his guts come waltzing into his café?

Once the two men were seated in the back office Minseok blurted it out:

“I need your help.”

Luhan was not sure he was hearing things correctly. His help?

“But you hate me?”

“Yeah, well I still kind of do but I don’t’ have a choice unfortunately. The cops found out about us and we can’t go home. So….since you guys already know about us and because you made that stupid offer…”

“Are you going to join our pack?!” Luhan tried not to sound too excited but failed.

“No, I don’t want to join your pack. But we need a place to stay.”

Luhan considered Minseok’s request for a moment. Of course he wouldn’t join the Eastern Dawn pack so easily. But this was a step in the right direction. Over the last week it had not become lost on him that two members of his own pack had been ranting and raving about certain members of the Cloud Mountain Pack – it couldn’t have happened in a more perfect way if he had planned it himself. Well, there was the whole Minseok still hated him bit, but they could work on that.

“You can move in with us.”

“Huh? With you? Um, I was wondering if you knew of a place where we could stay safely, not necessarily…” Minseok was shocked Luhan never even asked the reason why they needed a place to stay.

“Yeah, it is safe at our house. You won’t find a place that is safer for a hybrid in all of Seoul.” Luhan answered firmly. He could be confident and imposing when he set his mind to it, and this was one of those times.

Minseok stared into those dark eyes. He did not register any kind of deceit. What he did register was not in his eyes, but was with his nose- how powerfully he could smell Luhan’s scent. He tried to ignore it, but it had become apparent since he had first met the pack leader of the Eastern Dawn pack that his scent was stronger than the other wolves he had encountered – for good or bad.

“You like my smell.” Luhan said, staring back at Minseok just as intensely, “I like how your scent too.”

Minseok felt a heat creep up his neck. What was going on?! He broke eye contact and cleared his throat.

“No, I don’t like your scent. But I do need a place to stay so I will accept your offer on a couple of conditions.”

“Like?”

“You will stop asking us to join your pack. You will realize I am the leader of the Cloud Mountain Pack and you won’t try to tell my pack members what to do. You will stop staring at me like that.” Minseok said firmly.

“Done.” Luhan averted his gaze so he would not “stare like that”.

“And you won’t ask about our past or what we do for a living.”

“Done.”

“One more thing”

“Tell that pup Sehun to stop calling Tao in the middle of the night to talk about dramas. It is annoying.”

“Done- since they live together they can just talk in their rooms. Now I have one condition for you.”

Minseok was not sure he was ready to hear this condition.

“You’ll try not to hate me until you get to know me.”

Yep, Minseok was not too fond of this condition but in his current circumstance he did not really have a choice.

“Done.”

“Great, you guys can move in now if you want. I’ll call Sehun and Jongin to help.” Luhan smiled. Minseok groaned internally. This was certainly going to be an experience that is for sure.

***

“Hyung…have you ever been in a house this huge in your life! And owned by a wolf to boot!”

Minseok shook his head. Tao had not been able to shut up about the house since they had gotten there with their meager belongings. It was getting annoying. Sure the house was huge – okay it was ing ginormous – but that was obvious. He didn’t need the pup telling him that. Luckily he was saved from more oooohs and ahhhhhs when Sehun showed up, still in his school uniform.

“Tao! I mean…hey Tao.”

If that kid could be more obvious. Minseok shook his head. It was kind of cute.

“Sehun! We are going to be roomies!” Tao ran over to Sehun and the two of them went off together, chatting merrily. Minseok was relieved, he felt like for the first time since that knock on their door he could breath.

Minseok had been given a room in the eastern wing of the cavernous house. It was a nice size room, white with bold primary colored accents. In fact all of his pack with the exception of Tao had been given their own rooms. It was something else to think of how much money the place cost, sitting with enough room for seven people with the addition of five more. He had guessed by the way Luhan dressed, by the way he had melded into society enough to become a student that he had financial resources. But this was kind of ridiculous. How could a hybrid accumulate so much wealth at such a young age?

“My Father had a lot of friends.” Luhan said, approaching Minseok and answering like he could read his mind. Minseok was standing on the landing on the third floor, taking in the sight of the gardens that sprawled over the back part of the estate.

“Must be nice” Minseok muttered.

Luhan just nodded. He knew Minseok was coming from a far less wealthy, far less secure past.

“Well it is your home too.” Quickly realizing he had made a mistake with his words due to Minseok’s eyebrow raise he corrected, “For now anyway.”

“Yeah, for now. Until this whole thing dies down.” Minseok confirmed.

“Well, for now make yourself at home. I thought it might be a good idea if everyone had dinner together tonight, you know to get to know each other and all. See you at eight?”

Minseok nodded. A dinner with both packs? This was sure to be interesting…

***

Kyungsoo was not thrilled to be in their new home. He had a definite distaste for those who had it easy in life, especially if they were of a hybrid nature. The cloud mountain pack had struggled for too long on the streets for this to be comfortable or normal or anything to be happy about – knowing that the Eastern Dawn pack had lived in such luxury. It was a little frustrating to tell the truth.

Kyungsoo sighed. He had just organized his new room, the first room that belonged to him alone in his life. Now he was not sure what to do. Normally he would go out and pickpocket, maybe steal something from a store. But Minseok had ordered them all to stop all illegal activities for now. It was too dangerous with the police looking for them. Now he had free time - what to do. Finally, after some minutes of boredom he decided he might as well just take a shower and lay down for a nap. Maybe he could watch a movie on his phone.

Kyungsoo took off his shirt, throwing it on the bed. He walked towards the big armoire at the corner of the room to retrieve a fresh change of clothes when he heard a gasp.

“Oh my god…”

Kyungsoo whirled around. , he had forgotten to close the door. Standing in the doorway was one of the Eastern Dawn pack members. A Jong-something. He had seen him once before when he was prowling around near the University, but they had never formally met. And now he was gaping at Kyungsoo, shock on his face.

“Who did that to you?!”

Kyungsoo did not have to ask what he meant. Instead he went to the door and slammed it without a word. It was the scars. Hee had seen the scars that crisscrossed Kyungsoo’s back. Deep and wide, they were there to always remind Kyungsoo of where he had come from. And he did not feel like explaining it to the rich kid. Not now, not ever.

***

“Take it back!”

“You take it back!”

Snarls, more snarls. Then some crashing. A vase knocked over, shattering into jagged pieces of blue and white porcelain.

“Break it up!” Yixing dashed into the sitting room to find two wolves preparing to tear each other’s necks out. He could see one of them was Baekhyun, he would know one of the Eastern Dawn pack’s omegas anywhere. He also knew Baekhyun was probably the only omega he had ever met that would fight anyone – alpha or not.

The two fighting wolves did not listen to Yixing’s words and continued biting and clawing at each other. Baekhyun had the larger wolf pinned down on the floor when Minseok burst into the room shouting, Luhan hot on his tail doing the same.

With both pack leaders present the wolves broke off their fight. It was one thing for Yixing to tell them to stop, an entirely different situation when their pack leaders did so. Both creatures shifted back to human form.

“What in the hell is going on here?” Minseok demanded, looking from Chanyeol to Baekhyun and back to Chanyeol.

“He made fun of my height!” Baekhyun whined.

“And that is a reason to kill him?” Luhan asked, pissed off that it had not even been six hours with the new pack in the house and a fight had already erupted.

“He said I look like a big eared freak.” Chanyeol chimed in, sending death glares at Baekhyun.

“If you don’t stop it I will kill both of you” Luhan practically growled the words.

“Don’t tell my pack what to do” Minseok glared at Luhan.

Luhan narrowed his eyes “Then keep your pack in line.”

“I could say the same to you” Minseok spat back.

The two leaders stared each other down, the air tense. No one else dared to move, instead just waiting to see what happened between the two strong willed hyungs.

“You must be Minseok.” The possibility of a fight was killed by the fortunate arrival of an older female entering the room. “I am So Ra, the elder of the Eastern Dawn pack. It is so nice to meet you.”

Minseok eyed the woman’s outstretched hand, looking from her hand back to her face. She was a stylish woman. She was far from a young woman but there was a youthfulness that painted her face, a spark that lit up her facial expression. More importantly she looked kind. He took her hand, returning the greeting.

“I see some of you have been playing. I hope we can all get along in the future.” So Ra looked over at Baekhyun and Chanyeol (who was hilariously covering his ness with a throw pillow, his face bright red as he nodded in greeting).

“Good. Now let’s go have dinner.”  So Ra smiled sweetly. This was certainly going to be interesting.

***

Dinner was, indeed, interesting. Baekhyun and Chanyeol kept giving each other the evil eye from across the table (where they had been seated as far away from each other as possible). Luhan noticed that Jongin spent most of dinner staring at the little omega, Kyungsoo. He would have to ask him about it later, there was sure to be a story here. Jongdae and Suho would not shut up about anime, which had the rest of the group groaning. Minseok thought it was the most he had seen his second in command talk in a while.

Sehun and Tao kept feeding each other, with the younger blushing furiously and then trying to play it off like the air conditioning was not turned up enough. Yixing launched into a story about the secret life of plants and how they could actually talk to each other, which is why he thought be a vegetarian was a fabulous idea – but it was all a sad thought since he couldn’t resist meat due to his wolf nature.

So Ra tried to guide the dinner conversation, asking the new comers questions that had nothing to do with their past and everything to do with their personalities (you like the hot weather? Oh, so do I. What do you think about gardening? What television shows do you watch?). Meanwhile Minseok and Luhan stayed unusually quiet, that is until Luhan blurted out an invitation.

“Minseok, would you have a drink with me in the library after dinner?”

Minseok was prepared to turn the invitation down, that is until Luhan spoke the words “I need to talk to you about the police and their interest in your pack. I received some news.” Hell, now he couldn’t say no.

***

Luhan’s “news” was less news than a reason to get Minseok to have a drink with him. It seemed Luhan had some sort of connection with an “in” at the police force. He heard that there were wolves in Minseok’s old neighborhood that were causing trouble, which is something Minseok had guessed given the fact the police had been around. Luhan had no other information – such as what they had done or who they were.

“I don’t see how there could be wolves I did not sense. At least not near our flat.” Minseok remarked, taking another drink of his brandy. He had to admit that expensive alcohol was far tastier than the cheap soju he was used to.

“That is the question.” Luhan finished his own drink, pouring another after he had refilled Minseok’s glass.

When Luhan was filling his cup, his face still in concentration, Minseok caught his smell much stronger than before. It was heady and intoxicating and- oh god, what was happening. His head felt light. He had a very high alcohol tolerance, he couldn’t be drunk, could he?

“Something is going on and I mean to find out what. In the meantime I guess we should all lay low” Luhan put the decanter back on the side table and sat down. Swirling the amber liquid in his glass he looked at Minseok. It was amazing, sitting here with him. He took a deep breath, drinking in Minseok’s scent. It was something he could not explain, how much it attracted him. Which is why he needed to ask the next question.

“Minseok, how old are you?”

“Twenty two.”

“You have to be joking? So am I!” Luhan smiled. But then it just made everything more confusing. How could he be twenty two and still not a confirmed Alpha or Omega?

“Congratulations on being my age.” Minseok retorted. He could certainly be snarky when he wanted to be.

“I should say the same to you. So….you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but umm…you have never gone through the change, have you?” Luhan’s eyes were wide, anticipating the answer.

Minseok could not believe Luhan would ask him that.

“No, I haven’t. And if you want to start discussing how that makes me a freak at my age then I suggest you shut the hell up. I came from a lab- remember? We don’t all have such a rich past, “Minseok gestured to the room around him, anger lighting up his eyes, “Thanks for the drink.”

Luhan could only stare after Minseok as the man slammed his glass down and stormed out of the library. Luhan suddenly had a headache. This was not going to be easy, that is for sure.