Chapter 18: Céimniú

Cold and dark, the castle hallway filled with the sound of chains clinking against metal and stone. A single wolf's guttural growl echoed in warning, his nails scraping across the gray stone as he put all of his weight into resisting. Kai did not want to go into the Stone room. He had been around long enough to know that only intense pain came with entering that room. When Suho had first come to pick him up, he had happily nipped and teased at his younger brother. Thinking that Sehun was going to be left behind in the dungeon, while he got to have fun outside. But when Lay and Chanyeol fell in behind him, Kai began to feel uneasy. With good cause, as he soon discovered where exactly he was being led. Resistance happened immediately. The second Kai felt he could escape he slipped down one of the side hallways, running full speed away from the stone room.

As he ran, Kai could hear the gaining footsteps of his three brothers chasing after him. He rounded a corner, bolting up a flight of stairs. He needed to find a hiding place, one where his brothers couldn't scent him out. Turning down another hallway, Kai spotted an open door. The first he had seen since his escape. He wiggled his wolf body through the gap between the two large doors, diving under the first hiding spot he could find. Which just so happened to be under the library staircase. Kai lay crouched beneath, his mouth open, white teeth glistening with saliva, as he breathed heavily. He wasn't tired, but anxious and sparking with nerves.

Kai whirled around at the sound of a loud thump that reverberated through the quiet library. His eyes flashed Golden grey, before faded into brown at the book that lay on the floor only a few feet from him. But his eyes only glanced at the book. Training instead on Elana. She stood frozen, her eyes wide and mouth slightly open in shock. Kai sniffed in her scent, almost not recognizing it. Beneath the layers of Xiumin's own scent, he caught a whiff of her natural smell. Recognizing it as the scent that intruded into his place only a day before. Kai narrowed his eyes at her, he took a step forward only to be block by his oldest brother. Xiumin, slid his larger wolf body between Kai and Elana. Giving Kai a growl of warning.

"Elana! Xiumin, have you seen a black and dark brown wolf run pass here?" Chanyeol stood at the doorway of the library looking down the railing at the two, his view of Kai blocked by the floor he was standing on. Elana glanced up, noticing the heavy chains grasped in his large hands. The very hands that had kidnaped her from the forest. Maybe it was for that reason, or maybe it was the look of fear that flashed through Kai's wolf eyes that made Elana say no. As the words slipped passed her lips, she could see Kai relax in his hiding space, Chanyeol nodding before backing out. Xiumin, though, had other ideas.

Xiumin knew what was happening to Kai. He could feel it, the beginning of his first transformation. They were always the worst, and took the longest. The shortest time, anyone from their pack had taken to transform, was three days. The longest had been sixteen. It was an important step in the aging process of a wolf. It deemed them mature enough to join the packs daily habits, without the fear that they might succumb to their instincts.

Releasing a Faolan-which referred to a wolf during their pup and young adult years-before they were ready, would only end in disaster. If the wolf felt any powerful, ruling emotions, they would feed on that feeling. Only to fall into a state much like a wild beast. They would loose complete control of their bodies and only be able to focus on what they were feeling. Xiumin knew of stories of other wolves that had been released before their Céimniú. One story told of a wolf that had been so overcome with anger that he had slaughtered an entire village. Another had felt a strong desire to be dominant and in power, and had multiple people, gender not specific, before he had been caught. A Faolan in the wrong mindset, was what every wolf should not be. So, alphas' had learned to be careful. Xiumin's pack ancestors having developed the process that Suho still used.

As pups, they would be free to roam the castle, only allowed outside with the supervision of a Liulfr. A matured wolf that had already passed through the Céimniú, a wolf that would not allow his instincts to overtake him. When the pup aged,