Minho dreamt of his memories, much like he had when he translocated from Earth to his new world. Most of them were sweet recollections of his omega, such as the time the wolf had caught Kibum in the woods by himself and gave him a flower with green petals and a pink stem, and then promptly took off when he heard others approaching. In another memory, Minho was dutifully watching over the omega while he slept near a stream, making sure no harm came to the beautiful boy.

Minho saw so many visions of Kibum that a new found fondness bloomed in his human heart. Tendrils of deep affection wrapped themselves around the organ, ensnaring it in the warm binds of tender adoration. The tight coiling of emotion under his bone felt… pleasant.

Minho awoke with a welcome—but no less confusing—flame in his chest. The source of the warmth was sprawled on top of Minho with his legs on either side of the alpha and his finger’s curled around Minho’s shoulders. Minho quite liked the pressure of the cheeky omega lying on top of him, even if the spontaneous onset of love felt unfounded. With a wary mind and an overflowing heart, Minho wrapped unsure arms around the lithe man and nosed into his soft tawny hair. Minho had never enjoyed the scent of cloves so much.

“And the beast finally finds it in himself to rise. I thought you were going to sleep for a whole moon cycle. You are supposed to wake with the dawn, not well after sunrise,” Kibum chortled into Minho’s neck.

“Yeah, well, whoever decided that,” Minho responded groggily, bringing his hand up to drag his fingers through Kibum’s hair experimentally, minding his claws. The feeling of the silken tresses slipping between his digits was peculiarly satisfying. “I’ll wake up at one in afternoon if I damn well please.”

“Hmm, there you go with those strange words again,” Kibum tsked. “I’m finding it hard to keep track of them.”

“You won’t be able to, jagiya. It’s another language.”

“My name is not… Jah-ki-yah,” Kibum sounded out carefully. “You cannot call me someone else’s name if we are to bind ourselves to one another.

“Did I say jagiya?” Minho blinked owlishly. He couldn’t have said jagiya. Jagiya was too serious. It didn’t matter if he had risen from slumber with a flutter in his heart.

“Who’s Jah-ki-yah?” Kibum demanded. He looked none too happy. Minho didn’t know whether to laugh at Kibum for misunderstanding or cry because his process of falling for someone was undoubtedly on amphetamine.

“Jagiya isn’t a name, Kibum,” Minho chuckled, anxiety thick in the sound. “But I shouldn’t have you called that, so just forget about it.”

Kibum wasn’t having any of Minho’s evasions. Grabbing at Minho’s wide shoulder’s, Kibum yanked Minho up into a sitting position, knocking Minho’s forehead into his chin.

“!” Minho yelped, rubbing the sore spot with the heel of his palm. It felt like his skull had cracked under the blunt force trauma.

“Whoever Jah-ki-yah is, they will know their place and stay away if they don’t want their eyes removed from their sockets,” Kibum snarled, eye’s burning. It was like he hadn’t even felt Minho’s head bash into his chin.

“Kibum,” Minho whined, pushing the hands that were trying to throttle him away. “Listen to me; jagiya is not a name!”

“Then what is it?!”

Minho could smell fear oozing from Kibum’s pores in thick waves. His eyes were panicked; color was draining from his cheeks, making them look chalky. But there was no reason to be afraid unless… unless Kibum thought Minho would rather mate with Jah-ki-yah, and thus wouldn’t protect him from the vile gremlins nipping at his heels. Kibum had sent himself into a tizzy by misconstruing Minho’s words.

“Oh, no, you don’t understand,” Minho attempted to soothe. He clutched the back of Kibum’s neck gently, squeezing firmly because he could feel the wolf urging him to do it. Kibum went lax under the ministrations and fell against Minho’s chest. “Jagiya is an endearment. It’s what you call your mate.”

Minho noticed a drastic drop in the tarry, gasoline-like scent of fear and an increase in something much more sweet. Like strawberries. He didn’t know what that meant, but Kibum was now nuzzling into his clavicle and nipping lightly where the bone met Minho’s sternum. Minho hoped this was affectionate behavior and not a precursor for ripping out his throat.

“So,” Kibum muffled into the alpha’s skin. “You are my jah-ki-yah then?

“I… yes. But we aren’t mates yet, so maybe we shouldn’t call each other jagiya yet.”

“No,” Kibum pouted, burying his face in harder. “I like it. You have to say jah-ki-yah. And you mustn’t call anyone else by it.”

Petting Kibum’s back over the rough fabric of his loose shirt, Minho thanked the bastard who ed up his position in time and space for at least showing mercy in that Kibum wasn’t looking at his flaming cheeks.

“Jagiya isn’t said casually. I don’t think you like me enough to call me that.”

“Off course I do,” Kibum scoffed. “I marked you. You are the mate I have chosen, and the one I will take care of and bear cups for. To do that willingly means I hold you in high regard.”

Minho felt it best for his sanity that he didn’t ask about the pup thing. That was way beyond his scope of comprehension right now. Everything was beyond the scope, to be honest.

“How could you come to like me so fast, though?”

Maybe the answer would help Minho cope with his own feelings.

“You are a bit slow, so I am starting to wonder the same thing,” Kibum snarked.

“Did you just call me dumb?”

“Yes, but you are otherwise charming and your scent is alluring. That’s grounds enough for me to like you. You are also nice to look at, but that is just a perk.”

It was simple, but in a world with no notion of proper courtship it probably made as much sense as anything else.

“You feel stronger than me, though,” Kibum continued. “I can smell it. Under your sweet odor is a scent I have found on Taemin and Jonghyun often. It is an intense adoration I have yet to understand, but surely I will feel it in time.”

Minho felt utterly embarrassed. The new emotions he hadn’t wholly felt yesterday were swirling around in his heart and flowing thickly through his bloodstream so that every fiber of his being was nurtured with the debilitating feeling of infatuation. And Kibum could ing smell that.

“Let us go meet with the others at the village center. You held me so tightly in your sleep that I could not get up to eat and I feel starved.”

Kibum clambered from Minho’s lap and pulled the alpha to his feet. He took Minho to where all the other wolves had gathered for breakfast. They were already well into the feast, gnawing on meat and juices off of bones. Considering Minho had not eaten since he got there, one would think he would be jumping at the chance to fill his belly with sustenance. There was on small, itsy bitsy, tiny little problem though.

“Great flaming , I thought you two were just going to waste away over there,” Taemin jeered as he bounded up, one hand gripping bleeding meat that he passed to Kibum and the other wiping thick lines of blood from his chin.

“It was not my fault that he wouldn’t wake up,” Kibum rolled his eyes, tearing the raw chunk of muscle in half and holding it out for Minho. Blood shot from the flesh as it tore, drops of the thick red liquid splattering on Minho’s abdomen.

“Well?” Kibum raised an eyebrow, waving the uncooked morsel in Minho’s face. “Are you going to take it?”

The scent of blood flooded Minho’s nose and clogged the cavity up. Barely reined in nausea rolled in Minho’s gut and threatened to come surging up his throat at any moment. Clasping a hand over his mouth to coax his empty stomach into keeping its foul bile within, Minho backed away from Kibum, furiously shaking his head. There was no way he was putting that into his mouth.

“A malnourished alpha does not win his omega, pet,” Kibum scolded Minho in the same way he would reprimand a disobedient child.

“No thanks. I think I’d rather starve,” Minho gaged, turning completely away from Kibum so he wouldn’t have to look at the offending piece of meat. Just the sight of it was making him dry heave.

“Minho, this is no time to be acting like a picky puppy” Kibum sighed, grabbing Minho and forcing him to turn back. “Either you eat this yourself or I shove it down your throat.”

“Kibum, I swear to God, if you—mmph!”

Kibum shoved a bite sized piece of bloody animal flesh into Minho’s mouth triumphantly, looking way too proud of himself at having accomplished force feeding the alpha.

“See, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

Blood oozed from the squishy chunk in Minho’s mouth and coated his tongue in a taste unbecoming of any food. Minho tried to swallow in hopes that if he got it down quick he wouldn’t barf, but the hunk of tapeworms waiting to happen got lodged in the back of his throat and wouldn’t go down. Try as he might, Minho’s only choices were to either puke or choke to death.

“Minho!” Kibum squawked when the man immediately started retching his innards onto the ground, one runny piece of meat soaked in clear stomach acid that burned the lining of Minho’s throat as it made its way up and out of his body. He coughed bloody saliva onto the ground violently, staining the dirt with the horrid substance.

“Kibum, you shouldn’t try to off your mate before he’s had a chance to claim you. That is unbelievably rude.”

Hands smoothed over Minho’s back, rubbing gently into his lumbar.

“J-Jinki,” Minho stammered, unable to properly thank the man for trying to help him where his love had tried to murder him. He still couldn’t breathe.

Directing his deranged smile at Minho, Jinki pulled a swaddled object from where it was tucked into the belt of his simple tunic and offered it to Minho.

“Here you are. My stomach is about as strong as yours.”

Unwrapping the cloth carefully, a cooked bird leg was revealed to Minho that nearly had him tearing up.

“Jinki, I could kiss you,” Minho laughed in relief before biting into the leg. The meat was dry and tasteless. It was perfect.

“What is a kiss?” Jinki inquired, looking clueless.

“You’re kidding, right?” Minho asked around a mouthful of wonderfully overcooked bird meat.

“No, I am not kidding. Is it something to keep imps away?”

If the imps did exist, Minho would love to see Jinki try to run them off with kisses.

“How come he gets this kiss before your mate?” Kibum puffed up, aggreived.

The wolf was snorting in his head in a manner very similar to laughing. Minho could picture huge furry shoulders shaking and a bushy tail thumping in amusement. Why aren’t you talking to me, big guy? Minho wondered in concern. He hadn’t spoken to Minho at all since he had woken up and that was unusual.

“First of all, it was an expression. As in not to be taken literally,” Minho pulled the last bit of meat off the bone, popping it onto his mouth. “Secondly, I will give you a kiss, if you want. But you must swear to never, ever shove food into my mouth. Consent is everything, and I most certainly did not give it to you, you little mongrel.”

Kibum scrunched his nose up at Minho and glowered at him.

“I don’t know what you just said, but it sounded like an insult. But I will not do it again if you give me this kiss. Right now.”

Oh. While everyone was looking? Jinki and Taemin were standing right there with expectant looks on their faces. Jonghyun had wandered over as well, staring at Minho encouragingly even though he didn’t actually know what was going on. Minho was also well aware of the fact that the people around them had been eyeing Minho judgmentally since he spit up his food.

Flushing—because that was to be his state of being today—Minho wiped his mouth with the cloth and shook his head.

“Later, Kibum. Kissing is a personal affair that is not in need of sharing with the ruffians trying to murder me through willpower.”

“You swear that you will give me one later?”

“Jesus Christ, yes, now stop talking about it!”

Kibum, appeased, flounced over to Jonghyun to nip at his chin which quickly escalated into the two brothers tussling in the dirt. Minho was pretty sure he saw some blood, but they looked like they were having fun?

“Come,” Minho heard, a tap to his left shoulder following. Taemin was gesturing towards the woods. “Today we hunt to see who will fight for the omegas tomorrow. The Alpha should be waiting for all eligible alphas to meet him by the purple waters.

~~~

Minho knew Taemin had said purple waters, but he hadn’t figured that the boy had literally meant purple water. There was a long river cutting through the forest as far as the eye could see in either direction, it’s miniature mulberry waves lapping at dead plant life around its borders. Taemin told him there were thousands of small carnivorous fish in the water that released a unknown purple substance into the water. It was completely safe as long as you were a natural inhabitant of the river. If you weren’t, it was suggested that you didn’t spend much time basking in the sangria depths.

“So the rules are perfectly clear, yes?”

Everyone nodded their understanding to the Alpha. The top ten kills determined who could brawl for the omegas. You had till dusk to make your kill, and there was to be absolutely no sabotaging or stealing. It was straight forward and would be easy to abide by. Now Minho had to figure out how the hell he was supposed to catch anything of worth with his little man claws.

“Alright. I expect to see everyone back with their catches by last light. Happy hunting.”

And then everyone was gone. Like bullets, everyone shot through the foliage to find their targets. Only Minho was left standing there by the purple river looking awkwardly at the alpha.

“Do you… have a question?” The Alpha raised a thick brow. Yes, um, how do you wolf?

“I… no, I don’t believe so,” Minho scratched his head. “I’m just going to go that way. Yeah, that way looks good.”

Minho spun on his heel and ambled off in a random direction aimlessly. Maybe he’d stumble upon a creature he could coax into following him by asking nicely. His pleasant face was sure to earn him some bonus points among the creatures of the forest. After all, it had appealed to the wildlings he was shacking up with.

“Okay, big guy. Now would be a great time for you to start talking. What do we do?”

The wolf didn’t say anything; he couldn’t. He just shifted under Minho’s skin. Minho could feel him pushing against the barriers that kept him locked away, trying so hard to come out, but cage did not bend. The wall wasn’t ready to give yet.

“Dammit, you pick now to become mute? You must be able to do something!” Minho said in exasperation.

A whole wasted hour of disoriented wandering passed. The wolf could not speak and Minho had no clue as to where he should go or what he should do, so he just observed his surroundings carefully.

The forest was intriguing in its oddities. It seemed there was no hue in the world that hadn’t been accepted into the fold of nature. There were green pine trees with dark purple sap, but also blue ones leaking bright orange. There were periwinkle clover patches, silver ivy growths, and aspen trees with sunflower yellow trunks and starch white leaves. Above Minho’s head highlighter blue songbirds no bigger than a 500 won coin sang through sharp teeth while insects glowing radioactive green crawled under his bare feet. It was pretty, but Minho’s mood grew more and more desolate the longer he went without seeing a trace of anything that could capture the attention of the Alpha.

Sure, Minho saw some animals, but as cool as a pink jackalope was to him, he was sure it wouldn’t impress the natives. So, there he was, glaring at a cute little rose colored bunny with white antlers whilst trying to figure out how he could communicate with the wolf in a way that would allow him to formulate a rock solid plan with minimal risks to his being. But, try as he might, nothing worked: he couldn’t understand himself anymore.

Minho wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to his disconnected conscious; he, to a certain degree, understood what was happening inside of him. Before yesterday night he and the wolf had diverging emotions. This, in turn, distorted their separate halves into pieces that had troubled locking together. But then Minho had fallen asleep with the very reason his feelings were so conflicting. That creature had carefully and purposefully ran his analgesic tongue over Minho’s dilapidated back, coddling the alpha and making it so that even the human side had no choice but to surrender to the omega’s magnetism. Minho could feel the bonds between him and his wolf growing stronger—they were becoming one. However, be that as it may, they were in an awkward middle stage that did no more than allow the separated halves of their souls to reach for each other, almost touching but not quite.

“Still,” Minho thought aloud, watching the jackalope hop to and fro. “I am the wolf aren’t I? I’m not a human, so I shouldn’t have the unevolved senses of one.”

Minho should have said that an hour ago. As if the admission was a sledgehammer that possessed enough force to crack the fortifications trapping his inner animal, scents flooded Minho’s nostrils like water spilling from a dam. Dirt, leaves, dew, pine, something sour, something sweet. Sounds bombarded his eardrums: small animals scuffling, little feet pitter-pattering, tiny hearts palpitating. But Minho needed a large creature. Where was one of those?

Minho inhaled and he listened. There was a small creature that smelled of wet bark and another that was larger but had an odor most foul. There was an animal much too quick for him and another much too far underground. They were all useless, useless, useless but…oh. There was also something heavy. A brute of a being was treading on leaden legs and smelled strongly of musk and mud. It moved slowly, unafraid and unconcerned. It must have been a beast that could impress the Alpha.

Darting through bushes and underbrush as silently as he could, Minho followed the scent well into the forest. He hadn’t been anywhere near the thing. Two and a half miles into his search, Minho still hadn’t found it. It was getting closer, though—he could hear its puffed breaths, the steady flow of its thick blood flowing through fat veins. But where, oh where could it be? Minho nearly ran head first into a tree when he spotted it. Using the tree as coverage, Minho gaped in awe at the hulking creature shuffling lazily over the terrain.

It was very moose-like, but its tail was a long whip and it had one humongous, ribbed horn arching from atop its head. With his glossy, pale yellow horn, the moose stood taller than even Minho’s wolf, which was impressive in it of itself, never mind the bulging muscles and sharp, forked hooves. Around its neck and underbelly was a thick mass of back fur, the rest of his coat thin and powder blue. When Minho looked closely he could make out a tiny little horn on the tip of his snout. Bloody hell, why did it have to be so big?

“Seriously, any bright ideas, big guy? I can’t take him on like this. I don’t even know if I could do it shifted.”

The wolf struggled to annunciate anything, grunting and whining but failing to make a coherent thought in Minho’s brain. It took a lot of effort on the wolf’s part, but he managed to convey one thing to Minho after an eternity of nonsensical noises.

Trap.

Oh, yeah. Minho was going to trap that thing. All, what, 130-ish pounds of him against a one ton monster. He was just asking to get maimed.

Trap, Minho heard again.

“Yeah, okay,” Minho let out a long suffering sigh. “It’s the only chance I’ve got anyway.”

Minho tried everything he could think of to trap the beast, though he wouldn’t call them traps so much as poor attempts to seriously injure. He tied a makeshift trip wire made of vine he found (this wasn’t a jungle, why were there vines?) from one tree to another in hopes of tripping it, but the moose walked right through it. He tried pushing a large boulder he found sat precariously on a steep hill on it, but the moose saw it coming and was well out of the way before the rock had a chance to make contact. In a fit of annoyance, he even threw a rock as hard as he could at the beast’s head in hopes that he’d hit that soft spot on the temple for an unequivocal K.O, but it only served to anger the moose and Minho hid real fast lest he be trampled.

It was nearing sunset, and Minho still hadn’t gotten any closer to catching the alien moose. It wasn’t anymore hurt than it had been when Minho started and Minho realized belatedly, after about five hours of no luck, that if he had managed to kill the moose he wouldn’t have been able to carry it back to camp. His life was a mess.

Face down in a mound of teal moss, Minho vented his frustration through garbles and muffled yells. He was wasting time, but after a full day of failure he deserved a minute of wallowing.

Minho had been suffocating in the spongy moss for a couple of minutes when he rolled over to face the green sky and glare at any higher power up there because he had an idea. It was an idea only an idiot would think of, someone who didn’t care for the sanctity of their life, but, dammit, it was the only one Minho had. If he didn’t do something right then and there the sun would set before he made to camp and Kibum would be lost to him.

“Alright!” Minho sat up, eyes intense and a tad bit insane. He hopped to his feet and quickly found the moose again. “If this doesn’t work, nothing will. Who cares if I die? This has gotten way too ing personal.”

Stomping up to a tree in the line of the moose’s path, Minho grumbled and spat as he clawed his way up the trunk to a branch that put him well above the moose.

“Come on, you rat bastard,” Minho hissed, crouching on the branch and tensing his calves in preparation. “Come to Minho.”

The moose nosed along the ground, slowly getting closer and closer to Minho’s tree. Just a little but more… another foot and…

Bellowing like Tarzan, Minho launched from his leafy perch and eagle dived for the moose’s back. Minho landed right in its bony spine, hurting both himself and the animal beneath him. Ignoring the intense pain in his groin, he dug his claws into the hardness of that big yellow horn and held on for dear life.

The creature immediately started bucking, letting out a long, high pitched moan-squawk in its rage. It kicked its back legs furiously, spinning in circles and ramming into trees in its quest to shake Minho off.

“This way, asshat!” Minho shrieked, yanking on the horn so hard that the moose’s head jerked in the direction Minho wanted. It cried out like a pissed bull and then charged straight forward. Towards the camp. Holy , Minho’s plan was working.

The hysterical creature was hauling through the woods, getting to the purple river in a matter of minutes. If Minho could just hold on for a little longer then this moose would be back at the village and in his belly (after everything, he was sure as hell going to eat the dickwad).

Minho was smacked in the face with unforgiving branches that stung and cut his cheeks, and he bounced painfully on the beast’s back with each step, but he wouldn’t give up. Not when the trees were noticeably thinning and he could hear the commotion of a settlement nearby.

The moose burst from the tree line in a mess of leaves and twigs. He reared up on his back legs, spinning gracelessly, and nearly falling to the ground and crushing Minho. But Minho wasn’t going to let go. If this moose wanted to knock Minho off, he’d have to do it over the wolf’s cold, dead body.

Minho yanked on the horn again to angle the moose towards the village and screamed bloody murder the entire way down the softly slopping hill.

“Goddammit, you idiots, move!”

When the pack saw the moose coming straight at them with his lethal horn poised to impale, they scrambled out of the way just in the nick of time. Minho had the fleeting thought that if he ran Jongsuk down he could totally play it off as an accident.

With one last hard pull, Minho steered the moose directly towards the large rock that the Alpha would stand on.

“Light’s out, mother er!”

The moose ran right into the rock, snapping his great horn off at the base and smashing his skull into several pieces. Brain matter and blood flew in every direction; the horn tumbled several feet away and knocked over a pile of small pots. It was deafly quite after that; the calm after on hell of a storm.

Panting, Minho stumbled off the moose onto his shaky legs and then preceded to gloat.

“Ha! You punk , overgrown deer! How do you like me now?!”

Minho danced around in a circle, laughing maniacally and then falling on his . The adrenaline was wearing off and it left Minho feeling drowsy.

“M-Minho!”

The weight of a terrified omega crashed into Minho at full force.

“Great flaming , why did you take so long? What did you do?”

Kibum was holding Minho’s bleeding cheeks in his palms, trying to get the man to look straight. Minho couldn’t. He felt faint.

“I got you dinner before the sun set, just like I was told,” Minho giggled woozily. Everything was spinning around and around. Did Kibum always look like he was in mid double-team?

“Why of everything in the forest would you pick a great horn? They are too dangerous for a single wolf to take on by themselves!”

“Psshhh. I beg to differ.”

A crowd had circled Minho and his mashed great horn. They kicked the carcass warily in the rump to see if it was really dead and not fixing to jump up and kill everyone.

“Did you see that?” Minho heard a women whisper. “He was riding the great horn. Does running it into a rock really count as hunting it down?”

“It must,” someone else responded. “That he was able to best to great horn by himself at all is astounding.”

Minho wouldn’t say astounding. It was more like desperation with high levels of psychosis.

“What did everyone else kill?” Minho laid down, pulling Kibum with him and snuggling the omega to his chest. He could go for a nap right about now.

“Tri-tails and tusked boars. They’re much more practical prey.”

“Well, I didn’t see any of those. Did Taemin make a good enough kill?”

“Of course he did.”

“That’s great.”

Minho was nodding off. He could hardly keep his eyes open anymore.

“Minho, you—”

“Shhh. I need to sleep, Bummie.”

“But—”

“Sleep.”

~~~

“I could have killed them, ya know. Wouldn’t have been any skin off my back.”

Minho was not of a sound mind at the moment. After his impromptu nap in the middle of the village, Minho woke up feeling antsy and antagonized for no reason. He could feel that the wolf was incredibly close to the surface, struggling to be free, and it made him feel explosive. It was hard for him then, after waking up with an attitude, to see his omega being violated by his sleazy pack mates. By the time the alpha had consciously thought that he needed to protect Kibum he had already beaten his offenders to a pulp. They were still breathing, though. Badly beaten, but still alive, and for that they should be thankful.

“That is against pack law. Infighting is not good for stability,” Kibum admonished, scrubbing his fingers into Minho’s wet hair. The fight had been bloody and Minho, even when feeling murderous, can’t stand the smell. Kibum, being Minho’s perfect little mate, had shown him to the river where it was safe to bathe (the water had its rightful lack of color and was not sullied by poisonous fish). Kibum looked really pretty with droplets clinging to his lashes, and his hair slicked and darkened considerably by the water. The sight was almost enough to calm Minho down.

“But you liked it,” Minho hummed happily, sinking against Kibum’s frame even when the omega complained about not being able to properly wash his hair from that angle. Minho’s energy levels were fluctuating severely, skyrocketing one moment before dropping off a cliff the next. There was no way that it could be healthy, but Minho figured it was just a byproduct along his manic emotions of Minho’s body getting ready to shift back into the wolf. He hoped so, anyway—it would be exhausting if his body didn’t level itself out ever again.

“Shh,” Kibum hushed, grabbing a bowl from the bank that he had brought with them. In it was a scentless, syrupy concoction that Kibum worked into Minho’s hair as best he could. In a quiet voice, the omega said, “They are watching us from the shadows. I would praise you with the upmost reverence if I could, but I do not wish to deal with their abhorrent tempers later.”

“I know we’re being watched,” Minho growled. He’d known the whole time. He hadn’t been able to shut of the continuous input of sensory information since having turning that part of his brain on. It was making his head hurt, which was not helping with how testy he was at the moment. “They aren’t FUKCING SLICK!”

There was no movement to indicate that Minho had been heard, but it wasn’t needed. Whoever was watching them was a coward whose body betrayed them with the scent of petrol and that was enough to satisfy Minho.

“Calm down, pet,” Kibum tried to placate, nuzzling into Minho’s cheek. “I can feel how erratic your instincts have been since you dozed off. It is best not to give into those urges. They fade faster when we force ourselves to be in control.

Minho didn’t want to be in control anymore. He wanted to shift; needed it. Not only would he feel trapped within himself until he did, Minho knew he wouldn’t stand a chance in tomorrow’s fights without bringing out his wolf.

“Minho, stop it,” Kibum thumped Minho over the head, cutting off the growl resonating from Minho’s trachea.

“But they won’t leave!”

“Oh, by the stones, what is with you? You did not radiate with so much aggression this morning.”

“I don’t know,” Minho grumbled, sinking a bit in the water like he could hide from the omega’s piercing gaze. “I feel… edgy and livid and tired all at the same time.”

“Hmm,” Kibum leaned Minho back so he could wash the goop out of the alpha’s hair. “Yes, I understand. This is a common ailment of alphas who feel overly confined or… concupiscent.”

Concu-what?

“Just hold yourself back until tomorrow’s fight. After you win I will be there to remedy your afflictions.”

It took Minho a couple of seconds, but as soon as his brain took cognizance to the innuendo his cheeks turned so red he looked seriously sunburnt

“I-I don’t think that’s the problem,” Minho shied away from Kibum’s fingers, wading a little further into the river so he wasn’t so close to the omega. “Um, ya see, I’m not really used to being in human form, so I think I just have a lot of pent up energy. Yeah, that sounds more probable.”

“Minho…”

“A run would probably do me good! What happened to my pants, I know I set them right over here.”

“Minho, come here.”

“THOSE CRETINS STOLE MY PA—oh, no, there they are.”

Minho had just about hefted his body out of the chest-deep water onto solid ground, but there was a smirking omega behind that could never leave well enough alone and was yanking Minho back into the water before the alpha could make his not-so-perfect getaway.

“Minhooo,” Kibum sang in the alpha’s ear, holding the man hostage against him. Minho went rigid, hyperaware of the fact that his very body was pressed up against Kibum’s equally body, and maybe that hadn’t mattered before but it did now.

“Minho, my little pet, is it possible that you… have been celibate all these years?”

Kibum was laughing at Minho, tickled by the idea of an alpha who had never had before had . The omega had until now never met an alpha who had not once indulged their primal urges.

“What of it?” Minho hissed indignantly. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping your to yourself! Aren’t omegas celibate by law or something?!”

So Minho had been a shy guy. He hadn’t been good at pursuing people ever, and hadn’t had the desire to be with anyone for the past couple of years. Come to think of it, that was probably Kibum’s fault.

“It is true, we are not allowed to e. But that does not mean we cannot find pleasure with a person in other ways.”

Kibum had an annoying simper plastered across his face, clearly amused by Minho’s inexperience, but he was quick to pacify the alpha with a few nips to Minho’s chin.

“You emotions really are all over the place today. Angry as an offended boar one minute, flushing up like an embarrassed child the next. It must be draining.”

“You know what? I take it back, you aren’t getting a kiss.”

Minho was once again pulled back when he tried to lift himself from the water, but this time the omega was a lot less smug and a lot more petulant.

“You promised!” Kibum whined, pushing his face into Minho’s wet chest to pout. “You cannot take it back.”

“Oh, I think I can.”

“But I want one!”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“Which is why I want one. And you promised me one, you great oaf, so you must hand it over. Where are you keeping it?”

Kibum circled around Minho, sniffing along his skin in hopes of finding something that may be this kiss Minho was dangling over his head. When his search came up fruitless, Kibum whimpered up and Minho and flashed him the most devastating pair of eyes Minho had ever seen. It wasn’t even fair.

“A kiss isn’t an object, Kibum,” Minho sighed, feeling his will crumbling. How was anything ever supposed to go his way when Kibum abused his omega wiles? “It’s like when you bite me, but a little… softer.”

Kibum stared at Minho expectantly, cocking his head to the side and waiting for Minho to give him what he wanted.

Resigned to his fate, Minho cupped Kibum’s cheeks between his hands and said, “Okay, jagiya, but you have to close your eyes. I won’t be able to do it if you keep staring.”

Kibum was confused, but he obeyed the alpha without any questions and waited patiently for Minho to give him his kiss. The omega had to let he alpha collect his bearings for a couple of long moments, but he didn’t complain for he felt the heat of Minho’s breath on his face and knew something was about to happen.

Minho sent himself one last encouraging thought before taking the plunge and slotting his lips against Kibum’s. The omega made a garbled sound, immediately trying to pull away from the weird action, but Miho held him firmly in place by the back of his neck. He waited for Kibum’s tense muscles to relax, only pushing forward when the omega calmed a bit.

Angling his head for a better fit, Minho pulled the pink skin of Kibum’s lower lip into his mouth with his teeth and nipped it gently, an action Kibum was familiar with and tried to return. Minho chuckled at Kibum’s clumsy attempts at reciprocation (not that he was an expert or anything) and prompted Kibum to open his mouth with a firm of his tongue over the seam of Kibum’s lips. Kibum let out a surprised little squeak, giving Minho enough room to push his tongue into Kibum’s mouth and curl it around the omega’s. The muscle tasted sweet, like the strawberries Minho had smelled on Kibum earlier, and the alpha couldn’t resist coaxing the muscle out of its chamber so that he could give it a good before releasing Kibum with a pant.

Kibum’s cheeks were flushed and his pupils were blown up so big that you could hardly make out the thin ring of violet bordering them. His pretty lashes were fluttering sporadically.

“W-What was that?” Kibum gasped, short of breath.

“That was a kiss.”

“Oh,” Kibum said unintelligently. “That was strange.”

“Strange good or strange bad?”

“I… I think I would like it very much if you did it again.”

Minho felt he had the right to feel some pride at this point. Maybe Kibum thought that the kiss was good because he didn’t have anyone better to show him what he was missing out on, but Minho didn’t care. He had impressed his omega and that made him want to preen.

“We can do it again, but I’d prefer we go somewhere more private because YOU GUYS STILL AREN’T SLICK AND I HAVE HALF I MIND TO RIP OFF YOUR SACS AND MAKE YOU GUYS EAT THEM!”

Kibum burst out into a fit of laughter, patting Minho’s head fondly and guiding Minho back to the riverbed.

“Great. Now you’re mad again. How I am ever to deal with you for the rest of my life?"

A/N: Right, so, is to hit the fan next chapter. Be prepared.

Also, a tri-tail is a deer-esque creature with three tails and funny shaped antlers and the tuskled boar is basically a saber-tooth boar with really long ears. I know, I'm super origninal in my creation of creatures (not).