It was funny that, until now, Minho had never deigned to find the pond in his dreams where he met himself. But now he was confused and distressed, and the pond had felt like the safest place to him. It was hidden away in a ring of trees, disturbed by no one but himself and the occasional animal. This place had been his, he remembered; where he would go to rest and hide away from the pack. Just a short distance away was a cave, only accessibly through a concealed hole, where he had made his home as just the wolf.

Minho dropped down next to pond, crushing some light pink cattails, and leaned precariously over the edge to look into the still waters. It was so clear he could see straight to the bottom. Fish of cotton candy blue swam through bright orange seaweed, and the rocks that littered the bottom were all varying shades of purple. He though he saw some frogs but, if he did, they were blending in with the rocks, probably hiding from the fish that were big enough to eat them. It was a pretty sight, worth looking at, but it did nothing to ease the tension in his muscles. The wolf did not appear this time to explain what he must do. There were no answers to be had amongst the rocks and the fish.

“Jesus Christ, what a ing mess,” Minho groaned and fell on his back to look up at the chartreuse sky. He was sure whoever blasted him across time and space was up there, laughing at his misfortunes. “Isn’t there anyone who knows what the Hell I should do?”

“Share your troubles, weird one. I’m just bursting with answers.”

Minho closed his eyes tight and grimaced.

“How did you find me?”

Jinki’s face appeared above Minho’s, full of sunshine and one eye twitching as always.

“I followed you, of course,” Jinki shrugged. “This place is difficult to get to. I almost turned back when I watched you scale that cliff, but I was curious. This is where you hid from us, isn’t it? It reeks of you.”

“Look,” Minho sighed, sitting up and staring pointedly at the pond again. “I’m in a mood right now, and I’m not really up to chatting so… unless you can fix all of my problems with voodoo or imp magic, please go away.”

“Imps don’t have that kind of magic,” Jinki sat down next to Minho, ignoring his request entirely. “Besides, they aren’t very helpful creatures anyway. They just like breaking jars.”

“So why are you still here if you can’t help?”

“With what? The parasite growing in Jonghyun’s womb?”

Minho sat there dumbly for a second before asking, “You know about it?”

“Please, they wouldn’t have been able to hide it at all of not for me,” Jinki scoffed. More pensively he added, “I was so sure Taemin would win against those two. He should have, as you know. I shudder at the thought of what will happen to Jonghyun if they come to find out of his mating with Taemin.”

“…What would happen?” Minho inquired hesitantly.

“If they find out,” Jinki started gravely, “They’ll see to it that he gives birth. They’ll make sure he gets a good look at his pup before they dismember the poor thing in front of him. Then he’ll be chained up in a hut to be used as the alphas see fit.”

“What the ?”

“If you take him as a mate—if you claim the pup as your own—they can do nothing no matter how suspect the details of the birth are. They’ll speculate, probably even know with certainty, that Taemin is the pup’s true father, but so long as you feign ignorance that’s all they can do after Jonghyun’s been mated to you. This is what Kibum has asked of you, yes?”

Everything just kept getting worse. Every minute of every hour of every day in this world was more ed up than the last. And Minho felt like he was suffocating in the turbulence.

“I know you are conflicted,” Jinki rested a hand on Minho’s head to his hair. “But, if you have no options that take you from this place, then I would save Jonghyun in your position. Kibum will be fine.”

“Sure,” Minho barked out a dry chuckle. “He’ll be fine to be abused, always screaming on the inside with no way out of the Hell I left him to rot in.”

“Whatever hardships Kibum will face, Jonghyun will suffer through tenfold,” Jinki scowled. “If your decision is to roll over and yield, then I implore you to listen to Kibum and choose Jonghyun tomorrow. I have known him all my life. He is sweet and soft spoken, and his bleeding heart was never strong enough to endure this pack.”

“But I—!”

“Please!” Jinki snapped loudly over Minho. “Just think about it. If there was a way to get out, I would be the first to tell you, but there isn’t.”

Minho didn’t respond. What could he say? By this time tomorrow someone he only ever wanted to be safe would be beyond his ability to protect. And he had to choose which person that would be.

“Enough of this,” Jinki hopped to his feet, albeit shakily. “Whatever your decision, come back with me. You need to be with Kibum and Jonghyun right now. Stewing alone does no one any good.”

~~~

“What do you think they would have looked like?”

“Who?”

Jonghyun was with Taemin in Jinki’s cabin, the beta trying to patch up the worst of Taemin’s wounds. So it was just Minho and Kibum in Taemin’s home, and apparently the omega liked asking obscure questions.

Burrowing his nose in Minho’s neck, Kibum whispered, “Our pups.”

“Uhh,” Minho blanked. That Kibum could even have pups was still an idea trying to find a niche in Minho’s brain. How did that even work? Where did it come out? Did they have singles or litters? God forbid they be litters.

“They would look like… puppies?”

“Your imagination astounds me.”

“Well, what do you think they’d look like?”

“Hmm,” Kibum thought, wrapping his arms around Minho’s neck to get rid of any of the minimal space that had been left between them. “I’d want one that looks like you and one that looks like me. But I want them both to be just as big as you so no one ever dares harm them.”

“Do omegas get as big as me?”

“No omegas,” Kibum spat, like the word was a curse. “I want one to look like me, not be like me.”

That made Minho laugh a little. “Really? I think I’d want one just like you. Same sassy attitude and y demeanor.”

Great. Now Minho was thinking about it and he wanted it. He was too young for this .

“No,” Kibum shook his head vehemently. “How could I wish this life on my pup? I want my children to be safe. As an omega, they would live in fear. There would never be anything for them but that fear.”

“I wouldn’t let anyone harm them.”

“You’d protect them? From the world? Don’t be stupid,” Kibum scoffed. “People who try end up dead. Have you ever wondered where my parents are? They thought they could protect their children too. Now their bones are strung up in a tree somewhere.”

Minho often wondered just where in the universe he had ended up. He could never know for sure, but he could infer, based on copious amounts of evidence, that he’d been handed a one way ticket straight to the seventh layer of Hell.

“Come now, Kibum. No need to tell him about that.”

Jonghyun was standing in the open doorway, pallid face twisted in discomfort. “I don’t like thinking about what happened to mother and father.”

Jonghyun was unsteady on his feet, almost falling over before he made it to them. He sat on Minho’s vacant side with a flop, leaning his cheek against Minho’s shoulder and exhaling tiredly. “Taemin told me to come here and get used to you. I don’t know why. You haven’t even agreed to mate with me. I don’t want you to.”

“He’s going to,” Kibum asserted, daring Minho to say otherwise. “You should get comfortable around him. It’ll ease the process. I will tend to Taemin for you.”

And with that Kibum fled the cabin, ignoring Minho’s request that he come back. He would like to have the omega with him for as long as possible; before he’s forced to watch him from afar once again, this time with no hope of getting close.

“He means well,” Jonghyun mused. “I know that. But he’s a poor listener. The last thing I want is to take you from him. You do not have to do this.”

“I get the feeling if I don’t he’ll come to hate me more than anyone else.”

“Maybe,” Jonghyun managed a barely there smile. “But he would be well looked after regardless.”

Sure. Minho would safeguard Kibum until the bitter, bloody end. But he didn’t know if he could handle the man treating him like every other piss poor excuse for a living being they were exposed to on a daily basis.

“Hey, so, how did this,” Minho gestured vaguely at Jonghyun’s body, “even happen?’

“Oh,” Jonghyun curled a hand around his stomach, looking upon it with sorrow. “We were… stupid. So, so stupid. We had convinced ourselves nothing could go wrong—Taemin is one of the strongest, after all. So we laid together under a severe lapse in judgement. The product scared me, but Taemin said everything would work out. We would make it through. It’s weird. Contrary to my wishing we had never done it, I want this pup more than anything. Even if he is passed off as yours, he would be a piece of Taemin I could always have.”

And meanwhile Taemin would have to live knowing that not only was his mate lost to him but his child as well. Minho couldn’t imagine Taemin would try to get close to the pup for fear of outing both Jonghyun and himself.

“Would you even be willing to take me as a mate? I don’t think you like me quite that much,” Minho laughed a little, hoping maybe the dark cloud handing over his head would lighten by even the barest amount.

“It is not my place to deny you, or any other alpha for that matter.”

“That really isn’t fair, though.”

“Such is the life of an omega. You can’t change it. You can only survive it.”

~~~

Change it? Did he really need to change it? Couldn’t he just… avoid it? These thoughts were playing on a loop in Minho’s head as he gazed upon Kibum’s sleeping face. He looked so soft, and pretty, and vulnerable. Minho looked at the omega wishing upon any star that would listen that he’d find a way to whisk him away somewhere. Anywhere was better than where they were.

“We could go to Seoul,” Minho whispered to Kibum, running his fingers though the omega’s soft hair. “There’s so much to see and do. And there’s not a single alpha there. You’d like that, right?”

Obviously, Kibum didn’t respond. Even if he had, Seoul was worlds away and Minho knew they had twelve hours at the most left to be like this.

He wanted to watch Kibum with what time they had left; ingrain this moment in his mind so he’d have something to hold onto. But sleep was pulling, and Minho was drained.

~~~

Where was he? This place was familiar.

Minho was walking down a cave that never seemed to end. Blue growths clung to the ceiling, bright and illuminating his way through the darkness. The light was soft and pleasant, and Minho felt himself relaxing beneath their ethereal glow. They made him feel safe.

It was wind that drove him to continue his journey down the endless path. Wind coming from the direction he was heading in. Wind implied there was opening; a way out. Maybe the way out he so desperately craved.

The breeze smelled of water and damp earth. It pulled Minho along like a chain around his waist, strong and unrelenting. There were sounds, now. Echoes of running water that added to the chain’s strength and urged Minho to go faster.

With each step, Minho picked up the pace more and more. Before long he was running, searching for the sounds, for the breeze that was all but speaking to him. He was getting closer, but also more frantic. What if it was a trick? What if there really was no way out?

Now he was sprinting at full speed, chasing after an invisible entity with everything he had in his body. He needed to find the source of this wind, less his sanity be lost within the walls of the cave.

He saw it then—a light. A different light than the blue stars twinkling on the roof of the cave, but rather a dull white light like the castings of the moon. It was there, so close, and if he could just run a little faster…

He almost ran straight off a cliff edge, down into an abyss of black water. A waterfall roared next to the opening of the cave, pouring into the ominous depths. There was a path, narrow and steep, that led to the bottom of the cliff and to the grounds below. Beyond that was a forest that stretched as far as the eye could see, the tops of the trees every shade of the rainbow without a single color left out.

“I know this place,” Minho said aloud, voice sounding as if it was under water.

This was where Minho had been before finding Kibum. A large mountain acted as a patrician between the rainbow forest and the one Kibum’s pack lived in. It was this very cave that allowed Minho to cross over and discover the neighboring woodlands. The cave was the only practical way to travel between the two areas and, if scent was anything to go by, Minho was the only one to have used the path in recent years.

Minho wondered absentmindedly what Kibum would think of this place. One could lost for forever in the pretty foliage, spending a lifetime running through the trees of the cast expanse of forest. It was truly a place of escape, if there ever was one.

…Escape?

~~~

Minho jerked upright gasping for air, grabbing at his chest and feeling his heart thrumming erratically. Kibum jumped next to him, shaken out of his peaceful slumber by Minho’s wild movements.

“What is it, dear one?”

Minho didn’t answer, opting to clamor to his feet and run for the door. What time was it? Please, please, let there be time.

He threw the door open and nearly collapsed in tears at the blessed darkness that welcomed him. The moon was still high. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours yet.

“Minho,” Kibum chided quietly. “Taemin is resting. Why are you making such a fuss?”

Taemin was sleeping soundly in Jonghyun’s arms, not at all disturbed by Minho’s outburst. But Minho was about to violently shake him awake, so it wasn’t like it mattered anyway.

“There is a way for us to break out!” Minho hissed as quietly as he could. “I forgot about it, but I remember now. We can all escape!”

“Whoa, calm yourself,” Kibum soothed, pulling Minho back in and shutting the door. “What are you on about?”

“I am not from these woods,” Minho explained, practically hoping up and down in agitation. They needed to ing skedaddle. “I came here through a cave that cuts through the mountains. It is difficult to get to and well hidden—it’s why the pack was never able to find me before. We can use that cave to run away.”

Kibum was shocked silent for a second. His mouth moved around words that couldn’t form before he managed a weak, “What if they catch us? They’ll kill you.”

“It is our only chance,” Minho argued. “I need you to trust me. I can get us out. But we have to move now, before anyone wakes up.”

He was hesitant, but Kibum eventually gave Minho a nod on acquiescence, and moved quickly to snatch up a small bag that he started stuffing with what Minho could only assume to be essentials.

“I’ll be back, stay here.”

Minho took off into the village as silently as he could, bee lining it for Jinki’s house and practically taking the door off when his busted inside.

“Jinki, Jinki, Jinki!” Minho throttled the poor beta into consciousness, nearly inducing a heart attack in the man.

“What! Who’s dying?”

“We will be if we don’t hurry! Pack anything important and come to Taemin’s cabin. We’re going on an extended vacation.”

By the time Minho made it back over to the cabin, Kibum had woken the other two up and gave them the gist of what Minho had told him.

“We can get out?” Taemin croaked, still week and heavy with sleep. “You are certain?”

“ing positive,” Minho growled. “If we’re lucky we’ll be hours gone before anyone even notices our absence.”

It took Jinki about ten minutes, but he did decide to amble on over with a back full of things with many distinct scents.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on? I was having the most wondrous dream about drinking from a lake full of the blood of my enemies,” Jinki said with the most petulant face.

“Gross,” Minho’s nose scrunched up. “But we’re making a jail break. Do you remember how to get to the pond we were at earlier?”

“My memory is impeccable,” Jinki puffed out his chest.

“Well, good. I’m taking Taemin there now. We can’y move fast enough as a group with him in this condition. In thirty minutes, lead Jonghyun and Kibum there. Make sure you aren’t seen.”

Jinki stared at Minho with hard, speculative eyes for a minute before shrugging and saying, “Alright. This sounds like an adventure.”

~~~

Minho was pacing nervously by the pond, wearing a path of tread into the grass. The others should be here any minute and he was anxious about them being caught.

“That isn’t going to help, you know,” Taemin scoffed with crystal clear judgement. He himself was sitting calmly by the pond, not that he had the strength to irritably pace anyway.

“If I sat I’d explode,” Minho reasoned. He as a bomb ready to level this whole forest.

It took another five agonizing minutes, but the others finally made their way through the underbrush, saving Minho from a .

“We made it out, but we must hurry,” Jinki panted out. “We heard howling.”

“It’s okay, we’re nearly there,” Minho encouraged. “This way”

Just past the pond sat the biggest bush Minho had ever seen. It stood as tall as a house and had branches thick enough for a child to climb in. Underneath of the bush was the hole that led to entrance of the cave.

“Go, go, go!”

Minho shoved Taemin down first, followed by the omegas and Jinki. He could hear the howls now too, getting closer, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they found them if they didn’t pick up the pace.

Minho knew of a boulder he had placed within the monster bush specifically for the intention of making the hole inaccessible if the occasion arose. It was harder to move in his human form, but he managed all the same, and pulled the big rock into the hole with him. He made sure to yank it in as far as he could, until the rock caught on the walls and would no longer budge no matter how he tried to move it. That would stall them for plenty of time.

“I can’t see my nose!” Minho heard Kibum complain from further up the whole.

“Who cares? I think some of my wounds opened back up,” Taemin groaned back.

Well. At least they all felt safe enough to .

It didn’t take long to make it through the hole. Minho was squirming his way out soon enough, sighing in relief at the welcome sight of the mouth of the cave. This was it. Their ticket to freedom.

“Oh my,” Jinki spinning around, admiring the high walls that encircled the cave entirely. “This is amazing.”

“This was my home,” Minho informed, walking over to Taemin and hoisting the disgruntled alpha onto his back. “But, as much as I’d like to give you a grand tour of the place, we need to get a move on. I’m not waiting around to see if they can figure out how to get here.”

Minho led his troupe down the same path he took in his dream, finding the same sparkling lights and scent of mud and water. Taemin had, understandable so, fallen asleep on his back and missed the whole spectacle. Kibum was enthralled with the pretty lights, lamenting on how he wished they could stay and look a little longer.

When they made it to the waterfall, Minho had to be extremely careful making his way down the cliff. It was already difficult for one person to make it down without falling, and having Taemin on his back only made it more difficult. They did, however, make it down without incident and Minho prayed that luck would stay on their side through this whole endeavor.

“How far are we going to go?” Kibum asked. “I am still super tired, you know.”

“There’s a little cave about ten miles in,” Minho remembered. “We can stop there.”

Kibum didn’t seem too happy about the distance, but he kept his complaints to a minimum and followed behind Minho in relative silence.

It took an arduous two and a half hours to make it to the cave, and Minho was much too tired to even enjoy any of the scenery along the way. He dropped Taemin unceremoniously onto the cave floor and collapsed shortly thereafter as a lifeless mess. Carrying a person took a lot out of you.

Minho almost fell asleep as soon as his head touched the ground. He would have too if not for a body worming its way into his personal space.

“Hey,” Kibum giggled in his face, way to awake for Minho’s liking.

“Tired,” Minho said in response.

“I love you.”

Minho cracked an eye open and stared skeptically at his lover.

“Do you even know what that means?”

“Not really. But I wanted to say it to you, jah-ki-ya.”

Fair enough,

Wrapping his arms tightly around Kibum, Minho fell asleep to comforting scent of his mate and the knowledge that he could finally breathe, if only for a minute.

A/N: It's shorter than the last chapter and maybe a little rushed but I figured, after not updating for so long, that I could be a bit quicker about putting this chapter out there.