Everyone stood paralyzed with ears at attention and eyes shifting around wildly to find the howl of a foreign being. The note had come from none of their own and the threat behind it that lingered in the air was enough to cause pause. The Alpha showed no outward signs of nervousness, but he stood up straighter and his face hardened.

“What are you blokes waiting for? Just kill him already.”

There was a few seconds of tense silence and then they were closing ranks on Minho again, snarls back in place and yellow teeth glittering in the sunlight. Minho dropped to all fours, ready to bowl the nearest wolf over, but the symphony of growls became a cacophony of wolves spiting in Minho’s face and claws scraping into the rock above Minho’s head. To Minho’s confusion, the ears of the wolves encircling him went flat against their skulls and they all scrambled backwards. When he turned to see what frightened them so he could say that he too felt the sentiment.

Wolves Minho had never seen before lined the edges of the cliffs. They were a strange looking bunch; richly colored feathers were secured into long fur about their neck and intricate black swirls stained their pelts. Every one of them had a necklace hanging against their chest with jewels varying from wolf to wolf resting upon their sternum in a delicate enchasing of thin metal wrappings. They looked like some sort of tribal pack, and a hostile one at that.

One of the wolves—an awfully small alpha female with a blue gem, silvery fur, and a long carved staff with a glossy purple rock secured in the twisting wood at the head—descended from the rock wall to land on steady paws next to Minho. Her steely gaze turned to Minho first, the alpha stepping back quickly in response. The she wolf followed Minho in careful pursuit, eyes wavering a bit as she took in his massive size. When she was close enough to touch him she leaned forward and snuffed warily at Minho’s fur. Her eyes flashed with something akin to recognition, and she stepped back from Minho with a huff and turned to the seething Alpha.

“You,” the she wolf said with a raspy voice, pointing at the Alpha with her rod and thoroughly surprising Minho and his old pack. Never before had he seen a person talk in the form of their wolf. He most certainly couldn’t.

“State your business in the Blooming Woods.”

“I’m exacting justice upon a traitor,” the alpha spat venomously. “You have no right to interfere.”

“I would dare to disagree. You have no jurisdiction here,” the she wolf’s eyes glowed in warning. “My clan has lived in these woods for generations. Judgement may not be passed unless the alleged offender is returned to your custody by our Alpha male.”

“Nonsense,” the Alpha laughed without humor. “Whether I have to cut you and all your little cronies down or not, that boy will die today.”

The she wolf scoffed at the Alpha, waving her staff in a flourish towards all the wolves at her beck and call who were rearing up for a fight.

“Dear, I will give you a choice,” she flashed a wolfish smile that was all teeth and no mirth. “Leave at once and remain unscathed, or stay and finally learn the value of fear before your life becomes forfeit.”

“How dare you—!”

The she wolf wasted no time throwing out her scepter, striking the Alpha across the face in such a fashion that he found himself spluttering into the dirt.

“I urge you to choose wisely,” she beared down on the Alpha with a hiss. “Is this honestly worth dying for?”

Blood seeped out of the gash the Alpha was now sporting on his right cheek. His eyes were ever defiant, contemplating the number of casualties that would be a result of going against the she wolf’s soldiers. In the end he must have figured he couldn’t win because he fumbled away from the she wolf and spat at her in disgust whilst signaling a retreat with a tight flick of his wrist.

“Best hope you never find yourself back on our side of the mountain,” the Alpha glowered at Minho. “Rest assured I will be waiting to end your miserable existence should that day ever arise.”

And, after all of that, they just left. Like an afterthought, something that barely scraped the surface of your mind before it disappeared into the deepest recesses of your brain to be lost forever.

“Now that that’s settled,” the she wolf turned to Minho and wiped a hand across her chest like she was shaking off some dust. “I believe introductions are in order. Can you speak?”

Hesitating, knowing full well that he had snow up his ankles and shifting was going to blow, Minho allowed the change to take him and immediately regretted it when a nice black of cold air cut all the way to the bone of his bare flesh. Normally he would have been embarrassed—he was , after all—but the situation hardly allowed for it. Especially when no one else seemed to care.

Sticking her staff in the ground and putting her weight on it, she said, “My name is Jae. Alpha female of the pack that calls these woods home. Who are you?”

“Minho,” he wheezed through clattering teeth. “Escapee extraordinaire.”

“Charmed.”

“If I may ask,” Minho wrapped his arms around his torso, trying to lock in any of the warmth still in his body to no avail. “Why did you save me?”

It didn’t make sense. This pack did not know him and therefore should feel no obligation to protect him. It would have been easier and safer for them to just let Minho die.

“Two reasons,” the she-wolf stalked up to Minho, backing the alpha into the rocks. “First, as I said, they had no right to enter our lands at all, let alone to exact justice upon the grounds only we have the authority to govern on. Second, you smell of someone whom I hold very dear. Someone who, until now, I knew to be dead. Tracking your little pack and subsequently him will be easier with you there to coax them out of hiding.”

Minho didn’t know what Jae was talking about. Besides Minho, everyone had lived over those mountains their entire lives, so there was no way for her to know them. Well, everyone except for…

“You mean Sehun?” Minho felt more than a little bit exasperated. “You’re his pack?”

“I am his mother. Can I take this as confirmation that he is alive?” Jae was getting more excited, her tail taking off in a whirlwind behind her and her silver eyes brightening up like flowers who’ve finally found the sun.

Nodding, Minho explained how he found a soggy Sehun, cold and taken by snow fever, a few weeks ago by the large river cutting through the forest. Jae listened intently, audibly breathing a sigh of relief when Minho told her that Sehun had come out of his illness and was doing quite well.

“I threw him up there with the others,” Minho pointed to the top of the cliff where her pack mates still stood. “I don’t know where they went, but it couldn’t have been that far.”

“We must make haste, then.”

Like a chain, a few of Jae’s wolves locked arms and descended the rock wall to make a living rope foe their Alpha female to climb up. Minho only followed when Jae had made it to the top and gestured for him to follow with a wave of her paw. Minho had to give respect where respect was due—this was some clever engineering. That did not mean, however, that Minho wasn’t nervous climbing up a latter of unknown wolves with the most sensitive area of his body exposed and ready to be diced.

“Um, Jae,” Minho pulled himself up over the cliff, looking off into the trees and positively itching to chase after his pack. “It isn’t your intention to hurt anyone, right? Because I’ve already faced down one pack for them. What’s one more?”

Minho made a point of shifting right after that, rising up to his full height as the wolf and blatantly showcasing how, though outnumbered, he dwarfed all of them in size and strength, and most certainly wouldn’t go down without dragging some of them down with him.

Some of her underlings tensed up, growling and showing Minho their teeth like maybe he’d withdraw the threat. Minho didn’t even blink, and Jae seemed even less impressed by the act of aggression from her pack.

“I understand. Your duty is to protect your pack, and it would be ludicrous to expect that an Alpha would not protect his own,” Jae called off her guard dogs with a piercing stare. “There should be no need for us to become uncivil with one another.”

Leading strangers to his family made Minho feel overanxious, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice either. They didn’t need him to find them. It would be better if, should things go sour, he was at least there to defend them. With that in mind, Minho gave Jae a nod—and his trust along with it—then pelted off into the wild after the scent of his wayward pack.

Minho could smell the distress in each of his pack mate’s scent. Jinki was nothing short of manic. Taemin was terrified and Jonghyun was hopeless. Kibum’s scent made Minho’s stomach clench painfully; despair. Despair and heartbreak. It was a bitter, sour scent with something akin to death underneath. Like a dead rodent doused in vinegar. It made Minho nauseas and he needed to find Kibum now. The smell was driving him mad.

Minho ran, wolves flanking him on either side, for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t think they could have gotten that far, but it dawned on him then that they probably wouldn’t stop running until it become physically impossible to go any longer, and the stamina of a wolf was nothing short of amazing. ing hell.

Minho zigzagged through the underbrush, ignoring the branches that slapped into his face and bit into his flesh. He could only imagine, considering the panic he could sense in the trail, that Jinki was the one leading them. Leave it to Jinki to turn them escaping into an endeavor to create the world’s tiest jigsaw puzzle.

Thirty minutes. That’s how long Minho and his new found friends tore through the forest before the scent trail become stronger, signifying that they were getting closer to his pack. A new burst of energy had Minho charging ahead of the others, careening around one more bend and… holy .

Nearly straight off the edge of a mother ing mountain. This wasn’t like the wall of rock Minho had thrown the others over. This was vertical drop straight to Hell, so far down Minho couldn’t tell if the shimmering white bottom was a frozen body of water or a bunch of snow covered trees. If Jinki took everyone on an impromptu skydiving trip, Minho would kill him. Assuming the fall hadn’t, that is.

Whining his frustration into the frigid air, Minho paced the edge of the mountain with agitated steps. This couldn’t be where they had gone, yet their scent went right over the edge. After everything, he couldn’t lose them to something as stupid as falling to their deaths.

“Minho.”

Jae placed a small paw on Minho’s shoulder, stopping his frantic pacing.

“Look.”

Jae pointed over the edge to a series of small jutting mouths on the side of the crag. Most were covered in fresh, undisturbed blankets of snow. A few of them, though, had much of the snow kicked off.

“Caves,” Jae stated. “Be careful. Spook them and they may push you off before they realize that it’s you.”

Minho was more concerned about a misstep that lead to him going splat at the mountain base, but sure. Being kicked off Spartan style was a concern as well.

Carefully, to ensure his continued survival, Minho slid down to the first of the overhangs covered in messy paw prints. His claws were sank as far into the rock as they would go, and he was more than mildly disappointed when he found the tiny hidey hole void of life meaning he would have to go further down. Probably to the very last rocky lip with snow tossed of it.

Minho inched down further and further, now well enough below the edge of the precipice to have his heart beating clear out of chest. Climbing up was sure to be harder than getting down, especially since if he really wanted to book it to the bottom he could just let go and fall.

When he made it to his destination, he was careful not to step into the mouth of the cave so quickly. He sniffed around it first, letting his tongue loll out when familiar scents bombarded his nose cavity and barked his relief into the cavern. He heard little more than an echo at first, then the slow steps of a large body shuffling to the entrance.

He saw the white fur first, followed by a pair a bloody red eyes that were nothing short of murderous. Minho panted his joy into the beta’s face, his tail going wild behind him. Jinki didn’t look as happy to see him, like he might knock him off the face of the cliff, but thought better of it and grabbed a handful of Minho’s fur to haul him into the safety of the cave.

Minho’s expectation upon reuniting with Kibum had been something along the lines of a slow-mo-run-and-hug. You know, the sappy bull you see in old romances. This isn’t what happened. Not at all.

“I ing hate you!” was shouted at max volume and then a first has promptly rammed into his stomach with enough force to have some of the air whooshing out of his lungs. Minho has standing more than a couple of feet above Kibum in this form, but he may as well have been fifty feet below him with how Kibum was staring him down.

“How could you do that to me?! I thought you were dead! I-I thought that…,” tears were quickly gathering in the corners of Kibum’s violet eyes and spilling down over his cheeks. Falling to his knees, Kibum sobbed and hiccupped into his hands so hard he started retching like he might puke. “I-I hate you.”

Minho crouched down on his haunches and pulled his balling mate into his chest. Kibum’s personality made his seem three times his size, but crying like this he felt smaller than he’d ever been in Minho’s arms. The omega dug his claws into Minho’s fur like he may lose the alpha again if he let go. Minho buried his snout into Kibum’s neck, both to comfort his mate and satisfy himself as the disgusting scent of despair faded to nothing more than the cloves Minho had grown so fond of.

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Kibum’s voice was horse and tired. “I’m only letting you touch me because it’s freezing and I can’t feel my hands.”

That’s what Kibum said, but Minho knew better. While Minho could feel the biting cold seeping through his fur from Kibum’s fingers, he could practically taste the longing on Kibum’s skin as his tongue swiped over the omegas neck a few times.

“Minho!”

Minho turned his head and saw Sehun toddling towards him with his arms outstretched. Minho laughed as much as he could and scooped the little pup up to squish between Kibum and himself. The pup squealed and wiggled around in his delight.

The joy thrumming in Minho’s veins was a pleasant change to the fear that had been running rampant thought his bloodstream, but, as was the way of things, it was short lived.

Jinki wacked Minho on the shoulder, earning the beta a glare from the alpha, but Minho’s attention was quickly directed to the end of the cave where a pale, Taemin was curled over a very still Jonghyun.

Minho scrambled over to them with Sehun and Kibum still latched onto his body. Taemin had a sleeping Jongin held tightly to his chest with one hand while the other worked its fingers through Jonghyun’s matted hair.

“He hadn’t healed enough,” Taemin said flatly without even turning to look at Minho. “His body wasn’t ready. He started bleeding while we were running a-and… and we cannot stop it.”

Minho could see that Jonghyun was breathing, but he also wasn’t responding to any of Taemin’s touches and there was blood slowly pooling around his hips. Minho looked to Jinki for some sort of solution, but the beta was staring pointedly at the ground. He didn’t have his bag. There was nothing for him to try and fix Jonghyun with.

“If we don’t do something soon, he’ll die,” Kibum sniffled.

Just then, Minho heard the thump of weight hitting rock met with the snarls of a very angry Jinki. Jae stood just inside the cave with two other wolves in defensive stances at her sides.

“Mommy!”

Sehun squirmed violently in Minho’s arms until the alpha dropped him. Jinki was shocked into silence as he watched the tiny omega run over as fast as he could without falling over to the she-wolf who was all too ready to catch her child in her arms. Sehun started wailing the moment he had his mother’s long neck fur fisted in his tiny fists, to which his mother responded with a whine in kind.

One of the wolves behind Jae, a small brown omega with a green gem, and cream lining his eyes and tipping his ears, stepped around his Alpha with slow, cautious steps. His ears were pressed flat to his head and his tail hung limply behind him, stressing his pure intentions as he crossed the cavern to where Minho was next to Jonghyun.

He sat next to Minho, lifting one of Jonghyun’s legs to assess the damage and ignoring Taemin’s growl.

“His condition is not good,” the omega said softly. “His sutures have opened and it seems his capacity to heal is not all it should be. But if we can get him back to our campsite, I believe we should be able to patch him up.”

“You brought my son back to me,” Minho turned to Jae, who was still standing by the mouth of the cave with Sehun fastened to her hip. “Let us help you.”

~~~

Jae did not take them to an established settlement like Minho thought she would, but rather a temporary camp occupied by only a few wolves meant to keep watch.

“You see, I wanted to bring my child home,” Jae ruminated, the hair on Sehun’s head with a gentle paw. “Dead or alive, he belongs with his pack. That being said, words cannot even begin to express how grateful I am that he is alive.”

Jae had come from a place within the heart of the forest, a place she said would take a fortnight to reach.

“Your mate will need additional care once we make it to my home—feeble bodied omegas face many risks,” she informed Taemin. “But our stores of medicine should keep him healthy enough for the trip.”

The little brown wolf—Minseok—was stitching Jonghyun up whilst both Taemin and Jinki hovered over him. Jonghyun had looked nothing short of a breath away from death, but Minseok had assured many times over that he would be fine given time to rest.

Now, the sun was well below the horizon and they were all sitting around a blazing fire. Minho was settled in a borrowed fur with a lap full of a sleeping Kibum and Taemin had woken Jonghyun just long enough to nurse their hungry little puppy. It felt like a dream; to be sitting around a fire in the dead of night without the fear that something dangerous was lurking in the shadows.

“Your intention is to mate with the omega, yes?”

Jae took a seat next to Minho, still in the form of her wolf as it was, honestly, more practical.

“Mhmm,” Minho hummed, playing with the short hairs at the base of Kibum’s neck. “We were actually supposed to do it months ago, but it wasn’t safe.

“If I may ask,” Jae asked carefully, not trying to seem like she was prying. “Why have you been on the run?”

Minho supposed there was no harm in telling her what happened, so he launched into the tale of how he woke up as a human just in the nick of time to play in a brutal mating game, and then had to make a poorly planned break for it for both Kibum and Jonghyun’s sake.

“A game seems… odd,” Jae looked confused. “For the most part, the clans on this side of the mountain allocate the duty of picking mates for omegas to their parents. It prevents much bloodshed amongst the alphas since there is no reason to fight—prospects must win the favor of an omega’s guardians or they will never be allowed to mate with the omega.”

“Yeah, well, if that had been the case we probably wouldn’t be in this mess,” Minho laughed bitterly. “Still, it worked out I guess. We’re alive and I get to keep Kibum. It’s the most I could have asked for.”

Kibum wiggled in Minho’s lap, pushing his face in Minho’s chest and making little snuffling noises. Minho’s eyes went soft and he buried his nose in Kibum’s hair, taking comfort in his scent. Minho had thought he was going to lose him one too many times. To know with certainty that no one would ever try to take his omega away again was a breath of fresh air Minho had desperately needed.

“You care deeply for him,” Jae stated with her wolfy smile, though this time it looked much more pleasant. “That is good. Wolves who embrace their mates without reservations lead the healthiest lives.”

“Mmm,” Minho acknowledged that he heard Jae say something, drifting in and out as Kibum’s scent wrapped around him a lulled him to sleep better than any lullaby.

“I’ll let you sleep, then. We have a long journey ahead of us starting tomorrow.”

Minho did not hear her, for sleep had already taken him, and for once the niggling nightmares that had plagued him for months left him undisturbed and he knew they'd make it to the sunrise.

A/N: I don't know how good this chapter is. I tried, but I spent a long time just trying to figure out how I wanted it go. I finished it though, so at least there's that. 

Also, it took longer because one day I decided to draw them all! I'm not the best at digital art by far and I can't color for anything, but I gave it a shot.

Anyway, thanks for reading!