Chapter 22

The guard was appalled his flute was broken into fragments. ‘You will pay he thought as he backed away slightly.’ Onew rubbed his eyes and looked around, his eyes finding Changmin. Smiling he rushed over to the human, “Changmin! I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to…please forgive me.” Changmin smiled and embraced the vampire, “forget it I’m just glad to have you back.” Onew smiled and returned the embrace, his face buried into the human’s chest, “I’m so sorry Changmin, it won’t happen again.” Changmin tightened the embrace, “it’s alright, don’t worry it wasn’t your fault.”

Minho shook his head; it was like a fog lifted from his head. He was facing a wall, but he felt something tug, he knew that Taemin was near by; he turned around to see the younger boy looking at him a little frightened. “Taemin…you came for me?” He spoke. The younger flung himself into Minho’s arms, “you big idiotic jerk! You scared me half to death!” Minho embraced the younger boy tightly, “I’m sorry Taemin, I wont worry you anymore, I promise.” Taemin nuzzled into his chest and tightened the embrace.

Jonghyun watched the reunion, he was happy for them, but something made him feel a little worried, it was unsettling. He looked around to try and figure out what could be making him so uneasy. Then he saw it, unconscious on the ground, was Key. “Kibum!” He rushed over to the younger, lifting him up, cradling him. The others came over as soon as they heard Jonghyun call out his protected’s name. They watched the older hold on to the human, completely lost. How did this happen? What in the world happened? Was this his doing? “Key, can you hear me? Wake up, Key.” It was then that the guard began to chuckle. Jonghyun brought his attention to the guard, “what did you do?” He muttered, anger seeping out of him. The guard pointed to himself like he was somehow at fault. “I did nothing it was you who hit him, your so called protected.” Jonghyun saddened he couldn’t have hit him, he cared for Key. “Kibum, wake up.” He said a little loudly this time. Key groaned slightly and opened his eyes slightly, “J-Jonghyun?” The vampire looked at Key and released a breath of utter relief. “Are you alright?” Key nodded a little, his back was hurting him from the impact of the wall from earlier, but Jonghyun looked like he was worried out of his mind so he nodded. Jonghyun embraced the younger tightly, “don’t lie to me, Key. I know you’re hurting, I feel it.” Key’s eyes widened, feel it? He felt Key’s pain? That could only mean that they had a bond, but Key didn’t feel a bond and it wasn’t like he and Jonghyun had enough time to create a strong bond. How was Jonghyun feeling Key’s pain? “H-how? How do you know I am hurting?” Jonghyun pulled back and smiled, “Even if it’s faint, I feel it our bond, its there. One of us initiated it without our knowledge.” He explained, this still made no sense to Key and it didn’t look like it made sense to Jonghyun either. They decided to wait on the session of question and answer since the guard was still with them and he was fuming, getting angrier and angrier.

“Well then” the guard began making his way over to them, “now that we’ve gotten that mushy reunion out of the way, let’s get on to saying our farewell.” He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The group of boys turned silent and listened, he had to have called for something or someone, right? A loud roar pierced the sky and large dragon flew down and landed behind the guard its tail gracefully placed in front of the guard’s feet. Jonghyun’s eyes widened, it was the same dragon that he saw from the woods. The guard was smirking once more, it was as if he was getting more and more excited, “feast your eyes upon my guardian.” He said in a selfish manner. The beast eyed the group with a look of hunger. Gulping visibly, it lowered its gigantic head to his protected and growled hungrily. “I- I thought children were supposed to receive their guardian first not adults.” Minho uttered. The guard looked at Minho and replied, “That is correct, but as you can see, that is not the case.” Key tightened his grip on Jonghyun’s forearm, the older growled as a warning, knowing full well that this was no time to pick any sort of fight especially with a dragon.