Next days where never fun, especially if your name was Jongdae, if you lived in a wolf community and you had been attacked, in the previous night, by some crazed wolf, with intentions and reasons that were very far behind his imagination.

As soon as he woke up, rattled awake by a loud banging, coming from a distance, on a door, and a startled gasp from Kyungsoo, he tried to get up out of the bed where he was sleeping but failed. There was a throbbing ache on his wrist and a stiffness on his neck, much like he had slept in the wrong position all night, that prevented him to really move it.

He heard, more than he saw, Kyungsoo running out of the room, and a few minutes later he heard loud voices approaching, which led him to think that whatever plan that Kyungsoo and Baekhyun had formulated yesterday, he knew they did although he didn’t hear anything, was being put to practice.

Kyungsoo returned with Jungsu, Donghae and Hyukjae behind him, looking properly disgruntled and scared as heck, babbling about someone had broken inside the temple and how Jongdae had been attacked, about how frightening it had been and how he barricaded himself and Jongdae inside the temple when the attacker had run away.

Jungsu must’ve been worried because the gentle and pacific man looked flustered and frantic, talking fast and looking far away from the composed man he was. Jongdae felt him accessing his body, looking at the damaged that had been done.

“His neck is swollen and has a lot of bruises. Luhan should check it out, I am not sure if there weren’t done any damages to the larynx, which may affect his vocal chords. Oh…and his wrist looks… bad!”

He heard someone approach and let out a curse at the sight of his neck: the bruising, swelling and small cut on his neck must’ve looked horrible. He opened his mouth, barely opening his eyes, as he felt like a bear had trampled him, but no sound came off, which Jongdae, smart as always assumed that it was probably the damage to his vocal chords; after all, wolves had more strength than the average creature. The only pity was the fact that, besides enhanced senses, wolves didn’t have an out of the world healing rate, healing only a little faster, very little, than the normal being in the woods.

“Luhan needs to see him immediately and we need to warn the Council about this attack! I’ve just seen Jongdae yesterday night with Sehun, why was he with you?” asked Jungsu, clearly frustrated that a pack member had been hurt while he was on duty.

“I was feeling sick yesterday and after taking care of Sehun; Jongdae came to see if I was feeling alright and if I needed something. I told him that I was fine; we talked for about a quarter of hour and then he left. That’s when I heard him screaming and there was that figure I told you about lying on top of him, half chocking him and trying to stab him with a knife. It was a horrible sight but thankfully the wolf got out as soon as I got there.”

“Did you notice any strange smells or noises?” asked the alpha leader.

“I didn’t really hear any noise, at least not one that was different from usual, and it’s hard to smell something in here, you know that, there are too many smells around: of herbs, plants and spices. It was completely camouflaged, scent wise, in here.”

Jungsu frowned a little before ordering Donghae to help take Jongdae to his hut along with Kyungsoo, asking to the priest to take his belongings also, since he was now under protection, as Jongdae, since they had been assaulted and almost killed, which activated the immediate action from the Guardians, without needing a special permission from their Alpha Leader or even the Council.

Jongdae saw, from the corner of his eye, Kyungsoo smirk a little, his plan apparently going great if not better than he expected. It wasn’t a common sight in the priest but when Kyungsoo was fed up or angry at something, he could show some of his devilish traits, ones that he already had shown as a kid, to the people he felt most comfortable with.

He felt himself being carried away by Donghae, eyes wide open and staring at the other male like a puppy would: he wasn’t really intending to act like a puppy but, well, Donghae was a er for them, which earned him a lot of coos and cuddles as they went, which was something that Jongdae appreciated: he was feeling like crap, the least someone could do was give him some heard core cuddles.

Kyungsoo was left behind, talking with Jungsu and probably detailing all that he had seen; which wasn’t much but, thankfully for him, Kyungsoo looked like he was a good liar or, at least, no was expecting him to lie.

Donghae transported him to his own house, where Sehun was staying and, as soon as they got inside, he was deposited gently on top of the soft pelts, next to Sehun, who was still in a comatose sleep.

He left soon after, potentially to receive more orders or to inform the Council about what had happened. The truth was that Jongdae was left alone with his friend. Sehun had not woken up yet.

The beta turned to look over at his friend, studying his features. The other beta, the apprentice, looked calm in his sleep, serene even; lips parted, the air, and eyes fluttering gently, the brown irises twitching left in right, staring at his face.

Wait? Staring at…

Jongdae almost fell out of the bed when he noticed that Sehun was awake and looking at him. He peered over at his friend, after some seconds to calm himself, and noticed that the male didn’t seem like he wasn’t in pain, possibly due to the medicine that Luhan kept giving him and applying on his wounds, but there was an obvious discomfort in his movements that shown that he knew something was off.

The smaller beta was over the moon at the sight of his awaken best friend but, as he tried to speak to the other, who was looking at him in confusion, barely out of whatever place he had been to while asleep, silently asking him to dispel his confusion, he remembered that his voice was pretty much out of commission for the time being,

With some effort, and it was a big effort, Jongdae opened his mouth and forced words out of his vocal cords, although it sound a little mangled and raspy, barely there for anyone to hear.

“How are you?” asked Jongdae, wincing at the sound of his own, faint, voice.

Sehun looked over at Jongdae, seemingly more confused at his tone of voice, quickly noticing the bruising around the other’s neck.

“Wha…?”

“No, no, no!” mumbled Jongdae, a hand coming to stop Sehun from standing upwards and damaging himself further. “You can’t… hurt!”

“What happened?” asked Sehun, his tongue tangling itself and not allowing him to speak with proper enunciation.

“You were beaten down!” answered Jongdae, coughing a little to relieve some pressure that he felt on his throat.

“You?” the taller beta asked, looking still very tired, eyes at half-mast

“We found who was the person that Jongin saw on his visions: it was Kyungsoo! Yesterday, or today at dawn, we: myself, Jongin, Chanyeol, Baekhyun and also Kyungsoo, tried to protect him and prevent it from happening but something switched on Jongin’s vision and I was attacked.” Replied Jongdae with a hand coming to his throat; feeling his eyes tear up with the pain and the strain being put on his poor voice.

“Are you okay?”

Jongdae nodded; although slightly battered, he was okay, just a little bruised and definitely nothing compared to Sehun state.

“You’ve been asleep for a while. It was a repairing sleep as Luhan put it, but you are nowhere near of being healed. You were severely hurt. I’m just a little bruised!”

“Kyungsoo?”

“He’s fine! He knows about everything. He’s securing our safety right now by telling Jungsu that I was attacked while I was looking over him last night when he supposedly got sick. It will take some worries out of our backs and ensure our safety for a while: the Guardian had already taken action about it and not even the Council can say anything about it. Most importantly it assure that attentions are on us, giving time for them, you know who, do a little bit of investigation over that section of the village that you found.”

Sehun managed to send him a small smile before a frantic Luhan came through the door, Hyukjae right behind him, coming near the bed and beginning to fuss over Jongdae, who was turned into his direction, accessing the state of his neck and gently grabbing his swollen wrist to also give a look.

Luhan didn’t notice, at least not at first, the fact that Sehun seemed to be awake, since the male was quiet and simply looking at the healer who was diagnosing Jongdae. Only when Luhan, good old Luhan, made a comment about how Jongdae seemed to be in a lot of trouble lately, did Sehun let out a small sound that resembled the beginning of a laugh but was not very successful.

“Sehun!” yelled Luhan, delight and relief flooding his big doe eyes as he saw his friend with his eyes opened, surpassing that critical moment when he stood on a comatose state where no one knew if he could or would survive. “You are awake!”

Sehun, for all the gracious self, nodded, a little smile playing on his lips at the overjoyed reaction he had got from Luhan.

“How are you feeling?” asked the healer.

“Sore, a little achy and much to sleepy.” Replied his apprentice, the tiredness apparent on his voice.

“That’s entirely normal. Your body is still spending a lot of energy repairing itself and you shall feel like that for a long while, do don’t freak out over that. You’ll probably be in an immense pain as soon as the anesthetic cream I rubbed on your back loses its effect but, regardless, is amazing to see you awake. It’s wonderful! Wonderful!”

Luhan’s happiness was contagious and pretty much infected both of his patients who smiled at the sunny disposition of the healer in front of them and friend.

“As for Jongdae,” began the healer, returning a little to his more professional mode. “Your wrist isn’t broken just badly twisted; I am going to wrap it up and you are going to be extremely careful of it as not to worsen the damage. And your neck, well it was applied a good amount of pressure to it and you’ll be feeling it for quite a while but it’s going to be fine. Warm water with honey will do wonders for your chords, as for the bruising, well; it will be gone when it’s gone. You just have to wait for it to away. And try not to babble a lot.”

“I don’t babble!” retorted Jongdae with a strangled voice, completely outraged at the things that were coming out of his friend’s mouth: how dared he?”

“Just don’t please! For me!” begged Luhan with a more serious voice with Jongdae’s best interest in mind.

Jongdae let a little huff pass his lips, like saying that he wasn’t going to do it just because of Luhan before he docilely fell back into the softness of the pelts beneath him, a silent gesture of agreement that made Luhan, and Sehun, smile.

With gentle hands, Luhan took care of Sehun first, applying the usual balms and salves, ointments and creams, on top of the other’s pale skin that was, at the moment, marred by red gashes as purple-ish black bruises, taking great care as to not leave any part unattended and risk infection: some of them were beginning to create a crust while other presented themselves with a shiny substance of top of it which Luhan explained that it had been the skin repairing itself providing leucocytes to prevent any strange organism from entering the wound, along with high levels of collagen and, ultimately, new cells to replace the ones that had been lost.

After taking care of Sehun’s wounds, Luhan was thoughtful enough to give him an infusion of something, he didn’t disclosure what it contained, that was supposed to be both a great painkiller; the only thing that was truly known was that Sehun hated the taste and made a funny face, poking his tongue out weekly before letting it fall back on the place it had been. Luhan also recommended him to sleep, stating that sleep helped the healing process and he needed. Sehun only nodded, his work as an apprentice healer and his trust on Luhan making him listen to the words uttered.

Next came Jongdae’s turn, who whined softly at the pungent smell of the cream that Luhan applied on his neck, more so at the taste of another concoction of his that was supposed to reduce the swelling that he had.

“Oh my!” rasped Jongdae, barely suppressing a gag, when he swallowed the thick liquid and the aftertaste it hit. “Do you make these out of children’s tears, mud and sugar? Because it tastes that bad!”

“Didn’t I tell you not to speak?” chided Luhan poking Jongdae on the nose and making the younger beta cross his eyes comically.

The healer looked mournfully at Jongdae’s neck and he bandaged the other’s wrist tightly, after patching the cut below his ear.

“Seriously, every time I think that someone actually got inside our village, surpassed our guards, and attacked you; it makes me shiver, to be honest! How could someone do that? You never harmed anyone and you’re as sweet as they come!”

Jongdae looked over at Sehun, eyes grave and serious as they came, who looked back at him, eyes half lidded and tired, with the same somber expression.

Luhan didn’t notice the exchange of looks and continued to talk.

“It’s like we can’t be safe anymore in our own village and thank the high heavens for the Guardians quick actions; if we left it to the Council, we were still being attacked. But it seriously blew my mind: how did no one notice?”

«How did no one notice that I led three foreigner wolves inside the village?» thought Jongdae to himself, knowing fully well that it was entirely possible; the only way to prevented was, indeed, when something did happened and all the Guardian wolves came out to defend their community; they were only allowed to do so in these kinds of situations otherwise, as in they could only act if the village was in danger or perceived as so, otherwise they were obliged to the orders of the Council.

Luhan said nothing more, maybe because Sehun, in the meanwhile, had closed his eyes, possibly preparing himself for some more sleep, thanks not only to the medicine the healer wolf had given him but also the tiredness that he felt.

Sensing that his best friend was falling asleep, Jongdae let out a comforting whine and huddled close to his friend, providing a familiar scent for the other to inhale, as well as some warmth that kept him cozy and feeling protected and loved.

It was kind of amazing how Sehun’s body reacted to his friend’s closeness by sliding his body, although with some difficulty a few inches into Jongdae’s direction in order to approach himself to the other male. Luhan wasn’t going to lie: he was pretty jealous. While he was friends with both males, rather good friends, there was a bond that Jongdae and Sehun shared that was impossible to break.

He stared at the duo for a couple of minutes, allowing himself to absorb such display of rare and deep connection between two friends. There was a sated feeling in the air, mixed with deep satisfaction and love that induced a certain laziness and sleepiness, which was way when both of them fell asleep, Luhan didn’t even look surprised.

With careful steps and gentle hands, Luhan tucked those two into their warm covers and picked up his things, leaving the hut.

At the door, he found Hyukjae who, at some point, had planted himself at the door of the hut, as silent guard.

“How are them?” asked the older alpha.

“They are okay; tired but okay!” replied Luhan with a small smile.

“I don’t really know if it’s simply bad luck or some kind of divine punishment but those two never seem to have a breather.” Stated the alpha pensively eye the closed door. “It is as if troubles chased them when they don’t even want it. It’s bad enough they had so many troubles growing up, they certainly didn’t need this.”

“They don’t!” replied Luhan very easily, a tired smile painting his lips as he remembered all the struggles the duo had gone through with Jongdae’s abusive parents and the death of Sehun’s own.”But Mother Earth knows what She does; She set them difficult tasks and roads to follow but She will also give them the reward for surpassing all they did. I know She will.”

And that was the positive thought that Luhan held onto! Everything would be alright! It had to!

Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Jongin stood right by the boarders of Chanyeol’s mate watching, waiting, for a good moment where they could get inside it undetected and snoop around all they want. However, their plans seemed to be boycotted by the increase on the security, therefore defense, on the village; there seemed to be a distinct smell of alpha pheromones permanently on the air and they did thanked their genes to have an extraordinary sense of smell which allowed them to smell it for miles, or else they would probably be caught long time ago.

It had not, by far, been the first attempt they had made, probably like their fourth or fifth but, as it seemed, after the attack on Jongdae, Kyungsoo had complied with Baekhyun’s plans and managed to protect themselves. It had been a fantastically smart move but one that had made their job much more difficult.

It was pretty much clear for everyone that they had to do this and everything that came as a consequence; that they have to try to solve all the problems that occurred on that village and protect their friends, to save them from the people who wanted to hurt them. No one was leaving! Why? Chanyeol’s mate was in there and neither Baekhyun nor Jongin would ever dream of keeping the wolf from his other half, they would never inflict that kind of pain on their brother.

Nevertheless, they acknowledged that Jongin’s condition was a problem and that they had to act discreetly as to not compromise their safety or the safety of Jongdae and his friends.

They had spent all the night by the boarders, walking up and down the invisible line that separated the pack’s territory and no man’s land, trying to find a pattern on the alphas’ path that would allow them to penetrate that little part that Sehun had mentioned them a while ago. Only now, a few hours before the dawn, they noticed that that the number of alphas patrolling the place had significantly lessen, they weren’t sure why but they seized the opportunity, morphing into their wolf form quickly and running, as fast as they could to the northern part of the community, the one that caused Sehun so much trouble and that caused him to be hurt.

As they reached it, transforming back with a practiced ease, they found it desert as they expected and, while Chanyeol kept himself alert, totally focusing on his surrounding and concentrating hard in every sound and smell around them in order to not allow they to be caught unsuspecting, Baekhyun and Jongin immediately approached the immense mass of thorny bushes in front of them

To tell the truth they were a pain in the and Baekhyun slightly wrinkled his nose at the prospect of being full of scratches by the end of the day, or rather morning, it wasn’t what he had expected.

“There is a definite smell of something like sulfur around here!” mumbled Jongin sniffing around the area, eyes scrunched in concentration. “I cannot really link the smell to anything that I’ve ever scented before. It’s a weird smell and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth just by aspiring it!”

“I don’t like the smell either.” Mumbled Chanyeol looking into the distance distractedly, even though everyone knew he was anything but distracted.

“So, assuming that there is something behind all of this, how do they manage to pass through these?” asked Jongin frowning at the bushes.

Baekhyun dropped to the ground, extending himself on the soil and looking beneath the bushes trying to find something worth of being a clue. His eyes immediately caught something. With extreme caution, Baekhyun slid his hands on the soil, avoiding the majority of the spikes and thorns, and pulled out something made out of fabric which he immediately identified as gloves. He passed them onto Jongin who took them to his nose.

“Same sulfuric smell on them.” Stated the younger male. “Whoever comes here and impregnates the place with its smell used these gloves; the question is for what exactly?”

“I’m sure that they are supposed to grab something or move these bushes around and not prickle themselves up. That is what makes sense!” threw Chanyeol, his eyes briefly turning to both his brothers before losing themselves in the distance, going rigid as a board for a second before relaxing on the next minute. “False alarm.”

“That makes sense to me as well but…where?” asked Jongin looking around. “This area is literally all bushes.”

“Which are the bushes who have the strongest smell? Let’s search them and that may tip us off and give us a push in the right direction!” suggested Baekhyun, being immediately concurred by both of his brothers.

Again, Jongin went forward and began smelling the plants, trying to distinguished the ones who had been touched the most, which was proving to be a difficult task since the sulfuric smell, which was strong on the area, was almost impossible to make a distinction between the shrubberies.

“I can distinguish the ones up at front but the ones at the back are too far for me to properly be able to identify them.” Informed the younger wolf out the three. “This one over here has the strongest smell along with these two beside it, on its left side.”

Baekhyun crouched to examine the bushes; he didn’t exactly knew much about plants but he knew enough to maybe get more clues, since that was all that they were basing themselves on to proceed.

He quickly noticed that some of the bushes were not rooted to the ground but simply placed upon the ground right behind the first round of bushes, completely inconspicuous and blending in with the other plants. Baekhyun quickly noted that it was pretty much easy to grabbed them with the gloves and push them out of the way.

The berserker quickly relayed this information to Jongin and the both of them did an excellent job as a team: Baekhyun put on the glove, not willing to scratch himself all over and have Jongin or Chanyeol pick out thorn out of his flesh later on, and Jongin told him which were the plants that held the most smell among all of them.

It was a tiring job and, quite frankly, extremely boring: wait for Jongin to tell scents apart and pick the bushes apart really carefully, separating them and gently put it into piles, since, as Chanyeol warned them, while wolves couldn’t really smell them: it was really difficult since they had covered themselves in tree sap and eucalyptus leaves to mask it, they could spot crooked branches and dented leaves and that could very well give them away.

It was really a morose process and they had a couple of scares, with Chanyeol tensing up and crouching down into an attacking position but, every time, it turned out to be nothing. It was a little unnerving the fact that no one had come to this area, just approaching it, although from a good distance.

After a good twenty minutes, Jongin stood suddenly which made Baekhyun alt and even Chanyeol lost his concentration for a second.

“What is it?” the taller wolf asked in a hurry.

“There is a hatch in here.”

“A hatch?” questioned Chanyeol, looking over at his younger brother, confused out of his mind as to why a hatch would be there, in the middle of nowhere.

“I don’t know but I’ll find out!” exclaimed Baekhyun, quickly taking of the gloves and placing them on the ground.

Opening the hatch wasn’t difficult: there wasn’t any key to open the thing just a copper handle. When Baekhyun thought about it, it was really stupid not to guard it more If they were afraid of people discovering whatever the heck this place was.

“I’m going downstairs to see whatever it is that they are trying to hide.”

“What makes you think that something is hidden or, at least, something important?” asked Jongin.

“It has to be: they would not go with this amount of trouble if not to hide something important.”

Chanyeol voiced his agreement, albeit distractedly, focused again in scanning the area.

“I’m going down.” Stated Baekhyun once again. “Chanyeol, stay here and continue to secure our perimeter, since you have the best senses out of us three. Jongin, you stay here, near the hatch, and I’ll be communicating with you if needed.”

“I should go downstairs with you!” shot Jongin, completely surprised at the decision.

“No!” denied both Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

“I don’t know what we are going to find downstairs and I will not put your safety at risk. You just need to do your thing!”

A thing that nobody knew, in regards to Oracle wolves, was that every time an Oracle was born, potential berserkers awoken all over the place but, as the banshee’s explained to them, the berserkers only really transformed into the beast like wolves if they formed a bond with the Oracle wolf. Not every wolf could be a berserker and not everybody could reach the berserk form; it was something in their genes. They also explained that these small packs formed by berserkers and Oracles could, due to the extremely tight bonds they developed if they managed to survive long enough, develop mental links with the Oracle, or rather, the Oracle could communicate with the berserkers and see whatever they were seeing or hearing; the only thing they couldn’t do was answer back.

Fortunately for them, the long years with each other had made them develop a fantastic bond between them that allowed Jongin to pretty much be Baekhyun’s brain and have access to all external inputs that he had.

Jongin looked a little wary but ultimately nodded to the other’s request, sitting beside Chanyeol and closing his eyes ready to concentrate and get into Baekhyun’s mind through their link.

With a nod to Chanyeol, Baekhyun pulled the hatch open and vaulted inside after looking inside for anyone that could turn on him. He landed on the soil beneath him in a crouch.

He tried to smell his surrounding but the stench of alcohol made it impossible for him to smell anything actually. He didn’t have a strong sense of smell to begin with, due to an encounter with a wizard that had been pretty bad to him and worse for the wizard:however his sense of smell was really limited.

Inside was humid and stuffy and Baekhyun immediately felt like he wanted to bolt out of there. He didn’t even see anyone down there, just long rows of cabinets and stacks of books, after he went through a long corridor. The berserker flipped through them and weird books of anatomy, science, alchemy; it was really weird and he frowned at them, specially seeing the strange drawing in the margins of the books.

There was also some lab material down there and Baekhyun quickly made himself more comfortable knowing that no one was there, that much was obvious: there was no sound coming from any place down there.

He considered the possibility of taking one of the microscopes down here to investigate the damn gorgon that they had found, never mind that the corpse was already decomposing.

The main room, where the books and lab material were, was connected to two rooms: one of them led to a room with a stretcher in there and a various amount of instruments that he’d guess Sehun used as a healer. The room smelled of disinfectant and sulfur and the combination was disgusting.

Seeing nothing of interest in there he turned to the other room. The door was closed and Baekhyun was a little apprehensive in opening it but he did.

He grabbed the knob and pushed it open.

Outside, Jongin was completely in tune with his link with Baekhyun: he watched exactly what his brother saw and his brows furrowed at the things that were around that place.

He felt a tread of fear when Baekhyun turned to the closed door and braced himself to open it. When Baekhyun pulled the door open the sight that came to his mind was so horrifying that he lost connection with Baekhyun and almost fell to the ground with the shock, making Chanyeol turn to him and crouch, worried.

“What is it?” asked the taller completely frantic.

Jongin turned to his brother, fear and terror painting his features and muttered small words that sent shivers to Chanyeol spine.

“It’s them!”

A/N: Dun Dun Duuuuuuuun! Another chapter! What did they find down there? What do you think? What did Baekhyun, and Jongin too, saw down there? Do tell me via comment or message and bright up my day; it has been a truly horrific week and I need some pampering! I really do! So please upvote and subscribe and enjoy the story!
Thank you all for reading and, as always, say healthy and safe, love others and allow yourself to be loved, and be always HAPPY!!!!!
Lots of love and have a joyful and stress free week!
<3