Jongin sat on the floor in a complete state of shock and Chanyeol was left worried out of his mind, crouching beside Jongin, a hand on his back, trying to comfort his younger brother, not even giving a damn about his surroundings, preferring to focus on family: if someone happened to find them, he would have to run, to heck with it!

The taller wolf didn’t even understand what was going on since Jongin seemed to be unable to speak; he only really got his answers when Baekhyun popped out of the opening of the hatch and the oldest of the three pulled himself out of the underground area.

“What happened down there?” asked Chanyeol immediately, frowning at the somber look on the other’s face, not really expecting anything good to come out from his mouth. “What did you see in there? Jongin is absolutely catatonic and he refuses to tell me.”

“We need to get out of here first. I don’t want anyone to come in here and discover what we have been doing. I’ve brought things from there that I’ll go over with you when we are safe. We are not focused and we can easily be caught here since none of us is really concentrating on our surroundings.”

“That bad?” he asked helping Jongin up.

“Worse that you imagine.” Replied the man with a grimace on his face that told Chanyeol that he should prepare for the worst.

He and his older brother took their time to close the hatch and placing the thorny bushes exactly on the same spot that they had found them, which took about thirty minutes, before they checked for any sign of their presence in there such as fabric of their clothes or even footprints, before marching away, being super careful as to avoid any alpha that could be patrolling the borders of the village.

Reaching their small cave was fairly quick as well, having no trouble into dwelling and weaving themselves into the woods to get to it; they even stopped to clean themselves and get rid of the overwhelming smells that clung to their skin, there was no need for it now since their mission had been successful.

Once inside the alcove, covered with the cloaks that Kyungsoo had gifted them with, Chanyeol dared to ask again what happened, his voice clear although he wasn’t speaking very loudly.

“What did you see in that place Baekhyun?” he asked looking at his brother. “Both you and Jongin look properly freaked out and I don’t think the answer is something I am going to like; I can say that both of your reactions worried me a lot.”

The sentence only gained more weight as Baekhyun and Jongin shared a look; it was very brief but there was something akin to understanding and anxiousness in it that was only broken when Jongin averted his gaze, opting for looking at his hands.

Chanyeol didn’t really know what to think; Jongin was not the most headstrong person in the world, he could never compare the sincere and caring disposition of the other wolf to his own, for an instance, but Jongin had never been so out of words and lost, which amped Chanyeol anxiety, making it through the roof. Even Baekhyun seemed at a loss of words and it wasn’t usual on his older brother, who didn’t even talk that much.

“Are you going to explain or are you keeping me in the dark about whatever damn thing you saw?” he asked, raising his voice a little as his temper began to get the best of him.

Seeing as Jongin seemed to be horrified at the memory: he had even shuddered a little, Baekhyun decided to bite the bullet and simply tell Chanyeol what he had experienced down there.

“I am not sure that I have completely understood everything that I saw downstairs, Chanyeol, but I can guarantee you that Sehun was absolutely right in all of the suspicions he had about that place.” He started, speaking slowly and carefully, despite the clear impatience in Chanyeol’s face, who demanded, without speaking, for him to tell him, once and for all, whatever it was that he had seen. “What I saw downstairs can easily be pegged as some kind of laboratory; there are all kinds of medical instruments, very similar to those that the Human race left us, and many books of the most varied themes such as biology, chemistry, anatomy, as well as perfectly accurate bestiaries that contain a lot of information about the creatures that exist on these lands and those who we had thought that didn’t exist. I also found some alchemy books but I have to admit that I am not really well versed on those, so what it said on them was complete gibberish to me. That alone made me think that they were researching something but what I didn’t expect was that I would fins their subject inside those tunnels… Chanyeol, there were creatures in there…”

“Creatures?” asked Chanyeol with a raised eyebrow, not really understanding the meaning behind Baekhyun’s words; he got the idea that they were probably doing something illicit down there, or else there was no purpose in their secrecy, and he understood very well that the place was a research lab of sorts, but he had to admit that the creature part was failing to connect with everything else in his mind. “What do you mean with creatures?”

“They are using creatures for their experiments.” Replied Jongin very softly.

Chanyeol mind blanked at this point, trying to digest the handed information; it wasn’t as if he couldn’t, he just really didn’t think he wanted to actually connect the dots.

“What do you mean?” he asked, fearing the answer that he would get.

“Jongin means that the strange creatures that we’ve seen, that the creatures that members of Jongdae’s pack have been reporting to see, are being created by whoever is running the underground lab. They are transforming creatures, as normal as you and I, by mixing them with other ones, sort of fusing them into one.”

“Wait…are you telling me that they are actually creating chimeras?” questioned Chanyeol carefully, using the knowledge he had been taught about in school to identify the name of the creatures who had characteristics from two or more different species. “Are you telling me that their pack is really putting those things out there and creating them right under everyone’s noses? How? Why?”

“I wish I had the answers to those questions…” sighed Baekhyun, pulling the cloak more onto himself, snuggling a little into the soft material, looking, for a brief second, a small pup. “I managed to sneak a small handwritten journal that may explain us how they are doing it, if some of the passages I read are any indicator, but I cannot begin to understand why they are doing this! They are decimating packs with these things and starting unnecessary wars and chaos, denying everything related to the subject as soon as it is presented. At least now I can understand why Sehun and Jongdae complained that the Council never did anything meaningful when the attacks around this area by chimeras increased: they already knew it! They probably are the masterminds behind said attacks!”

“Did you see a chimaera?” questioned the taller wolf, looking at the other with a mix of wonder and disgust.

“I did.” Nodded the older. “Strapped to a table, much like a common animal, looking absolutely soulless and catatonic was a mermaid. They transformed her body with some kind of creature that I couldn’t identify, but it seems like the experiment didn’t work, whatever body part fused into the mermaid was beginning to rot and she was septicemic. She was dying! And I…”

Without finishing his sentence, Baekhyun stood up quickly and marched out of the cave, his footsteps heavy on the silent space.

“Baekhyun put her down.” Declared Jongin’s soft voice, making Chanyeol look at him startled. “She was catatonic and pretty much dying, but she still heard him and she asked him to finish her suffering. Baekhyun did.”

“Did he…?”

“He killed her, yes!” replied Jongin sadly. “I could feel his emotions for a small, very brief second…He was absolutely gutted in doing it but he felt it was inhuman to keep her suffering so much, so Baekhyun held her hand and broke her spine. She died immediately.”

Chanyeol felt absolutely terrible while he listened to this; he couldn’t imagine himself being in Baekhyun’s shoes and he didn’t want it either; to kill someone was something that left deep scars into one’s mind, he would know, he had enough blood on his hands from protecting his family, but those enemies he killed where exactly that: enemies that had tried to kill him and his family, so in reality, only self-defense was used, but to kill another human being, an innocent, just to end his suffering… Chanyeol wasn’t really sure that he would be able to do what Baekhyun had just done.

“I cannot wrap my head enough around this thing! Why are they doing? What is the necessity?” asked Chanyeol more to himself than anything.

“I don’t really know but what they are doing is inhuman; absolutely inhuman and disgusting. Does a life manages so little to them to the point of mutilating someone and experimenting on them? How can they do this? I am honestly so infuriated and horrified that words escape me!”

“Why do you think they are doing this?”

“The main reason should be insanity because no one should even think about doing it even theory less alone in practice!” grumbled Jongin, before leaving a sigh slide out from his lips, tired and sort of defeated. “Whatever it is that they are planning is not going to be good. If I had to take a guess I would say that having chimeras, beasts with the best traits of different creatures living around the area, is pretty much a synonym for ridiculous amounts of power, especially if they can control the said chimeras which, given that people have been murdered and attacked by those, although not all of them confirmed, it’s a clear indicator that they do and they are using them already.”

“I guess we can properly get rid of the gorgon like creature now; there is no point in keeping it for studies if we know what it is.” Stated Chanyeol, thinking about his encounter with the thing.

“It could be necessary for some studies regarding how they managed to do such thing but, truthfully speaking, it’s rotten to the core by now, so we’ll just leave it on where we bury it or we can burn the body so the smell doesn’t attract any necrophagous animals. We should give it a look into the book that Baekhyun stole from them and see what we can find in the pages.”

Jongin let his hands cover his face, rubbing it tiredly for a good while. He couldn’t believe that everything had become much more complicated and serious that they originally though. For once, there were lives at stake, innocent lives who were being experimented upon and those who were being attacked by the creatures that the Council made; then there was the whole fact that this was happening inside the village to which they had connections: Sehun, Kyungsoo and his own brother’s mate: Jongdae.

Truth to be told, in the face of his recent discoveries, Jongin might’ve said that it had been better for them to go away, far away, and not get involved with whatever it was happening, he had an inkling that things wouldn’t always appear this peaceful and he would rather not walk to trouble; however, he had his brother to consider now: Chanyeol had found the person that could fit perfectly with him and allow him some well-deserved happiness, and he would never take his brother’s happiness like that. Also, he had to admit that Kyungsoo soft spoken manners and sincerity along with Sehun’s level headed mind and charms had won him over; he was not gonna leave.

Coming from a broken family, a family that had been destroyed, he valued immensely the concept of family and the concept of friends; there was a connection between the two and Jongin didn’t want the meaning behind them or the equality to simply be disregarded. Both were very important and that settled and reaffirmed his decision to help them out.

Whatever the Council had been planning had already affected them greatly and their friends too: Baekhyun was the first to be submitted to the brutality of the creatures, then Jongdae; than had been Sehun although it had been at the hands of the creators and not the beasts, and lastly Jongdae again.

It was all a mess, a very, very big mess of epical proportions and Jongin didn’t really need a vision to make such prediction, only some common sense. He let his head rest back against the stone wall of their cave, eyes falling shut, feeling suddenly tired and much older than he actually was.

“We have to warn them!” came Chanyeol’s voice somewhere from his right.

Jongin knew that, while Chanyeol used the pronoun ‘them’, he was more worried about Jongdae than the other’s although he was certain that it wasn’t hard for his brother to come to the conclusion that both Sehun and Kyungsoo had to be taken into account on his small equation since they were part of Jongdae’s happiness.

“We do have to tell them!” reiterated Jongin without opening his eyes, focusing on the deep exhaustion that was consuming his bones and leaving him boneless. “But we’ll think about that in the morning, or afternoon, after we get some sleep. I’m too tired to move, too tired to speak and too tired to even think.”

While he didn’t exactly see it, Jongin felt Chanyeol nod at him and he instantly relaxed.

“Good! Now go outside and bring your older brother inside too. I fear that it might rain soon, the air smell too much like ozone, so I’m guessing a summer storm will hit us sooner or later and I don’t want Baekhyun out there, he’ll catch himself a disease or something; despite what he thinks, he is not invincible.”

Chanyeol let out a small chuckle and his footsteps indicated that he left their small cave to go search for Baekhyun.

Jongin, in all his tiredness, felt himself succumb to a light sleep, ears still straining to hear something that indicated him that his brothers were back. He did wait that much, fortunately, since it was barely ten minutes later when they both returned, rearranging the couple of plants that covered the entrance of the cave to block the sunlight, and sitting themselves near Jongin, one on each side of him, warming him up and covering themselves with their own cloaks.

Only then, surrounded by familiar smells and welcomed warmth, did Jongin allow himself to fall into a deeper state of sleep and rest, which he was in desperate need of. Beside him both older brother allowed themselves to also fall asleep, although their sleep wasn’t as nearly as deep as Jongin, both still on high alert for some predator or enemy that would appear, but still asleep.

It was comfortable and it was peaceful, perhaps for the first time in a long while, as all of the three slept away the horrors they had seen and discovered in the past couple of hours. In their dreams, even if they weren’t rainbow scenes and cute endings, there weren’t enemies or creatures or even a lot of worries; in their dreams, people were safe and protects; in their dreams, they could have a small taste of happiness.

Jongdae stared at the window of the hut, bored out of his mind. The pitter patter of the rain falling on the soil used to calm him down but, this time, it was only making him feel more and more suffocated.

He had woken up at dawn with an uneasiness bubbling in his chest that he couldn’t explain, but the truth was that it had left him antsy enough to get out of bed instead of disturbing Sehun, who was sleeping peacefully next to him, mouth parted and eyebrows a little scrunched, no doubt due to some pain on his back, since the effect of Luhan’s medicine could always last for so long.

The beta wolf had covered himself with a fluffy robe of his and had gone to the window to stare at the outside, eyes searching for something in the night that he couldn’t name. He had been there since he had woken up and now, in the middle of the morning, when the rain began to fall, pouring from the skies mercilessly, a summer storm that was bound to come even the dark clouds in the sky were any indicator, he felt trapped.

He still couldn’t speak and the decision of the Guardians to keep them, meaning Sehun, Kyungsoo and himself, inside the hut was leaving him stressed out. He was forbidden to speak, Sehun was forbidden to get out of bed and Kyungsoo had been silent and in a contemplative state and those things, combined with the lack of books to entertain himself and the general amount of things to do, he was starting to feel insane.

The small wolf let out a small sigh before studying the grey skies: if only he could go out and pick a book or even take a stroll down the river, but no, that was impossible, the village had gone into lock down meaning that no one could exit its perimeters. Jongdae was a typical bookwork, verified fact, but he also had a constant need of move, explore and learn so, naturally, being encased was horrible, he couldn’t even go out since it was raining so damn much.

Kyungsoo had been lucky: since the temple couldn’t function without the priest, he had been allowed to return to his normal functions, although accompanied by an alpha at all times, and he had already left the hut early in the morning.

For a brief moment, Jongdae allowed his mind to travel back to the day were he had been almost choked to death at that said place; it made a shiver come down on his spine to think about it but… He had just been so marveled at the switch of behavior by Chanyeol that he couldn’t really stop thinking about it.

Usually, of the best of days, he and Chanyeol bickered a lot; Chanyeol had a difficult temper and Jongdae let his take the best out of him at times too, but that day the taller wolf had practically leaped at the killer and managed to save his life, which Jongdae was extremely happy for, and then he had held him and protected him and, well, Jongdae had felt protected and cared indeed.

A small blush settled on his high cheekbones as he remembered how the taller and carried him out of the area, checked him for any injuries and simply held him throughout the whole ordeal, making him feel assured and helping him to calm down. It had made him feel warm inside and never had Chanyeol looked so appealing in his eyes.

“If you continue to sigh like that you are going to blow up the hut, like the children’s book, you know?”

Jongdae whipped around to see Sehun looking at him with sleepy, half opened eyes, looking over at him with slightly curious eyes. It had startled him when the younger spoken since he wasn’t expecting the other to be awake.

He stood up from his perch on the window and went back to the bed, sitting next to Sehun before deciding it was just better, and more comfortable, to just lay down next to his friend. Sehun, to his credit, immediately brought his fingers to his air to massage his scalp, letting them slide to the smooth hair on his head.

Jongdae hummed in satisfaction, feeling content with the lazy drag of the other’s fingers on his skin, behind his ears and on the finer hands at the top of his neck.

“What’s wrong Dae?” asked the taller one, trying to look at his friend without moving much of his body to keep from pulling something that he shouldn’t on the still healing back. “Oh, I forgot you can’t speak!”

“I can speak…” mumbled Jongdae, immediately wincing when his voice came out as a raspy, breathy thing that tore at his throat and made it burn. “I am just not really allowed to.”

“It’s straining at your chords, so don’t try. It’s better not to make it worst.”

“No, it’s actually not. The silence was beginning to get to me.” Replied the smaller, curling himself into a little ball and snuggling to Sehun’s side.

Jongdae looked at his friends through his thick and long lashes and marveled a little at the pink color dusting his friend’s cheeks. It was good to see Sehun with such a healthy color on his face, in place of the grey-ish hue that had taken care of his skin when he had been asleep; it was a sign of recovery and Jongdae was absolutely thrilled that the taller beta was getting better and stronger each day.

“What’s on your mind Dae? Tell me!”

“You know I tell you about what happened at the temple…”

“You mean when you almost got killed?” asked Sehun a little jokingly, trying to difuse the tension of the situation.

“Yeah, that time… Well, I am so confused…”

“Over what?”

“Chanyeol for once!” replied the smaller with a huff of annoyance. “On one minute he acts like he is a king and we’re his servants, looking down upon us and generally treating us like total garbage but, on that night, he actually showed another side of him: he was completely sweet and attentive, for the lack of better words, he took care of me and protected me.”

“You were confused over that?”

“I am.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“I actually don’t. I just know how to react in face of his hot and cold personality. I don’t know what to think. I usually have this urge to smack him in the face, most of the times I would if I was certain that he wouldn’t smack the heck out of me. However, this time, the care he demonstrated, the protectiveness, made me feel all tingly and warm.”

“So you like him?” asked Sehun, recognizing the words of Jongdae as attraction; of course that it was pretty normal for him but to Jongdae, who had never had a partner, no boyfriend or girlfriend ever, it might be a little harder to recognize the emotions and decode them.

“I’m not sure; I mean, I read on books that those feelings appear when someone is interested on another but I can’t be sure if it’s only gratitude or attraction.”

“And it’s bothering you.” Replied Sehun slowly; he didn’t ask, he stated it instead, knowing fully well that it was the answer that Jongdae would be giving him anyway.

Jongdae nodded against his arm and Sehun moved it to pull the other more firmly against him, kissing the dark looks on the other’s crown.

“It is. It’s confusing and I don’t like being confused.”

“That’s normal but you’ll figure it out, don’t stress over it.”

Jongdae hummed, a nice vibrating sound at the back of this throat that felt awesomely good against his skin, much like a kitten purring, if Jongdae was ever a cat, which he wasn’t.

“Where’s Kyungsoo?” asked Sehun after a few minutes of silence, listening to the rain outside and letting himself be comforted not only by the presence and affection of his friend but also the soft noise.

“He went to the temple really early; it’s not like that temple can exist without him. You know that, come hell or high water, Kyungsoo will still be there for all the believers, for all of those who need his words and guidance.”

“He would.”

Jongdae and Sehun both stood in silence, listening to each other breathing and the general comfortable feeling inside the small hut when the door burst open, bringing a sprinkle of water in their direction, making Jongdae scream about his floor, regretting afterwards when his throat burned, and a flustered Kyungsoo inside the hut, a confused Hyukjae following closely behind.

“Kyungsoo!!! What the heck?!” asked Jongdae standing up and looking for a clean and dry shirt to offer to the man.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” panted the man, completely disheveled and red, a very atypical image of the priest that made Jongdae fuss around him and Sehun lift and eyebrow in his direction.

“What’s the fuss all about?” asked Sehun, using his arms to prop himself up.

“You shouldn’t be doing that!” stated Kyungsoo with a frown, pausing to look at him worriedly. “And Jongdae isn’t supposed to be talking.”

“Are you really chastising us?” grumbled Jongdae. “I thought you had something to say to us, with the way you burst inside! You even scared Hyukjae.”

It was true, the poor alpha guarding Jongdae’s hut, as per request of the Guardians, had been confused and extremely scared out of his mind when Kyungsoo, docile and sweet Kyungsoo, had run down the street and pushed him out of the way to enter the small space.

Kyungsoo looked over at the alpha and immediately apologized, flustered beyond belief at being caught being less than proper. Thankfully enough, Hyukjae, for all his good spirits and relaxed nature, gave him a nod and small hand wave, stating that there was no need to apologize before returning to his place at the door of the building, guarding the three friends again.

“They’re back!” stated Kyungsoo panting a little, still dazed and out of breathe due to all the running; he wasn’t really athletic, he should exercise more.

“Who’s back?” asked Jongdae confused, using a piece of linen to dry Kyungsoo up, since the priest wasn’t doing a good job at it.

“Minseok’s squad! They are back!”

This made Jongdae stop drying Kyungsoo and Sehun’s head to snap at him, completely focused on his words.

“When did they come back?”

“They arrived approximately half an hour ago; they are at the Council presenting their report on the mission.”

“Did you hear anything about them? About what happened?”

“Some! I found Lalisa on the streets and she told me that when they got there, the entire pack had already been burned to the ground. The only person who survived was their emissary and he came back to the village with them.”

“Is Minseok okay?”

“He’s fine, although I haven’t seen him yet; whoever did that was already gone by the time they got there.”

“What aren’t you saying?” asked Sehun, voice low to prevent Hyukjae from hearing them. “You wouldn’t come here just to tell us that they arrived.”

“According to Lalisa, Gyuri and Jackson are now being treated by Luhan. Apparently, while they were sleeping something attacked them, in the middle of the night, passing right through the ones keeping an eye on everyone, and they were stung by something unknown, but poisonous.”

“What caused it?”

“They don’t know! They saw nothing but Luhan’s preliminary exams show high doses of Kanima poison on their system.”

“Kanima?” blurted Jongdae. “They are myths!!”

“Apparently not! The emissary sworn he saw some unknown wolf on the area.”

Both Jongdae and Sehun shared a look that Kyungsoo didn’t catch.

“How about” began Sehun standing up from the bed, completely shut out the warnings from Jongdae and Kyungsoo. “we go see Minseok and ask him all about it.”

“Are you insane?” asked Jongdae, looking at him with wide eyes. “Do you want to worsen your condition?”

“No; however, I do really want see Minseok and ask him what is all of this about.”

“Sehun…” warned Jongdae, serious like he rarely was.

“Jongdae!” replied the taller, with a meaningful look.

The other beta resisted for a second, clearly debating between his need to know what had happened and looking after his friend’s health. It didn’t take long for Jongdae to give up.

“I’ll help you.” Stated Jongdae defeated. “But don’t’ you dare doing something stupid.”

Sehun gave the other a small smile, before putting on a light robe and turning to both Kyungsoo and Jongdae, who grabbed an arm, one for each, and helped the younger to move forward.

“I wouldn’t dare!” replied Sehun at last before the trio began slowly moving towards the door and into the downpour.

Time to get to move.

A/N: Hello everyone! How have you been doing? First of all, I apologize for not posting anything last week but things were really complicated at work, long story short, I wasn't really happy where I was working and I received a proposition from another place to which I said yes and my boss wasn't happy, from threats, to crying is out to me and shouting, to persuading people into talking me not to leave, to even stating he was not allowing to leave (a whole stupid drama!). I quit all the same but it was a week that I couldn't really focus on anything so, sorry!
Anyways, I leave you know with this chapter and DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN, now we know what the Council has been doing! Those horrible people!!! What do you think about the chapter? Leave a comment or message me, subscribe if you like and please upvote! All of those make me incredibly happy!
Last, but no less important: be safe, be healthy, love others and allow yourself to receive the same love and please, be VERY, VERY HAPPY!
A lot of love to you all and an amazing week as well,
<3