When Sehun woke up, after a relatively long nap, the sun was almost setting, glowing softly in dark orange colors that Sehun found warm and inviting, and he surely felt more rested than he had felt some hours ago.

He smacked his lips in delighted as he let the sensations return to him, refusing to open his eyes and burrowing himself further in the soft material of his worn out, soft and warm pelt. Jongdae was still by his side, he could smell the other’s scent, cocoa, so very familiar, and it made everything all the best; it wasn’t a mate but it was family.

Sehun didn’t really want to think about that subject like that: mates. Sometimes he felt like there was a pressure, from his community, for people to begin to get mates as fast as they could. Up to a certain level, Sehun understood why: more pups more possible young adults and fertile omegas that could add to the number of their pack.

While he was too keen to admit, of even support it, a larger number of wolfs meant more power because it meant that the pack had more available resources in case of a war and by resources, Sehun meant more available people to fight. He didn’t like this point of view, the one that saw people as weapons but, in certain cases, he had to admit it was necessary, take for example the congregations of witches and wizards out there, who were more than thirsty for everyone’s blood!

The pressure of steady marriages, to have heirs and to prove to other packs that they are an organized and fully functional pack is pointless, in Sehun opinion; people shouldn’t be forced to choose somebody just because, they should be allowed to choose whenever they were ready.

He was still young and people were already telling him that it was his best interest to start thinking about settling down. He wasn’t interested in anyone so far, so he wasn’t really keen of just doing it for the sake of it. Also, he had an inkling that Sooyoun was also meddling in those affairs, pressuring the Council to act like matchmakers in order to get rid of all people that she wasn’t interested in, so that she had the best of males tracking behind her once they realized that she was one of the options left…In Sehun’s opinion that was plain desperation, who would content themselves with gaining attention of someone else because they were the last resort? It also interested her to choose couples whose union would benefit her in the end.  

In his mind, his still groggy mind, he called Sooyoun stupid a couple of times, before finally opening his eyes. Jongdae, still on his stomach, was snuffling in his pillow, face almost covered by the amount of pelts he had on top of him, still peacefully asleep. Sehun didn’t doubt that the man was going to sleep until the next day, half due to the recent events, and half due to the medicine he took.

Sehun’s body was still a little bit heavy, the rest felt so good to his tired bones that all that it was left was a pleasant laziness that was settle in his muscles. It felt quite good actually.

With a lot of effort, he stood from bed, bringing his pelt with him, fearing that Jongdae actually drool on his and he immediately noticed the small pot of broth that Junmyeon had brought while they were sleeping. Without even needing to open it, he already smelled the deliciousness that it was; Junmyeon was a really good cook, therefore he didn’t even need to taste it to know that it was going to be amazing.

Lifting the lid of the pot he found it to be a mushroom broth, Jongdae’s favorite and Sehun scrunched his nose a little at the blatant favoritism but, Jongdae was hurt so he let it pass this time and, the next he would degrade his image and just beg Junmyeon for his favorite soup. Of course he could cook it but Junmyeon did it on a whole another level, Kris was a lucky man.

He sat down on the bench and ate a bowl of the broth, delighted at how good it tasted. It was only when he was cleaning all the mess he had made in the kitchen area that Jongdae’s voice, to his surprise, made itself be heard.

“Hun?” he heard the other call him faintly, voice still very groggy.

He finished placing the bowl on the cupboard, filled one with broth for Jongdae and returned to the bed where Jongdae was, rubbing his eyes, looking all kind of fluffy and adorable.

“Hey Dae. How are you feeling?” he asked gently, sitting on the edge of the bed and ruffling the other’s soft hair with affection.

“Like a buffalo ran over me?” answered Jongdae uncertainly. “My muscles are sore, my back hurts, my head feels like it’s going to explode and I’m hungry, probably because I smell mushroom broth.”

“Yes! Junmyeon was here in the morning when I brought you home!”

Jongdae lifted an eyebrow in his direction.

“Are you serious? I saw no one!”

“Probably because you were half asleep, half crazy with pain! It’s kind of embarrassing how we are wolves, with superior senses, and yet we fail to notice three people standing inside your house.”

“Pretty pathetic!” agreed Jongdae with a groan of embarrassed.

“You had an excuse and I’ll have to excuse my lack of noticing the obvious, with the fact that I was really worried about you!”

“Let us say no more about it! The more we say, the more awful I feel.”

“Agree!”

Sehun passed the bowl with broth and Jongdae propped himself on his elbows, slurping the tasty food.

“Hmm…It’s so good.” Said Jongdae with a sigh of contentment at the taste. “What did he want?”

“To know where we were, obviously!” replied Sehun laying himself next to Jongdae, on top of the warm pelts. “Junmyeon, Luhan and Kyungsoo, actually.”

“What did you said?” asked Jongdae, stopping eating for a moment, looking completely terrified at the prospect of their secret being discovered.

“I lied, of course. Well, I half lied, because I couldn’t come with a better excuse in such short amount of time, under that much pressure. I told them we were drunk, we went for a walk and got really far away from the village and were attacked by something that we don’t really remember what it was since we were drunker than ever.”

Jongdae blinked over and over again at Sehun, contemplating and processing the lie in his brain.

“Well…” he begun “it’s not the ideal lie but did they believe you?”

“They did.” Confirmed Sehun, closing his eyes for a little and feeling Jongdae slowly relaxing by his side. “Junmyeon is really gullible and since I told him that I vomited my guts and that I fell asleep. Luhan was really angry at us for talking a walk without telling him anything, so he wasn’t focused on my words, only on the resentment he was feeling, so he didn’t say anything as well. The problem was Kyungsoo: he didn’t believe a word of what I said.”

Sehun felt Jongdae freeze next to him and look over at him, looking completely horrified.

“He didn’t ask questions though! He just said he knew I was lying, because my mouth twitches when I do so, apparently, and that he trusted our judgement on whatever it was we were hiding. He just asked us to be careful and to actually talk with somebody if we thought things were going to end up badly.”

Jongdae let out a breath that he wasn’t aware he was holding.

“Thank Mother Nature; Kyungsoo really is the less prying person that we know.”

“With the quantity of secrets and revelations that people lay upon him on their trips to the temple, I guess that he doesn’t really can be any other way!” snorted Sehun. “Imagine if they got out; the secrets I mean…It could cause many problems to the community, I am sure.”

Jongdae nodded while resumed his eating. It would, in fact, be a big problem if Kyungsoo ever leaked some secrets out to the whole community. It wasn’t as if Jongdae ever thought that he would, Kyungsoo had too much integrity to do something like that, even when mad and taken to the extreme; high morals and high values: that was the core of Kyungsoo’s personality.

“I have to ask tough…”began Jongdae suddenly, after a few seconds of silence, munching on the mushrooms. “what are your thoughts on Jongin’s vision?”

“Hmm?” asked Sehun, not really getting at where Jongdae was trying to get.

“I am asking him your thoughts on what he saw. I mean, do you believe it?”

“Well, my guess is that the oracle wolf did not gain a fearful reputation out of nowhere.” Reasoned Sehun. “Also, I have no reason to distrust him actually. He knew me and he trusted me basing himself on his dreams. I think that I, at least, own him the same kind gesture.”

Jongdae looked over him as if Sehun was crazy.

“You can’t trust someone just because of kindness.”

“It is one of the reasons but not all of them. Mainly, I am trusting myself on this and I trust him on a deeper level than just pure kindness; Jongin could’ve done enough harm by now, especially since yesterday we weren’t in our right minds. Also, there is the fact that he has been really nice to us and, despite his brother’s not so sociable skills, he is empathetic, shared a lot with us, simply by revealing his true nature to us, knowing that we could just flip out and rat on him. He’s genuine; I don’t see a motive for him to do this just to harm us later on.”

Jongdae gave Sehun a long look but said nothing, continuing to eat his food. Sehun found himself closing his eyes, indulging in the general laziness he was feeling due to warmth and comfortableness. However, Jongdae interrupted his blank state of mind with a question.

“Jongin said that someone is going to be murdered in here…”

Sehun abruptly opened his eyes, remembering that particular detail of Jongin’s vision. It had been a gruesome thing to hear and it had worried him a whole lot, sentiment that Jongdae shared with him, or else the other wouldn’t be asking.

“It’s such an alarming thought, isn’t it?” asked Jongdae, with a bitter smile, as he watched Sehun and his open eyes, as well as the lingering tension and worry that shined on the other’s eyes. “If we take Jongin’s words into consideration and accept it as a possibility, my mind automatically wonders what can be done, how can we prevent it?”

“It’s a daunting though to know that we have the opportunity to keep that from happening but, at the same time, we don’t remotely have a clue about who it is or even when it will be happening… it could be happening right now for all we know; it might have happened while we were sleeping and we’ll never know.”

Jongdae looked shocked and quite scared at the possibility. The knowledge that they had to do something to help somebody without knowing who that person was, by default, was an issue on its own.

“Who do you think he could be? Do you really reckon that already happened?” asked Jongdae, moving upwards and wincing immediately at the pain it caused, while Sehun sat on the bed, gently pushing smaller to lay down, fearing that he might’ve hurt himself more.

“The only clue that Jongin gave us was the “ee” in the name but, in all seriousness, that doesn’t help us at all, let’s not forget that half of our community has that sound on their names.”

“We don’t!”

“Lucky us then! However, when you do remind yourself the people that have: Kris, Junmyeon, Minseok, Kyungsoo, Kibum, Jonghyun, Seulgi, Taeyeon, Hongki, Yerin, Hyuna... Do you want me to go on?”

“That only manages to make me antsier; what if it is someone who we are really close too?”

“More the incentive for us to solve this out!”

“And how do you suggest we do that? What if, as you said, it already happened?” asked Jongdae biting his lip worriedly.

“Let’s just assume that it hasn’t and try to prevent it from happening. Do you have any ideas on how we should do that?”

“I do, actually!” nodded Jongdae, his highly functional brain already planning and plotting, trying to find a way for their success. “I think we need to make a list of all the people that are in our pack, see the ones that are a possible target, based on the sound of their names, the ‘ee’ thing, then we should prioritized based on the people we feel like are more susceptible of having enemies.”

When Sehun looked over him, confused about what Jongdae had just mentioned, the smaller felt the need to explain, rolling his eyes a little at the younger male.

“For example, you have Joohyun, who never created problems with anyone and it’s a sweetheart who everybody loves: she is less likely to be a target rather than, maybe Hongki, who runs his mouth wildly and freely and managed to insult almost everyone in this community at least once, although he is very likeable for his honest character.”

Well, that was a good starting point, thought Sehun to himself as he heard Jongdae’s explanation. In his mind, he could really put Hongki in the top spots of their imaginary list because the man certainly had an aptitude for getting himself into troubles; he was quite the character but Sehun appreciated the sharp wit, the intelligent mind and the honesty that were so characteristic from Hongki.

“Also, for reasons that you can understand, I am also prioritizing people who have been under the eye of the Council for a while.”

Sehun, once again, understood very well Jongdae’s words. The Council was influential and had a lot of power of the community, a lot of general projects for their pack and, obviously, a lot of personal projects and objectives that they wished to accomplish, the thing was, in some cases, there were people that collided with reaching those goals and Sehun wouldn’t passed upon some of the members to simply ignore it. Actually, lately, the actions that had been taken, the pressuring, the commandeering and domineering side of the Council had been particularly through the roof, despite Kris’ interference, which only solidified Sehun’s opinion, especially regarding some members such as Sooyoun, Soo Man, Youngwoon, a fairly young member who Sehun didn’t particularly like despite his apparently funny and sociable nature, Hyunseung, whom he didn’t trust with a thirty feet pole and JiYoung, who Sehun honestly thought was one of the scariest women he met, the women never smiled and was all dripping sarcasm and harsh words.

“That’s a solid plan! We also need to be more alert about any possible disagreement and to any atypical conversation that we hear; at the minimal suspicious thing we heard, we report and keep an eye on the involved people.”

Jongdae nodded at Sehun, glad to have built up a starting point from where they could begin their work. It was going to be hard, Jongdae was very aware of that, since the information they had was very scarce. Maybe another talk with Jongin would provide more information and, maybe, the other wolf could have another vision that would clarify and help them up a bit but Jongdae knew fairly well that meeting any of them was impossible at the time, not because he and Sehun didn’t want it but not to raise any suspicions, it was already bad enough that Junmyeon, Luhan and Kyungsoo had caught them in an unfavorable position, there was no point in aggravating the situation: imagine if Junmyeon would tell anything to Kris? They didn’t need that.

He finished eating the broth, passing the bowl to Sehun who lifted himself from the cozy bed and went to clean it up. He pouted a little at his own condition and hoped that everything would heal nicely soon in order to do some investigation on his own.

Sehun joined him again after a few minutes and they both just leaned against each other silently, taking in the soundless moment to think and to clarify their ideas and put all the thoughts in order.

If they fell asleep a few minutes after, still tired from the previous day and with a never ending row of worries in their heads, no one needed to know.

Kyungsoo didn’t exactly have a hut, there was never the need to build one once he become the pack’s priest, since the temple provided accommodations for him. He didn’t really mind: it was calm and peaceful, albeit a little lonely since the temple wasn’t really near to the center of their village, where all the huts were constructed, but he had grown rather used to it.

As the night fell down, Kyungsoo closed the door inside the numerous rooms it had, like usually, although he left the main door open; he always did in case someone needed to reach him or simply pray in the middle of the night, it never bothered him as long as they wouldn’t damage anything but, since it was a sacred place, people tended to be careful and Kyungsoo didn’t have any problem so far.

He washed his hand on the basin full of water inside his room and undid the belt of his robe, letting the top half part hung from his waist. It was a rather warm night, albeit the air was a little humid. He had been one of the people in charge of taking care of the wolves that had been either hangover or whose heat had been triggered by the festival. He had walked from hut to hut, giving medicine, distributing water and food to the poor wolves. Kyungsoo had been one of the chosen ones because he was not only the priest but also an omega, Luhan had been doing the rounds with him but only because he was the healer of the pack.

Of course that those rounds had been the alert for Sehun and Jongdae’s disappearance; Junmyeon, who had been also doing the rounds, as the Head Omega of the pack, since he was their leader’s mate, had been worried as hell and they all marched, after finishing their work, to Jongdae’s hut.

He had not been prepared for Sehun and Jongdae to appear a lot of time after they entered on the hut. Sehun had given a solid excuse but, knowing the younger for so long gave Kyungsoo enough experience to know the other was lying; he didn’t push but he hoped that the younger man knew what he was doing.

Kyungsoo walked to the window on his room and looked at the scenery outside: it was dark and the trees looked ominous; Kyungsoo didn’t like it, he didn’t like the night and he certainly didn’t like the loneliness and the fear that it gave him.

Being the priest of the pack, he was doomed to a life without a mate and there was nothing more difficult for Kyungsoo to go back to his room; not his house but his room, and lay on the soft pelts, all by itself, without someone, who wasn’t his friend, to cuddle onto, and even cuddling with friends was a reproachable action on the eyes of some of the members of the Council, meaning that people tried, at all costs, keep him isolated from all people.

What he liked the least though was the fact that he felt afraid to go to sleep at times, knowing that some weird things with his pack; he wasn’t quite sure what but he knew something was going on.

Kyungsoo sighed deeply. He wanted to take a bath on the river, the hotness of the day had made him sweat a lot, but he couldn’t, not at night and not without the supervision of another omega: it was forbidden. Sooyoun said that it kept him from unknowingly seducing the other wolves in the pack, since the hormones were a reality and he could make them do something stupid as of an impulse. Kyungsoo knew fully well that she didn’t want others to see him.

The door of his room opened up and Kyungsoo turned around, looking at the said door, waiting to see some elderly women asking for some blessing bundles or even someone who wanted to talk about some problem in order to fight insomnias that only came with a restless soul, a guilty one at times.

The person standing at the door definitely wasn’t someone he was expecting.

“What are you doing here?” he asked looking at the figure, which approached him and encompassed him in his arms.

Kyungsoo let relieved breathe escape from his lips, feeling warmth all over his body.

“I had to see you!”

“I’ve seen me a few hours ago remember?”

“It’s never enough.”

“Minseok…” Kyungsoo wanted to smile at the whole cheesiness of the sentence however, he couldn’t; the soft, affectionate words were very much appreciated and, in all honesty, Kyungsoo was kind of done pretending that he could keep himself away from Minseok when, in fact, he couldn’t.

“You know what I mean Kyungsoo.” Replied the said male kissing the younger on the side of his neck, making him squirm a little.

“This is such a bad; the consequences of this, if we get caught, are gruesome! Not even Kris can save us!”

“I am not sure if I care about their reaction, Kyungsoo; you were robbed from me and you know it as well as I do! You were given a title you never wanted because people tried to keep you from me and they keep wanting me to marry someone just to keep doing so. Don’t pretend you don’t know about Sooyoun and Soojung’s plans! But I don’t want any of them: I want you; as I always did! You’re mine! You have always been mine.” Replied Minseok savagely, his lips pressed against the column of Kyungsoo’s neck, eyes glinting possessively while he gripped the other’s hips.

Kyungsoo shivered at the tone of the other’s voice, feeling it deep on his core.

Minseok was right and Kyungsoo knew it, he had been played as a pawn in a much bigger game that he was aware of although he didn’t know the purpose yet. They were merely puppets in the expert hands of skillful, influential puppeteers. Kyungsoo had to give a lot of things up, so had Minseok but the latter wasn’t really the kind of man that accepted things pacifically, he was an alfa through and through and refused to let go of Kyungsoo, hence the reason why they were both here.

Yesterday, after the festival, while everyone was dancing and singing, Kyungsoo had gone to seek refuge in the temple, not really used to all the noise, preferring the calmness of his habitual place. He had been constantly getting reproachable looks from the Jung sisters and Hyunseung as well, as well as some more hurtful comments that he chose to ignore.

As got there, he sat near the altar, purely contemplating everything around him, trying not to just roll over and moan over the poor luck he got, which he would never do, because if being a priest thought him something it was to appreciate everything around him.

He hadn’t been sitting for more than five minutes when he was manhandled by a crazed Minseok. He had kissed him time and time again, much to Kyungsoo’s surprise and horror, telling him that he refused to not do anything when he saw how Kyungsoo had been treated and that he also refused to stay away from him; he was his mate and he was done trying to hide what he felt.

At first, Kyungsoo tried to fight against it, against his own feelings, against the clear rule breaking, against everything but, at certain point, when Minseok growled in his ear that he couldn’t care less about what people thought, that he loved Kyungsoo and no one, no one would ever take him away from him because he wouldn’t allow him, Kyungsoo stopped fighting and just succumbed to Minseok, whom he loved.

If anyone happened to enter the temple at that time, the sight they would get was more than enough to have the purest of souls tainted but he didn’t mind, not when Minseok was right there with him.

It had been a mutual agreement to pursue this, despite the possible consequences, and right here, right now, in Minseok’s arms, everything made sense and he felt had peace and truly complete. He needed Minseok in his life and needed to feel a little spark of happiness in his life, instead of the dull daily routine that he was forced to do.

Minseok kept on kissing him on the neck, pressing little kisses, with enough force as not to bruise, onto his neck, the most erogenous zone on a wolf, due to the fact that it was one of the zones what contained the unaltered scent of a wolf.

“Are you free of your doubts about me yet?” asked Minseok playfully, nipping at his ear lobe.

“I never had doubts when it comes to you. I fear the consequences that’s all; if I am exiled…my whole family is here and by family you know who I am talking about.”

Minseok knew fairly well, how Kyungsoo had no family inside this pack. The smaller wolf had been the son of a rogue omega that had given birth to him, inside the village, before dying, after being sick for so long. He had been raised with some elderly wolfs until he was old enough to fend for himself. The only family he had, that he considered his, was his friends.

“Let’s not dwell on that.” Advised Minseok gently seeing how Kyungsoo was growing affected by the conversation, pressing a kiss to his lips and opting for showing a positive attitude. “As long as we are careful, there is nothing to worry about! We just need to love each other as usual.”

Kyungsoo smiled softly at Minseok’s never ending good vibes that contrasted deeply with his practical self. He hugged the arms around him more tightly to his body, not wanting to be physically separated from the male behind him; they had lost so much time already, playing as puppets in a sick twisted game.

“How was the meeting with Kris and the Council?” he asked instead, his heart swelling with affection as he perceived the conversation to be one that the traditional mated couples would have.

“Unproductive.” Replied the male still having a lot of fun peppering kisses all over Kyungsoo’s face, much to the smaller’s delight, before reaching lower, to the exposed shoulders, moving a little more sensually then before. “The Council, well, the unspoken leader amongst the members, dismissed the whole subject rapidly.”

“Dismiss it? How?” asked Kyungsoo surprise but, then again, expecting it once he remembered who controlled everything in there. “Never mind how but… it’s surprising that no one is saying a thing about this. This is a serious thing; this can compromise the safety of our village.”

“I know. I know!” Minseok detached his lips from Kyungsoo’s shoulder and simply rested his shin there. “This is very serious and I don’t know why they aren’t doing anything; Kris is trying, Hyung Don and Shin Young are too, but Soo Man and Sooyoun have a big influence on the rest of the council. They keep dismissing it but this is a very important issue. This has been the fourth report of scouting missions that we receive that speak about slaughtered communities or strange creatures. One of them written by myself! I don’t understand how they keep a blind eye to this, more so when they these occurrences keep on getting really close to our village. What if the next thing attacked it is us?”

“Do we know who is behind it?”

“No, we can’t! How can we pinpoint who it is if there are strange creatures around? I heard about an elf that had teeth like a siren, sharp and pointy. And the way we find the corpses, mangled and destroyed, are not helpful in the least.”

“I feel like there is something about this story that we are missing but I can’t put my finger on what.” Whispered Kyungsoo very intrigued by the subject.

“If you find out what it is, let me know! I need some kind of direction to solve this mystery before it turns into something worse than it is.”

“Have you ever tried to take some of the corpses to Luhan? For him to analyze?”

“I thought about it, Kris as well but you know that Soo Man forbade the autopsy of corpses saying that it is profane and its defaming the creature. Kris doesn’t have anything to say on that seeing that he was outvoted on that particular motion.”

Kyungsoo sighed and let a moan escape his lips as Minseok turned him on his arms, making them stay face to face, before attacking his chest with lascivious in hopes to make other give him attention, instead of the topic they were discussing previously. It was an important matter, Minseok knew that, but right now he wanted nothing more than to have Kyungsoo’s attention all on himself, to have him and make up for the lost time.

“Minseok…” he gasped “We are talking about important things.”

“Nothing is more important than you! And I don’t want to talk anymore about this now; tomorrow, when we pretend that we are simple acquaintances, I’ll be glad to talk about that but, right now, you’re my lover and I don’t want to discuss it.”

Kyungsoo’s flesh was already burning from the touches and with the words it burned more and more. He was half way lost in desire and his mind already forgotten what was being previously discussed, after all, he was a man and he had desires too, especially when temptation presented himself in the form of Minseok.

Maybe tomorrow, pretending that he wasn’t a man who gave into said temptation, he would remember everything and actually put some thought into it. However, right now, as he fell on top of his pelts, Minseok falling with him, nothing of the sorts matter to him. What matter was that he wasn’t lonely, the night didn’t scare him and he was warmer than he ever had been.

He was loved.

A/N Aaaaaaaaaand another update for this story; one more chapter out. Finally our wolves are awake and Sehun and Jongdae discuss Jongin's vision and try to organize ideas, put a plan in motion...something that would help them. So, we get another little clue in this chapter the "Ee" belongs to the sound of someone's name! Now, clearly it's not the trio of oracle and berserkers and also not Jongdae nor Sehun! Who is it then? Can you take some bets and point to a probable victim? Who you think it's the target?? Also we know more about Kyungsoo and about the horrible life he leads, that is being forced upon him by jealousy, as stated in previous chapters! Minseok let us now that the number of creatures attacking villages is more common but, for some reason, while Kris wants to investigate it, the Council does not! Bet about the reason? Anyone? Also, big news, Minseok and Kyungsoo's relationship; very forbidden and very hot!! Let me know what are your thoughts about this chapter on a comment or a private message! Please do come and talk to me ;)
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