Getting lots of new information all at once made Nara feel terribly dizzy. Ironically, although everything that was currently happening to her was hard to believe, it all made sense, especially since she’d seen spirits first-hand.

But seeing spirits and being an exorcist were totally different. If she worked as an actual exorcist, she would probably have to fight with dangerous evil spirits, eventually sealing them. Or even worse, killing them.

She wasn’t sure whether she had the heart to banish them permanently from earth.

“Hey, you.” A voice distracted her from her train of thoughts.

Nara whirled around to see that the owner of the voice was her familiar – Jongin. He was still on the floor, head tilting slightly, a disturbing smirk on his face. Weirdly, he seemed to find the confusing situation they were in amusing.

The two of them were left alone in Nara’s room after Yona and her familiars went ahead for dinner. And now that Nara was facing the wolf youkai by herself, fear started to seep in. She’d randomly formed a contract with a puppy she’d picked up on the streets, who would know whether he was a nice harmless spirit or a completely evil spirit that brought harm people?

There was something about him that felt totally wrong. His snowy white unkempt hair glowed like pearl and it didn’t look like human’s hair. His dark brown eyes were so cold and menacing as he stared into hers. They were filled with hunger and hatred. His intimidating grin revealed a few of his teeth – she discovered that some of them were actually fangs – glinting under the light of the room.

Nara fell back a step. Her body started to shake. She couldn’t sense anything good from this spirit. He was a demon. He was pure evil. If evil was a person, it would look like him.

Thinking it would be better if she quickly joined the others, Nara said hastily, “Let’s go down and eat.”

“You’re an idiot, aren’t you?” Jongin was snickering, standing up and folding his arms, his tail slowly swaying in excitement. “Sneakily binding me with a contract while I was out cold. Do you actually think you can make me obey you? Humans are really funny.”

Nara stepped back further, distancing herself from him. Trembling fervently, her hands unconsciously moved to hug her own body protectively. Bile formed in at the thought of the things that could happen to her after this. Her heart hammered against her chest.

I have power over him, Nara reminded herself. I don’t need to be afraid.

Walking a few steps towards her, Jongin laughed devilishly as if he could hear her thoughts. “You think you have power over me? A mere powerless, weak human like you?”

Jongin cornered Nara, placing his arms against the wall so she couldn’t escape. Their faces were only inches apart. She could feel his breath on her warm cheeks and it was cold as ice.

“Stop, Jongin! I’m your master!” Nara’s voice was shaking although she forced herself to be tough.

Jongin’s body suddenly tensed. The smirk on his face was gone and instantly replaced by something very dark and dangerous. His dark brown eyes changed color into icy blue like glacier so cold that they froze her in her tracks, paralyzing her. His tail was no longer wagging and his wolf ears stood straight up like sharp knife.

He was furious.

“I’m not your pet!” Jongin hissed in rage, his icy blue eyes glowing. “I do not belong to any humans!”

In a low, trembling voice, Nara whispered, “If you hate humans that much, then why did you refuse to let me release you?”

“You want to know why?” Jongin replied with a whisper, too, in a mocking tone. “Because you’re weak and it’s a pity if I let this chance slip by.”

“W-what chance?” she stammered.

The nasty smirk was back. “Farewell.”

Nara flinched when a blue flame suddenly emerged and enveloped Jongin’s entire body. As fast as it appeared, the blue flame disappeared together with him.

Exhaling a long, shaky breath, Nara fell on the floor as her knees failed her. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath the whole time.

The contract paper was lying innocently on the floor beside her and she was very tempted to burn it at this very moment.

After a failed attempt in calming herself down, Nara went downstairs to have dinner with Yona. Her three familiars weren’t there, but there were a cat, a dog and a crow on the floor eating the same food as her. Nara guessed those animals were them. Youkai had supernatural powers, maybe changing into animals was one of them.

Jongin also had been a white puppy before being a terrifying man with wolf ears and tail.

Yona frowned as she saw Nara walking down the stairs. “What happened? Your face is so pale.”

Taking a seat in front of Yona, Nara sighed and told everything that had happened upstairs including how she’d brought Jongin home while eating. Yona’s face turned angrier and angrier the more Nara told.

Nara almost choked on her soup in shock when Yona all of sudden slammed her hand down on the dining table.

“That freaking demon!” Yona spat angrily. “How dare he use you like that!”

“Huh?” Nara didn’t understand the last part and thankfully one of Yona’s familiars was kind enough to explain.

“Exorcists will hesitate to attack a youkai if they know they are someone else’s familiar.” The crow’s beak didn’t move although the voice came from it. It kind of felt like a telepathy. “They will want to avoid pointless fight with fellow exorcist just because they attack the wrong youkai. You saw me hesitating when I was about to attack your familiar, right? It was because I saw the red tattoo.”

Chanyeol – the black dog – added, “So that Ookami is trying to protect himself under the “familiar” shield. Sneaky bastard.”

“Ookami?” Nara repeated.

“Jongin is an Ookami,” Minseok – the split-tailed black cat – informed, wagging his odd two tails. “I’m a Nekomata, Kyungsoo is a Tengu and Chanyeol is an Inugami.”

Yona waved her hand dismissively. “That’s not important. You’ll learn about the various kinds of youkai at your new school later. What’s important now is the reason why he needs to be a familiar for self-defense. From what I heard, Ookami are very strong. They might be S-rank youkai. So he’s supposed to be more than capable to protect himself.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Minseok turned back into a human with cat ears and tails. And so did the other two youkai. Finally they’re talking normally again, the telepathy thing is starting to freak me out, Nara thought. Minseok continued, “Nara said she found him unconscious and being attacked by a few crows, right? An exorcist must have been targeting him. I bet those crows are Tengu that were sent by their master. There’s no other reasonable reason for him seeking protection.”

Chanyeol looked at Kyungsoo with his wide eyes. “Are they your friends?”