Chapter ten

The Grenhil Pack
Please Subscribe to read the full chapter

Chapter ten: Let me tell you a story

 

“It’s been too long since my last time riding!” Jihoon let go of his reins and stood up in his saddle with his arms stretched wide enjoying the wind in his hair. His brown stallion neighed in response. “Glad that you’re enjoying it too buddy.” Still standing up he turned around to see if the others were still following behind him and was faced with emptiness. “Seems like you are still too fast for the others to follow along Azur, let’s slow down a bit.” He carefully drove his knees into the sides of the horse while ushering him too slow down. Once the horse stood still Jihoon flung his legs over the horse and jumped off into the tall grass underneath them. “Stay here will you?” The horse swung his head up high and scraped the ground with his right front leg. Jihoon smiled, Seungkwan really trained their horses well, sadly the strangers wouldn’t know the amount of commands these horses were taught. Azurs response meant that he had understood and wouldn't move from his position. Their pack had no need to tie their horses to the trees and it was all thanks to Seungkwan. His hands moved on their own to retrieve a small bow from the back of his horse, he swung it over his shoulder and grabbed a few arrows out of their holder next to Azurs saddle. Good to go, he thought as he checked whether his dagger was still attached to his belt and set out to find food for dinner.

--- 

He hadn’t moved to far when he first heard the voices.

“I am sorry Soonyoung I really can’t go further than this, we have been riding most of the night and the whole day. My is killing me.” The deep voice came somewhere from his right, instantly Jihoon hid himself in the long shadows of the trees surrounding him. He obviously hadn’t paid enough attention to the tracks that he had followed…

Before they had gone Chan had checked to see who escaped into the night. Confirming Jihoons earlier assumptions only Soonyoung and Wonwoo had fled from Grenhil. Hansol stayed behind, most likely to distract them from following. Chans whistles into the night signalled the number of escapees to Jihoon, Jeonghan and Mingyu, who set out to Strenyard immediately. Jihoon had to supress his laughter thinking about Seungkwans outburst when he found out that the two had indeed stolen his favourite mare, Luna. Taking in consideration that Luna was a total sweetheart and loved food more than anything in the world aside from Seungkwan, Jihoon understood why they had taken the mare. The calm horse would be better than taking another more spirited horse such as Jihoons own stallion. His thoughts were interrupted by footsteps coming closer to his location. If he stayed still he would most likely be spotted in a matter of minutes. His eyes roamed around in a tree to his left he saw a few doves. In a swift movement he took a small stone in his hand and threw it towards the doves, scaring them and causing them to fly up into the air. The footsteps moved away from his position towards the tree where the doves had been only mere seconds ago. He breathed out calmly as his feet started to find their way back into the woods. Once he was at a distance that he deemed save enough he stared running towards Azur. Stopping the others from riding into the strangers was his first priority.

Once he reached the place he had halted Azur he was greeted by the smell of roasted meat and the warm smiles of Mingyu and Jeonghan.

“Welcome back Jihoonie, did you bring more food?” Mingyu happily asked him but his smile faded away once he saw the others serious expression and empty hands.

“We are already too close to them. Jeonghan you two will take the small pathway that leads to the old road. Make sure you reach Strenyard before they do. I want to tell Seungcheol about our pack ourselves instead of them telling the story. A story with good reasoning is better than people saying we kidnap people.”

“Wait are you not coming along?” Jeonghans curiosity was awakened. His eyebrows slightly raised as he looked at the younger man in front of him shook his head.

“No, I already found them without even wanting too. We didn’t tell the scouts that they are allowed to leave Grenhil forest. Someone has to make sure that they are not taken out and carried back to Grenhil.”

“Don’t get in trouble.” He continued when Jihoon remained silent. “Please take care of yourself. Do we need to take Azur with us?”

“No, I need Azur to be able to keep up with them. I promise to be careful.”

“So what about dinner, are you still joining us?”

Jeonghan and Jihoon turned to Mingyu who stood by the fire watching over the remains of two rabbits that were slowly roasting in the flames. “Only if you can guarantee that Jeonghan didn’t touch the food or add any of his weird seasonings.” Jihoon smirked at Jeonghan and walked towards Mingyu, his lips when the smell of the food reached his nose.

“That was only one time!” Jeonghan protested, “And it wasn’t that bad!”

Mingyu and Jihoon shared a look while remembering the aftermath of Jeonghans notorious beef stew. “Sure…”

After dinner Jihoon quickly gathered his belongings and said his goodbyes to Jeonghan and Mingyu. “I will join you in Strenyard when the other two arrive. Knowing the pack dynamics of most packs, they will assume that Mingyu who is an alpha is our leader. Jeonghan it is up to you to use that knowledge to our advantage. Mingyu,” He looked at the tall alpha, “please don’t screw this up, you have to act like a leader for once.”

“So I get to boss Jeonghan around?!” Mingyu sounded like an overly excited puppy. “No grudges afterwards?”

“Don’t even think about it.” Jeonghan warned.

“Well I think that I need to go now. I will try to buy you some extra time for explaining our story to Seungcheol, however I can’t promise that it will work out.”

“Sounds good to me. See you in a few days Jihoonie.” Mingyu ducked in order to dodge Jihoons fist that was flying towards his head.

“Don’t do that to our poor little Jihoonie, he gets upset when you call him that.” Jeonghan chimed in. You don’t get a lot of chances to bother Jihoon without getting a beaten, but since they had to hurry to Strenyard Jihoon couldn’t afford to lose any more time now.

“But his annoyed face looks so cute, it makes me want to pinch his cheeks.” Jihoons face was starting to flush a bright red colour. Seizing their chance Mingyu and Jeonghan both moved forward to pinch Jihoons cheeks and run for their live afterwards, before an angry Jihoon could react and grab his weapons. Laughing they ran towards their already saddled and packed horses leaving the fuming third person behind.

“COWARDS!” Jihoon stomped his feet on the ground to vent his anger. Trying to calm himself down, he shut his eyes and tried to breath in and out slowly, counting the time between every breath. With a final deep sigh he turned around and walked towards Azur. Time to go.

--- 

Strenyard

“So you’re telling me that both Soonyoung and Wonwoo are missing in the forest.” Jisoos sharp voice cut through the air, totally different from his normal calm and soft way of speaking. “Who tells me your pack members didn’t dump them inside the forest?”

“In case you didn’t notice, my right hand man is missing too. We should’ve send more troops. Why did I listen to that stupid Soonyoung.” Seungcheol was worried about his younger companion that had not returned from the forest. His family had always looked after Hansol and he saw him as a younger brother. Minghao and Junhui had told him the story of what happened in the forest. Wonwoo had overheard strangers talking near their camp. Soonyoung was out in the forest and didn’t make it back to the camp in time, so they decided to leave a message for him at the camp and make a run for it. However Wonwoo couldn’t keep up and Hansol decided to stay with him, after which Minghao and Junhui lost them.

But as easy as it was to lose track of their travel companions, shaking of their pursuers proved to be a lot more difficult. They had been lucky that Junhui spotted a shadow in the tree line nearby otherwise they would’ve most likely not made it back to Strenyard. Using the sign language that they had developed together Junhui informed Minghao of the presence nearby. After that they worked together and tried to catch the person that was sneaking up on them. Sadly for them, they failed but it did gain them more time to get away. Luckily there was just one person following them, because unbeknown to the two men, the others were distracted by trying to catch Soonyoung, Hansol and Wonwoo.

“Whoever is in that forest I will catch them myself if I have too.” Jisoo continued his rant, “my best friends are in there. I will gather more troops and rescue them.”

“Calm down you, let’s wait a few more days, maybe they escaped as well. Minghao and Junhui were quite fast, it is still possible that they were trailing behind. Besides if you are going to that forest, I insist that I am coming with you.” Seungcheol reasoned. “You are not the only one that lost people to that forest.”

“I will wait one week. I need to inform my pack to get ready anyways.”

Seungcheol approved of that. He send Junhui and Minghao away to get some rest before returning to his own work. Missing people or not, he still had work to do. The town needed to be governed and he was responsible for doing just that.

---

Jeonghan and Mingyu took the abandoned road and were able to reach Strenyard in three days. “Why don’t we normally use this road? It is much faster than the new road.” Mingyu asked Jeonghan.

Jeonghan sighed, “Jihoon didn’t want us using this road, because Seungcheol has send men to follow us on more occasions than one. If we had taken this road it would have been suspicious, since it stops halfway through the mountains after a landslide several years ago. Which is why we don’t use the road as it is blocked.” Mingyu remained silent. “So instead of asking questions do you have any idea on how to address the issue at hand?” Jeonghan continued, “I have been thinking about it ever since we left Grenhil, but I don’t think barging in and saying who we are is a good plan. ‘Hey Seungcheol we are the pack that lives in the eastern mountain and we have been kidnapping your clansman that were stupid enough to enter our forest for years. That includes your friend Hansol.’ Somehow I don’t think that Seungcheol would appreciate it.”

“Maybe you can try to tell more about our pack first instead of straight up telling him that we are keeping his people as our captives. Jihoon said that telling our story would be useful.” Mingyu added dryly. “That sounds like a better way to start a conversation to me. It might save us from being attacked instantly.”

They rode their horses into the town and made their way over to the familiar stone town hall. Without a notice or a warning Jeonghan simply barged in followed by Mingyu, only to find the room empty.

---

The first thing Seungcheol noticed was a familiar sweet scent reaching his sensitive nose. It confused him however, this scent was not supposed to be here and even without asking he knew that something was off when he walked briskly to the main room of the town hall. Before opening the door he noticed another scent mingled in with the sweet flowery scent, this one heavier with a slightly spicier undertone that he was also able to instantly recognize. The problem was that there were some scents missing that normally would accompany these two. He opened the door with a more force than he initially wanted too, resulting in slamming the heavy oak wooden doors against the wall with a loud bang. The two persons in the room turned around to face them, his nose had told him the truth only Jeonghan and Mingyu were staring at him in surprise.

Normally the merchants would come to Strenyard every month or so, but now only two weeks had passed since their last visit. The pretty omega stared at him with an intense look that he had not seen on his face before. Something was definitely off and it was not only that half of the merchants party was missing.

“What happened, where are the others?” Hi

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter
Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
Venika #1
Please update
Sampga #2
Chapter 38: How characteristic of Mingyu getting his foot stuck in his mouth! N Hannie n Hoshi pair nowadays can be sen anywhere n I am not complaining!
Popybruenner
#3
Chapter 38: This is still one of my favorite stories haha I needed to let u know that XD
Popybruenner
#4
Chapter 38: Oh my god I missed this story so muchhhhh!!! I love it *-* I hope nothing goes wrong I need them safe T.T thank you for the update!!
bluequartz_a
#5
Chapter 37: I'm so worried about all this war ㅠㅠㅠㅠ I don't want them hurt. I want them alive and happy and all wars bring is death. I hope they'll be safe and everything will turn out ok.

If Soonyoung's also going to Strenyard will he say his good bye to Jihoon? ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

Anyways, thank you for keep writing this <33333333
Popybruenner
#6
Chapter 37: Ahhh Jihoon u.u perfect time to do his little escapades hahah but I trust he is doing it for a reason so its okay ♥️ I wonder if Soonyoung is gonna follow Seungcheol
Popybruenner
#7
Chapter 36: I just found out about this story and let me tell you.. THIS IS AMAZING, I can easily imagine everything that happens while reading it because its so well written! I love the ABO world, I enjoyed it here the most because you didn't focus on the ual aspect of that world ♥️ Jihoon is such an amazing leader (im so proud T.T) and his pack is wow! I hope Baekhyun and Chanyeol will help them maintain that peace.. and about soonhoon kcndiskfj I thought they were going to kiss haha I like it that they take it slow because war is cominggg (and im scared)
bluequartz_a
#8
Chapter 36: Flawless. I love how long this chapter is, I really missed reading this story. Every scene was perfect, I'm happy to actually see a relaxed Jihoon even if it's just for a while (we all know this is calm before storm) thank you again for writing this beautiful story. <3333

I actually love your writing pattern, I know you take your time updating but you always deliver the best. Your story has its own pace, some parts getting longer or shorter depending on how your imagination flows. Thank you tons <33333
Ffacct #9
Chapter 36: Adoring Soonyoung means I am looking forward to every scene of his :-((
Xiu_chenist #10
Chapter 22: I love this so much like so so much,