Chapter four: On a whim

Upon leaving the imposing townhall Soonyoung and his friends were escorted back to what seemed like a normal townhouse. Their guide opened the door and ushered them to go inside.

“I’ve gotten orders from the head alpha to bring you to Minghaos house. If you want to see another day I would advise you to not be loud inside the house, he hates that. Also, don’t touch his belongings or break anything, you will regret it. The last person who was loud during the night had to spent two weeks at the hospital when Minghao snapped.” The warning from the guard was clear and had Soonyoung wondering what kind of impressive person this Minghao was. “ The guest rooms are upstairs located to your right, Minghao will be home shortly in order to cook dinner, so please take your time to freshen up.” With those final words the guard turned around and left them.

“Do you think that they will accept our deal?” Soonyoung asked Jisoo and Wonwoo once their packmates had disappeared into their respective rooms.

“I think they will, but I do suspect that they either want more in return for their help or they want to offer us less food.” Jisoo answered, “We kind of have the better side of the deal right now and I am sure that Seungcheol noticed that too when he started asking questions about the amount of food we needed.” Wonwoo nodded on the side and added, “Even if they offer us half the food it would still be more than enough, I calculated it quite effectively if I do say so myself.”

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“So they want food? The amount that they want is too much really, we can’t offer them that much.” Hansols answer was resolute and Seungcheol only nodded, he had come to the same conclusion before. “I do like the rest of the deal, that Soonyoung kid is right. Their warrior pack is not the only danger that is approaching and compared to the stories about the Exodus pack they are quite 'soft' in their war tactics. They are at least merciful towards the helpless. It will be smart to work together in order to prepare for the eminent Exodus attacks. If we announce an alliance it might even be enough to keep the Exodus pack out of our territories for good. The food we can miss, our lands offer more than enough and we can’t even sell all our stock.” Hansol continued thinking out loud and the others nodded acceptingly. Hansol was right. The threat that the Exodus pack posted was far bigger than the one of the Vanghguard pack. The sheer rumoured size of the Exodus pack was enough to send shivers down the spines of the townspeople. 

“So what is the amount that we will offer?” Seungcheol inquired expectantly.

“I figured that half the amount that they asked for would be enough.” A knock on the door interrupted them and Minghao entered the room.

With an innocent voice Minghao stated. “Half will indeed be enough I accidentally overheard their conversation in my house when I followed the guard just now.” Hansol, Junhui and Seungcheol looked at each other with knowing looks, in other words Minghao had used his eavesdropping skills. Minghao had always had superior hearing as well as a natural ability to move around in complete silence. It came in quite handy, but having it used against you was foul play if you asked them.

“By accident?” Junhui asked with raised eyebrows. Minghao flashed his most innocent smile towards Junhui and nodded while repeatedly blinking his fluttering eyelashes.

“Let’s offer them a bit more than half, that way we are sure that they will still accept.” Seungcheol concluded their talk.

“What about the disappearances of their pack members?” Hansol asked, “The story is identical to multiple disappearances that occurred with our own pack in the last few years, also in the eastern mountains.”

The eastern mountains had been feared by their clansman for ages and with good reason. Almost no one that went into forest surrounding those mountains came back and the ones that did come back would never talk about what they had seen or how they had lost their pack members. In Strenyard a silent rule was to never enter that forest and children were taught about the dangers from a young age. In the last few years some of their younger pack members had thought of a challenge of courage that had people entering the forest. The ones that ventured to far into the forest had never returned and after Seungcheol had taken over the position of head alpha he forbade the youngsters from taking part in the challenge. None of the couragous youngers ever made it back to Strenyard.

So the story Soonyoung had told him was no surprise for the Strenyardians, when the man informed him that he had send scouts into the forest Seungcheol blatantly told him that those men would be death by now. After that Soonyoung had let the case rest but Seungcheol had seen the man’s face light up in a determined look. He was most likely to go into the forest himself and that was something Seungcheol hoped the man would delay until they had at least finished their deal. The forest wasn't rumoured to be cursed for nothing. 

“I am sure that Soonyoung will go into the mountains himself in the unforeseen future.” Seungcheol said to Hansol.

“In that case I want to join his little expedition.” Junhui’s voice startled Seungcheol and Hansol as the man had been fairly quite until now.

“You want what?!” Seungcheols basking voice was suddenly fuelled with anger, echoing through the room and shocking the others.

“Forgive me for saying that, but I think that the forest h