Consciousness slowly came back to you. The fog began to dissipate in your mind, letting you take in your surroundings just enough to know you’d been moved. Peeling open your eyes, you had to wait for your pupils to adjust to the new found darkness. You couldn’t move but you knew you were standing up. Glancing down, thick ropes were wrapped around your arms and torso, keeping you against what felt like a post digging into the space between your shoulder blades.

Black silhouettes wandered around in front of you a few feet below. Another figure stepped in front of you, but you could see exactly whose face was under the hood.

“Eun Na,” you cried, fighting against the ropes. “What is going on? This isn’t funny.”

She shook her head, pulling some sort of sack out of her robe. “Oh, (y/n). You always were so innocent. So trusting. This past year has been almost too easy.”

“What are you talking about?” Tears were already forming in your eyes, making Eun Na just a blurred outline. How could she do this to you? To anyone? “Why am I tied up?”

“We need you, (y/n),” she said simply as if that explained anything. “I’m sorry that it has to go this way, but you’re the sacrifice we need to gain the upper hand.” She looked up at the sky and you followed her gaze. “It’s the blood moon. The night we’ve been waiting for.” Sure enough, the moon glowed a harsh, mocking orange-red above you. From the little sack, she pulled out a handful of dust or ash - you couldn’t really tell - and sprinkled it on your head and around your feet. Little particles landed in your mouth and nose, making you cough. Once she was finished, she jumped down from the platform, leaving you alone.

The male Eun Na had originally spoken with at the bonfire walked up in front of you and lit a torch. Flames flickered in front of you, giving you a better view of your surroundings. Everyone had put on dark robes and were standing around you in a circle. Trees surrounded you on all sides letting you know that you were nowhere near help.

You couldn’t believe it. From the sticks piled around you to the wooden post you could feel under your hands, the only conclusion you could come to was they were about to burn you at the stake. Eun Na had called you a sacrifice. What the hell was she into?

“Eun Na, please!” you yelled, the tears now flowing over. You were ignored as the man stepped forward and threw the glowing torch at your feet. The flames completely engulfed the wood around you as you struggled against your binds. It was pointless, but you couldn’t stop yourself from calling out, “Help! Someone, please help me!”

The smoke grew, engulfing you like a blanket. It filled your lungs and clogged your throat, causing you to cough violently just to try and clear your airways. All at once, the people around you started chanting in sync. What they were saying, you couldn’t make out, but it wasn’t any language you knew.

Then howls ripped through the air. Breaking up their circle, the crazies started scattering, gathering in groups of two or three, their chanting stopped. It was hard to see through the smoke, but several giant figures that were certainly not human emerged from the trees. They walked on all fours, towering above the others and moved in synchronized pairs.

Screams erupted, soon mixing with snapping jaws and growls.

Wolves?

They were all different colors and sizes but that didn’t matter to Eun Na and her friends. They scrambled around, running away from the beasts and into the trees, forgetting all about you.

You tried to stay awake but the smoke was becoming too much. It clogged your throat, making it impossible to breathe properly. Becoming too heavy, your head started to bob, your eyes flickering to try and soothe the stinging sensation. Just before it became overwhelming, one of the lighter colored wolves jumped at you, over the flames and colliding with your body, sending you, the pole, and itself to the ground and away from the danger. A warm, fur-covered body was hovering over you, yellow eyes shining down at you. And then you lost all consciousness.

**

When you came to again, you were laying down on your back on a couch. The crinkly leather had a musky smell to it that was strangely comforting. A heavy wool blanket kept you warm. Sitting up, you took in your surroundings. You were in an ordinary living room, complete with a large flat screen hanging on the wall to your left above a red brick fireplace. To your right there was a hallway straight ahead and another entry way that led to another area of the house.

Footsteps echoed off the walls. Scrambling, you pushed yourself further into the back of the couch, knowing that running would just be useless as you didn’t have any idea of the layout and would probably just corner yourself. For now, you were happy that you weren’t burnt to a crisp. Take on one thing at a time.

A door opened at the far end of the room. The person who stepped through made your jaw drop.

“Professor Kim?”

Your World Folklore teacher smiled down at you. “Hi, (y/n). Here you can just call me Junmyeon.”

Slowly, he walked over to you and knelt in front of you, placing a hand gently on your knee, only the blanket separating your skins.

“How are you feeling?”

Breathing was still hard, but you were alive. “I’m okay. How-” cough, “how did you find me?”

Professor - er, Junmyeon grimaced. “That’s a bit of a story. I think we should take things slow.”

You shook your head, tears threatening to come to the surface remembering Eun Na’s smirk as she tried to kill you. “I don’t understand – cough - what happened. Eun Na - she was my friend….”

“She was never your friend, (y/n),” Junmyeon stated. “This whole time, she was planning to kill you. Right from the start when the two of you met.”

A sob escaped. Junmyeon leaned forward, your head as you hid your face in your hand. You believed him of course, as Eun Na’s taunting words echoed in your head. She’d said it been too easy to trick you and of course it was. You were too desperate for a friend, for someone to trust and lean on, you took hold of the first person who stepped up. And that person happened to be a psychopath.

A clamoring noise broke your comforting silence. Several more bodies came stumbling through the door, tripping over each other.

“Enough!” Junmyeon yelled. They all froze. Eight boys stood just inside the room, staring at you. Among them were Jongdae and his friends. Jongdae’s eyes flickered back and forth between you and the contact with Junmyeon. You could have sworn you heard a deep chest growl come from your classmate. The sound was cut off the moment Junmyeon stood up, staring him down.

“How are you feeling?” Chanyeol shifted forward, grinning down at you.

You shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Considering the circumstances.”

He nodded. Jongdae stepped up, sitting down on the coffee table across from you, resting his forearms on his knees.

“How did you know?” you whispered. He had warned you - begged you not to go. He knew that you would be in danger.

Sighing, he dropped his head. “It’s a long story.”

“She needs to know,” Junmyeon said sternly. “Tell her. That’s an order.”

Rubbing his hands over his face, Jongdae straightened up. “I’m sure it’s actually kind of obvious, but Eun Na is part of a coven. She’s a witch.”

You shook your head, defiant of that answer. You wanted the truth, not a fairytale. “No. Witches are a bedtime story. A nightmare that humans dreamt up to explain things away and blame unknown circumstances on. They aren’t real.”

“They are real,” Jongdae insisted. “And they’re not the only story that’s actually true.” He paused. “What do you remember from last night?”

Pulling your knees up to you, you wrapped your arms around them, not really wanting to relive last night’s events. “I remember going to the bonfire with Eun Na. She gave me a water bottle and I guess it was drugged or something. I woke up tied to a stake like we were back in Salem. One of the guys lit the sticks under me on fire. I couldn’t breathe, there was so much smoke. And then-” you stopped. The animals, too large to be an average wolf, but moved too quickly and gracefully to be bears. “No, no, I must have started hallucinating. Lack of oxygen to the brain or something.”

“What did you see?” Jongdae pushed.

You swallowed. “Wolves. Giant Wolves. They chased everybody away. One of them saved me from the fire.”

“That was us,” Chanyeol declared. Jongdae him, glaring a killer look.

You shook your head. “No. No, that’s not possible. That would make you-”

“Werewolves.” Nosy boy was the one who finished for you.

“Werewolves don’t exist,” you insisted. There had to be another explanation.

“Yes, they do, (y/n),” Junmyeon said gently. “We are a pack who can shift into wolves.”

This was too much. In less than twenty-four hours, your entire world of normalcy and what was widely accepted as truth had been turned around, shuffled, and completely destroyed. The person you had considered your best friend was a witch who - for some reason still unknown - had tried to sacrifice you by burning you at the stake. Now werewolves were real and apparently you were sitting in a room with a pack of nine.

“I still don’t understand,” you whispered. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”

Junmyeon sat down next to Jongdae. The latter gave him a look but said nothing. If any of your reading was correct, Junmyeon seemed to be the alpha.

“I think it’s best to start at the beginning,” Junmyeon offered. “Werewolves are the natural enemies of witches.”

You frowned. “I thought that was vampires.”

He laughed. “No, witches hate us the most. Because a witch created us.”

“Created you?”

“Yes.” He ran his fingers through his hair, turning into teacher mode. “A thousand years ago - my research isn’t too exact - a witch cursed a man who had rejected her. She decided that since he didn’t want to be a part of her world, she would cut him off from the rest of his own. He was cursed to be separated from everyone else, to be different and isolated. And so, she changed him into a man who transformed into a wolf. It’s not just the moon that changes us. It could be a loss of temper or just because we want to.”

“A rougarou,” you concluded.

Junmyeon laughed. “You’ve been paying attention in class. I’m glad to know that. Yes, thankfully we fall under that category. Another thing to be thankful for is something the witch didn’t foresee when she had first cast her spell. We’re impervious to their magic.” Your eyes grew at this new piece of information, but you kept quiet. “For several generations, we’ve been at peace with the coven here in town when the wolves could easily chase them out of our territory. For reasons we don’t know of yet, they’ve suddenly decided that we’re enemies again.”

“Okay,” you nodded, amazed at yourself for being able to follow along. “So, we’re back to why I’m suddenly involved in this.”

“I had to ask a few friends from out of town, but apparently there’s a spell that could take away our protection from their magic.” He looked you in the eye. “It’s a spell that has to be performed under the blood moon and involves the sacrifice of an unclaimed wolf mate.”

You blinked. “Unclaimed wolf mate?” Now you were lost. “What is that?”

Junmyeon exchanged looks with Jongdae, who stood up and started pacing the living room.

“You know the concept of soulmates, of course,” Junmyeon assumed. When you didn’t protest or counter him, he went on. “It’s the same for wolves, but more real. More serious. I believe it was nature’s way of balancing out the curse we’re under.” Jongdae scoffed, but he was ignored. “When a wolf meets his mate, that’s it. Wolves in nature mate for life and it’s the same for us. There is one person we’re meant to be with and when we meet them, the bond is formed and we’re connected for the rest of our lives. According to destiny, there’s no one else. We’re drawn to our mates, willing to die for them. They usually feel the same draw, though in a different way. More feeling than instinct.”

The pieces were starting to fall into place. “So, what you’re saying is that I’m one of your guys’ mate?”

He nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, you haven’t been claimed yet. That made you vulnerable to the witches.”

“So, they could use me in their spell,” you concluded. You looked around at the boys, some were smiling at you, others were expressionless. One in particular wasn’t even glancing your way. “So, because the forces of magic seem to think it’s funny, I’m supposed to be with one of you guys? Forever?”

“Yes, you are.”

You bit your bottom lip, scared to ask your next question. “Do you know who?”

Eight heads turned to look at Jongdae, who’d finally stopped pacing. He shifted his body in your direction, slowly raising his gaze to meet yours. The truth was staring you in the face and you secretly cursed Mother Nature.