Chapter Text
Individual Chapter Song:
Cup Runneth Over — Kiki Rockwell
The lavender fields were soiled with so much blood. Blood that Celine knew from scent alone and others that were unfamiliar and strange.
Her flank was stuttering with each heavy breath she took as she took stock of her surroundings now that the blood-haze had ebbed.
I have to find Mi-Yeong, was her first thought. Her ears angled in every which way, trying to listen for her. She tried to listen for Mi-Yeong’s thoughts in the pack bond, once so easy and noisy from all the pack members.
It was silent now, save for a handful of her surviving pack. All too broken and filled with despair to reach.
Where was Mi-Yeong? She should find her, see if she’s okay, and if Ha-rin did what Celine had ordered her to do.
Her wolf was nose to the ground as she followed the cherry blossom and salty breeze of her best friend, second only to herself and Mi-Yeong.
What she found was a bloodbath.
Bodies scattered, shifted and not. Weapons soaked in thick red substance, whines of suffering.
She found Ha-rin at the edge of the battlefield, tail drooping low and ears pinned. Head hung.
A baby wailed somewhere underneath her front legs, sharp and clear like a song after centuries of silence.
Celine spotted the still form of a brown and white mottled wolf limp and without breath, the pup at her belly and covered in her own mother’s blood. Mi-Yeong.
Celine skids to a halt by her to-be mate’s head and everything became low and fuzzy around her. Ha-rin was whining, jaws coated with coagulated blood, sticking and drying to her paws, muzzle and paired well with haunted eyes.
Celine.
What happened to her? Celine curled her lips back on a vicious snarl, hackles starting to raise. Blood seeped from an open wound cleanly torn from her throat. She was to be unharmed.
Celine . . . She had just given birth. Did you expect her to have let her pup die?
No, Celine didn’t. Mi-Yeong was an omega that burnt bright in this dark world and Celine had to watch from a distance as her maternal instincts rapidly increased. But those pups weren’t hers and that was not going to pass with Celine.
You didn’t have to kill her.
Ha-rin lashed her tail, growing agitated as she shifted her blood soaked paws to glare at Celine. She was going to kill me, Celine. She kept picking up the pup and running after me just so she could bait me into a fight. She wanted me dead for even trying to hurt her.
The two wolves remained in a standoff, the air around the still humid and tasting slightly of iron.
A gurgle so small that it ticked something paternal in the back of Celine’s hindbrain caused both alphas to snap their necks back over.
The pup was still too tiny to be out of Mi-Yeong’s nest. Based on the smell of afterbirth and warm milk, she had only just been pupped two days ago. Much too small and now motherless.
Celine hesitated and then glanced Ha-rin’s way. Go check for survivors and look for Gwi-Ma. If she’s still alive I want her in chains or dead.
Ha-rin hesitated, ears flicking, and while she didn’t exactly make it a point to put her thoughts on speaker, she found it rather shocking that in the wake of this much loss and the tragedy that occurred, Celine couldn’t let Gwi-Ma go.
Go, Celine stepped closer to the other wolf, a hint of Command coating her snarl.
Ha-rin inclines her head once and then shakes her cost out, blood flecks spattering the already drenched lavender fields, and headed in the other direction.
The pup was staring at her with wide, trusting eyes and her nostrils were flaring. Celine studied this new little thing and realized that she must recognize Celine instinctively as pack — her scent had been in Mi-Yeong’s nest, after all.
Tiny fingers were curled into the fur of her mother, self-soothing in this state of distress the world pushed on her. Celine wondered if Mi-Yeong was still warm.
Now the alpha didn’t know what to do. She had sent her friend to kill Mi-Yeong’s pup and Mi-Yeong had to fight through the betrayal she never thought would come.
Mi-Yeong fought with a warrior's heart and a wolf’s ferocity. She saw Ha-rin’s wounds and the life still gleaming on the pup.
Dark eyes blinked and a tiny hand suddenly reached in Celine’s direction.
The alpha reared back in fear, still just out of reach.
“I want to name her Rumi,” Mi-Yeong told Celine from her nest, hands caressing her belly. “It’s meant to mean ‘beauty’, you know.”
Celine sat just inside the nest with her legs folded beneath her, fighting the stench Gwi-Ma left behind fresh. Celine avoided the pack house when Gwi-Ma was there; she was technically allowed because her mating mark was on Mi-Yeong and her pup in her belly but she refused to leave her own pack and Mi-Yeong was too close to giving birth to move her nest and transfer packs without causing distress.
Celine curled her fingers into her pants.
“Celine?”
The alpha lifted her eyes to the call of her name. Mi-Yeong tilted her head and pushed out a wave of comforting pheromones in her direction, her hand lifting from her belly to extend to Celine.
“Sorry.” She blinked and curled her fingers through Mi-Yeongs, running a thumb over her knuckles. “I think Rumi is a beautiful name. I think she’ll carry it well.”
The smile Mi-Yeong flashed her left her feeling the guilt of knowing her plans would soon leave Rumi dead.
A soft gurgle and light tugging at the fur on her legs snapped her away from her memories. She craned her head down and saw that the pup had crawled in her direction and was trying to hold onto her.
Two days in this world and she was already crawling. Normally pups needed five days or more to get to that stage.
Celine didn’t push the pup away from her or take her throat into her jaws even when the opportunity was right there. She could finish Gwi-Ma’s lineage and be done with the entire thing.
But her wolf wouldn’t let her — the drive to kill was tempered and forcefully replaced with something far more difficult to manage. Celine couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t process.
All she could do was watch. Tolerate.
When the Elders found her hours later with her body curled up around Rumi, who slept under the crying stars in a tainted field of lavender, Celine knew her punishment would be this.
She hadn’t had the courage to take Rumi’s life and this battle had been useless, with no fruits to bear other than her own failures.
She would raise Rumi as decreed by the new Council that was borne from this near-extinction of Seoul’s werewolf population. One of many rules and even more stipulations of Celine keeping her life and her pack.
They wouldn’t tell her what came of Gwi-Ma, had ordered her to let it go and remind her that she wasn’t privy to matters higher than herself.
It was a blow but Celine had bowed like the rest of them did.
Ha-rin did not seem to want to be around her any longer, distancing herself and not responding to her attempts at communication. Turned her neck away when Celine went in for a scenting, and even more severely stayed behind on pack Runs that Celine attended.
But worst of all was watching Rumi grow under her supervision.
Mi-Yeong lived on in her pup and Celine was starkly reminded that she had to face her failures every day, all because Rumi hadn’t been fathered by her.
Rumi was six years old when she first got to see a wolf up close.
The full moon was a big deal in the pack and in werewolf society. They were closest with their inner wolves during that time and when Rumi asked why, Celine had explained that the full moon was a powerful thing for non-humans.
Demons and vampires were stronger and hungrier, which meant wolves had to be dispatched into the cities to take them down.
Rumi swings her legs back and forth on the edge of her bed while Celine folded her laundry and set it in separate piles to put away.
“When will I feel my wolf? What will she be like?”
“When you present,” her mother responded, glancing her way. “Everyone is different and presents at different ages. Our bodies need time to grow strong before the wolf becomes a bigger part of ourselves.”
Rumi thinks really hard about this and tries to concentrate on her inner self. She didn’t feel a wolf in there.
Celine’s lips quirked at the scrunched up face the pup was sporting and allowed her to try for a moment before moving the basket to the floor and joining her on the edge of the bed.
“You can’t force her to come out,” Celine told her when she started scenting a sour note in Rumi’s scent. “She needs to be ready just as much as you do. You’ll know when that time comes and when you meet her, it’ll be as if you’d always known her.”
“Like your wolf and you?”
“Exactly like that. But,” the alpha added, making sure Rumi was looking her in the eye, “me and my wolf are not entirely different beings. She is me but not, and I am her but not. We have two halves of a soul that make us whole. She fills in the blanks of me that I can’t, and it is up to me to follow her when I’m lost.”
Rumi considered this. “Do you fight?”
Celine blinked, partially taken aback by how seriously invested the pup was in this topic. Her wolf lingered in the back of her head and fed into the amusement Celine started to experience from the question.
“Rarely,” the older answers, folding her hands together. “A fight with our wolf is a fight with our natures and a struggle of oneself. The wolf in us is not our enemy, but sometimes certain things they want us to do or say can make it seem like we have no control.”
Rumi kicked her legs again. “I hope I don’t fight with her.”
“Me neither, Rumi.”
“Are you going to be in the city tonight?” It was timid in the way she delivered the question, eyes not meeting her adoptive mother’s as if unsure if she could even know.
“I will not.” Celine leaned down and picked up one of Rumi’s shirts from the basket to fold. “I am going on the Run.”
“Oh.” Rumi nods, looking far more serious than a six year old should. “Okay.”
“I think you’re old enough now that I will let you run with me the pack in the forest. If you feel ready.”
Rumi lit up like a Christmas tree, the sour turning into something sweet and energetic. “Really? You mean it?”
“If you can be good and stay with me or another older wolf.”
Rumi was bursting with excitement during dinner that night, animatedly talking to the other pups at their end of the table and interrupting conversations to ask the adults what their wolves looked like.
Ha-rin seemed amused rather than annoyed, but that was solely for Rumi. When she glanced down the table at Celine, her features darkened and her lips grew straight in a line.
Celine simply lifted her wolfsbane wine and took a long, deep drink of it.
Rumi waited on the outskirts of the pack house, clutching her stuffed toy that Celine had told her her birth mom had made for her.
The alpha hadn’t said anything when Rumi came down in her train pajamas with the wolf dangling by its paw from her hand, she’d simply guided Rumi to put her tennis shoes on.
She could hear the bones cracking and the snarls that went from human to wolf. Her grip tightened on her companion to try and elevate some unease.
A massive red and brown animal eventually emerged from the tree line, yellow eyes glinting.
Rumi had never seen Celine’s wolf before. Had never been allowed close enough to see her.
But now the beast stood expectedly as yips and barks echoed through the forest in beckoning. Rumi took a step forward slowly until she came close to Celine’s upper leg.
A chuff rumbled through the wolf’s chest, and before she knew it her head was bent and Rumi’s hand reached out to flit her fingers through coarse strands of fur.
Wolves were not as soft as she believed they’d be. But the were warm, so very warm.
Celine allowed Rumi’s gentle exploring before she grew restless from the yips and cries of her pack. She nudged Rumi with her nose deeper into the undergrowth, throwing the pup into her first Run.
Rumi was fourteen years old when she presented.
She was behind the other juveniles in the pack in terms of presentation. Most of them had been betas, a few others were alphas.
It happened one rainy day during lessons with her peers near the north wing of the pack house. She’d woken up unusually warm and itchy, like ants had tunneled into her skin and were making caverns in her body.
An alpha girl who had never given her the time of day before — not since they were children, at least — suddenly seemed to hover around her when she entered the dining room and appeared agitated when Rumi refused her offer of grabbing her more water.
A beta she’d normally gotten along with was now hesitant to approach her, his scent growing uncomfortable as he avoided her eyes outside of the lesson room.
And then the staring. She could feel eyes on her from all of them. Not at once, but she knew eyes remained locked on her haunched form the entire morning.
Rumi was used to being considered strange. Mostly by adults in Celine’s main circle and again when she hadn’t presented near the same time her classmates had. She wasn’t entirely upset, she was used to being alone.
Her eyes drag up to copy the notes on the whiteboard and instead lock on an alpha’s, who was turned in his chair to stare at her like he was contemplating his next meal choice.
The frustration and confusion that had been building all morning coupled with her physical discomfort left her normally subdued temper on a cliff’s edge.
“What?” she seethed, lip curling upward at him. “Something I can help you with?”
There was a hush that befell the room, even from their instructor. She gazed at Rumi, eyebrows furrowed and nostrils flaring.
Rumi returned her focus to the alpha, who had said nothing. Rumi pushed her chair back so hard it tipped over. The clatter was deafening in the silence, and the adolescent clenched her fists.
The alpha narrowed his eyes and slowly stood as well. “Ring in your pheromones. You stink, Ryu.”
“I smell fine,” Rumi spat, resisting the urge to bend down and sniff her glands to see if he was right. “You’re the one who’s looking at me. I didn’t start this.”
“Both of you, enough.” The instructor flicks her eyes between the two of them as the thickness from uneasy scents began to overwhelm the room. “Hang, eyes forward. Ryu, watch the temper.”
“Think she might be presenting as an alpha?” Rumi heard from somewhere behind her, a murmur only meant for the person who was close enough to whisper it to. But she still heard it as she righted her chair and returned to her place in it, still furious about the entire morning she’s been cursed with.
Rumi clenched her jaw, taking deep breaths in and out to cool her rising temper.
She did not hear the response and did not bother trying to listen for it. She had enough problems to deal with.
The room dispenses relatively quickly once the lesson ends for a lunch break. Rumi waits for everyone to trickle out, skin crawling at an increasing rate compared to earlier in the day.
Her classmates return to a wolf in the classroom, desks and chairs broken and splintered around it.
The wolf turns her gaze to the crowding doorway, mind rushing with too many voices and none of them making a lick of sense.
Neurons were exploding in every corner of her brain and everything ached in the new body that stood where a teenager once was. She heard her name — was it spoken out loud or among the loud, intrusive conversations that invaded her once quiet headspace — and noticed through sharper vision the approach of the instructor.
Her nostrils flared. Alpha, the instructor was alpha.
Low rumbling filled the silence of the room and — oh, it was Rumi that was making that ungodly noise.
The teacher snapped her hand back and turned to the gathered teenagers that watched with mixed emotions scenting the air.
“Go get Elder Celine. Now.”
Someone listened but the rest stayed. Rumi began pacing back and forth, whines and growls alike filtering from herself as she tried to wrangle the growing anxiety she couldn’t pinpoint.
Beyond the noise in her head was a presence that lingered in the corner, observing Rumi from inside and somehow Rumi could just feel whatever it was trying to reach her through the mess.
It unsettled her, it left her edgy and snapping at an invisible threat that nobody else could detect.
This was how Celine found her. The giant wolf with the eyes of an animal that thinks it’s in a state where it must bite to keep it alive.
Celine approached and ushered everyone else out. The wolf gazed through Celine, the doorway now open for her escape.
“Do not,” her mother said lowly without needing to study Rumi’s actions, “go out that door yet. Do you hear me?”
Alpha, her instincts warned. Primal and non-avoidable despite the overwhelming urge to strong arm her way past. It was this particular instinct that kept her in a controlled state of pacing.
Celine stepped closer inch by inch, hands open and loose to where Rumi could keep an eye on them. She crouched only a few paces from the giant wolf, pumping out soothing but firm pheromones.
I will not hurt you, her mother’s scent was saying, but you are not going to bully me.
Rumi narrowed her eyes, grumbling and tail lashing.
“It’s loud in there, isn’t it?” Celine asked quietly. “You hear them. Our pack, the channels of communication that branches out all over our territory. It’s a lot, isn’t it?”
Rumi could only huff. Yes. It was too much, and all of those channels were so many that she couldn’t figure out which one to choose to address first.
“That’s how every first time is like,” the Elder told her, tracking her body language in case the agitation returned. “You found your wolf, and she found you. It can be a little much, neither of you know how to manage that bond yet. She’s just trying to connect you deeper with the pack, to help you integrate. She doesn’t realize that it can be challenging for our human halves. Our wolves only know so much when they form.”
Rumi had stopped pacing altogether.
Celine softened with relief, watching as heavy breathing began to even out and crazed eyes started to look less glassy.
“Well done, Rumi. Well done indeed.” Celine slowly rose to her feet and nudged a plank of wood from one of the desks to the side. “Would you like to take a run?”
A sparkle lit up in Rumi’s gaze.
Celine would discuss Rumi being an omega later. In that moment it scarcely mattered to a newly shifted, anxiety-ridden wolf. She had to master her shaken posture when the scent she knew Rumi so well from had changed to something far more sweet as her pheromones adjusted to her presentation.
One battle at a time.
Later that night Rumi was given her first presentation gift. A falcon that she would be responsible to train — a companion. Everyone got one but Rumi’s was the finest of them all.
She named him Sussie.
Jinu came into her life when Rumi was shy of her twenty-second birthday.
He wasn’t supposed to be in her forest.
Rumi wasn’t supposed to be sniffing so close to the borders by herself, either.
She came nose to nose with a wolf so grey and black he looked almost muted blue in the sunlight. He was scruffy around his neck and looked no older than her, limbs long and gangly with no muscle on any inch of his furry body.
Her wolf was taller than him. By six good inches, just like most of the wolves in her pack. She towered nearly all of the wolves in her age range — but she still remained shorter than her sire.
The outsider morphed back into his human form first. Rumi suspected it was to show her he wasn’t going to harm her; most weres don’t trust one another out of their packs enough to stay in human form unless they’re in the cities or on Council lands.
The trees shifted in the wind above them, her scent drifting in his direction while he remained downwind. Clever male. Knew how to avoid being caught by patrols.
She couldn’t smell him even from this distance. He was using some sort of scent suppressant on top of being downwind.
He was handsome. Devastatingly so. His hair was long and loose around his forehead, and his eyes were shadowed with purpose.
“You’re an omega,” he said.
Rumi zeroed in on him and let go of her observation. She took a step back further into her territory, lips curling enough to reveal her canines.
Her pack would be on this male in minutes if she called for them. Especially if she called for them. Omegas who expressed need for their packs’ support are not to be ignored.
He seemed to read what her body language was putting out and brushed himself off, standing upward with the shrubbery keeping him decent.
“Relax, I’m not here because of that. I just . . .” He paused. “I smelled you.”
Of course. We smell good.
Rumi’s wolf was interested in this wayward wolf, having peeked out of her corner in Rumi’s brain to take him in when she did.
“Are you alone?”
Conversation over. Rumi puffed out her coat and started forward in his direction, feigning an attack.
The male jumped back, stumbling through the undergrowth and down a hill with a yelp.
Rumi would’ve laughed if she were in her human form.
The male shot up and stumbled to the side. “Okay, loud and clear. But hey — if you want to know more than your patch of land, come find me again. Tomorrow?”
Rumi huffed, already turning and stalking deeper back into her territory. But her ears remained angled back to listen to his proposition.
An alpha had her arms crossed when she returned to the pack house, one single eyebrow lifted like she caught Rumi with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Your sire won’t be pleased you were off on your own, Rumi,” she greeted once Rumi’s bones had finished snapping into place and her clothes were back on.
“I needed air.”
“You couldn’t have told someone?”
“I had Sussie with me.”
The alpha’s chest bellowed with air, amusement and a little disbelief visible. She leaned in when Rumi scooted past, scenting the omega just a touch to reinstate pack scent on her.
Scenting between pack members was done between all designations — but most scenting done this way is usually when a person is unmated. Its’ purpose is to keep bonds between members fortified and make it easier to find when shifted.
It was impossible to keep the scenting to a minimum when Rumi’s presentation settled as an omega. She was one of only five within Celine’s pack, and she was the youngest. That drove many of the older wolves to be more protective, restrictive even, over Rumi’s whereabouts.
She dealt with it in her own ways. Going from unpresented and just another wolf the pack held in their ranks to somewhat of a curiosity and treasured article.
The alpha was lingering longer than normal, brows furrowed and nose wrinkled.
Rumi retained her pose, stiff. She waited for the realization that an outsider was close to the borders, for the protective animalistic snarl to be the announcement.
None came. The alpha finished her scenting and let her go on, satisfied that Rumi was coated in her familial pheromones.
Gods save her the day she mated an alpha.
She pushed food around on her plate that night, uninterested and mind wandering back to the male at the border.
If you want to know more than your patch of land, he had said. Had said in a way that emphasized an assumption made on her life.
Her chopsticks broke apart in her hands.
Celine noticed first, and then Ha-rin. Twin frowns pulled their faces downward as they gazed at Rumi in the privacy of their apartments’ dining room.
Only Elders and those they chose to help distribute duties and power got apartments in the pack house. It was a blessing for Rumi once her omega designation sprouted but it had in the same hand been terribly isolating for a young pup.
“You’re distant today.” Celine set down her wine glass and stared at Rumi in that way only sires did to their mischievous pups. “Is everything alright?”
Rumi loosened her grip on the splintered chopsticks, carefully lowering her hand to the table and letting the pieces drop on the placemat.
“How come you don’t let me outside of pack lands?”
A pregnant silence surrounded the three of them as the weight of Rumi’s unexpected question came to rest upon them.
Ha-rin slowly lifted a piece of bulgogi to her mouth, seemingly content to let Celine handle this one on her own.
“You do go out,” Celine skirted.
“Brief trips to the city to go grocery shopping or to your offices doesn’t count,” Rumi snapped.
Celine narrowed her eyes at her tone. “What’s gotten into you?”
Rumi clenched her jaw, unclenched it. Broke eye contact first as her wolf put consistent pressure on the back of her head.
“I just — I’m curious. I want to see . . .” Rumi hesitated to think of something, anything. She’s never really debated traveling before. “Something. I don’t know. I feel restless.”
Celine picked her glass of wine up again. “I can have you assigned to more patrols, if you’d like.”
“Celine,” Ha-rin interjected, soft but edged with a point that felt like a warning.
Rumi huffed. “I don’t want more patrols. I want to — I want to see what exists beyond the borders.”
“Humans exist, Rumi. Humans we are tasked to protect from a distance. We blend in where we can but you know that those instances are limited.”
“Have we ever even tried?” Rumi jerked her palms upward, backs on the table as she spread her fingers in exasperation. “I don’t recall history mentioning our attempts at co-habitation with humans.”
“We are co-habituating. We always have our wolves in the most populated areas, we see their cultures and the way they live. But our presence threatens to draw out more of the night demons. Vampires. You know this.”
“But wouldn’t we be at better odds to defend them then?”
Celine pinched the bridge of her nose. “Rumi, don't you think that the generations before us haven’t tried? Have you read our history?”
“I have and nothing explicitly mentions a full-time life in their populace. Only sections that briefly graze over our relationships with them.”
“We are too volatile in human presence for long periods,” Ha-rin stated gently, less worked up than Rumi’s sire. “Humans produce noise pollution and everything that’s bright is even brighter. What if a wolf loses his or her temper in the middle of a crowded street? How do we have a home of this size to keep pack bonds alive?” She saw Rumi’s face crumple and tried to soothe the sting, “We isolate ourselves for their safety, Rumi. Not because we think it’s better for us. Our baser instincts demand we be close to humans, but those very same ones threaten to cause them harm or our exposure if we don’t take precautions.”
Rumi stared down at her half-finished meal, her appetite no longer extant.
“I know it can feel lonely,” Celine told her. “Especially at your age when you’re trying to cement bonds with others.”
“It’s . . . It's not just that,” Rumi murmured. “I’m the only omega born in my generation in the pack. I can’t . . . I don’t have omegas my age to talk to. They’re all older, an while I’m — I’m grateful for their guidance . . .”
Rumi ended up trailing off.
Ha-rin’s scent became sad, almost sympathetic while Celine’s remained even and neutral.
“I know, and I’m very sorry you don’t have that support system. I —“ Rumi looked up and found Celine peering at her with a guilt-ridden glow in her eyes, “—I can take you with me tomorrow, how about that? We can go get some lunch and I can take you to a couple of stores. Whatever you’d like to do.”
Rumi knew it was a consolation prize; her sire could not offer anything more than that. Wouldn’t.
So Rumi accepted it and grabbed a new pair of chopsticks, finishing her dinner even though it tasted like ash on her tongue.
Rumi knew she shouldn’t, knew that there could be a deadly end to what she decided to do, but the next day she returned to the spot the male had been lingering at.
It was after the early patrols of the grounds and hours before another would be sent out again. The pack was just returning from their morning duties and it gave Rumi that perfect opportunity to slip out undetected.
What she saw wasn’t the male -- at least not at first. Instead a bright, vibrant horse with a black saddle was at the border. He seemed to be munching on some ferns and did not spook at the giant wolf that broke through the undergrowth.
Blue. This horse was fucking blue.
Rumi had little experience with horses but she was positive they did not come in this color.
She regarded the beast closer and noted that one eye was humorously larger than the other.
“Derpy! I’ve found wild pear trees!” Jinu’s voice comes slinking through the trees with an armful of the green fruit, looking much too pleased with himself.
His scent hit her first. There was no wind to draw it downwind this time, no prevention from getting a nose-ful of it.
It was the most overwhelming thing she’s ever smelled. On top of that, this wanderer seemed to be beta.
Not what she was expecting, really. She half-expected an omega based on the brief interaction he had with her the day before.
He spots her standing toe-to-borderline and tilts his head with no-attempted hiding of his surprise. “She returns. And you’ve met my handsome steed. This is Derpy.”
Derpy the blue horse rolled his larger eyeball, as she was on the side of that eye, at her but refused to stop his grazing to properly greet her.
Rumi chuffs her own greeting and keeps a respectful distance from Derpy. Not for his sake, but for hers. He unsettled her.
Jinu approaches his horse and a large saddlebag that was flipped open already, depositing his prizes into it. He put his hands on his hip, nodding to himself in satisfaction, before turning his dark gaze up to Rumi.
“So I see curiosity wins the internal battle this time.”
Rumi sat down, tail curling next to her.
Jinu wiped his hands together and continued like she had verbally answered, “That’s great. I’m exploring South Korea where I can. Seoul is cool and all but there’s more out there than that city. I sort of want to see the other side of the world. There, I said it.”
Rumi’s rising interest in this male was starting to reach levels beyond her thought process.
She made a noise, perhaps a grunt, deep in her chest. Jinu nodded. “Exactly. I was thinking of going to Europe first. Did you know you can get to other countries by train alone? How crazy is that? Or America where you’ve got to fly just to get from one end of the country to the other.”
Rumi wouldn’t know. She has never left the country, much less seen more than Seoul.
“I’ve been packless for a while, you know? It gives me the freedom to be able to explore as I please, see what the world is outside of this virus that is inscribed into our DNA.”
Rumi’s heart twisted in her chest. He spoke of his lack of being in a pack like it was discussing the weather. It made her wonder how long he’d been this way for it to not rip him apart when acknowledging it.
“I don’t know when I’d have the chance to go, of course,” Jinu said, turning to her and dropping his hands. “But--”
A howl from deep within her territory cut him off and Rumi whipped around, ears angled.
Her throat itched to return the cry with her own. Her wolf lifted it’s head within the confines of her inner self and pushed forward with interest.
Rumi knew that howl though it was scarcely used within the territory itself. Sometimes it was used for drills that Rumi had never been allowed to be apart of because, “Omegas are not expected to answer a call to battle unless it’s absolutely unavoidable,” so she was restricted to watching the response to the drill as her packmates shifted around her and darted in the direction of the alert.
In essence, it was a distinct and purposeful method of getting reinforcements. Her pack had found something that made it necessary. That meant that both of them had to go -- especially Jinu.
When she finally broke away from the daze of the call and turned back around, Jinu had already gotten into his saddle. He clenched the reins in his hand and moved Derpy in her direction so he could face her.
“I know what that sound means,” he told her, voice low. “I’m going to get out of range.”
Rumi buffed in confirmation.
He glanced behind her and then added, “If you can, let’s try to meet again in two days so that they lose interest.”
Rumi blinked back and for a long moment they simply stared at one another.
“I hope I get to see you in your human skin, next time.” He pulled on the reins. “I’d like to see the face behind those eyes.”
Before Rumi could process, Jinu snapped the reins and took off through the undergrowth.
For another hour or two, Rumi remained in the area to try and cover his scent until all anyone would smell was omega and horse. Beta scents were not nearly as potent as the two other designations and coupled with animal scents, it made detection difficult if they did not have a tracker on hand.
Her plan produced desired results. A patrol of three alphas found her in a patch of sun ten feet from the border in a small clearing, pretending to be dozing with lazy eyes following their movements.
Two of the three inspected the area surrounding the omega before deciding nothing of particular interest needed to be investigated, but in the pack link they did comment on the stench of the horse.
Horses? This deep in? Humans normally keep to trails, yes? Hangual questioned from his post next to Rumi, who still remained sprawled without much care.
There was no human trace paired with the horse, Jiwon reported, brown ears flicking in barely-disguised befuddlement. Other than Omega Rumi and the animal, there was one other scent that we could not pinpoint. It was too muddy.
Three sets of eyes landed on her. The omega peered back through half-closed eyes, sunlight soaking into her coat and making her truly sleepy.
I saw a horse, she said, articulating a careful lie that held some abstract design of the truth, but it was not accompanied by man. Perhaps it was wild, herds do roam these lands.
You are sure?
Rumi sat up fully. I think I would notice if a human or wolf were at our front door. I would have called for a patrol within moments.
All three appeared to be reluctant to settle for this, but they had no way of proving their doubts without probing into her thoughts and that was not an option Rumi would give them. If she must, she would pull Celine’s name into the argument.
Thankfully for her, however, they let it go and instead pushed her to return with them. She continues her blaisefaire attitude about the entire situation, taking her time in stretching and shaking out her pelt as they lingered restlessly close by.
Jiwon and Minsu took one side each and caged her between them the entire way back to the pack house, fur brushing against hers every so often while Hangual led them on.
A higher ranking beta named Junho was waiting when they returned, taking their findings report from Hangual while Rumi dressed behind the foliage. When she emerged, Junho asked her the same questions the alphas did.
Rumi brushed her shirt of fake debris while answering him. She kept her mental barriers steel-tight but knew he was requesting entry. She denied him and eventually he, too, accepted what she reported and let her go.
Rumi used her personal laptop later that afternoon to dive into Europe and North America, Jinu’s talk of exploring those places making her feel a sense of longing.
Cities that were so similar but entirely different to Seoul, forests that seemed familiar but all too foreign, human histories she’d not learned about.
She sat at her window as the stars came out and wondered if her stars were the same everywhere else, or if they had a different shine when they came out.
It took only six months for Rumi to fall in love with Jinu, who’d taken to returning to meet with her in secret when he could.
The first time she showed up in her human form, she’d taken him by complete surprise. Derpy was laying down and munching on some ferns and Jinu himself was resting against the horse and napping.
Rumi had sat with her legs crossed just shy of the borderline and gazed at him in this state. He couldn’t have been much older than her if he even was at all, and he bore no scars or marks that indicated he’d ever been in any sort of fight with other wolves.
Wolves that left their packs to be by themselves were usually due to a violent encounter or thrown into exile with a marred limb to ensure any others they crossed were aware of their reason for being alone.
But every time they met, she located no such indicator. He was an enigma that she wanted to study. Wanted to ask questions and demand he tell her how much of the world he knew about.
Jinu blinked open his eyes and paused when he saw Rumi sitting before him, this time sporting a dark hoodie, leggings, and a purple braid over her shoulder.
This was the wolf he had been meeting with. If her scent hadn’t been what revealed her identity, she felt it would be her eyes. He commented on them a few times.
“Hi,” she said, breaking the contest of silent staring first.
“Hi,” Jinu responded in kind, awe in his voice.
Derpy snorted loudly, tail whipping back and forth against Jinu’s side. The outsider did not appear to notice -- or care, for that matter.
“I’m Rumi.” Eyes locked, lips turned upward shyly.
“Hi Rumi,” the male echoed.
“Do you think you could tell me more about the world? About Europe and America?”
Jinu pushes himself off of Derpy’s flank, wiping his hands on his pants. She could scent his nervousness -- but it was tinged with something else that she couldn’t put her finger on.
“I will tell you all of it.”
Rumi smiled.
They were running.
Six more months was all it took after their first true face to face contact for Jinu to express his love for her.
She returned it and she had in that same breath accepted his mating mark. Had mated him under the stars that were meant for them and nobody else.
She had left her pack for him without so much as a word, one backpack slung over her shoulder containing all that she desired to bring.
The pack bond had snapped like a twig once she had left Seoul, firing painfully hot trails of fire down her neurons. Jinu held her through the entire process and comforted her as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
She threw herself into loving Jinu as they travelled South Korea together, never settling for long in one place but experiencing all they could in the amount of time they did.
But about a year after having mated Jinu, he changed gradually. He became somewhat paranoid wherever they went, no longer allowing them to stay somewhere for more than two days. His temper had sharpened and he often paced and slept less.
Rumi had asked him — even practically begged him
— to confide in her what was wrong. But he only shut down when she went down that path. This left her with no other choice than to be forced to sit back and watch him grow rapidly more unhinged by the day.
The day they took her was the day she lost everything.
Rumi really should have trusted that prickling unease that had started to crawl its’ way up her spine.
It started when they stopped to grab something quick to eat. They’d left Derpy in the forest with Sussie and emerged into the little town’s thriving streets. Rumi could feel, could smell, everything within a ten mile radius.
While she stood off to the side as Jinu ordered for them, she caught the first glance and the smell of them.
They had not crossed any of their kind outside of the more populated locations, and they took careful precautions in not making contact with them.
The taller one was easier to spot and match with the cherry-blossom and fresh snow scent that sparked flickers of flame in her brain. She was dressed so casually, hands in the pockets of tight jeans and hair so pink it matched paintings in color. Her eyes lazily grazed the top half of the bustling crowd before landing on Rumi.
Rumi’s chest caved in on itself the second they locked eyes. Her wolf dared to show curiosity and the tingling under her skin was proof of it.
The alpha’s lips quivered just a tiny smidge upward and one finger slowly rose to her lips in a shhh motion just as Jinu slipped back with hands full.
“Here.” Her mate handed over the delicious looking meal, the waft of the enriched scent coating the air around them and blocking out the alpha’s.
Rumi and Jinu sat on the curb of an alley road, out of the compact business but still in sight enough to people-watch.
“Are you okay?” Jinu asked hand brushing along her knee to get her attention. “Your scent is . . . off.”
Rumi held off answering him by twirling a noodle around her chopstick and savoring the flavors that exploded on her tongue.
She managed to come up with an excuse sometime after swallowing the bite. “No, just overwhelmed by everything. It’s so much, you know?”
Jinu softened instantly. “Yeah. That’s how it was for me too, at first. If you want I can teach you to kind of muffle your senses long enough to get through cities.”
“We can do that?”
Jinu nodded. “Not for long, considering it requires shutting your wolf into like -- a space in your head that they can’t come out of. It’s not fun for an extended length of time, but it can really help keep us under the radar.”
Stifling her wolf? It didn’t seem entirely natural in concept no matter how overstimulated she got.
“Yeah,” she said, unable to keep the hesitation from leaking through, “maybe.”
The second instance occurred later that night after they found a hotel to settle in. It wasn’t great but Jinu and Rumi were apex predators and didn’t fear much from humans. Rumi looked small but she knew how to disembowel a grown man if it came to it.
She hated to wake her mate so she slipped out of bed when the craving for something carbonated struck. She walked on light feet down the dimly lit streets just a block away to the convenience store they passed on their way in.
That’s where she spotted another shifter. Female. Alpha.
Dangerous.
This one did not bother to hide herself like the one she saw earlier that day did. She was propped up outside of the cracked building when Rumi approached, a cigarette pressed between her lips and curling unpleasantly through her citrus and sandalwood scent.
She wore a sports bra and loose pants and Rumi made sure to not turn her back fully on this alpha. She was small but her eyes tracked Rumi with clever focus, choppy black hair tucked behind her ears.
Rumi said nothing to the alpha, and the alpha said nothing to her either. Rumi gave her a wide berth as she opened the door and stepped inside the air conditioned store. The fluorescent lights flickered and the attendant behind the counter glanced up as she walked in.
The omega did not try to linger. She got her drink and paused to sift through the snacks on the shelves, fingering at a bag of candies Jinu once told her he liked. She grabbed it and another snack for herself and took her items to the counter.
The clerk scanned each item at a pace that left Rumi shifting back and forth on her feet. The longer she stayed the more unsettled she felt -- and she wanted to return to Jinu and curl up in his safety.
When the clerk announced the price for everything and bagged them up, a hand stretching over her shoulder with the amount broke Rumi into quiet panic.
She hadn’t scented her this close. Hadn’t heard the door open.
But the clerk took the money and the hand slipped into the handles of the bag.
Rumi whipped around to find the black-haired alpha before her, two fingers curled under the handles and almost offering it to Rumi.
“You’re an omega.”
Her voice was pretty and entirely less hoarse than Rumi was expecting. She swallows as she reaches out for the bag and the shifter seemed content to let it be slid away from her, tucking the hand holding it into her pocket.
Rumi did not answer and instead brushed past her, escaping her dark look and exploding into the night without looking back.
Something felt wrong by the time she reached the room and removed the key from her pocket.
A strong stench of blood drifted from underneath the door and crevices of the windows and it was tempered by another, slightly familiar scent she couldn’t and wouldn’t detect in her state.
She forced her arm to remain steady as she inserted the key into the door’s lock and twisted.
“Jinu, I got you some stuff.” Her voice was timid as she pushed the door open.
Only to find Jinu, in wolf form, with his innards draped all over the room and blood soaking every inch of furniture. Claw marks were deep in the walls where he must have fought to gain some escape.
And standing above him cleaning her glasses was the pink-haired alpha she caught earlier in the day watching her.
“Hello, omega,” the wolf greeted, taking a predatory stalk in her direction. “We’ve been searching for you across South Korea.”
The only thing Rumi could do was try and not vomit all over the floor as she sought out the mating bond with Jinu, but was only met with silence.
He must have fortified his link to him so she wouldn’t feel him dying. He mentioned he was able to suppress, to stop --
A small whine of despair started to rise in her chest as the bag went limp in her hold and the wolf inside of her broke free.
She let her take over with white-hot rage, paws and fang rushing the female alpha with such fury that she felt it guiding her into this beast.
She would kill this alpha or die trying.