[Fic] Howl - 1/1
Title: Howl
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, smut, werewolf
Warnings: sexual situations
Summary: Perhaps Zhou Mi ran to the moon, and Kyuhyun’s time was in the sun. But even the sun and moon touched and met.
***
He waited on the moon to give him his answer. It rose, gold and ripe, and Zhou Mi’s paws stretched out before him. The forest smelled of night, wet, as the hoot of an owl caused his ears to twitch. He was full. They had hunted well that night. His pack was cared for, bedded down in a pile of wolf flesh as they dreamed dreams of great chases and desperate fights. For Zhou Mi, there were no dreams. His focus was the door of a house not far from the forest edge.
He’d kept himself from bringing a hunk of meat in his jaws to leave on the doorstep. It would not have been appreciated, that he knew.
That he was at the house of a human, not to feed or be fed, was telling. He was there to guard. So he rested his chin on his paws and waited for the dawn.
***
Zhou Mi wanted answers, and they were not ones that time would give him. That he had to be helped into the car was an embarrassment to him, not even being able to walk on his own, dizzy and flushed. All he wanted was that familiar doorway he’d seen days ago, and the one he’d kept himself from for almost a month before that.
“Take me to him,” Zhou Mi ordered Donghae. He was the only one Zhou Mi could think of who would take him, even though he knew why Zhou Mi was ill.
“But-“
“I know I told you never to, even if I begged, even if...”
“You were dying?”
Zhou Mi laughed, resting his head back against the passenger’s seat of the car.
“Thankfully that isn’t the case this time.”
It could have been, perhaps, but it wasn’t. Intensely uncomfortable, like a buzzing in his head that he couldn’t control. He didn’t understand why in the process of becoming strong, it was necessary for him to become so weak. The moon had passed days ago, so there was to be no relief even from that. He could not smell Kyuhyun from far away, but it seemed like he could feel his presence getting nearer. He wanted to leap from the car and run, as though the car was hindering his progress, inhibiting his senses. There was no guarantee that Kyuhyun would accept him, even as he stared at the pathway to the door that would lead Zhou Mi to him.
“Wait here,” Zhou Mi told Donghae. “I’ll go in myself.”
“But-”
“If he does not accept, I’ll call for you. But for now, wait.”
He wanted no one to witness what would happen between them. If the pack knew he was there, there would be chaos. But the decision was for him and Kyuhyun to make alone. It would impact the pack, but it was not their life that would be most changed.
He walked, and when he could walk no further, crawled, as though the wolf in him was begging in supplication. The stone of the walkway to Kyuhyun’s front door dug into his palms and his knees, and his eyes were fixed there, on the wood where his knuckles would sound. And when they did, the sound was empty. A chill ran through him, as he waited. The night itself was not cold, but he longed for warmth. The touch of a hand, breath on his skin. His fingers slid down to the jamb, as the door opened, and he heard rather than saw, when Kyuhyun saw him.
“Zhou Mi.”
His forehead rested against the doorframe, eyes closed as Kyuhyun touched his face.
“Are you hurt? Was there a fight? The moon has passed. Zhou Mi?”
“Not hurt,” Zhou Mi murmured. “Please. May I come in?”
With Kyuhyun’s help, he stood, taking leaden steps, shivering, into Kyuhyun’s home. It smelled like him, of food, and books, and medicines. It smelled, if he were truly honest with himself, of home. So he needed to know if Kyuhyun felt the same of him. Maybe he could not smell as a wolf could, but he could feel.
“This is what I think it is, isn’t it?” Kyuhyun said, as Zhou Mi sat heavily on a chair.
Kyuhyun was not a stupid man. One of the reasons Zhou Mi was so weak to him. His body, his voice, his mind. His care. Being the alpha of a pack was not meant to be endured alone. A mate was there for emotional support, to run with at the moon, to warm the bed. It was as though half of himself was missing, half his breaths stolen by someone who wasn’t there.
“You waited,” Kyuhyun said, and his voice had taken a hard edge. “Why are you here? I told you I could not be your second choice.”
“I waited to be sure,” Zhou Mi said, bracing himself with one hand on his knee. “I was brought here. Only here.”
Zhou Mi had wondered if the moon would cure him, but he did not say that. It might have bought him a little time, a moon if not more. But when he had woken from his wolf form, he had not recovered.
“What happens if an alpha does not have someone to choose?” Kyuhyun asked, his hand tight on Zhou Mi’s shoulder. “Do you get weaker?”
“It becomes mind over matter,” Zhou Mi said. “If there is rejection, that want is walled off, to protect our minds from it. It might take a day or two. If the pack is in turmoil, that is when an alpha might fall. But that is not the case. They want me to find someone. They would protect me.”
“And yet they leave you here alone with me.” Zhou Mi was silent, reaching to hold Kyuhyun’s arm. Silent long enough that Kyuhyun understood his meaning. “They don’t know you’re here.”
“Only one. It is why I waited. I was not sure what my pack would think, to know their leader has mated to the one healer who can, will, help us?”
“That you’ve supplied a healer for the group? I have been helping you for two years now. Why would that change anything?”
“Some alphas are very possessive. They would not let their mates treat the rest of the pack. A healer is available to all, belongs to none.”
Kyuhyun covered the hand Zhou Mi had wrapped around his arm. “Then are you that type of alpha? Would you want to own me, down to which of the pack I could touch?”
“No.” Zhou Mi had thought so for many months. He’d watched his brothers return, smelling of ointments, and Kyuhyun. The fire that had burned in him had not been that Kyuhyun had touched someone else, but that he had not touched Zhou Mi. The pack was his life, every member of it, and Kyuhyun was outside those ranks. If anything, he would be afforded more respect by what he would be to Zhou Mi. “But it is not done.”
“There is precedent,” Kyuhyun said, and Zhou Mi looked up at him. “Yes. I asked the others to bring me books of your history. Partly, it was to try and figure out how to treat any diseases or wounds, because sometimes that is noted down. But there was one account of an alpha, perhaps your great-great-great grandfather, who mated to a healer. That healer was a woman, and she birthed the babies of the others, and took care of emergencies.”
“And undoubtedly cut her off from healing the rest of the pack at other times. Perhaps that is why my family was so adamant that a healer was off-limits.”
“Perhaps,” Kyuhyun said. “But there is a difference here. He was trying to protect his bloodline. But no matter how many members of the pack I touch, I won’t ever have someone else’s baby.”
The laugh was immediate, at even the thought. Kyuhyun was grinning and Zhou Mi wanted to touch his chin, the bottom curve of his lip. So close, but never close enough. There had been human mates in the past, more than just the healer. As long as one parent had the wolf bloodline, the child was born full blooded. Zhou Mi could think of only two births in all the written history he had read at his father’s knee, where a wolf’s child was born human. But as Kyuhyun said, there would be no danger in that. And because Kyuhyun’s preference ran to men, Zhou Mi would never have to worry to find Kyuhyun’s child by surprise.
“Wait here. I’ll make you something to drink,” Kyuhyun said.
So Zhou Mi did, resting against the chair and inhaling deeply. Bitter herbs, he thought, scenting the air. Something sweet. A fruit. A touch had his eyes startling open.
“Drink this,” Kyuhyun urged, holding a mug to his lips. “You’ll feel better.”
It tasted like the things he smelled, bitter and sweet, and he let it flow over his tongue so he could swallow. Kyuhyun set the mug aside as Zhou Mi licked his lips.
“What was it?”
“Herbs. Something to ease what you’re feeling. Something that will relax you.”
As Kyuhyun’s last words were spoken, Zhou Mi’s head began to swim.
“Kyuhyun,” he slurred, as panic gripped him.
“Trust me,” Kyuhyun said, holding Zhou Mi steady. “You’re all right.”
Zhou Mi did. So he breathed against Kyuhyun’s chest, and let himself fade.
***
When Zhou Mi woke, his head was clear, his body free of the pain, and the fever that had plagued him. He blinked at the wall, realizing he was on the floor with a light blanket covering him. His ears strained for sound as he sat up, wondering where Kyuhyun was.
A paper fluttered from his chest, and he grabbed for it.
Find me, it read.
A challenge.
A mating challenge.
Zhou Mi shoved onto his feet. When a werewolf chose his mate, the mate was pursued to the-
Kyuhyun wasn’t a wolf, couldn’t run as another wolf could. Which meant there was only one place he could have gone, to where every mating had taken place for centuries. Kyuhyun had read all of their history. He would know. And by going, it meant that he accepted. That Zhou Mi had one more chance to fight for him.
Zhou Mi nearly stumbled over Donghae going out the front door.
“I heard you stirring. Kyuhyun left! He drove off.”
“I know. Take me to the woods. I have to follow him.”
Donghae’s eyes went bright. “Then he accepted?”
Zhou Mi squeezed his shoulder. “I think so. Not until I hear it from his lips.”
***
Whatever had been in the concoction Kyuhyun had given him had worked. He sent Donghae back alone, went into the woods with a clear head and strong limbs. He could smell Kyuhyun, the passage of leaves and on the trees, and it was fire in him. He opened himself to every scent, letting it guide him. Kyuhyun was waiting for him.
And against a tree, he found Kyuhyun. He could feel the tremble in his arms, closer, closer. Until the light of the waning moon revealed all of Kyuhyun to him. He paced closer, retreating, circling as Kyuhyun watched. There was anxiety in him, and Zhou Mi knew why.
“Why didn’t you tell me of your research?” Zhou Mi asked, because it was the one thing he hadn’t been able to figure out. Why Kyuhyun had kept it from him, when they could have been together long before.
Kyuhyun shook his head. “It didn’t matter if we were the first or the five hundredth to take a chance if it wasn’t your choice. It’s been a year since you seduced me-” Zhou Mi made a sound of protest, and Kyuhyun laughed. “You think it’s not true but it is. That first night you were brought to me bleeding, complaining. But you went stoic when you saw a child was watching.”
Kyuhyun had treated his back, torn open accidentally in a fight. He hadn’t left for four days, drunk on Kyuhyun’s taste and body. And when he’d left, he’d reasoned to himself that he could not go back. There was no future for them, Kyuhyun a human healer in his pack’s confidence.
To continue would have been breaking his family’s rules, breaking the trust of his pack. It didn’t explain the stolen moments, frantic kisses and late-night phone calls where he could have listened to Kyuhyun speak of anything as long as he got to hear Kyuhyun’s voice. And Kyuhyun had known his reservations. They’d tried, six months earlier, a two week break in communication that had ended the day before the full moon with his blood full of light and Kyuhyun welcoming him. He’d stayed with Kyuhyun that time, until the moon took him, leaning against Kyuhyun’s leg and rumbling as Kyuhyun’s fingers dug into his ruff. It had been the first time a human had seen him change.
He’d smelled no fear then, as Kyuhyun had let him out his door. He smelled none then as he reached for Kyuhyun’s hand.
“Become my other,” Zhou Mi said, as their fingers tightened together. “Let no one part us.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said, and followed Zhou Mi into the grove.
Though Kyuhyun had been there already. On the ground was a blanket, spread, and another on it. A backpack, a bottle.
“What?” Kyuhyun asked, when Zhou Mi squeezed his hand. “I wanted to be prepared. I don’t like pine needle burn on my butt.”
“On your knees,” Zhou Mi corrected.
And Kyuhyun was perfect, the way his lips parted and then curved. “Of course. The wolf.”
“Just the man.”
Just the man. Kyuhyun did not stray from him, instead stepping close, pushing Zhou Mi’s sweater from his arms, and lifting at the shirt he wore beneath it. They would be skin to skin, as they had been before, and they would become each other.
It seemed everything in him was thrumming, urging him quick, faster and faster. But he exhaled, drawing Kyuhyun in, breathing against his face. Kyuhyun at any moment could have turned him aside, but at that moment Zhou Mi was unafraid. When his head tilted, Kyuhyun met him, a kiss that sent lust through him like finest gold. For me, there is no other. That, Kyuhyun knew. But it bore repeating.
“What am I?” Zhou Mi asked, as he undid the buttons down Kyuhyun’s chest.
“A wolf?”
“And?”
Kyuhyun hummed, dragging off his undershirt. “My wolf?”
Zhou Mi wanted to grab him for that, to laugh into his neck. But his hands were not steady enough, nor was the breath he spoke on. “Yes. And you? You are…?”
“Yours.”
And Kyuhyun said it, as though it was something very obvious, something they both knew. But despite the tease, Kyuhyun had not released him, holding him by his belt loops, close. He breathed something, that at first Zhou Mi didn’t understand.
Missed you.
Zhou Mi moaned against Kyuhyun’s mouth.
Wherever Kyuhyun wanted to live, whatever he needed to do, Zhou Mi would see it done.
But he knew, had always known, that Kyuhyun realized his responsibility to his pack, and the trust he placed in Kyuhyun.
He spoke softly, letting his voice go rough at the edges as he pulled at Kyuhyun’s jeans.
“I will bite you tonight. When the moon is full and the wolf is me, I will bite your other shoulder. And you will be marked as mine, fully.”
“So until then we could back out?’
Zhou Mi laughed against the side of his neck. “It’s more of a formality. If I had no teeth, you would still be mine.”
“I like your teeth.”
“Me too,” Zhou Mi said.
And he liked so much more of that, like the slide of Kyuhyun’s hands over his back, and the grunt against his mouth as he filled his hands with Kyuhyun’s ass. The little chuckle, the squirm, Kyuhyun as wanting as he was. The light of the moon made Kyuhyun luminous, mouth lush and wet, hair wild from the stroking of his hand. He looked the part, the wolf’s mate. Wild, but tame only for each other. But the light made Kyuhyun’s eyes darker, inscrutable as they kissed and stripped. Zhou Mi knew though, in the right light they glowed brown almost from within, warm and open, and piercing deep. There had never been another person in his life who had seen him so clearly. Perhaps they were different. Perhaps Zhou Mi ran to the moon, and Kyuhyun’s time was in the sun. But even the sun and moon touched and met.
But it was the rightest thing, to kiss across Kyuhyun’s shoulder, breathing deeply and moving until he could kiss the back of Kyuhyun’s neck. The rumble in Zhou Mi’s throat as Kyuhyun’s hips rocked back against him won Zhou Mi a pleased hum. Kyuhyun.
They knelt together.
His breath came more harshly to see the flex of Kyuhyun’s spine the rise of his shoulders as his weight shifted forward onto one hand.
“I’m not even a wolf, and I can hear you breathing,” Kyuhyun said. “Here. Since this isn’t a ritual of pain.”
Zhou Mi took the clumsily offered bottle. Kyuhyun had been prepared. When the laugh threatened, instead he leaned, pressed a kiss between Kyuhyun’s shoulder blades.
“Thank you,” he said. For thinking of them both.
Zhou Mi watched the liquid slide down Kyuhyun’s skin, and felt the shivering begin anew. The urge to be in movement, to claim. But he had to keep his control, just a little longer. Just long enough-
The kiss of the cold lube was a relief to his burning body, but the grip of Kyuhyun’s was a flame. He keened, and Kyuhyun’s hips shifted beneath his hands, to let him him in, to bring him deeper.
“Kyuhyun, I might not-“ Zhou Mi gasped.
But Kyuhyun’s answer was immediate. “Don’t stop.”
Or slow, or hold back. The shallow lift of his hips he took until he could go no further.
He rested his lips against Kyuhyun’s back for a long moment, as long as it took to wrap his arm around Kyuhyun’s torso, as the other braced himself against the blanket. It was his caution to Kyuhyun, even to himself.
He took.
The forest around them faded, the blanket under them. All he could smell was Kyuhyun’s sweat, Kyuhyun’s arousal, and the taste of him on his lips. All he could feel was Kyuhyun’s skin, and the welcoming grip of him. To his eyes, he saw Kyuhyun’s head, lowered and braced, his fingers tight in cloth as he met Zhou Mi thrust for thrust. And Kyuhyun’s moans, the audible and quietest of all, the flint to his stone. Against his fingers, he felt Kyuhyun’s need, and he braced himself for the marking.
The taste of Kyuhyun’s sweat and skin shuddered through him. He knew the pain would be there. There was no way to escape it. It was his mark, his promise.
“Zhou Mi,” Kyuhyun moaned. Acceptance as Zhou Mi bit, the feel of the give of skin, smelling blood. Not a deep or savage bite, but a mark. The semi-circle was right in front of him, and it drove him as much as Kyuhyun’s exhales, every one a moan in their own right. Not of pain, except of being denied. He could see Kyuhyun’s face in his mind, the curl of his lip, the damp of his skin. The way he gasped against Zhou Mi’s lips.
But it was Zhou Mi gasping against Kyuhyun’s back, moans as short as the motion of his hips. Only a little longer to stay strong. Only a little longer not to press Kyuhyun onto his stomach on accident, to box in the knowledge that one more lost drop of control and he would not even be himself.
All there was, all there could be, was Kyuhyun’s body that he sank into, and that he stroked. The scent and heat and moans, as their bodies rocked together.
He bit again, but it wasn’t to mark, but to feel. The edge of his control slipping away as Kyuhyun gasped. He could feel the tightening of Kyuhyun’s stomach, the beating of his heart, uneven breaths. And then, as Kyuhyun stiffened in his arms, coming over his hand.
And with a growl of satisfaction, his mate, Zhou Mi’s body followed. Too full of pleasure for sound, nearly without breath. Body flushing as a shiver went down his spine as he realized in a moment that their lives were forever intertwined. If he’d had the wherewithal to have laughed, he might have. Not out of humor, but of relief.
Minutes later, when he wondered if he could just go through life glued to Kyuhyun’s back, he heard, “Is my shoulder bleeding?”
Zhou Mi laughed against Kyuhyun’s skin. “No, darling.”
But as they creaked and groaned until they were lying down and facing each other - the blanket-covered ground was significantly harder than a mattress - Zhou Mi guided Kyuhyun’s hand so he could feel the little welts where the skin had been broken.
“Straight. You must have a good dentist,” Kyuhyun teased, nudging his nose against Zhou Mi’s.
“They’re not deep. I have very fine control,” Zhou Mi told him.
“Because you go around biting people every day.”
“Every other day,” Zhou Mi said, as they huffed against each other, laughing.
It was Zhou Mi’s shoulder then that Kyuhyun touched, his side, his face. He leaned into the touch, letting Kyuhyun feel him. It steadied him, had from the moment that Kyuhyun had not backed down from Zhou Mi’s stare - and told Zhou Mi that he could trust him. Kyuhyun healed his pack. Kyuhyun, and his herbs, and his words.
“How do you feel, now that it’s done?”
Zhou Mi thought for a moment, a very short moment since all he really wanted to do was gather Kyuhyun against him and sleep.
“Do you want the sappy answer, or the real answer?”
“The real answer,” Kyuhyun said, without even hesitating.
With two fingers, he smoothed back a lock of Kyuhyun’s hair off of his eyebrow. The two answers were the same. “Strong. Complete.”
“We had sex. And you bit me. You couldn’t even walk before. What kind of physiological response-“
A fingertip, gentle against Kyuhyun’s lower lip, stopped the questions. “I don’t know. It could be there’s nothing physical about it. It’s something deeper than that. Plus, a very skilled healer I know gave me medicine.”
“Nothing that would last this long.”
“Made weak by my lack. Strong, because I knew I was coming to find you. And because you’re here. Can we puzzle this out later?”
He’d taken it by faith, that either Kyuhyun would accept him and his curse of weakness would be lifted, or he would lift it from himself in Kyuhyun’s absence. That he felt as though he could take on the world, after Kyuhyun had rightly said he could barely walk, he did not question. Whether it had been his body or his mind, or if the wolf inside him had settled, he did not know. Did not at that moment care, as Kyuhyun’s arm tightened around his ribs. With Kyuhyun’s bag as their pillow, it was them and the moon, and that was enough.
But he roused not an hour later. Not because of the chill his skin was beginning to feel, but the sounds. Kyuhyun woke with him, but for a different reason.
“Wuh?” Kyuhyun asked, as Zhou Mi first poked his side and then began tickling him.
“Where is the second blanket?”
“There,” Kyuhyun said, and began helping Zhou Mi scrabble it closer with his fingertips. “Why?”
It took artful swirling, but he got them both covered. He rubbed his hand up and down Kyuhyun’s thigh, humming to himself. His skin was cool, so the blanket had been needed anyway.
“Zhou Mi? Why?”
“Part of the pack is coming, through the woods,” Zhou Mi said, nuzzling into Kyuhyun’s cheek.
Part of Kyuhyun’s words of protest were cut off as their hips shifted together.
“People are- And you can still think about sex?” Kyuhyun breathed.
“There’s no danger,” Zhou Mi said. “I only covered us because you are only mine to see like this.”
“They can hear-“
“And smell,” Zhou Mi confirmed, feeling Kyuhyun groan. “If they had wanted to be protected from this, they would not be here. They are making sure of my choice. That is all. Even if they couldn’t smell, they’d know.”
“That’s different.”
He turned Kyuhyun’s head away, kissing up his neck to breathe near his ear. It would be Zhou Mi’s fight.
“Leave us,” he said, when he knew they were close enough to hear, but still they approached, until Zhou Mi could see.
“The healer is forbidden.”
And there was fear in that, for all their sakes.
“But the bite is done,” Zhou Mi said. “He will still be your healer tomorrow. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave us.”
Zhou Mi was their leader. His choice would be their choice. If they disagreed, and they were entitled to, he would not fight them on his mating night. He accepted their nods, and their apprehension, and nervous smiles, and stayed quiet. He’d said all he needed to.
So he waited, kissing Kyuhyun’s cheekbone, as they listened to the footsteps retreating.
“I’m glad I couldn’t see who all that was, so I won’t have to fear looking them in the eye,” Kyuhyun said.
“They won’t dare to bring it up to you,” Zhou Mi told him.
“They listened to you.”
“They respect me. I respect you.”
Kyuhyun kissed him, slow, lingering soft at his lips. “I’ll make sure to shower off their scent as best as I can if I help them.”
Kyuhyun held him at the neck as they clung together. Kisses, the cradle of Kyuhyun’s body. It was something Zhou Mi had waited long years for, his mate. Maybe Kyuhyun would never be a wolf unless he chose it, but he would be the wolf’s. He was already.
“How auspicious is a pregnancy resulting from the mating?”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows winged up as he froze. “Is there something you aren’t telling me? Very auspicious. Many think a wolf born from that union will grow to be the strongest of his or her generation.”
“Isn’t that how you were born?”
Oh. Oh, he saw what Kyuhyun meant. Yes, he had his own pack, but unlike those predictions, he was not the strongest, and not the smartest. But he was a leader. That, from the star he’d been born under, had been foretold. He was the first in generations to bring a healer into his pack, and it pleased him.
There was pride in it, the curve of Kyuhyun’s lips. And he had to think, had his parents still been alive, that they would have approved of his choice.
***
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Genre: AU, smut, werewolf
Warnings: sexual situations
Summary: Perhaps Zhou Mi ran to the moon, and Kyuhyun’s time was in the sun. But even the sun and moon touched and met.
***
He waited on the moon to give him his answer. It rose, gold and ripe, and Zhou Mi’s paws stretched out before him. The forest smelled of night, wet, as the hoot of an owl caused his ears to twitch. He was full. They had hunted well that night. His pack was cared for, bedded down in a pile of wolf flesh as they dreamed dreams of great chases and desperate fights. For Zhou Mi, there were no dreams. His focus was the door of a house not far from the forest edge.
He’d kept himself from bringing a hunk of meat in his jaws to leave on the doorstep. It would not have been appreciated, that he knew.
That he was at the house of a human, not to feed or be fed, was telling. He was there to guard. So he rested his chin on his paws and waited for the dawn.
***
Zhou Mi wanted answers, and they were not ones that time would give him. That he had to be helped into the car was an embarrassment to him, not even being able to walk on his own, dizzy and flushed. All he wanted was that familiar doorway he’d seen days ago, and the one he’d kept himself from for almost a month before that.
“Take me to him,” Zhou Mi ordered Donghae. He was the only one Zhou Mi could think of who would take him, even though he knew why Zhou Mi was ill.
“But-“
“I know I told you never to, even if I begged, even if...”
“You were dying?”
Zhou Mi laughed, resting his head back against the passenger’s seat of the car.
“Thankfully that isn’t the case this time.”
It could have been, perhaps, but it wasn’t. Intensely uncomfortable, like a buzzing in his head that he couldn’t control. He didn’t understand why in the process of becoming strong, it was necessary for him to become so weak. The moon had passed days ago, so there was to be no relief even from that. He could not smell Kyuhyun from far away, but it seemed like he could feel his presence getting nearer. He wanted to leap from the car and run, as though the car was hindering his progress, inhibiting his senses. There was no guarantee that Kyuhyun would accept him, even as he stared at the pathway to the door that would lead Zhou Mi to him.
“Wait here,” Zhou Mi told Donghae. “I’ll go in myself.”
“But-”
“If he does not accept, I’ll call for you. But for now, wait.”
He wanted no one to witness what would happen between them. If the pack knew he was there, there would be chaos. But the decision was for him and Kyuhyun to make alone. It would impact the pack, but it was not their life that would be most changed.
He walked, and when he could walk no further, crawled, as though the wolf in him was begging in supplication. The stone of the walkway to Kyuhyun’s front door dug into his palms and his knees, and his eyes were fixed there, on the wood where his knuckles would sound. And when they did, the sound was empty. A chill ran through him, as he waited. The night itself was not cold, but he longed for warmth. The touch of a hand, breath on his skin. His fingers slid down to the jamb, as the door opened, and he heard rather than saw, when Kyuhyun saw him.
“Zhou Mi.”
His forehead rested against the doorframe, eyes closed as Kyuhyun touched his face.
“Are you hurt? Was there a fight? The moon has passed. Zhou Mi?”
“Not hurt,” Zhou Mi murmured. “Please. May I come in?”
With Kyuhyun’s help, he stood, taking leaden steps, shivering, into Kyuhyun’s home. It smelled like him, of food, and books, and medicines. It smelled, if he were truly honest with himself, of home. So he needed to know if Kyuhyun felt the same of him. Maybe he could not smell as a wolf could, but he could feel.
“This is what I think it is, isn’t it?” Kyuhyun said, as Zhou Mi sat heavily on a chair.
Kyuhyun was not a stupid man. One of the reasons Zhou Mi was so weak to him. His body, his voice, his mind. His care. Being the alpha of a pack was not meant to be endured alone. A mate was there for emotional support, to run with at the moon, to warm the bed. It was as though half of himself was missing, half his breaths stolen by someone who wasn’t there.
“You waited,” Kyuhyun said, and his voice had taken a hard edge. “Why are you here? I told you I could not be your second choice.”
“I waited to be sure,” Zhou Mi said, bracing himself with one hand on his knee. “I was brought here. Only here.”
Zhou Mi had wondered if the moon would cure him, but he did not say that. It might have bought him a little time, a moon if not more. But when he had woken from his wolf form, he had not recovered.
“What happens if an alpha does not have someone to choose?” Kyuhyun asked, his hand tight on Zhou Mi’s shoulder. “Do you get weaker?”
“It becomes mind over matter,” Zhou Mi said. “If there is rejection, that want is walled off, to protect our minds from it. It might take a day or two. If the pack is in turmoil, that is when an alpha might fall. But that is not the case. They want me to find someone. They would protect me.”
“And yet they leave you here alone with me.” Zhou Mi was silent, reaching to hold Kyuhyun’s arm. Silent long enough that Kyuhyun understood his meaning. “They don’t know you’re here.”
“Only one. It is why I waited. I was not sure what my pack would think, to know their leader has mated to the one healer who can, will, help us?”
“That you’ve supplied a healer for the group? I have been helping you for two years now. Why would that change anything?”
“Some alphas are very possessive. They would not let their mates treat the rest of the pack. A healer is available to all, belongs to none.”
Kyuhyun covered the hand Zhou Mi had wrapped around his arm. “Then are you that type of alpha? Would you want to own me, down to which of the pack I could touch?”
“No.” Zhou Mi had thought so for many months. He’d watched his brothers return, smelling of ointments, and Kyuhyun. The fire that had burned in him had not been that Kyuhyun had touched someone else, but that he had not touched Zhou Mi. The pack was his life, every member of it, and Kyuhyun was outside those ranks. If anything, he would be afforded more respect by what he would be to Zhou Mi. “But it is not done.”
“There is precedent,” Kyuhyun said, and Zhou Mi looked up at him. “Yes. I asked the others to bring me books of your history. Partly, it was to try and figure out how to treat any diseases or wounds, because sometimes that is noted down. But there was one account of an alpha, perhaps your great-great-great grandfather, who mated to a healer. That healer was a woman, and she birthed the babies of the others, and took care of emergencies.”
“And undoubtedly cut her off from healing the rest of the pack at other times. Perhaps that is why my family was so adamant that a healer was off-limits.”
“Perhaps,” Kyuhyun said. “But there is a difference here. He was trying to protect his bloodline. But no matter how many members of the pack I touch, I won’t ever have someone else’s baby.”
The laugh was immediate, at even the thought. Kyuhyun was grinning and Zhou Mi wanted to touch his chin, the bottom curve of his lip. So close, but never close enough. There had been human mates in the past, more than just the healer. As long as one parent had the wolf bloodline, the child was born full blooded. Zhou Mi could think of only two births in all the written history he had read at his father’s knee, where a wolf’s child was born human. But as Kyuhyun said, there would be no danger in that. And because Kyuhyun’s preference ran to men, Zhou Mi would never have to worry to find Kyuhyun’s child by surprise.
“Wait here. I’ll make you something to drink,” Kyuhyun said.
So Zhou Mi did, resting against the chair and inhaling deeply. Bitter herbs, he thought, scenting the air. Something sweet. A fruit. A touch had his eyes startling open.
“Drink this,” Kyuhyun urged, holding a mug to his lips. “You’ll feel better.”
It tasted like the things he smelled, bitter and sweet, and he let it flow over his tongue so he could swallow. Kyuhyun set the mug aside as Zhou Mi licked his lips.
“What was it?”
“Herbs. Something to ease what you’re feeling. Something that will relax you.”
As Kyuhyun’s last words were spoken, Zhou Mi’s head began to swim.
“Kyuhyun,” he slurred, as panic gripped him.
“Trust me,” Kyuhyun said, holding Zhou Mi steady. “You’re all right.”
Zhou Mi did. So he breathed against Kyuhyun’s chest, and let himself fade.
***
When Zhou Mi woke, his head was clear, his body free of the pain, and the fever that had plagued him. He blinked at the wall, realizing he was on the floor with a light blanket covering him. His ears strained for sound as he sat up, wondering where Kyuhyun was.
A paper fluttered from his chest, and he grabbed for it.
Find me, it read.
A challenge.
A mating challenge.
Zhou Mi shoved onto his feet. When a werewolf chose his mate, the mate was pursued to the-
Kyuhyun wasn’t a wolf, couldn’t run as another wolf could. Which meant there was only one place he could have gone, to where every mating had taken place for centuries. Kyuhyun had read all of their history. He would know. And by going, it meant that he accepted. That Zhou Mi had one more chance to fight for him.
Zhou Mi nearly stumbled over Donghae going out the front door.
“I heard you stirring. Kyuhyun left! He drove off.”
“I know. Take me to the woods. I have to follow him.”
Donghae’s eyes went bright. “Then he accepted?”
Zhou Mi squeezed his shoulder. “I think so. Not until I hear it from his lips.”
***
Whatever had been in the concoction Kyuhyun had given him had worked. He sent Donghae back alone, went into the woods with a clear head and strong limbs. He could smell Kyuhyun, the passage of leaves and on the trees, and it was fire in him. He opened himself to every scent, letting it guide him. Kyuhyun was waiting for him.
And against a tree, he found Kyuhyun. He could feel the tremble in his arms, closer, closer. Until the light of the waning moon revealed all of Kyuhyun to him. He paced closer, retreating, circling as Kyuhyun watched. There was anxiety in him, and Zhou Mi knew why.
“Why didn’t you tell me of your research?” Zhou Mi asked, because it was the one thing he hadn’t been able to figure out. Why Kyuhyun had kept it from him, when they could have been together long before.
Kyuhyun shook his head. “It didn’t matter if we were the first or the five hundredth to take a chance if it wasn’t your choice. It’s been a year since you seduced me-” Zhou Mi made a sound of protest, and Kyuhyun laughed. “You think it’s not true but it is. That first night you were brought to me bleeding, complaining. But you went stoic when you saw a child was watching.”
Kyuhyun had treated his back, torn open accidentally in a fight. He hadn’t left for four days, drunk on Kyuhyun’s taste and body. And when he’d left, he’d reasoned to himself that he could not go back. There was no future for them, Kyuhyun a human healer in his pack’s confidence.
To continue would have been breaking his family’s rules, breaking the trust of his pack. It didn’t explain the stolen moments, frantic kisses and late-night phone calls where he could have listened to Kyuhyun speak of anything as long as he got to hear Kyuhyun’s voice. And Kyuhyun had known his reservations. They’d tried, six months earlier, a two week break in communication that had ended the day before the full moon with his blood full of light and Kyuhyun welcoming him. He’d stayed with Kyuhyun that time, until the moon took him, leaning against Kyuhyun’s leg and rumbling as Kyuhyun’s fingers dug into his ruff. It had been the first time a human had seen him change.
He’d smelled no fear then, as Kyuhyun had let him out his door. He smelled none then as he reached for Kyuhyun’s hand.
“Become my other,” Zhou Mi said, as their fingers tightened together. “Let no one part us.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun said, and followed Zhou Mi into the grove.
Though Kyuhyun had been there already. On the ground was a blanket, spread, and another on it. A backpack, a bottle.
“What?” Kyuhyun asked, when Zhou Mi squeezed his hand. “I wanted to be prepared. I don’t like pine needle burn on my butt.”
“On your knees,” Zhou Mi corrected.
And Kyuhyun was perfect, the way his lips parted and then curved. “Of course. The wolf.”
“Just the man.”
Just the man. Kyuhyun did not stray from him, instead stepping close, pushing Zhou Mi’s sweater from his arms, and lifting at the shirt he wore beneath it. They would be skin to skin, as they had been before, and they would become each other.
It seemed everything in him was thrumming, urging him quick, faster and faster. But he exhaled, drawing Kyuhyun in, breathing against his face. Kyuhyun at any moment could have turned him aside, but at that moment Zhou Mi was unafraid. When his head tilted, Kyuhyun met him, a kiss that sent lust through him like finest gold. For me, there is no other. That, Kyuhyun knew. But it bore repeating.
“What am I?” Zhou Mi asked, as he undid the buttons down Kyuhyun’s chest.
“A wolf?”
“And?”
Kyuhyun hummed, dragging off his undershirt. “My wolf?”
Zhou Mi wanted to grab him for that, to laugh into his neck. But his hands were not steady enough, nor was the breath he spoke on. “Yes. And you? You are…?”
“Yours.”
And Kyuhyun said it, as though it was something very obvious, something they both knew. But despite the tease, Kyuhyun had not released him, holding him by his belt loops, close. He breathed something, that at first Zhou Mi didn’t understand.
Missed you.
Zhou Mi moaned against Kyuhyun’s mouth.
Wherever Kyuhyun wanted to live, whatever he needed to do, Zhou Mi would see it done.
But he knew, had always known, that Kyuhyun realized his responsibility to his pack, and the trust he placed in Kyuhyun.
He spoke softly, letting his voice go rough at the edges as he pulled at Kyuhyun’s jeans.
“I will bite you tonight. When the moon is full and the wolf is me, I will bite your other shoulder. And you will be marked as mine, fully.”
“So until then we could back out?’
Zhou Mi laughed against the side of his neck. “It’s more of a formality. If I had no teeth, you would still be mine.”
“I like your teeth.”
“Me too,” Zhou Mi said.
And he liked so much more of that, like the slide of Kyuhyun’s hands over his back, and the grunt against his mouth as he filled his hands with Kyuhyun’s ass. The little chuckle, the squirm, Kyuhyun as wanting as he was. The light of the moon made Kyuhyun luminous, mouth lush and wet, hair wild from the stroking of his hand. He looked the part, the wolf’s mate. Wild, but tame only for each other. But the light made Kyuhyun’s eyes darker, inscrutable as they kissed and stripped. Zhou Mi knew though, in the right light they glowed brown almost from within, warm and open, and piercing deep. There had never been another person in his life who had seen him so clearly. Perhaps they were different. Perhaps Zhou Mi ran to the moon, and Kyuhyun’s time was in the sun. But even the sun and moon touched and met.
But it was the rightest thing, to kiss across Kyuhyun’s shoulder, breathing deeply and moving until he could kiss the back of Kyuhyun’s neck. The rumble in Zhou Mi’s throat as Kyuhyun’s hips rocked back against him won Zhou Mi a pleased hum. Kyuhyun.
They knelt together.
His breath came more harshly to see the flex of Kyuhyun’s spine the rise of his shoulders as his weight shifted forward onto one hand.
“I’m not even a wolf, and I can hear you breathing,” Kyuhyun said. “Here. Since this isn’t a ritual of pain.”
Zhou Mi took the clumsily offered bottle. Kyuhyun had been prepared. When the laugh threatened, instead he leaned, pressed a kiss between Kyuhyun’s shoulder blades.
“Thank you,” he said. For thinking of them both.
Zhou Mi watched the liquid slide down Kyuhyun’s skin, and felt the shivering begin anew. The urge to be in movement, to claim. But he had to keep his control, just a little longer. Just long enough-
The kiss of the cold lube was a relief to his burning body, but the grip of Kyuhyun’s was a flame. He keened, and Kyuhyun’s hips shifted beneath his hands, to let him him in, to bring him deeper.
“Kyuhyun, I might not-“ Zhou Mi gasped.
But Kyuhyun’s answer was immediate. “Don’t stop.”
Or slow, or hold back. The shallow lift of his hips he took until he could go no further.
He rested his lips against Kyuhyun’s back for a long moment, as long as it took to wrap his arm around Kyuhyun’s torso, as the other braced himself against the blanket. It was his caution to Kyuhyun, even to himself.
He took.
The forest around them faded, the blanket under them. All he could smell was Kyuhyun’s sweat, Kyuhyun’s arousal, and the taste of him on his lips. All he could feel was Kyuhyun’s skin, and the welcoming grip of him. To his eyes, he saw Kyuhyun’s head, lowered and braced, his fingers tight in cloth as he met Zhou Mi thrust for thrust. And Kyuhyun’s moans, the audible and quietest of all, the flint to his stone. Against his fingers, he felt Kyuhyun’s need, and he braced himself for the marking.
The taste of Kyuhyun’s sweat and skin shuddered through him. He knew the pain would be there. There was no way to escape it. It was his mark, his promise.
“Zhou Mi,” Kyuhyun moaned. Acceptance as Zhou Mi bit, the feel of the give of skin, smelling blood. Not a deep or savage bite, but a mark. The semi-circle was right in front of him, and it drove him as much as Kyuhyun’s exhales, every one a moan in their own right. Not of pain, except of being denied. He could see Kyuhyun’s face in his mind, the curl of his lip, the damp of his skin. The way he gasped against Zhou Mi’s lips.
But it was Zhou Mi gasping against Kyuhyun’s back, moans as short as the motion of his hips. Only a little longer to stay strong. Only a little longer not to press Kyuhyun onto his stomach on accident, to box in the knowledge that one more lost drop of control and he would not even be himself.
All there was, all there could be, was Kyuhyun’s body that he sank into, and that he stroked. The scent and heat and moans, as their bodies rocked together.
He bit again, but it wasn’t to mark, but to feel. The edge of his control slipping away as Kyuhyun gasped. He could feel the tightening of Kyuhyun’s stomach, the beating of his heart, uneven breaths. And then, as Kyuhyun stiffened in his arms, coming over his hand.
And with a growl of satisfaction, his mate, Zhou Mi’s body followed. Too full of pleasure for sound, nearly without breath. Body flushing as a shiver went down his spine as he realized in a moment that their lives were forever intertwined. If he’d had the wherewithal to have laughed, he might have. Not out of humor, but of relief.
Minutes later, when he wondered if he could just go through life glued to Kyuhyun’s back, he heard, “Is my shoulder bleeding?”
Zhou Mi laughed against Kyuhyun’s skin. “No, darling.”
But as they creaked and groaned until they were lying down and facing each other - the blanket-covered ground was significantly harder than a mattress - Zhou Mi guided Kyuhyun’s hand so he could feel the little welts where the skin had been broken.
“Straight. You must have a good dentist,” Kyuhyun teased, nudging his nose against Zhou Mi’s.
“They’re not deep. I have very fine control,” Zhou Mi told him.
“Because you go around biting people every day.”
“Every other day,” Zhou Mi said, as they huffed against each other, laughing.
It was Zhou Mi’s shoulder then that Kyuhyun touched, his side, his face. He leaned into the touch, letting Kyuhyun feel him. It steadied him, had from the moment that Kyuhyun had not backed down from Zhou Mi’s stare - and told Zhou Mi that he could trust him. Kyuhyun healed his pack. Kyuhyun, and his herbs, and his words.
“How do you feel, now that it’s done?”
Zhou Mi thought for a moment, a very short moment since all he really wanted to do was gather Kyuhyun against him and sleep.
“Do you want the sappy answer, or the real answer?”
“The real answer,” Kyuhyun said, without even hesitating.
With two fingers, he smoothed back a lock of Kyuhyun’s hair off of his eyebrow. The two answers were the same. “Strong. Complete.”
“We had sex. And you bit me. You couldn’t even walk before. What kind of physiological response-“
A fingertip, gentle against Kyuhyun’s lower lip, stopped the questions. “I don’t know. It could be there’s nothing physical about it. It’s something deeper than that. Plus, a very skilled healer I know gave me medicine.”
“Nothing that would last this long.”
“Made weak by my lack. Strong, because I knew I was coming to find you. And because you’re here. Can we puzzle this out later?”
He’d taken it by faith, that either Kyuhyun would accept him and his curse of weakness would be lifted, or he would lift it from himself in Kyuhyun’s absence. That he felt as though he could take on the world, after Kyuhyun had rightly said he could barely walk, he did not question. Whether it had been his body or his mind, or if the wolf inside him had settled, he did not know. Did not at that moment care, as Kyuhyun’s arm tightened around his ribs. With Kyuhyun’s bag as their pillow, it was them and the moon, and that was enough.
But he roused not an hour later. Not because of the chill his skin was beginning to feel, but the sounds. Kyuhyun woke with him, but for a different reason.
“Wuh?” Kyuhyun asked, as Zhou Mi first poked his side and then began tickling him.
“Where is the second blanket?”
“There,” Kyuhyun said, and began helping Zhou Mi scrabble it closer with his fingertips. “Why?”
It took artful swirling, but he got them both covered. He rubbed his hand up and down Kyuhyun’s thigh, humming to himself. His skin was cool, so the blanket had been needed anyway.
“Zhou Mi? Why?”
“Part of the pack is coming, through the woods,” Zhou Mi said, nuzzling into Kyuhyun’s cheek.
Part of Kyuhyun’s words of protest were cut off as their hips shifted together.
“People are- And you can still think about sex?” Kyuhyun breathed.
“There’s no danger,” Zhou Mi said. “I only covered us because you are only mine to see like this.”
“They can hear-“
“And smell,” Zhou Mi confirmed, feeling Kyuhyun groan. “If they had wanted to be protected from this, they would not be here. They are making sure of my choice. That is all. Even if they couldn’t smell, they’d know.”
“That’s different.”
He turned Kyuhyun’s head away, kissing up his neck to breathe near his ear. It would be Zhou Mi’s fight.
“Leave us,” he said, when he knew they were close enough to hear, but still they approached, until Zhou Mi could see.
“The healer is forbidden.”
And there was fear in that, for all their sakes.
“But the bite is done,” Zhou Mi said. “He will still be your healer tomorrow. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave us.”
Zhou Mi was their leader. His choice would be their choice. If they disagreed, and they were entitled to, he would not fight them on his mating night. He accepted their nods, and their apprehension, and nervous smiles, and stayed quiet. He’d said all he needed to.
So he waited, kissing Kyuhyun’s cheekbone, as they listened to the footsteps retreating.
“I’m glad I couldn’t see who all that was, so I won’t have to fear looking them in the eye,” Kyuhyun said.
“They won’t dare to bring it up to you,” Zhou Mi told him.
“They listened to you.”
“They respect me. I respect you.”
Kyuhyun kissed him, slow, lingering soft at his lips. “I’ll make sure to shower off their scent as best as I can if I help them.”
Kyuhyun held him at the neck as they clung together. Kisses, the cradle of Kyuhyun’s body. It was something Zhou Mi had waited long years for, his mate. Maybe Kyuhyun would never be a wolf unless he chose it, but he would be the wolf’s. He was already.
“How auspicious is a pregnancy resulting from the mating?”
Zhou Mi’s eyebrows winged up as he froze. “Is there something you aren’t telling me? Very auspicious. Many think a wolf born from that union will grow to be the strongest of his or her generation.”
“Isn’t that how you were born?”
Oh. Oh, he saw what Kyuhyun meant. Yes, he had his own pack, but unlike those predictions, he was not the strongest, and not the smartest. But he was a leader. That, from the star he’d been born under, had been foretold. He was the first in generations to bring a healer into his pack, and it pleased him.
There was pride in it, the curve of Kyuhyun’s lips. And he had to think, had his parents still been alive, that they would have approved of his choice.
***