TAEKOOK Under the NEW MOON [Taekook FF]

22 | Your Disgust For Werewolves

"Minghyu!" I screamed, but he was gone.

In his place was an enormous, red-brown wolf with dark, intelligent eyes.
The dream veered off course, like a train jumping the tracks.

This was not the same wolf that I'd dreamed of in another life. This was the great russet wolf I'd stood half a foot from in the meadow, just a week ago. This wolf was gigantic, monstrous, bigger than a bear.

This wolf stared intently at me, trying to convey something vital with his intelligent eyes. The black-brown,
familiar eyes of Minghyu Black.

I woke screaming at the top of my lungs.

I almost expected Jaewoo to come check on me this time. This wasn't my usual screaming. I buried my head in my pillow and tried to muffle the hysterics that my screams were building into. I pressed the cotton tight against my face, wondering if I couldn't also somehow smother the connection I'd just made.

But Jaewoo didn't come in. and eventually I was able to strangle the strange screeching coming out of my
throat.

I remembered it all now—every word that Minghyu had said to me that day on the beach, even the part before he got to the vampires, the "cold ones." Especially that first part.

"Do you know any of our old stories, about where we came from—the Quileutes, I mean?" he asked.

"Not really," I admitted.

"Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood—supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive, like Noah and the ark." He smiled then, to show me how little stock he put in the histories.

"Another legend claims that we descended from wolves—and that the wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them." He smiled. "Then there are the stories about the cold ones." His voice dropped a little lower.

"The cold ones?"

"Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land." Minghyu rolled his eyes.

" Your great-grandfather?"

"He was a tribal elder, like my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf— well, not the wolf really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call
them werewolves."

"Werewolves have enemies?"

"Only one."

There was something stuck in my throat, choking me. I tried to swallow it down, but it was lodged there, un-moving. I tried to spit it out.