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Summary: Every winter, you visit N Seoul Tower to watch the first snowfall. You never knew someone had been watching you too. When a mysterious stranger named Jungkook finally steps out of the snow and into your life, roses begin appearing, bodies start surfacing across Seoul, and your work as a crime scene photographer pulls you closer to a supernatural nightmare tied to obsession, family secrets, and a monster who has known your grief for years.
Pairing: Vampire!Jungkook x Reader
Genre: vampire!au, horror romance, gothic romance, dark romance, supernatural mystery, crime photographer!reader, modern Seoul setting, psychic!reader, serial killer mystery
Word Count: 6k
Warnings: vampires, blood, biting, fangs, murder, crime scenes, stalking, obsession, possessive behaviour, morally grey characters, dark romance themes, manipulation, supernatural glamour, loss of autonomy, grief, parental death, references to mercy killing, supernatural threats, psychic powers, mind invasion, undead shaman, slow burn, intense romantic tension, rose symbolism
you kept the rose - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
“Now he is writing to you.”
The words did not enter your house like sound. They entered like a curse. For a moment, the world beyond the threshold seemed to grow unnaturally still. Snow hovered in the porch light, each pale flake suspended between falling and vanishing, and Jungkook stood on the other side of the salt line with blood at his mouth and the darkness gathered around him like it knew his name. Behind him, the broken garden wall lay half-buried beneath white, the fallen rose staining the snow with a red so vivid it looked like a wound the earth had not yet learned how to close.
You stared at him. Jungkook stared back. For the first time since you had met him, he did not try to soften the horror of what he had said. He did not dress it in velvet. He did not lower his voice until terror became seduction. He let the truth stand between you, ugly and breathing, because you had demanded truth and now the night had answered.
Your fingers tightened around the candle.
“Explain.”
One word. It left your mouth cold, clean, and sharp.
Jungkook’s eyes moved from your face to the house behind you, to the cracked mirror at the end of the hallway, the iron above the door, the salt at the threshold, the thin thread of smoke still rising from the rosemary in your hand. You could see him measuring all of it. Not as a man measuring weakness, but as a creature realising he had mistaken an old locked door for an ordinary wall.
“You resisted the echo,” he said.
You did not blink.
“I did more than resist it.”
“Yes.” His gaze returned to you. “You rejected it.”
The owl charm at your throat was warm now, no longer cold enough to warn you, no longer burning with the force it had carried when the thing outside your window had pressed its voice through the glass. It rested against your skin like a small, watchful heart.
“And that matters because?”
“Because most people do not.”
“Most people do not have undead things singing opera into their sitting rooms.”
His mouth did not smile, but something almost human moved through his eyes.
“No,” he said. “They do not.”
You lifted your chin.
“Do not give me pieces. I warned you already.”
Jungkook looked down at the salt line. The faint smoke at the toe of his shoe had died, but he still did not move closer. For once, you could feel his restraint like another presence on the porch. It was not comfortable. It was not gentle. It was a hungry animal chained at his heel, watching you through his eyes.
“Jin sends echoes before he comes himself,” he said. “Fragments of his will. His hunger. His music. They test doors, minds, bloodlines. They search for cracks. If they find something interesting, they bring the scent of it back to him.”
Your stomach tightened.
“And I am interesting.”
“To him now, yes.”
The honesty struck harder than a lie would have. You looked past Jungkook to the rose lying in the snow. It had not wilted. It had not darkened with the cold. It remained there, perfect and obscene, as though winter itself refused to touch what Jin had left behind.
“Because I fought back?”
“Because you should not have been able to.”
The words made the house feel smaller. You stepped back from the door, leaving it open but keeping yourself safely behind the salt. The candle trembled in your hand. You hated that. You steadied it.
“Should not have been able to according to whom?”
“According to the dead things he has made. According to the laws I know. According to the way humans are supposed to break when something like that pushes against them.”
You laughed once. It was not amusement. It was disbelief sharpened into a sound.
“How disappointing for all of you.”
Something flickered across his face, quick and dark, almost admiration. You hated that too. Not because you did not want to be admired, but because some part of you still wanted his admiration to mean something. It did not. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Tell me what I am,” you said.
Jungkook went still. The question had lived inside you since the salt held, since the iron obeyed, since the candle answered your voice and the owl warmed against your throat like a living thing. You had been avoiding it because the answer would drag your mother into the room. It would disturb the dead. It would reach backward into a childhood you had already buried and start touching things with cold fingers. But the door was open now. The door between you and Jungkook. The door between the ordinary and the monstrous. The door inside your own blood.
Jungkook looked at the owl charm again.
“You are not a witch,” he said.
The answer loosened something you had not realised you were holding. Then he continued.
“Not in the way people think of witches.”
You narrowed your eyes.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the beginning of one.”
“Then continue.”
He inhaled, though you were not sure he needed to. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was performance. Maybe even monsters reached for human gestures when truth made them uneasy.
“There are bloodlines older than spell books. Older than covens. Older than the pretty names people gave power when they wanted to organise it and pretend it could be controlled. Some people carry sight. Some carry command. Some carry memory. Some carry a veil.”
Your hand moved unconsciously to the charm.
“A veil?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your mind can hide itself. Hide a room. A house. A person. A grief. It means you can make something look ordinary when it is not. You can pull a curtain over power so that hungry things walk past without knowing what they missed.”
The hallway behind you seemed to breathe. Your mother’s voice stirred in memory, soft and distant.
Hide where they cannot look.
You swallowed.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet, and it reached you with the weight of something inevitable. You stared at Jungkook through the open doorway, and the night between you seemed to fill with all the things you had not known. Your mother at the windows during storms. Your mother refusing to keep roses in the house. Your mother touching mirrors with two fingers before turning away. Your mother pressing her forehead to yours whenever you were afraid and whispering words you thought were nonsense.
Little owl, still your wings.
You had thought grief made a saint of her memory. Now you wondered if grief had made you blind.
“She was like me,” you said.
Jungkook’s face changed, subtly but undeniably.
“No,” he said. “You are like her.”
The difference hurt. You looked down at the candle flame. It leaned toward you now, gold and patient.
“What could she do?”
Jungkook’s silence made your skin prickle. You lifted your eyes.
“What could she do?”
“She could read people.”
The room felt colder.
“Thoughts?”
“Not exactly. Truths. Intentions. Hunger. Guilt. Fear. She could see the shape of what someone was hiding even when she did not know the details. She could touch the edge of a mind and know whether it meant harm.”
Your mouth felt dry.
“And the veil?”
“She was very good at it.”
“Good enough to hide me?”
Jungkook’s gaze held yours.
“For years.”
The words left no room for comfort. You stepped back another pace, not from him, but from the idea of your entire life being covered by something you had never understood. Hidden. Protected. Kept beneath a mother’s invisible hand long after that hand had gone cold. You wanted to be grateful. You wanted to be angry. You wanted your mother alive so you could demand why she had left you with charms and instincts instead of answers.
A sound escaped you, small and bitter.
“Everyone keeps deciding what I do not need to know.”
Jungkook did not defend her. That helped. A little.
“You were a child,” he said.
“And now?”
“Now you are not.”
The answer settled between you. Outside, snow continued to fall, covering the footprints Jungkook had left in your garden path. The city beyond him looked too quiet, as though every window had turned its face away from your house, too afraid to witness what came next.
You looked back at him.
“Why would Jin want someone like that?”
Jungkook’s expression darkened.
“Because he does not only collect beauty.”
The red rose in the snow seemed to pulse.
“He collects obedience.”
Your stomach tightened.
“Marionettes.”
The word came out before you meant to say it. Jungkook’s eyes sharpened. You stared at him.
“That is what he wanted, was it not?”
His silence answered first. Then he said,
“Yes.”
The candle flame bent low. You felt something move beneath your ribs, a pressure, a pulse, a slow gathering of old rage.
“Explain.”
Jungkook looked away, toward the dark street, as though the memory lived there waiting for him beneath the lamp.
“Jin believes beauty is wasted on the living,” he said. “The living age. They grieve. They make choices he despises. They love badly, or refuse him, or look away. He cannot bear beauty that does not obey him. So when he finds something he considers rare, he does not always destroy it.”
Your throat tightened.
“He preserves it.”
Jungkook’s jaw flexed.
“That is what he calls it.”
“And what is it?”
He looked back at you.
“Torture.”
The word struck with such simplicity that you almost hated him for saying it plainly. You had wanted truth. You had demanded it. Now it was entering your home piece by piece, and each piece had teeth.
“He turns them?” you asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Into vampires?”
“Not like me.”
The words were careful. Too careful. You stepped toward the threshold again, anger pushing you closer even as sense warned you to stay back.
“Not like you, then how?”
Jungkook’s eyes were black in the porch light.
“Into puppets that do not die when they should. Into vessels that can move, speak, perform, kill, kneel. They remember enough to suffer. Not enough to disobey.”
The candle flame snapped blue. For a moment, the hallway walls seemed to stretch away from you, and something ancient inside your blood recoiled so violently that your hand flew to the owl at your throat.
Your mother. Your father.
Beautiful creatures, you had said. That was what Jin would have thought of them. Your mother with her strange eyes and silent warnings. Your father with his warm hands and tired smile, the man who used to dance with your mother in the kitchen when they thought you were asleep. The man who made Minho roll his eyes by singing off-key. The man who once carried you home when you fell asleep at a family gathering, one hand steady beneath your knees as though you were the most precious and breakable thing in the world.
You heard yourself ask,
“Did he want my parents?”
Jungkook’s face became very still. Too still. Your body knew before your mind accepted it. The house knew too. The floorboards seemed to hold their breath beneath your feet.
“Jungkook.”
He did not answer.
You moved to the edge of the salt line, candle flame trembling violently now.
“Did Jin want my parents?”
His eyes met yours.
“Yes.”
The word did not sound loud. It did not need to. It tore through you anyway. For several seconds, you could not feel your hands. You could not feel the candle. You could not feel the cold from the open door. Everything inside you went silent and white, a snowfield after a scream.
Then sound returned. Your own breathing. The faint tick of the clock. The snow brushing against the porch. Jungkook saying your name.
You lifted the letter opener before you even realised you had moved.
“Do not.”
He stopped. Good.
The fury did not come like fire this time. It came like roots breaking stone. Slow. Deep. Impossible to stop once it had begun.
“My mother,” you said, and your voice sounded distant to your own ears. “My father.”
Jungkook closed his eyes for half a second. That was all. Half a second too long. Your mind caught it. Pulled at it. Saw the flinch beneath the monster.
You stepped closer.
“What happened to them?”
Jungkook opened his eyes.
“I told you there were things you should ask when you were ready.”
“No.” The word cracked. “You do not get to decide readiness after telling me Jin wanted my parents as dolls.”
His expression tightened. You pointed the iron at him, though the salt did more to keep him out than the blade ever could.
“You will answer me now.”
“I found them too late.”
The hallway tilted. Your fingers clenched around the candle, wax spilling hot over your skin. You barely felt it.
“Too late for what?”
Jungkook looked past you into the house, and for a moment his gaze settled on the little ordinary things behind you: the table, the mirror, the hallway that had once carried your parents’ footsteps. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“Too late to stop Jin from touching them.”
The owl charm went cold. You saw nothing at first. Then you saw too much. Not with your eyes. With something behind them.
A room you did not remember, filled with red light. Your mother’s hair loose around her face. Your father’s arms wrapped around her, holding her upright though he was bleeding from the mouth. A song playing somewhere. Opera. Always opera. A man laughing softly, tenderly, as though he had found art where others found agony.
You gasped and staggered back. The vision shattered. Jungkook’s face changed.
“You saw something.”
You clutched the edge of the doorframe.
“What was that?”
“Your blood remembering.”
“No.” You shook your head once, hard. “No, do not make it sound beautiful.”
“It is not beautiful.”
“Good. We agree on one thing.”
Your hands were shaking now, but not with weakness. With power. It moved under your skin like a storm searching for a tree to strike.
“My father fought him,” you said.
Jungkook’s expression told you the answer before he spoke.
“Yes.”
You heard your own breath break. You had always known your father had been brave. Not loudly. Not the kind of brave that demanded witnesses. He had been steady brave. Quiet brave. The kind of man who fixed broken locks, stayed awake when someone was ill, stood between anger and family without raising his voice. Of course he had fought. Of course he had stood between Jin and your mother. Of course he had died there.
No. Not died. Something worse had begun.
You looked at Jungkook again.
“What did Jin do?”
Jungkook’s throat moved.
“He marked them.”
“For turning?”
“For keeping.”
The word made you almost sick. Keeping. As if they were jewellery. As if they were paintings. As if they were not your parents.
“Your mother tried to veil you before he arrived,” Jungkook said. “She knew something was coming. She hid you so deeply that even I could barely sense the house when I reached it. Jin found your parents because he had help.”
Your eyes narrowed through the grief.
“Help.”
Jungkook’s face hardened.
“Elias.”
The name slipped into the room like a dead hand beneath a door. You did not know it. You hated it immediately.
“Who is Elias?”
Jungkook looked toward the street again. This time, you followed his gaze, but there was only snow, darkness, the wounded rose, and the faint glimmer of broken stone near the wall.
“Jin’s right hand,” he said. “His shaman. His hound. His oracle. There are many names for things like him, but none of them are kind enough.”
“A vampire?”
“No.”
“Human?”
“Not anymore.”
Your skin crawled.
Jungkook’s voice lowered. “Elias was a seer before Jin found him. A holy man, some said. A healer, others claimed. I do not know what he truly was. By the time I saw him, Jin had already hollowed him out and filled the empty places with obedience.”
The candle flame dimmed.
“He can find people like me,” you said.
“Yes.”
“People like my mother.”
“Yes.”
The answer entered your chest and stayed there. Jungkook continued,
“He does not need to see with eyes. He senses power through cracks. Grief. Fear. Desire. Blood. If a veil weakens, he can smell the light beneath it.”
You remembered the cemetery. Wet grass. Black umbrellas. Grief so heavy it had made the world blur. You had felt watched that day. You had thought it was sorrow. It had been him. Or Jungkook. Or both.
Your stomach twisted.
“At the cemetery,” you said.
Jungkook’s silence was enough.
Your voice went thin with rage.
“That was why you started watching me.”
“I saw the veil crack.”
“Because I was grieving.”
“Yes.”
“And Elias?”
“He was near.”
The air left your lungs. Jungkook stepped forward instinctively. The salt flared white. He stopped with a sharp inhale, the line burning against him like the house itself had snapped its teeth. Good. Let it burn him. Let something burn him.
“You said you clouded my mind,” you said slowly.
His gaze returned to yours.
“I said there was glamour.”
“No. Do not hide behind vocabulary.” You stepped closer, until the threshold was the only thing between you. “You said fear could become fascination. Want could become obedience. You let that happen to me.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question hung in the cold. Not because you did not already know part of the answer. Because you needed to hear him say it.
Jungkook looked at you for a long moment. Something in him seemed to war with itself, the part that wanted to confess and the part that had survived too long by burying truth where no one could touch it. At last, he said,
“Because my glamour could cover the scent of your power.”
The hallway fell silent. You stared at him.
“Say that again.”
“My presence around you made your power harder for Elias to detect. Vampire glamour is not the same as a veil, but it can smother the light enough to confuse something hunting it.”
Your heartbeat was loud.
“So you hid me.”
“Yes.”
“By invading me.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
The honesty landed like a slap. You stared at him, and for one moment you could see the tragedy he wanted you to see. The danger. The urgency. The creature trying to hide you from something worse. The man making a terrible choice in the dark because there had been no time.
Then you saw the rest. The kiss. The watching. The way he had let you blush when you should have been afraid. The way he had let you think the roses were romance when some of them were threat. The way he had known and known and known.
“You hid me by invading me,” you repeated.
Jungkook did not look away.
“Yes.”
The power beneath your skin pulsed. Your vision sharpened. For one terrible second, Jungkook did not look like a man standing outside your door. He looked like a locked room. A room full of shadows and old blood and memories nailed to the walls. You felt the door inside him. You felt the hinge. You could open it. The knowledge arrived without warning, calm and horrifying.
You could open him. Not with your hands. With your mind.
Jungkook sensed it. His eyes widened slightly. Not fear. Recognition.
“Do not,” he said quietly.
You laughed without humour.
“How interesting. You do know what boundaries are.”
His face went still. The words had struck exactly where you intended. You took one step closer to the threshold, the owl charm burning warm against your throat now, the candle flame rising in answer to the storm inside you.
“You watched me grieve,” you said.
Jungkook’s expression altered.
“Do not.”
“No. You watched me kneel at a grave you helped fill.”
The porch seemed to lose all air. Jungkook stared at you. Blood still marked his mouth. Snow still clung to his hair. He looked beautiful and ruined and monstrous, and you hated every part of him that could still make beauty out of guilt.
“I did not kill them for Jin,” he said.
“But you killed them.”
His silence was the answer. The world went soundless. You had known. The shape of it had already formed from everything he had said, but there was cruelty in confirmation. There was cruelty in the moment when suspicion became fact and grief had to rearrange itself around a new blade.
Your mother had not simply died. Your father had not simply died. Jungkook had been there. Jungkook had ended them. The man at your door. The shadow at your cemetery. The mouth that had kissed you in the snow. The monster who had watched you grieve his mercy.
You raised your hand without thinking. The candle flame leapt. Every window in the house shook. Jungkook did not move. He could have vanished. You knew that now. He could have stepped back into the snow, into the dark, into whatever hidden places monsters used when truth became inconvenient. He stayed. That made you angrier.
“You do not get to stand there like that,” you whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like accepting punishment makes you noble.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“I am not noble.”
“No.” Your voice broke, then hardened again. “You are not.”
The power inside you pushed outward. The salt line shone. The cracked mirror behind you rattled against the wall, and for a moment your reflection blurred. Not your face. Your mother’s. The image lasted less than a heartbeat, but it was enough to steal the breath from you. Dark eyes. Pale mouth. A warning pressed into silence. Then your own reflection returned, split and furious.
Jungkook saw it too. His gaze moved to the mirror.
“She left more in this house than I realised,” he said.
“Do not speak about her.”
“She saved you.”
“I said do not.”
The words struck the air like a command. Jungkook’s mouth closed. The satisfaction was sharp and brief. You needed more. You needed answers that would hurt properly.
“Tell me how,” you said.
His gaze returned to yours.
“How what?”
“How you killed them.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“No.”
The refusal was quiet. Your anger flared.
“No?”
“I will tell you why. I will tell you what Jin had begun. I will tell you what would have happened if I had not. But I will not put the shape of their final moments in your head because you are angry enough to ask for a wound that will never leave you.”
The room trembled.
“You do not get to protect me from grief.”
“No,” he said. “But I can refuse to be cruel with it.”
The answer stopped you. Not because it soothed you. Because it was the first thing he had denied you that did not feel like control. It felt like a line he would not cross, even if you hated him for it. You did hate him for it. A little. You also hated that some part of you understood.
“Tell me why,” you said.
Jungkook’s face lost what little softness remained.
“When I arrived, Jin had already marked them. Your father was still fighting. Your mother had veiled the house so hard it was killing her. She had hidden you, hidden Minho, hidden every trace she could. But Elias had found the edge of her power. He was feeding the location to Jin, thread by thread.”
The hallway seemed to darken around the name. Elias. The Pale Shaman. The thing that had found your mother.
“Jin wanted them awake,” Jungkook continued. “That was the cruelty. He did not want dolls without memory. He wanted them aware enough to know what they had become, aware enough to know they had failed to protect you, aware enough to obey while hating every movement their bodies made.”
Your hand flew to your mouth. Not to remember a kiss this time. To hold back a sound. Jungkook looked down.
“I could not undo what he had started.”
Your eyes burned.
“So you ended it.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely sound. You wanted to strike him. You wanted to scream until every window shattered. You wanted your mother. You wanted your father. You wanted to be five years old again, half-asleep on your father’s shoulder while your mother laughed in the kitchen and Minho complained about the music being too loud. You wanted an ordinary childhood to remain ordinary. You wanted the dead to be dead in simple ways.
But nothing was simple. Nothing had ever been simple. You had merely been veiled from the truth.
“And then?” you asked.
Jungkook looked up.
“What did you do after?”
“I helped the veil hold.”
Your breath caught.
“What?”
“Your mother’s work was collapsing. If it failed completely, Elias would have found you and Minho within the hour. I put my glamour over it. Not inside you then. Around the house. Around the records. Around the grief. I made your family look like tragedy instead of prey.”
The words should have meant something merciful. Instead, they made your life feel even more stolen.
“So every memory after that…”
“No.” He stepped closer, and the salt burned brighter. He stopped but did not step back. “No. Your memories are yours. Your grief was yours. Your life was yours. The veil did not create feelings. It hid power. It made dangerous things look elsewhere.”
You stared at him.
“And at the cemetery?”
His gaze darkened.
“At the cemetery, the grief cracked it.”
Because grief was not neat. Grief did not obey old protection. Grief split people open. And through that split, monsters looked in.
You turned away from him then, not because you trusted him behind you, but because if you looked at him for another second you might reach into his mind and tear out every memory he had tried to spare you.
The sitting room was visible from the hallway, curtains drawn, smoke lingering, the window marked by the place where Jin’s rose had dragged itself down the glass. Your home looked the same and not the same. Smaller. Older. Alive. Your mother had stood in this house and made it a hiding place. You had stood in this house and made it a fortress. Maybe that was inheritance. Not spell books. Not candles. Not pretty magic. Will. Refusal. A mind that could say no loudly enough for the dead to hear.
Behind you, Jungkook spoke carefully.
“Your power is waking now.”
You laughed softly, but the sound was cracked.
“Because you ruined my evening?”
“Because the veil is breaking.”
You turned back. His face was grave.
“Why?”
“Because Jin has noticed you.”
“Because of me?”
“Because of me. Because of the cemetery. Because Elias caught the edge of your grief. Because the echo tested your house and you pushed back. There are too many cracks now.”
You absorbed that. Slowly. Piece by piece.
Then you asked, “Can I fix it?”
“I do not know.”
“Can you?”
“No.”
At least he did not lie. The clock ticked. Outside, the snow fell. Somewhere far away, a siren wailed and faded into the night. You looked at Jungkook for a long moment. He remained outside. Bloodied. Dangerous. Unable to cross. A murderer. A protector. A liar. The thing between you was uglier now, but clearer. That made it worse and better at once.
“Tell me about Elias,” you said.
Jungkook’s expression hardened.
“You need rest.”
Your eyes narrowed. He corrected himself immediately.
“You need to know.”
“Good boy.”
The words left your mouth before you could stop them. For one strange, electric second, the air changed. Jungkook’s eyes darkened, not with anger, and the silence between you sharpened into something dangerous. Not soft. Not forgiven. Not safe. But alive. The part of you still drawn to him moved in the dark, slow and furious, and you wanted to tear it out by the root.
Instead, you let him see that you noticed. Then you gave him nothing. Jungkook lowered his gaze first. A small victory. You took it.
“Elias,” you reminded him.
His voice was rougher when he spoke again.
“Elias does not kill unless Jin commands it. He does worse things. He finds. He listens. He opens doors in minds that should stay locked. If Jin is the hand arranging bodies, Elias is the ear pressed to the world, waiting for power to breathe.”
You hated the image.
“Can he read me?”
“Not fully. Not while the charm holds. Not while your house recognises you. Not while my glamour still clings enough to confuse the trail.”
Your mouth twisted.
“So I still need the thing you did to me.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate. You looked at him. Jungkook’s face was hard, almost angry, though not at you.
“You need protection. That does not mean you need violation. I can teach you what to look for. I can stand outside. I can draw him away if I must. But I will not glamour you again unless you ask me to.”
You stared at him, searching. His gaze did not move.
“Do you expect praise for that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He accepted it. Again. Infuriatingly. You hated that accountability suited him better than seduction.
“Can Elias come inside?” you asked.
“Not tonight.”
“Because of the wards?”
“Because you claimed the house before he could.”
The words stirred something in your chest.
This house is mine, you had said.
And the house had believed you.
“What about Minho?”
The question changed everything. Jungkook’s eyes sharpened, and the cold air seemed to thicken between you.
“What about him?”
You stepped closer to the threshold.
“If Elias can find power through grief, and Minho is my brother, then can he find me through him?”
Jungkook did not answer quickly enough. Your stomach dropped.
“Jungkook.”
“Yes,” he said. “Possibly.”
The world narrowed. You turned immediately toward the little table by the door where your phone sat beside your keys. You grabbed it, nearly dropping the candle in the process, and called Minho.
It rang once. Twice. Three times. Your breath stopped. On the fourth ring, he answered.
“What is wrong?”
His voice was sharp, alert, alive. Your knees nearly weakened with relief, but you locked them.
“Where are you?”
“At the station. Why?”
“Are you alone?”
A pause.
“No. Why are you asking me that?”
You looked at Jungkook. His eyes had fixed on the phone in your hand.
“Has anyone come by asking about the case?”
Minho’s silence changed. Your blood turned cold.
“Minho.”
“There was a man,” he said slowly.
Your grip tightened on the phone.
“What man?”
“I do not know. That is the strange part.”
The owl charm at your throat cooled.
“What do you mean you do not know?”
“I mean I remember him being there, but not his face. Tall, I think. Pale. Maybe grey-haired. Maybe not. He asked if the victim had been identified, then asked who attended the scene.”
The room tilted. You heard your own voice from far away.
“Did he ask about me?”
Another pause. Not long. Long enough.
“He asked whether the civilian witness was family.”
Your eyes closed. Jungkook’s voice was suddenly beside the silence, though he had not moved.
“Tell him to leave the building.”
You opened your eyes.
“Minho, leave the station.”
“What?”
“Leave the station now.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Minho.”
“No. You do not get to call me after acting strange outside a murder scene and start ordering me around without explaining.”
You wanted to scream. You wanted to tell him everything. Vampires. Jin. Elias. Mother. Father. Marionettes. Mercy. The words crowded your throat, impossible and insane.
So you chose the only truth you could give him without sounding mad.
“The man who came to the station may be connected to the killer.”
Minho went silent. When he spoke again, he was no longer your brother first. He was the detective.
“What do you know?”
“Not enough.”
“That is not good enough.”
“I know.” Your voice softened despite the panic. “I know, and I am sorry, but I need you to trust me for one night.”
“I do trust you.”
“Then leave.”
He exhaled harshly. You could picture him perfectly: hand pressed to his forehead, jaw tight, eyes scanning the room around him even while he argued with you. Minho had always been stubborn, but he was not stupid. He heard the fear beneath your command. He heard the sister inside the warning.
“I am going to the car park,” he said at last.
“Do not go alone.”
“I am a detective.”
“And I am your sister,” you snapped. “Take someone with you.”
A beat. Then, quieter,
“Fine.”
You pressed the heel of your hand to your eye.
“Call me when you are in your car. Keep the doors locked. Do not speak to any stranger. Do not look at any roses.”
“Roses?”
Your gaze moved to the red smear on your sitting room window.
“Please.”
That word did what orders could not. Minho’s voice changed.
“I will call you in two minutes.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
The line went dead. The silence afterward was unbearable. You stood with the phone in your hand, the candle in the other, and felt every thread of your life pulling tight at once. Your mother’s veil. Your father’s fight. Minho at the station. Jungkook outside the door. Jin somewhere in the city, smiling over his opera. Elias with no face in your brother’s memory, already asking questions.
You turned to Jungkook.
“If anything happens to him—”
“I know.”
“No, you do not.” Your voice was low. “You think you know because you are old and tragic and full of blood. You do not. Minho is not a loose end in your war. He is not a witness. He is not leverage. He is my brother.”
Jungkook’s face did not change, but his eyes lowered.
“I know.”
“He is all I have left.”
“I know.”
The repetition nearly broke something in you.
“You killed the rest.”
There. The cruelty. The truth. The thing you had wanted to say since he admitted it. Jungkook flinched. Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else to notice. You noticed. Good.
“I did,” he said.
You hated the answer. You would have hated anything else more.
Your phone rang. You answered before the first ring finished.
“Minho?”
“I am in the car.”
You closed your eyes.
“Doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Irene is with me. She thinks I am insane, so thank you for that.”
A broken laugh almost escaped you. It hurt too much, so it turned into breath instead.
“Good.”
“Now tell me what is going on.”
“I cannot yet.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“What does this man look like?”
You looked at Jungkook. He answered softly, knowing Minho could not hear him.
“People remember him differently. That is part of what he is.”
You repeated carefully,
“People remember him differently. You may not be able to trust the face you think you saw.”
Minho went quiet. Too quiet.
“What are you involved in?”
The question landed heavily. You looked at the salt, the iron, the candle, the monster at your door.
“Something Mum tried to keep away from us.”
Minho stopped breathing. You heard it. The tiny rupture in him.
“What did you say?”
Your own throat tightened.
“I found something of hers. I think she knew more than we thought.”
“About the murders?”
“About things like them.”
“That does not make sense.”
“I know.”
“No, you do not know.” His voice sharpened, and there it was, the panic beneath his detective’s control. “You are talking about Mum, and you are talking like she had secrets connected to a murder case, and you are telling me not to look at roses.”
“Minho—”
“No. I want answers.”
“So do I.”
The line fell silent. Then he said, quieter,
“Are you safe?”
You looked at Jungkook. At the salt he could not cross. At the blood on his mouth. At the shame in his eyes.
“No,” you said honestly. “But I am protected.”
Jungkook’s gaze lifted. You did not look away.
Minho exhaled slowly.
“That is not comforting.”
“It was not meant to be.”
“I am coming home.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Minho, listen to me. You cannot come here yet.”
“Why?”
Because a vampire is at my door. Because Jin is watching me. Because our dead mother may have been a psychic shaman who hid us from an undead oracle. Because the man I might need is the man who killed our parents.
You pressed your eyes shut.
“Because if someone followed you, you could lead them here.”
Minho swore under his breath. That meant he understood enough.
“Where do you want me to go?”
You looked at Jungkook.
“Church,” he said quietly. “Old stone if possible. Consecrated ground slows Elias. It will not stop him forever.”
You repeated,
“Find a church. An old one. Stay there with Irene until I call you back.”
Minho was silent for a moment. Then, with the kind of careful calm that told you he was terrified, he said,
“You are scaring me.”
Your heart cracked.
“I am scaring myself.”
Another silence. Then, softly, as though you were children again whispering through the dark after a nightmare, he said,
“I will go.”
“Thank you.”
“But after tonight, you tell me everything.”
You looked at Jungkook.
“Yes,” you said. “After tonight, no more hiding.”
Jungkook’s expression shifted at the words. You did not care. Or you told yourself you did not. Minho ended the call after promising to text you the address of the church. You stood there for a moment with the phone pressed to your palm, listening to your own pulse. Then you placed the phone on the table. Slowly. Deliberately. Because if you moved too quickly, you might throw it. Or scream. Or break every mirror in the house without touching them.
Jungkook spoke first.
“You handled that well.”
Your eyes cut to him.
“Do not compliment me.”
He lowered his head once.
Silence stretched. Outside, the snow began to fall harder, thick and quiet, closing the world around your little house until it felt like the only place that existed. Your anger had not faded. But it had changed shape. It was no longer only aimed at Jungkook. It had grown too large for one target. It wrapped around Jin. Around Elias. Around the truth. Around the dead. Around the child you had been, hidden by a mother who must have known she might not survive. Around Minho, driving through the night toward an old church because monsters had learned his sister’s name.
You looked at Jungkook.
“Why is Jin afraid of me?”
“He is not.”
The answer irritated you. Jungkook continued before you could snap.
“Not yet. Right now, he is curious. That is worse.”
“Why?”
“Fear makes him destroy. Curiosity makes him patient.”
The words moved over your skin like spiders.
“He was curious about my mother.”
“Yes.”
“And my father?”
“Yes.”
“You said he found them beautiful.”
“He did.”
Your jaw tightened.
“I do not want him to find me beautiful.”
Jungkook’s face darkened in a way that was not entirely human.
“He already does.”
The house seemed to grow colder. You stared at him. Something possessive moved across his expression, but this time he caught it. He forced it down. You watched him do it. A small part of you approved. A larger part wanted to slap him for needing the effort.
“Careful,” you said.
He looked at you through the falling snow.
“I know.”
“No. You are learning.” You stepped closer to the salt line. “There is a difference.”
His eyes held yours.
“Yes.”
The word was quiet, but it stayed.
You breathed in slowly.
“Tell me why you are afraid of Jin.”
Jungkook’s face closed. There. A door. A locked room. You felt it again, that strange pressure behind your eyes, the sense that you could push. You could force. You could open the truth with your mind and leave him standing in the wreckage. The thought frightened you. Not because he did not deserve pain. Because you did not want power to make you careless.
That was the first true difference between you and Jin, perhaps. You could open. You chose to ask. For now. Jungkook seemed to understand the choice. He answered.
“Most vampires become less human with time. Hunger takes pieces. Years take pieces. Grief, boredom, cruelty, loneliness. Immortality gives you too much room to become your worst thought.”
“And Jin?”
“Jin was wrong from the beginning.”
The simple horror of that made you still. Jungkook looked down at the snow gathering at his feet.
“He woke hungry, but not only for blood. He wanted control immediately. He wanted rooms arranged around him. Voices lowered for him. Faces turned toward him. He looked at fear like it was applause. He looked at beauty like it was a debt owed to him.”
You thought of the performance hall. The roses. The speakers. The word Imperfect surrounding the dead.
“He never grieved being human?”
“No.” Jungkook’s mouth tightened. “He grieved that humanity had ever limited him.”
A chill passed through you. That was worse than monstrosity. That was worship of it.
“And you were his friend.”
Jungkook’s eyes lifted.
“Once.”
“Why?”
The question was not gentle. He accepted that.
“Because I was new. Because I was angry. Because he was charming when he wanted to be. Because monsters recognise loneliness in each other and sometimes mistake it for loyalty.”
You watched him carefully.
“And then?”
“Then I saw what he did to things he claimed to love.”
Your mother’s face flashed in your mind, not as you remembered her, but as the vision had shown her: hair loose, face pale, power burning itself apart to hide her children. Your hand tightened. Jungkook saw. His voice lowered.
“He wanted your mother because she could see through him.”
The words pierced.
“What?”
“Jin hates being truly seen. Admiration he loves. Fear he enjoys. Desire amuses him. But to be seen without illusion, without worship, without the beauty he performs over the rot…” Jungkook’s gaze sharpened. “That enrages him.”
A bitter satisfaction moved through you.
“My mother saw him.”
“Yes.”
“And he hated her for it.”
“He wanted to own what humiliated him.”
Your stomach turned. That sounded like Jin. It sounded like the kind of evil that did not simply destroy light, but forced light into a cage so it could stare at it forever.
“And my father?”
“Your father stood between them.”
Your throat tightened.
“He would have.”
“He did.”
The respect in Jungkook’s voice hurt. You wanted to reject it. You wanted to tell him he had no right to speak with respect about a man whose life he had ended. But your father deserved respect wherever it came from. So you let the words stand. Only the words. Not forgiveness. Never that easily.
A soft chime broke the silence.
Your phone.
You turned so quickly the candle flame bent sideways. A text from Minho lit the screen.
At St. Bartholomew’s. Irene is with me. Doors locked. You have one hour before I come to you whether you like it or not.
Beneath that, another message appeared. Unknown number. No sender name. No photograph. No preview except two words. Your entire body went cold.
Mother hid.
The phone slipped from your hand. It hit the floor with a dull crack. Jungkook’s eyes snapped to it.
“What is it?”
You could not answer. You stared at the phone lying face-up on the hallway floor. The candle shook in your grip, wax spilling over your fingers. Another message arrived. The screen lit again.
Not well enough.
Jungkook said your name. This time, you barely heard him. The power beneath your skin began to move. Slowly. Ticking. Not like a storm now. Like a bomb.
You bent and picked up the phone with fingers that felt too calm. The unknown messages sat beneath Minho’s, black letters on white light.
Mother hid.Not well enough.
Your breath left you. Then a third message appeared.
Almost perfect.
The house went silent. Every candle flame leaned toward the phone. Jungkook’s face changed with something close to dread.
“Elias,” he said.
The name seemed to crawl along the walls. You stared at the words until they blurred, not with tears, but with something colder.
Almost perfect.
Not imperfect. Almost. The difference was not mercy. It was interest. It was appraisal. It was a hand lifting your chin from the dark, turning your face toward a monster’s eye.
Jungkook stepped forward without thinking. The salt flared. He hissed and stopped. You looked up slowly. Something in your expression made him go still. Good. Let him see it. Let him see what happened when everything your mother had hidden began waking at once.
The cracked mirror behind you gave a soft, terrible sound. Not breaking. Opening. Your reflection darkened, then cleared. But it was not your reflection staring back.
For a moment, the mirror showed a man standing somewhere else entirely. Tall. Pale. Dressed in dark formal clothes that belonged to no decade properly. His eyes were covered by a strip of black silk, but beneath it, you felt him looking. His mouth curved with the faintest smile. Elias. You knew without being told.
The Pale Shaman lifted one finger to his lips. A gesture for silence. Then the mirror filled with steam from nowhere. Letters appeared across it, drawn by an unseen hand.
Little owl.
Your mother’s voice moved through your memory.
Little owl, still your wings.
The power inside you snapped. The mirror exploded outward. Not with glass flying through the room. Inward. As though the reflection itself had shattered. The candles roared blue. The salt lines blazed. The iron above the door screamed against the wood, and every shadow in the hallway fled toward the corners.
You did not move. You did not flinch. You stared at the empty mirror frame, chest rising and falling, phone clenched in your hand. Jungkook’s voice came from the porch, low and urgent.
“What did you see?”
You turned to him. For once, the fear in his eyes was not for himself. That should have mattered. Maybe one day it would. Tonight, you only lifted your chin.
“I saw him.”
Jungkook’s face went deathly still.
“Elias?”
“Yes.”
The word tasted like iron.
“And I think,” you said, your voice quiet with a rage so controlled it almost frightened you, “he saw me too.”
The snow fell harder behind Jungkook, swallowing the street, the broken wall, the rose, the footprints, the night. For one long moment, neither of you spoke.
Then your phone chimed again. You looked down. One final message waited on the screen.
Tell Jungkook I remember the sound your parents made.
The hallway bent. The world narrowed to a single point. The bomb inside you stopped ticking.
Jungkook said your name.
You did not answer. You looked at the salt line. At the threshold. At the monster outside your door. At the man who had killed your parents so Jin could not keep them. Then you looked at the empty mirror frame where Elias had smiled from the dark.
When you spoke, your voice was not loud. It did not need to be.
“Teach me how to find him.”
Jungkook’s eyes darkened.
“That is dangerous.”
You smiled. It was not kind.
“So am I.”
And somewhere deep inside the house, beneath the floorboards, inside the walls, under every old memory your mother had left behind, something ancient opened one eye.
Summary: Every winter, you visit N Seoul Tower to watch the first snowfall. You never knew someone had been watching you too. When a mysterious stranger named Jungkook finally steps out of the snow and into your life, white roses begin appearing, bodies start surfacing across Seoul, and your work as a crime scene photographer pulls you closer to a monster who has loved you from the shadows for years.
Pairing: Vampire!Jungkook x Reader
Genre: vampire!au, horror romance, gothic romance, dark romance, supernatural mystery, crime photographer!reader, modern Seoul setting
Word Count: 14k
Warnings: vampires, blood, biting, fangs, murder, crime scenes, stalking, obsession, possessive behaviour, morally grey characters, dark romance themes, manipulation, supernatural elements, slow burn, intense romantic tension, white rose symbolism
you kept the rose - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
You kept thinking about the way he had looked at you from across the street.
That was the problem.
Not the murder scene. Not the white petal beneath the bench. Not even the impossible connection between the roses in your apartment and the evidence now sitting inside a police file. Those things should have occupied your mind with the force of alarm bells, yet whenever you tried to focus on them, your thoughts returned to Jungkook standing in the snow with his dark coat blending into the winter shadows.
You had smiled at him.
That was the part you could not forgive yourself for.
Not because it was foolish, though it absolutely was. Not because it was reckless, though any sensible person would have called it that too. It bothered you because the smile had not been accidental. It had not slipped from you in confusion or panic. You had known exactly what you were doing when your eyes found his through the falling snow, and despite everything he had admitted, despite the roses, despite the note, despite the terrible possibility that he was connected to something far darker than your own curiosity could justify, you had smiled.
You had looked back.
That felt more dangerous than anything he had done.
By the time evening came, the two white roses still stood together on your kitchen table, their pale petals impossibly untouched beneath the dim light. You had moved them twice during the day, first from the table to the counter, then from the counter back to the table, as though changing their location might make them less unsettling. It did not. They seemed to belong wherever you placed them, delicate and silent, watching you with the same unnerving patience as the man who had left them.
The notes remained in your drawer.
You told yourself you had kept them because they were evidence.
That explanation lasted until you opened the drawer for the third time just to look at them.
*I have waited long enough.*
*You kept it.*
You stared at the handwriting for longer than you should have, tracing the elegant shape of the letters with your eyes. There was something old-fashioned about it, something careful and deliberate, as though every word had been placed with the same devotion as the roses themselves.
“You are insane,” you muttered again, though this time the words came out softer than before.
The phone rang before you could start arguing with yourself.
Minho.
You answered immediately.
“If you are calling me to ask whether I ate, I will hang up.”
“I was going to ask whether you ate.”
“Goodbye.”
“Wait.”
His tone stopped you.
The teasing disappeared from your face as you straightened against the kitchen counter.
“What happened?”
There was a pause, and in that pause your apartment seemed to grow colder.
“I need you tonight,” he said.
“You already had me at the Bukchon scene this morning.”
“This is different.”
That was never a good sentence from a detective.
You glanced at the roses.
“How different?”
“Bad different.”
Your chest tightened.
“Minho.”
“I would not ask you if I did not need you.”
That made it worse. Your brother hated involving you in cases he considered too violent, despite the fact that photographing crime scenes was your job. He could separate you from the work when the work was ordinary death, but when something unsettled him deeply enough, the older brother in him always rose before the detective.
“Where?”
His answer was quiet.
“An abandoned performance hall near Euljiro.”
A performance hall.
Something about that made the air sharpen.
“Is this connected to the body from this morning?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
Another pause.
Then he said, “There are roses.”
You looked at the two flowers on your table.
For a moment, you forgot how to breathe.
“What kind?”
“You know what kind.”
White.
Of course they were white.
You closed your eyes.
“I will be there.”
“No,” Minho said quickly. “I am picking you up. Do not go alone.”
“You do realise how patronising that sounds?”
“I do not care.”
The answer was immediate and strangely fierce.
You opened your eyes.
“Minho, what are you not telling me?”
“Enough that you should listen to me for once.”
You almost argued.
Then you looked again at the roses, at the flowers that had followed you from the tower into your bedroom, from your bedroom into a murder scene, and now, perhaps, into another.
“I will wait downstairs,” you said.
“Lock your door behind you.”
“I always do.”
“Check twice.”
The call ended before you could make a joke.
You did check twice.
You hated that you did.
The snow had begun falling again by the time Minho’s car pulled up outside your apartment building. It was not as heavy as the night before, but it carried the same quiet persistence, the same strange feeling of purpose. You climbed into the passenger seat with your camera bag at your feet and found your brother gripping the wheel too tightly.
He glanced at you once.
“You look tired.”
“You look worse.”
“I am older. I have an excuse.”
“You are only older when it benefits you.”
“That is the privilege of being your brother.”
You tried to smile, but it faded quickly.
“What are we walking into?”
Minho kept his eyes on the road.
“A staged scene.”
“Like this morning?”
“Worse.”
The city moved past the windows in blurred streaks of white and gold. Snow gathered on pavements and rooftops, softening Seoul into something deceptively peaceful. It almost seemed obscene that somewhere inside that beauty, another body was waiting.
“Why me?” you asked quietly.
Minho’s jaw tightened.
“Because the department needs clean documentation before anyone moves anything.”
“That is the professional answer.”
“It is still true.”
“And the real one?”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Because you noticed the petal this morning before anyone else did.”
You looked at him.
“You believe the roses matter.”
“I know they matter.”
The certainty in his voice made your stomach twist.
“Have there been more?”
Minho did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
“How many?”
“Three confirmed before tonight.”
Your fingers curled around the strap of your camera bag.
“Why was I not told?”
“Because you were not assigned to the first two.”
“And the third?”
“This morning.”
You turned toward the window, watching snow slide across the glass.
“White roses at every scene?”
“Yes.”
“And a word.”
“What word?”
His silence returned.
You looked back at him.
“What word, Minho?”
His face had become unreadable in the glow of passing headlights.
“Imperfect.”
The word settled in the car like something alive.
You did not know why it disturbed you so deeply, but it did. Perhaps because it sounded intimate. Judgemental. Cruel in a way murder alone was not. Killing was violence, but naming someone imperfect after death was something else entirely.
It was philosophy.
It was performance.
It was worship twisted into punishment.
By the time you reached the abandoned performance hall, the street outside had already been sealed. Police vehicles crowded the road, their flashing lights staining the snow red and blue. Officers stood near the entrance with rigid faces, speaking in low voices. Nobody looked comfortable. Even before you stepped out of the car, you heard it.
Opera.
A woman’s voice rose from within the building, clear and powerful, trembling through the winter air with impossible beauty. It drifted through broken windows and cracked stone, carrying sorrow, grandeur, and something almost holy.
The sound made the hair at the back of your neck lift.
Minho came around the car and stopped beside you.
“You stay close to me.”
“I am not twelve.”
“No,” he said, looking toward the dark entrance. “You are worse.”
Under any other circumstances, you might have smiled.
Tonight, you only followed him inside.
The performance hall had once been beautiful. You could see it even through the decay. The walls still carried traces of old elegance, though the paint had peeled and the plaster had cracked. Dust coated the floor in pale layers, disturbed now by boot prints, melted snow, and the movement of investigators. Rows of broken seats faced a stage draped in shadows, and above it all, a ruined chandelier hung like a dead crown.
The opera came from speakers placed throughout the hall.
Not carelessly.
Carefully.
One near the stage. Two along the side aisles. Another somewhere behind the upper balcony. The sound surrounded the room so completely that it felt less like music and more like possession.
Then you saw the body.
For a moment, even you stopped.
The victim had been placed at the centre of the stage beneath the broken chandelier, arranged with horrifying precision. White roses surrounded the scene in a near-perfect circle, their petals scattered across the dark wood like snow that had learned to bleed shadow. Behind the body, painted across the backdrop in large black letters, was one word repeated again and again.
IMPERFECT.
IMPERFECT.
IMPERFECT.
The handwriting covered the walls, the stage floor, the old velvet curtains, even the cracked mirrors along the side of the hall. The word appeared everywhere, surrounding the victim until the entire room seemed to accuse them.
Your stomach turned, but not enough to make you look away.
That disturbed you most.
Minho watched your face.
“You do not have to do this.”
“Yes,” you said, your voice quieter than you intended. “I do.”
His eyes darkened with worry.
“You are my sister before you are a photographer.”
“And I am a photographer before I am afraid.”
Something in his expression softened and broke at the same time.
“You sound like you want to be here.”
You looked toward the stage, toward the roses, toward the terrible beauty of the scene.
“I want to understand it.”
“That is what worries me.”
You did not answer, because there was no good answer to give.
You set your equipment down and began.
The camera gave you distance. It always had. Through the lens, horror became composition, angle, light, evidence. You did not have to let the full weight of the scene enter you all at once. You could break it apart into pieces. The speakers. The roses. The word across the walls. The placement of the body. The direction of the hands. The old chandelier overhead. The petals near the stage stairs.
One photograph after another.
Every detail preserved.
Every shadow recorded.
The opera continued to rise and fall around you, the singer’s voice turning grief into something almost unbearable. Whoever had chosen the music had not done so randomly. It was too deliberate, too theatrical, too intimate with the room. The killer had not merely wanted the body found.
He had wanted an audience.
A technician approached Minho and murmured something you could not hear. Your brother’s expression hardened, and after a moment he came to stand beside you.
“The speakers were placed before the body,” he said.
You lowered the camera slightly.
“He prepared the room first.”
“That is what it looks like.”
You looked across the stage. “He knew exactly how it would be discovered.”
“He wanted control.”
“No,” you whispered, lifting the camera again. “He wanted beauty.”
Minho stared at you.
“That is a disturbing thing to say.”
“I did not say it was my beauty.”
“But you see it.”
You did not answer.
Because you did.
Not in the death. Never in the death.
But in the staging, the symmetry, the horrible devotion to detail. The scene had been created by someone with an artist’s patience and a god’s arrogance. Someone who looked at the world and believed he had the right to decide what deserved to remain in it.
Your gaze settled on one of the roses near the victim’s feet.
Unlike the others, this rose had not been scattered. It had been placed upright in a narrow glass holder, perfectly centred, its white petals open toward the body.
You photographed it carefully.
Then again.
Then once more from a lower angle.
“White roses at every scene,” you said.
Minho’s voice was tense. “Yes.”
“But this is different.”
“How?”
You stepped closer, careful not to disturb anything.
“The others were left behind. This one was displayed.”
Minho looked toward the rose.
You continued, more to yourself than to him.
“The killer is not using them as decoration anymore. He is making them part of the message.”
Minho’s expression tightened.
“Meaning?”
You looked at the word surrounding the body.
“Maybe perfection matters to him.”
The opera swelled.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then your brother said, “There is something else.”
You looked at him.
“We pulled footage from a street camera near the second scene.”
“And?”
“The quality is terrible. Snowstorm. Bad angle. Mostly useless.”
“But?”
His eyes moved toward the stage.
“There was a man.”
Your heart gave one hard beat.
“What man?”
“Tall. Dark coat. Face partly hidden.”
The room seemed to tilt.
You thought of Jungkook across the street that morning. Jungkook beneath the tower lights. Jungkook standing in your bedroom without ever being seen, leaving roses beside your sleep.
“What did he do?” you asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“He stood across the street and watched.”
Your mouth went dry.
Minho’s gaze sharpened.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I am reacting to the murder scene, Minho.”
“Do not lie to me.”
You turned away, pretending to adjust your camera settings.
“I am not lying.”
“You are absolutely lying.”
The opera became louder, the voice rising toward a dramatic height that seemed to press against your skin.
You looked at the rose again.
White.
Perfect.
Unbruised.
A flower that meant something to more than one monster, perhaps.
The thought made you cold.
Across the hall, one of the officers found another speaker hidden behind a torn curtain. The music crackled briefly as they disconnected it, then continued from the remaining corners, slightly distorted now. The broken sound made the scene feel even worse.
You spent the next hour working in near silence.
By the time the body was removed and the evidence team began packing what could be taken, your hands felt stiff from the cold. Not from fear. Fear would have been simpler. What filled you was something far more complicated: horror, fascination, disgust, anger, and a terrible kind of exhilaration you did not want to name.
Someone was turning death into theatre.
Someone was leaving white roses in rooms filled with judgement.
Someone was killing people and calling them imperfect.
And somewhere in the centre of all of it stood Jungkook, watching from the shadows with eyes that looked at you as though you were the only thing in the world worth sparing.
Outside, the snow had thickened.
Minho walked you to the car, but you stopped before getting in.
“I need air.”
“You have been standing in a freezing building for two hours.”
“Different air.”
“You are not going home alone.”
“I am walking to the end of the street.”
“No.”
“Minho.”
He looked at you, and you saw the argument forming. Then he saw something in your face and stopped.
“One block,” he said. “I will be right behind you.”
“I need five minutes without you hovering.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Fine.”
You walked before he could change his mind.
The street beyond the police lights was quieter. Snow fell steadily beneath the glow of lamps, covering the pavement in a thin, luminous sheet. The opera still echoed in your mind long after you could no longer hear it. You could see the stage when you closed your eyes. The roses. The word. The body beneath the broken chandelier.
Your breath came unevenly.
Not because you were frightened.
Because you were full.
Too full.
Too much death. Too much beauty. Too many questions. Too many roses.
And beneath it all, Jungkook.
Always Jungkook.
You stopped beneath an awning near a closed shop and pressed a hand against your chest, annoyed by the strange tightness there.
“You should not have gone inside.”
His voice came from the darkness beside you.
You did not flinch this time.
Perhaps that should have worried you.
Slowly, you turned.
Jungkook stood beneath the edge of the awning, half-hidden from the street, snow melting in his black hair. He looked exactly as he had on the tower and completely different at the same time. Softer in the dim light. More dangerous because of it.
Anger arrived so suddenly that it almost steadied you.
“Where have you been?”
His brows lifted.
“You are angry.”
“Yes.”
A faint smile touched his lips.
It made you want to slap him.
It made you want to kiss him.
The contradiction only made you angrier.
“I was worried,” you said.
The words left before you could stop them.
Something flickered in his expression.
“Worried about me?”
“No.”
The lie was terrible.
His smile deepened.
“You are very poor at that.”
“At what?”
“Pretending not to care.”
You stepped closer, fury and exhaustion pushing you forward when caution should have held you back.
“Do not flatter yourself.”
“I am not,” he said softly. “I am terrified.”
That stopped you.
The snow fell between you in slow, silent pieces.
“You do not get to say things like that,” you whispered.
“Why?”
“Because you appear whenever you want, watch me whenever you want, leave flowers in my home, then stand there and act as though I am the frightening one.”
“You are.”
The answer was immediate.
Your laugh came out sharp and disbelieving.
“I saw a body displayed like art tonight. I heard opera playing over a murder scene. I photographed roses arranged around the dead, and every time I try to make sense of it, I find you somewhere nearby.”
His expression changed.
Not guilt.
Not surprise.
Something colder.
“You think I did that?”
“I think you know something.”
“I know many things.”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
The refusal struck like a slap.
Your eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“If I tell you too much now, you will walk toward things you are not ready to see.”
“You do not get to decide what I am ready for.”
His gaze darkened.
“No,” he said. “But I know what is waiting.”
The way he said it made your skin tighten.
“Who is killing them?”
Jungkook’s jaw flexed.
“Someone who should have stayed quiet.”
Your pulse quickened.
“You know him.”
Silence.
That silence was the answer.
You stepped closer again.
“Is he like you?”
Jungkook looked at you for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice was low.
“Jin is not like me. There is no one like me.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
“I am protecting you from the answer.”
“I do not want your protection.”
That made something in him shift.
For a heartbeat, the beautiful mask slipped, and you saw the violence beneath. Not aimed at you. Never at you. But it was there, ancient and immediate, like a blade being drawn in the dark.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You do.”
The arrogance of it should have infuriated you.
It did.
But beneath the anger was the memory of the performance hall, the speakers, the roses, the word painted again and again across the walls. Beneath that was the white flower on your pillow and the way your heart had answered a note it should have feared.
You were exhausted.
Emotionally charged.
Too full of horror to remain calm and too drawn to him to step away.
“Why are you doing this to me?” you asked, and the rawness in your own voice startled you.
Jungkook’s expression softened at once.
“What am I doing?”
“Making me look for you.”
The words slipped out before pride could stop them.
His stillness was absolute.
Your chest rose and fell too quickly, and once the truth had escaped, there was no taking it back.
“I should be thinking about the case,” you continued, quieter now. “I should be thinking about the victim, the roses, the word on the walls. I should be worried about my brother and whatever psychopath he is chasing. Instead, I keep thinking about you. I keep wondering whether you will be there when I turn around. I keep looking for you in windows and reflections and shadows, and I hate you for it.”
His eyes had gone unbearably dark.
“You look for me?”
“Do not sound so pleased.”
“I am trying not to.”
“You are failing.”
“Yes.”
The honesty almost undid you.
Jungkook took one careful step closer.
“Tell me to leave.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
His gaze dropped to your mouth.
“Tell me to stop watching.”
“No.”
“Tell me you hate me.”
You swallowed.
Snow melted against your lashes.
“I do not know what I feel.”
Something painful moved across his face.
“That is still more than I deserve.”
The softness of those words broke through the last of your anger.
For a moment, all you could see was him. Not the monster. Not the stalker. Not the impossible stranger who had entered your life with white roses and dark eyes. You saw the loneliness beneath the danger, the longing beneath the obsession, the terrible hope he seemed unable to extinguish no matter how hard he tried to appear heartless.
“You scare me,” you whispered.
His eyes closed briefly.
“I know.”
“Not because of what you are.”
He opened them again.
“Then why?”
“Because I am not scared enough.”
Jungkook stared at you as though those words had ruined him.
Then he moved.
Or perhaps you did.
You never knew which one of you broke first.
The kiss was not gentle enough to be innocent and not rough enough to be cruel. It was hunger wrapped in restraint, a collision of every feeling you had swallowed since the tower. Your anger poured into it first, sharp and bitter, followed by confusion, fear, curiosity, and the aching sweetness of wanting something you did not understand.
Jungkook caught your face between his hands as though you were precious, even as he kissed you like a man who had spent years starving in silence. His mouth was cold from the snow, but the kiss burned through you with impossible heat. You gripped the front of his coat and pulled him closer, needing the solidness of him, needing to prove he was not only a shadow you had imagined because winter made you lonely.
He made a quiet sound against your mouth, almost broken.
That sound did something terrible to you.
It made you softer.
It made you kiss him back not with anger, but with need.
The world narrowed to the press of his body beneath your hands, the wet snow in his hair, the cold wall behind you, and the way he trembled when your fingers touched the side of his neck. For someone so terrifying, he reacted to you as though every small kindness was a wound.
When you finally pulled away, neither of you spoke.
Your breathing was unsteady.
His was too, though you still did not believe he needed air.
Jungkook rested his forehead against yours, his eyes closed as though he was trying to survive the moment.
“You kept the rose,” he whispered.
Your heart twisted.
“That is what this is about?”
“No.”
His thumbs brushed your cheeks.
“It is what everything is about.”
You did not understand.
Not yet.
But something in his voice made you ache.
Behind you, in the distance, Minho called your name.
Jungkook’s eyes opened.
The tenderness vanished beneath something colder.
“You should go back to him.”
“You are telling me to leave again?”
“I am telling you to live.”
The words landed between you with unexpected weight.
You searched his face.
“Will I see you again?”
His mouth curved faintly, but there was nothing mocking in it now.
“You already look for me.”
Your breath caught.
He brushed one final touch against your jaw, so soft it felt more like a promise than a farewell.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
Minho called your name again, closer this time.
You turned instinctively.
Only for a second.
When you looked back, Jungkook was gone.
The snow fell where he had stood, erasing the last trace of him from the pavement.
But the warmth of his kiss remained.
So did the opera in your mind.
So did the roses.
So did the word painted across the walls of the performance hall.
*Imperfect.*
You pressed trembling fingers to your lips as Minho came into view at the end of the street, worry written across his face.
And for one devastating moment, you realised the truth.
The murder scene should have been the thing haunting you.
Instead, it was Jungkook.
Minho was speaking, but for a few dreadful seconds, his voice could not reach you. It moved around you like a sound trapped beneath ice, muffled by the snow, the opera, the smell of roses, and the lingering warmth of Jungkook’s kiss, which still burned against your lips as though his mouth had left something living there. Your brother stood only a few steps away, his coat dark with melted snow, his breath coming sharp in the winter air, his eyes carrying the kind of fear he had always tried to hide from you. He said your name again, and this time, you heard him.
You lowered your trembling hand from your mouth, and the cold of the night seemed to strike you all at once. The snow touched your hair, your cheeks, your lashes, delicate and merciless, and beyond Minho’s shoulder the performance hall loomed like a corpse dressed in velvet. Its windows were black. Its doors had been sealed. Police lights painted the street in blue and red, turning the falling snow into sparks of colour before the darkness swallowed them again.
Minho reached for your shoulder.
“Are you hurt?”
The question should have been simple. You should have said no. You should have told him about the man who had vanished into the snowfall as though the night had opened its hand and taken him back. You should have told him that Jungkook had been there, that he had touched your jaw, that he had kissed you after a murder scene while opera still screamed in your mind and roses lay like offerings around the dead.
Instead, your first instinct was to protect the memory of him.
That was what frightened you. Not the bloodless grandeur of the performance hall. Not the word Imperfect haunting the walls. Not the melody still crawling somewhere behind your thoughts. It was the fact that a man had been murdered and displayed like a warning, your brother had been dragged into the path of something monstrous, and still your mind kept circling back to Jungkook’s mouth as though that kiss was the most devastating thing the night had given you.
A slow sickness opened inside your stomach. No. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong for a while. You stared at your own fingers as though they belonged to someone else. They still hovered near your lips, remembering what you no longer wanted them to remember. The warmth that had felt intoxicating moments ago began to change beneath your skin. It no longer felt like desire. It felt like poison dressed as sweetness, like silk wrapped around your throat, like a hand guiding your head beneath dark water and calling it a bath.
Minho’s brow tightened.
“Talk to me.”
You looked up at him, and the sight of his worry split something open in you. He was the only one you had left. The only one who had come searching when the world went quiet. The only one who could read your silence like an old wound. The only one who still said your name as though it mattered whether you answered. You had stood in the same street as something ancient and beautiful and rotten, and while Jungkook had been kissing you in the snow, Minho had been walking out of a murder scene carrying the weight of another dead body behind his eyes.
And Jungkook had known.
You did not know how you knew yet, not fully, not in a way you could prove, but the truth rose inside you with the certainty of a blade being drawn. Jungkook had known more than he had said. He had known about the body. He had known about the opera. He had known about Jin. And if he had known about Jin, then he had known about Minho.
Your breath changed. It was no longer shallow and bewitched. It came deep into your lungs, cold and furious, filling you until your spine straightened and the trembling left your hands. The haze that had followed you through the last few days did not disappear gently. It cracked. It tore. It fell away in glittering black pieces.
Minho noticed. His hand tightened on your shoulder.
“What happened?”
You looked past him, towards the spot where Jungkook had stood. Only snow remained, covering the pavement with a tender innocence it had not earned.
“I need to go home,” you said.
Minho’s eyes searched your face.
“I will take you.”
“No.” Your voice came out sharper than you intended, and when his expression changed, you softened only enough not to wound him. “I need you to stay on the case. I need you to do your job, and I need you to be careful while you do it.”
“Careful of what?”
Your jaw tightened. Of the beautiful man who moves through snow like a secret. Of the killer who arranges bodies like art. Of the opera that should not still be playing when the speakers are dead. Of the roses that keep showing up like love letters from a grave. Of everything you should have feared before it touched you.
“I do not know yet,” you said. “But I will.”
Minho looked at you for a long moment, and the familiar intelligence in his eyes sharpened. He had always known when you were hiding something. He had known when you were a child with scraped knees and too much pride to cry. He had known when grief had made a house out of your ribs and you had pretended there was nothing living inside it. He knew now.
“Did someone hurt you?” he asked quietly.
You thought of Jungkook’s hand beneath your chin, his voice against your mouth, the way he had called you sweetheart as though he had the right to leave tenderness behind after terror. Your anger rooted deeper.
“No,” you said. “But someone has been trying to decide what I feel before I can decide it for myself.”
Minho went still. You touched his sleeve, briefly, because you needed him to understand one thing before the night pulled you both in different directions.
“Do not trust anyone beautiful tonight.”
His face darkened.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I can give you until I know how much danger you are in.”
“I am the detective here.”
“And I am your sister.” The words came out with a force that silenced him. “You are not only a badge to me, Minho. You are not only the man who walks into crime scenes and pretends the dead do not follow him home. You are my brother. You are all I have left.”
Something pained moved through his face. For a moment, beneath the police lights and falling snow, you were not standing outside a performance hall with a killer somewhere in the city and a monster somewhere in the dark. You were only two people left in the wreckage of everything that had already been taken from you, holding on because there was no one else who remembered the shape of your childhood.
Minho exhaled slowly.
“Then promise me you will go straight home.”
“I will.”
“And lock the door.”
“I will do more than that.”
He did not like the sound of it. You could see that clearly, but before he could question you again, one of the officers called his name from the steps of the hall. Duty dragged at him like a chain. He looked from the officer back to you, torn between the case and the little sister he had never stopped trying to save. You forced yourself to step away first.
“Go,” you told him. “Find out what he left behind.”
“I will.”
You looked once more at the falling snow where Jungkook had vanished.
Then you turned and walked away before Minho could see what your face became when the fury finally had room to rise.
By the time you reached your house, the city had changed. It was not that the streets looked different. The lamps still burned in their pale circles. Cars still moved through the wet roads. Somewhere, far away, someone laughed outside a pub, bright and careless, as though the night had not split open and shown you the teeth beneath it. But beneath the ordinary world, something else was breathing.
You could feel it now. The old chill beneath the wind. The watchful silence pressed against alleyways. The faint sweetness of roses where no roses grew. Your keys shook only once before you forced your hand still. Strong like an oak. Wise like an owl. That was what you needed to become. Not soft prey. Not a girl wandering half-bewitched through a nightmare because a beautiful monster had taught fear to wear the mask of want. You needed roots. You needed eyes. You needed to stand still enough to see what circled you.
Inside, your house was dark. You did not turn on the main light. Instead, you locked the door, slid the chain into place, and stood there with your back against the wood, listening. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Yet the silence felt crowded.
Your home had always been small, but it had been yours. Its narrow hallway, the old mirror near the door, the little table where Minho left spare keys and takeaway menus, the kitchen with too many mismatched mugs, the sitting room with its worn sofa and candles you had bought because you liked pretending softness could be summoned by scent. It had never been grand, never been gothic, never been the sort of place where beautiful monsters should appear at windows or killers should send their music through the walls. That was why you loved it. It was ordinary. It was yours. And tonight, that made it sacred.
You took off your coat slowly and hung it by the door. Your reflection caught in the hallway mirror, pale and snow-damp, lips still bruised by warmth, eyes dark with something that looked too old to belong to you. For a breath, you barely recognised yourself. Then you lifted your hand and wiped your mouth with the back of it. Once. Hard.
The kiss did not vanish. Your anger deepened.
“Enough,” you whispered.
The house seemed to hear you.
You went to the kitchen first. Salt sat in a blue ceramic jar beside the stove. You took it down, removed the lid, and carried it from window to window, pouring thin white lines across the sills with hands that no longer trembled. You had never been a witch. Not properly. Not the way old books wrote them. But grief had taught you rituals long before magic ever showed its face. Lock the door twice. Leave a light on for the person who might not come home. Keep something sharp near the bed. Pray even when you no longer know who is listening. Protection was protection, whether it came from saints, superstition, or rage.
In the sitting room, you found the iron letter opener Minho had given you as a joke after you had complained about bills. You placed it above the front door, balanced across the frame, and when it should have fallen, it held.
Your breath caught. The house creaked. Not in warning. In agreement. You stared at the letter opener for a moment longer, then went to the drawer beneath the sideboard, the one where you kept old things you never used but never threw away. A black ribbon. A packet of matches. Dried rosemary from a summer you barely remembered. A small silver charm your mother had once worn, tarnished at the edges, shaped like an owl with wings spread wide.
You held it in your palm, and the metal was cold enough to hurt. Minho used to tease you for keeping it. He said you were too sentimental for someone who pretended to be made of teeth. You had told him teeth were useful. Sentiment, less so. You had lied.
You fastened the charm around your throat. The moment it touched your skin, the air in the room shifted. Not dramatically. Not like thunder. Not like a door slamming shut. It was subtler than that, a tightening, a gathering, as though the house had drawn itself upright around you.
You looked toward the window. Something stood outside. Your body went still.
Beyond the glass, on the other side of the salt-lined sill, a rose had appeared against the pane. Red. Full-bloomed. Impossible in the snow. It rested there as though an invisible hand pressed it to the window, petals crushed softly against the glass. For one dreadful second, all you could do was stare. Then the rose dragged downward, leaving a wet red streak behind it. Not blood. Not quite. Something darker.
Your fear rose. Your anger rose faster. You crossed the room, yanked the curtain shut, and said, with every ounce of command you possessed,
“No.”
The rose struck the glass. Once. Twice. On the third strike, something whispered your name from outside. Not Jungkook. The voice was too smooth, too amused, too old in its cruelty. It moved through the glass and the walls and the little gaps in the floorboards as though the house belonged to it more than it belonged to you.
A note of opera followed. Low at first. Then rising. Your stomach turned as the same melody from the performance hall threaded through your sitting room. It did not come from a speaker. It came from the air itself, from the red smear on the window, from the memory of roses, from the word Imperfect waiting somewhere in the dark.
You stepped back, but you did not run. Running belonged to prey. You were done being prey. The mirror in the hallway cracked. A single line split through your reflection. Then another. Your breath came hard, but your voice did not shake when you spoke again.
“This is my house.”
The opera swelled. The walls groaned. The front door shuddered as though something had placed a hand against the other side.
You went to the kitchen, grabbed the box of matches, and returned to the sitting room with a candle clenched in one hand and dried rosemary in the other. You did not know the correct words. You did not know if there were correct words. But something in your blood, old and furious and awake now, seemed to know what your mouth should become.
You struck a match. The flame caught, small and golden. The opera faltered. Good. You held the rosemary to the flame until smoke curled upward, bitter and green, and walked the perimeter of the room.
“No dead thing enters here,” you said, voice low and steady. “No hungry thing. No lying thing. No thing that hides behind roses and calls itself devotion. This house is mine. This threshold is mine. My mind is mine. My body is mine. My brother is mine to protect.”
The red smear on the window darkened. Something laughed beyond the glass. Then the candle flame shot high, blue at the centre. Your words grew sharper.
“And if you want to come inside, you will bleed truth at the door.”
The silence that followed was sudden enough to hurt. The opera cut off. The whispering stopped. The pressure against the house vanished so completely that you stumbled with the absence of it. For a heartbeat, there was only your breath, the smoke, the faint ticking of the kitchen clock, and the old house settling around you as though it had survived something with you.
Then someone knocked.
Not at the window. At the front door. Three slow knocks. You knew before you moved. The house knew too, because the candle flame leaned toward the hallway as though pointing him out.
You walked to the door with the burning candle in one hand and the iron letter opener in the other. You did not remove the chain. You did not unlock anything. You stood close enough to feel the cold waiting on the other side of the wood.
“Who is it?” you asked, though you already knew.
A pause. Then his voice, lower than the snow, softer than sin.
“Jungkook.”
Your grip tightened around the letter opener. The old haze tried to rise at the sound of him. It moved instinctively, like a trained animal, bringing with it the memory of his mouth, the dark warmth of his gaze, the way he had looked at you as though the world was a locked room and you were the only window. For a moment, your body remembered wanting before your mind had given permission. Then the owl charm at your throat turned cold. The haze recoiled. Your anger stepped forward in its place.
“You are not coming in.”
“I know.”
Something about that answer unsettled you more than if he had argued. You leaned closer to the door.
“Did you bring that thing to my house?”
“No.”
“Did you know it would come?”
Silence. You smiled without warmth.
“There it is.”
On the other side, Jungkook exhaled.
You imagined him there too easily: black coat dusted with snow, dark hair damp at his brow, beautiful face turned toward your door with the patience of something that could wait centuries and still call it longing. The image might have softened you once. Not tonight. Tonight, it made you furious.
“You have one chance,” you said. “Tell me why the hell I should not call Minho right now and tell him everything I know about you.”
“You do not know everything.”
“Then start fixing that.”
Another pause. The door seemed terribly thin between you, and yet for the first time since you had met him, Jungkook felt far away. Not because he had chosen distance, but because you had made one. You had drawn a line, salted it, smoked it, named it, and he was standing on the other side because your house had believed you before he ever could.
“Open the door,” he said quietly.
You laughed, and the sound was cold enough to surprise even you.
“No.”
“I need to see if you are hurt.”
“You should have thought about that before you kissed me outside a murder scene and disappeared like a guilty thought.”
His silence changed. You could feel it through the wood. Good.
You stepped closer, until your mouth was near the crack between the door and the frame.
“Let me make something very clear to you, Jungkook. You do not come to my window. You do not lurk outside my house. You do not vanish and reappear whenever it pleases you. You do not touch me after my brother walks out of a crime scene and expect me to blush over it like a fool.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Do not call me that.”
The words cracked through the hallway with such force that the candle flame shivered. Jungkook stopped. Your breathing steadied.
“I am going to ask you questions,” you said. “You are going to answer them. Not beautifully. Not vaguely. Not like some tragic creature in a poem who thinks cruelty sounds better when it is whispered. You are going to answer me plainly, or you are going to leave this door and never come near me again.”
Snow brushed against the threshold. Then Jungkook said,
“Ask.”
You closed your eyes for one second, gathering yourself. Strong like an oak. Wise like an owl. When you opened them, your reflection in the cracked mirror looked back at you from the end of the hallway, split in two but still standing.
“How long have you been watching me?”
The silence that followed told you the answer would not be small.
“Since the cemetery,” he said at last.
Your heart tightened. The cemetery. That had been weeks ago, on the day of your parents’ annual memorial ceremony, the one day you and Minho always returned to them together no matter how much time had passed. But this year had been different. This year had carried the weight of a milestone neither of you had known how to survive, a cruel reminder of how many years they had been gone, how much of your lives they had missed, and how much older you and Minho had become without them.
The grief had not arrived gently. It had taken hold of you both with both hands. You remembered the wet grass, the black umbrellas, Minho’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you away from another goodbye you had never been ready to give. You remembered his silence beside you, heavier than any words, and the way your own heart had felt carved open beneath the rain. You remembered feeling watched that day, but grief had made everything feel haunted, so you had ignored it. Your stomach turned slowly.
“You saw me grieving,” you said. “And you followed me home.”
“I saw something following you first.”
You opened the door as far as the chain would allow. Cold rushed in.
Jungkook stood on the step, exactly as you had imagined and nothing like you were prepared for. Snow clung to his dark hair and the shoulders of his coat. His face was too pale beneath the porch light, his mouth too red, his eyes too full of something that looked almost human until it moved. He looked down at the chain between you. Then at the iron above the door. Then at the salt on the threshold. A flicker of something passed across his face. Pain. Pride. Hunger. Maybe all three.
“What was following me?” you demanded.
He looked back at you.
“One of Jin’s echoes.”
You stared at him. The name entered the hallway like a match dropped into oil.
“Jin,” you repeated.
Jungkook’s jaw tightened. You opened the door one inch wider, the chain pulling taut with a small metallic warning.
“How do you know him?”
“He is my friend.”
Your blood went cold. Then hot. Then something worse than hot. You could not breathe for a second, but not because you were afraid. Because the fury rose so fast it stole the air before returning it sharpened.
“Your friend,” you said.
Jungkook’s gaze did not leave yours.
“Yes.”
“The man connected to that murder scene is your friend.”
“Yes.”
“The man Minho is investigating.”
His expression shifted. There. There it was. The small betrayal of his face. The answer before the answer. Your hand tightened so hard around the letter opener that the edge bit into your palm.
“You knew,” you whispered.
Jungkook said nothing.
You opened the door until the chain snapped tight.
“You knew my brother would be the detective on this case.”
“I knew he might be assigned.”
“Do not you dare soften it.”
His eyes darkened.
You leaned toward him, every part of you burning now, every soft and bewildered piece of the last few days turning to ash inside your chest.
“You knew Minho could walk into that performance hall. You knew he could stand over that body. You knew he could hear that opera and see that word painted on the walls, and you still let him go in blind.”
“I have been trying to keep him alive.”
“No.” Your voice cracked across the threshold. “You were keeping me close. There is a difference.”
Jungkook’s mouth parted slightly, but no answer came. Good. For once, the beautiful monster had no poetry.
You stepped closer to the crack in the door, close enough to see the snow melting on his lashes.
“Minho is not a detective in your nightmare. He is my brother. He is the only person who ever came looking for me when the world went quiet, and you knew he was walking into danger.”
“I could not tell him.”
“You could have told me.”
“I could not risk Jin knowing that you knew.”
You laughed once, cold and humourless.
“How convenient that every answer you have still leaves you in control.”
“That is not what this is.”
“Then what is it?” you demanded. “Protection? Devotion? Some twisted vampire romance where you stand outside my house and decide which truths I am delicate enough to survive?”
His eyes flashed. The word had struck something. Vampire.
You had not planned to say it. Not yet. Not like that. But the moment it left your mouth, the hallway seemed to grow colder, and Jungkook’s stillness became something inhuman. You swallowed the fear that tried to rise.
“You are not human,” you said.
His gaze dropped to the owl charm at your throat.
“No.”
The answer was quiet. It should have changed everything. It changed nothing and everything at once. Because some part of you had already known. Some wiser, older part of your mind had been collecting the evidence while the rest of you drowned in his attention. The way he moved without sound. The way he appeared where he should not. The way the cold seemed to favour him. The way his eyes held too much night. The way fear kept turning sweet when he stood near you.
You pressed your palm against the door to steady yourself.
“How much of what I felt was mine?”
Jungkook went very still. Your voice lowered.
“Answer carefully.”
His face changed then, and for the first time that night, he looked less like a predator and more like a man standing at the edge of his own consequence.
“You were drawn to me before I touched you,” he said.
The old part of you might have blushed. The awakened part wanted blood.
“That is not what I asked.”
His throat moved.
“There is a pull,” he said. “It happens around my kind. Some call it glamour. Some call it hunger answering hunger. It does not create feeling from nothing, but it can blur the edges. Fear can become fascination. Curiosity can become want. Want can become obedience if the person does not know how to fight it.”
The candle flame in your hand burned higher. You stared at him through the narrow opening.
“And you let that happen to me.”
“I tried to hold it back.”
“You kissed me.”
His silence was the only confession you needed.
“You kissed me outside a murder scene while my brother was calling my name.”
Jungkook looked away. The fury inside you turned clean. Not wild. Not messy. Clean. That was worse.
“Look at me.”
His eyes returned to yours.
“You did not make me weak,” you said, each word deliberate. “You made me doubt my own mind. That is worse.”
Something raw moved across his face.
“You were never weak.”
“No. I was numb. I was grieving. I was curious. I was stupid enough to think danger looked like a game because a pretty mouth smiled at me from the dark.” Your voice sharpened. “But you knew better.”
“I did.”
The admission landed between you like a blade. For a moment, you hated him. Not in the simple way. Not in the clean way that made leaving easy. You hated him with the same part of you that still remembered the warmth of his mouth, and that made the hatred more devastating, because it meant he had not only frightened you. He had reached you. He had entered some hidden room inside you, and now you had to search it for traps.
“Tell me about Jin,” you said.
Jungkook’s expression darkened.
“No more half-truths,” you warned. “No more tragic silences. No more deciding what I can handle.”
The wind moved across the porch, carrying with it the faintest thread of opera. Jungkook heard it too. His eyes lifted to the street behind him.
“Now,” you said.
He looked back at you.
“Jin was not always like this.”
“I did not ask for a eulogy.”
His mouth tightened.
“He was turned before me. Older. Stronger in some ways. We survived the same house for a while, the same hunger, the same rules. He was vain, cruel when he wanted to be, but not careless. Not like this.”
“What changed?”
“He became obsessed with perfection.”
You thought of the word painted around the hall. Imperfect.
“He would choose victims he thought had ruined beauty, wasted it, corrupted it, failed it, misunderstood it. Sometimes they were people who had hurt others. Sometimes they were simply people who existed in a way he despised. His mind turned beauty into law, and law into punishment.”
Nausea twisted through you.
“Is he killing them?”
“Yes.”
Your throat tightened. The answer was simple. Too simple for the horror it carried.
“And the opera?”
“His signature. His theatre. His sermon.”
“The roses?”
Jungkook’s gaze lowered for half a second.
“He knows I am watching you.”
Cold slid down your spine. You did not move.
“What does that mean?”
“It means some of the roses are not from me.”
Your fingers went numb around the candle.
Every rose you had seen shifted in your memory, petal by petal, no longer only symbols of Jungkook’s obsession but markers of another gaze entirely. A killer’s amusement. A friend’s cruelty. A game played between monsters with your life placed in the centre like a candle waiting to be blown out.
“You let me think they were yours.”
“I did not know at first.”
“And when you did?”
“I should have told you.”
The honesty did not soothe you. It only gave your anger something sharper to hold.
“Yes,” you said. “You should have.”
Jungkook’s eyes fixed on your hand. A thin line of red had opened where the letter opener pressed into your palm. His whole body seemed to respond to it, not with movement but with restraint so violent it might as well have been movement. You saw it. The hunger. The effort. The monster wearing control like a chain around its own throat.
He said, very softly,
“You are bleeding.”
You looked at your palm, then back at him.
“Then stay hungry.”
His jaw flexed. The porch light flickered. Somewhere down the street, a dog began barking, frantic and unseen. Jungkook turned his head again, listening to something you could not hear. The darkness behind him thickened. Snow moved against the wind. The red smear on your sitting room window, hidden from where you stood, seemed to pulse through the house like a second heartbeat.
“He is close,” Jungkook said.
“Jin?”
“No. Not his body.” His gaze moved back to you. “One of his echoes. He sends them ahead. They carry pieces of his hunger, his music, his will. They test doors. They test minds.”
Your stomach twisted.
“One came here.”
“I know.”
“You knew it might.”
“Yes.”
You slammed the door shut. The chain rattled violently. For a second, there was no sound at all from the other side. Then Jungkook said your name. Not sweetheart. Your name. It struck harder than it should have.
You leaned your forehead against the door, breathing through the storm in your chest. You wanted to open it just enough to scream at him properly. You wanted to leave it closed forever. You wanted to ask why the sound of your name in his mouth could still move through you even after everything he had admitted. That was the cruelty of it. Feelings did not vanish simply because truth arrived. Sometimes truth made them uglier. Sometimes it made them harder to survive.
“You are going to listen,” you said through the wood.
“I am listening.”
“No. You are going to listen without imagining that listening makes you noble.” Your voice trembled once, and you hated that it did, so you steadied it before continuing. “You do not get to haunt my life anymore. You do not get to make decisions about my safety without me. You do not get to stalk me and dress it as protection. You do not get to use Minho as some piece on a board because you are too afraid of your old friend to tell the truth.”
“I am not afraid of Jin.”
“Then you are a fool, because I am, and I have more sense than you.”
Silence. Then, unexpectedly, a low breath that might have been the ghost of a laugh. It made you angrier.
You opened the door again, still chained, and found his gaze waiting.
“Do not smile at me.”
The almost-laugh died. Good.
“I am not finished,” you said.
His eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorise the shape of your anger.
“Minho is off limits. If your obsession with me puts my brother in the ground, Jungkook, I will not mourn you.”
His expression emptied. You leaned closer.
“I will hunt you.”
The porch light flickered again, but this time it was not because of the thing in the dark. It was because of him. Something ancient moved behind his eyes, something possessive and startled and almost reverent. Not because you had softened. Because you had not. Because you had stood at your threshold with blood in your palm and iron over your door and told the monster exactly what would happen if he touched what you loved.
“You mean that,” he said.
“With every living part of me.”
His gaze lowered.
For the first time since you had met him, Jungkook looked ashamed. Not broken. Not harmless. Never harmless. But ashamed enough for the silence to have weight.
“I did not mean for Minho to become bait,” he said.
“But he did.”
“Yes.”
“And I did.”
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
The word burned. You nodded slowly, as though he had confirmed the sentence you would pass over him.
“Then here is what happens now. You will tell me everything you know about Jin. You will tell me what he wants, where he hunts, why he is circling my brother, and why the hell he has noticed me. You will stop appearing in corners like a disease of the dark, and if you want to speak to me, you will come to the front door and knock like a normal person.”
“I am not a normal person.”
“I did not ask what you are. I told you how you will behave.”
His eyes darkened again, but not with anger. With want. You saw it. You hated that you saw it. You hated more that some small, traitorous part of you answered it before your anger seized that part by the throat and dragged it back.
Jungkook stepped closer to the threshold. The salt line brightened. He stopped. His gaze fell to it. A faint burn appeared across the toe of his black shoe, smoke rising like a delicate warning. You looked down. Then back up at him. For the first time that night, satisfaction curled through you.
“You cannot cross.”
His mouth tilted, but there was no humour in it.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Did you do this yourself?”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved to the charm at your throat.
“With help.”
You touched the little silver owl.
“My mother had better taste in jewellery than I realised.”
“She had more than that.”
The words slid into the air too easily. Your hand stilled against the charm.
“What does that mean?”
Jungkook’s face closed. You pointed the letter opener at him.
“Careful.”
He looked at the iron, then at you. The porch seemed to darken around him.
“Your mother knew enough to hide you from things like us,” he said. “Not completely. Not forever. But enough that I should not have seen you as clearly as I did at the cemetery.”
Your heart began to pound.
“My mother is dead.”
“I know.”
“Do not speak about her like she is part of this.”
“She may be the reason you survived long enough to be angry at me.”
The words hit with such force that for a moment your fury lost its shape. Your mother. Her owl charm. The drawer of old useless things. The instinct in your mouth when the house came under attack. The way the iron had held above the door when it should have fallen. The way the candle had answered you. A hundred small memories stirred at once: your mother murmuring over windows during storms, her refusal to keep cut roses in the house, her hand pressing yours to the front door when you were little as she told you that a home only belonged to those brave enough to claim it. You had thought they were quirks. Grief made relics out of habits. Perhaps magic did too.
The opera returned. Not inside the house this time. Outside. It came from the street beyond Jungkook, swelling through the snow, rich and terrible.
He turned instantly, body going still in a way no human body could. The lamps along the road flickered one by one until the whole street seemed to breathe between light and dark.
At the edge of the pavement, beneath the farthest lamp, a figure stood. Tall. Elegant. Motionless. You could not see his face clearly, but you saw the pale oval of it beneath dark hair. You saw the red rose held loosely in one hand. You saw the way he tilted his head as though listening to applause only he could hear.
Jungkook’s voice changed.
“Go inside.”
You did not move.
The figure lifted the rose to his mouth. Even from the doorway, even with Jungkook between you and the street, you felt the smile. The rose fell from his hand. It struck the snow. The streetlights went out.
Your house shook.
The force of it threw the door against the chain, and you staggered back as something slammed into the wards with a sound like a choir screaming underwater. The candle flame roared upward. The salt lines across the windows blazed white. The mirror in the hall cracked again, splitting your reflection into a dozen furious fragments.
Jungkook moved. You barely saw him. One moment he stood on the porch; the next he was at the edge of the path, a black shape cutting through the dark with impossible speed. Something struck him from the side, something you could not see except as distortion, a ripple in the snow and air, but he hit it hard enough that the pavement cracked beneath his feet.
The opera turned shrill. Your front door rattled. A voice whispered from every window. Imperfect. You backed into the hallway, breath tearing through your chest, and the house groaned around you. Not surrendering. Straining.
The wards were holding, but something was testing every seam. You looked at the cracked mirror and saw not your own face but a mouth smiling behind your shoulder. You spun. Nothing stood there. The whisper came again. Imperfect. Your fear tried to climb into your throat. You swallowed it down and lifted the candle.
“No.”
The whisper paused.
You stepped into the centre of the hallway, smoke curling around your wrist, blood drying in your palm, the owl charm freezing against your skin.
“I said no.”
The house steadied.
Outside, something snarled, and for a heartbeat you saw Jungkook clearly through the narrow opening of the door. His eyes were no longer only dark. They burned with a red so deep it looked almost black, his mouth drawn back from teeth too sharp to be human. He was beautiful still, but the beauty had split open to reveal the violence beneath it.
He was a monster. Fully. Undeniably. And he was standing between your house and the thing trying to get in. That did not absolve him. It did not soften what he had done. It simply made the truth larger. Monsters could protect. Monsters could deceive. Monsters could want. Monsters could still be wrong.
The invisible force struck him again, and this time he slid back across the snow. His shoulder hit the garden wall hard enough to break stone. He rose immediately, but you saw the brief flicker of pain move through him.
Then the opera cut out.
The sudden silence was worse. The figure beneath the far lamp was gone. In his place, the fallen rose remained, red against the snow. The pressure against the house vanished. Every flame in your house dropped low. For several long seconds, nothing moved.
Then Jungkook turned. His monstrous features had retreated, but not completely. His eyes still held their terrible darkness. Blood marked the corner of his mouth, black in the porch light, and his coat was torn at the shoulder where whatever Jin had sent had struck him.
He walked back to the threshold. Slowly this time. He stopped before the salt. Neither of you spoke. The world smelled of smoke, snow, roses, and the metallic edge of old magic. You should have thanked him. You did not. Not yet. Instead, you stood in your doorway, candle in one hand and iron in the other, and let him see exactly what his protection did not buy him.
“You are bleeding,” you said.
His eyes moved to your mouth.
“So are you.”
The memory of the hunger in his gaze made your hand tighten, but you did not step back.
“Then we both learn restraint tonight.”
Something moved across his face. Not amusement. Not charm. Something deeper. He bowed his head once. It was small, but it was not nothing.
“You were right,” he said.
The words entered the hallway carefully, as though he knew they would be thrown back if they were not honest enough.
“About what?”
“About all of it.”
Your throat tightened, but you refused to let it show.
Jungkook looked at the salt line between you.
“I have been calling obsession protection because it made me feel less monstrous. I watched you because I wanted to. I stayed close because I wanted to. Jin gave me a reason, and I used that reason until I could pretend it was the only one.”
The honesty hurt more than the excuses would have. You hated that too.
“I did want to protect you,” he continued. “But I also wanted you near enough that the dark could not have you before I did.”
The candle flame bent toward him. Your voice was quiet when you answered.
“That is not love.”
“No.”
“Do you understand that?”
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
You searched his face for manipulation, for poetry, for another velvet lie. You found danger. You found hunger. You found shame. You found want, still there, still sharp enough to cut. But beneath it, for the first time, you found no attempt to make his darkness sound like a gift. That mattered. It did not fix anything. But it mattered.
You stepped closer to the threshold, and the salt glowed faintly between you.
“My rules stand.”
“I know.”
“You knock.”
“Yes.”
“You tell the truth.”
“Yes.”
“You do not follow me unless I ask you to, unless there is immediate danger, and if there is immediate danger, you tell me exactly what it is.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“You do not touch Minho. You do not use him. You do not keep things from me that put him in danger.”
“I swear it.”
“Do not swear beautifully. Swear usefully.”
For a moment, there it was again, that almost-smile, but this time he killed it before it could live.
“I will tell you what I know about Jin. I will tell you where he has hunted before, what signs to look for, what the opera means, and why he chose the word on the walls. I will tell you what your mother’s charm is, if I can. I will tell you what I am when you ask.”
“When I ask?”
“You have had enough forced on you tonight.”
The answer unsettled you because it was almost right. Almost. You did not forgive him for learning quickly. You simply noticed that he had.
The snow continued falling behind him, softening the broken garden wall, covering the cracks in the pavement, touching his dark hair with pale flecks that made him look heartbreakingly young for something that had probably lived too long. Your anger remained. So did the pull. But now the pull had a name. Now it had edges. Now you could look at it and decide whether to step closer or cut it out of yourself one thread at a time. That was yours. At last, yours.
You reached up and unhooked the chain. Jungkook’s eyes widened slightly. You opened the door fully. The salt line burned between you. He did not move. Good. You lifted your chin.
“You may stand there,” you said. “Outside.”
His gaze dropped to the threshold, then returned to you.
“And if I want to come in?”
You held his stare.
“Then one day you can earn an invitation.”
The words changed him. Not dramatically. Jungkook was too old, too controlled, too monstrous to break apart over one sentence. But something in his expression shifted, as though the hunger in him had been given a shape it did not know how to devour. An invitation. Not a conquest. Not a haunting. Not prey dragged into the dark. A choice. Yours.
His voice was rougher when he answered.
“Then I will stand outside.”
You nodded once. Behind you, the house settled. Around your throat, the owl charm warmed. For the first time all night, the air inside your home felt like yours again.
Jungkook looked past you, into the hallway, at the cracked mirror, the smoke, the candle, the iron, the salt, the little kingdom of ordinary things you had turned into a fortress because he and Jin had mistaken your softness for an unlocked door.
When his eyes came back to you, there was something like respect in them. Not worship. Not possession. Respect. It suited him better than charm.
“Tell me the truth,” you said.
He stood in the snow, unable to cross the line you had made, and for once he did not look like the darkness had chosen him. He looked like he was waiting to be judged by it.
“Jin is not killing at random,” he said. “The bodies are a message.”
“To whom?”
Jungkook’s gaze moved to the rose lying in the snow beyond the broken wall. Then back to you.
“To me at first.”
Your grip tightened around the candle.
“And now?”
His eyes met yours, and in them you saw the answer before he spoke it. The opera had stopped. The house was silent. The city held its breath.
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Summary: Every winter, you visit N Seoul Tower to watch the first snowfall. You never knew someone had been watching you too. When a mysterious stranger named Jungkook finally steps out of the snow and into your life, white roses begin appearing, bodies start surfacing across Seoul, and your work as a crime scene photographer pulls you closer to a monster who has loved you from the shadows for years.
Pairing: Vampire!Jungkook x Reader
Genre: vampire!au, horror romance, gothic romance, dark romance, supernatural mystery, crime photographer!reader, modern Seoul setting
Word Count: 9k
Warnings: vampires, blood, biting, fangs, murder, crime scenes, stalking, obsession, possessive behaviour, morally grey characters, dark romance themes, manipulation, supernatural elements, slow burn, intense romantic tension, white rose symbolism
you kept the rose - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Please note that under no circumstances would I romanticise stalking. It will all be explained in later chapters :) Just wish to avoid any misunderstandings!
Dark days had always belonged to winter.
There was something honest about the season that had fascinated you since childhood. While spring dressed the world in false promises and summer painted everything in bright colours, winter stripped away every illusion until only the truth remained. The trees stood bare and skeletal against the horizon, the earth surrendered its warmth, and even the sky seemed determined to reveal its melancholy beneath endless layers of grey.
Most people hated it. They complained about the bitter mornings, the relentless rain, and the darkness that arrived too early and lingered far too long. They cursed the frozen wind that slipped beneath scarves and coats, turning even the shortest walk into an ordeal, and they counted the days until the world would become warm enough to forgive again.
You had never understood them.
Winter was not cruel. Winter was simply incapable of pretending to be something it was not, and perhaps that was why you loved it so much.
Every year, as December approached and the city began preparing for celebrations and lights, you found yourself waiting for something entirely different. You did not care about the decorations filling the streets or the holiday music drifting from shops and cafés. What captured your attention was the sky itself. You waited for the weather forecasts to begin whispering about falling temperatures and approaching storms. You listened for the possibility of snow with the same anticipation others reserved for good news.
Not just any snowfall.
The first.
It had always been the first.
Since childhood, you had treated it almost like a sacred event. The second snowfall never carried the same magic, neither did the third, nor the countless careless flurries that followed throughout winter. Only the first snowfall possessed that strange sense of wonder, as though the season itself was finally revealing its true face. It arrived quietly, patiently, like a secret shared between old friends.
And every year, without fail, you answered its call.
That ritual had eventually led you to N Seoul Tower.
The tradition had started innocently enough years ago, but it quickly became something you refused to abandon. No matter how busy life became, no matter how exhausting work was, you always found your way back to the observation deck when the first snow was expected to arrive. You went alone, always alone, because there was something deeply personal about those moments. Standing above the city with nothing but the wind for company allowed you to forget everything waiting below. The noise disappeared. The expectations vanished. Even time seemed to lose its meaning.
Only the snowfall mattered.
Only the sky.
Only the feeling that, for a few brief hours, the world belonged entirely to winter.
Most people thought your devotion was strange. Your friend in security certainly did, though he had stopped trying to convince you otherwise years ago. Instead, he simply shook his head whenever December arrived and quietly allowed you access to the observation deck long after visiting hours had ended.
“You know this is not normal, right?” he had asked you once.
You remembered smiling as though the answer had been obvious.
“Neither is the first snow.”
He had laughed then, shaking his head as he unlocked the way for you, but tonight he did not laugh. The moment you arrived, you noticed something unusual about him. His complexion looked pale beneath the artificial lights, and there was a tension in his shoulders that had not been there before. He greeted you as he always did, but the warmth usually present in his smile seemed absent, replaced by something restless and watchful.
“You should not stay too long tonight,” he said.
You glanced past him toward the doors leading out to the observation deck.
“Is there a problem?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly, and your eyes narrowed before he looked away.
“Just bad weather,” he muttered. “The storm is supposed to be heavier than they said.”
“Then it will be beautiful.”
“That is what worries me about you.”
You almost smiled, but something in his face stopped you. There was fear there, not much, only a trace of it, but enough to make you notice. It passed behind his eyes like a shadow, disappearing almost as soon as it appeared.
“Did something happen?” you asked.
For a moment, he seemed as though he might answer honestly. His lips parted, and his gaze moved past you, checking the corridor behind your shoulder. There was nobody there. The hallway stretched empty and silent beneath the bright lights, yet his body still stiffened as though he had heard something you had missed.
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Just promise me you will leave if it gets too bad.”
You studied him for a second longer, waiting for the truth to rise to the surface, but he forced a smile before it could.
“You sound like you know something I do not.”
His mouth opened, then closed again, and whatever he had nearly said vanished behind a tired sigh.
“I know you are stubborn.”
That was true enough.
You let it go.
The doors opened with a soft mechanical sigh, and the winter air rushed in to greet you. Cold touched your cheeks at once, sharp and clean, and your hair lifted in the wind as you stepped onto the observation deck. Below, Seoul stretched endlessly into the dark, all headlights and windows and restless motion. The city never truly slept, not even in winter. It simply changed its voice, becoming quieter, deeper, and more secretive beneath the weight of the season.
You walked to the railing and placed your hands around the cold metal.
Then you waited.
Minutes passed, or perhaps an hour. Time always became strange up here. There was only the wind, the city, the darkness, and the feeling that something unseen had turned its gaze toward you.
That feeling was not new. You had felt it before, not constantly and not enough to frighten you, but enough to remember. It came only in winter, only near the first snowfall, like a prickle along your spine or a sudden stillness behind you. Sometimes you felt certain that if you turned quickly enough, you might catch someone watching from the edge of the world.
You never did.
But the feeling always remained.
Tonight, it was stronger.
The city below blurred as the wind sharpened, and you tucked your hands into your sleeves, though you refused to go back inside. Not yet. Not before it happened.
Then the first flake fell.
It was small and white, almost shy as it drifted down from the dark sky and landed on the railing beside your hand. It melted almost instantly, disappearing into a clear drop of water, but your breath caught all the same. Another followed, then another, and within seconds the sky opened above Seoul.
Snow drifted down in soft, silent pieces, covering the night in white. It touched your hair, your eyelashes, your coat, floating past the lights of the tower before vanishing into the city below. A smile curved your lips before you could stop it.
“There you are,” you whispered.
The snowfall thickened quickly, transforming everything it touched. The rooftops below began to pale, the roads shone beneath a wet silver veil, and trees that had looked dead only moments before appeared delicate and enchanted beneath the snow, every branch outlined in white. Buildings that had seemed lifeless beneath the winter dark softened under the growing storm, their sharp edges blurred by the season's hand.
The city became quieter, almost holy, as though winter had forgiven it.
You closed your eyes and breathed it in. The air was cold enough to sting your lungs, yet impossibly clean, carrying the scent of snow, rain, and distant metal. For a brief moment, standing above the trembling city, everything felt perfect.
You forgot the strange warning from your friend. You forgot the unease beneath your skin and the heaviness in the air. You forgot everything except the snowfall and the way it seemed to recognise you.
Then the wind changed.
It cut across the tower violently, driving snow into your face until you were forced to take a step back. The gentle flakes became a blinding rush of white, swirling so thickly that the city below began to disappear beneath the storm. The world narrowed around you until there was only the railing, the snow, the coldness of your breath, and the sudden unmistakable awareness that you were no longer alone.
“You still come here.”
The voice came from behind you.
Low, silken, and far too close.
You turned.
A man stood only a few feet away.
He had not been there before. You were certain of it.
Snow clung to the shoulders of his long black coat, but he seemed strangely untouched by the cold. His hands rested inside his pockets, his posture calm and almost careless, as though the storm had been made for him and not the other way around. Dark hair fell messily across his forehead, stirred by the wind, and his face held a beauty that felt wrong in the same way a blade looked beautiful beneath moonlight.
It was not soft beauty.
It was not safe beauty.
It was the kind of beauty that made the body hesitate before the mind understood why.
But it was his eyes that held you still. They were dark enough to make the night look pale, and for one strange, breathless moment, you felt as though you were staring into something ancient wearing the shape of a man.
You should have stepped away.
You did not.
The man tilted his head, and his mouth curved slightly, as though he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Did I frighten you?”
“No.”
It was true. You were startled, certainly, but not afraid.
Something flickered in his gaze. Interest, perhaps. Amusement. Hunger.
“You should be.”
The words should have sounded like a threat. Instead, they sounded almost fond.
You turned fully toward him, the wind pulling at your coat and hair.
“I thought no one else was allowed up here.”
“They are not.”
“Then how are you here?”
His smile deepened.
“How are you?”
“I know someone in security.”
“So do I.”
There was something in the way he said it that made your skin tighten. You glanced toward the doors, but they remained closed, and the warm light inside looked distant now, blurred by the storm. When you looked back, the man had moved closer. Not much, only a step, but you had not heard him move.
“What is your name?” you asked.
His eyes lowered briefly to your mouth before returning to yours.
“You ask that as though names protect people.”
“Do they not?”
“Not from me.”
The wind howled between you, dragging the snow in restless circles around your feet. A sane person would have left. You knew that. You also knew, with sudden clarity, that you were tired of being sane.
“You speak as though you want me to run,” you said.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know whether you will.”
You held his gaze, and something inside him stilled. It was subtle, almost invisible, but you saw it. A small interruption in his certainty. A fracture in the perfect mask. He had expected fear, yet you gave him curiosity, and for a moment he did not seem to know what to do with it.
The snow fell harder.
“What happens if I do not run?” you asked.
His jaw tightened.
“Then I might forget to be merciful.”
A strange warmth moved through your chest. It was not comfort, nor was it desire exactly. It felt more like recognition, as though some hidden part of you had been waiting for those words long before he said them.
“You say that like mercy is natural to you.”
He laughed softly.
It was a beautiful sound, and a terrible one.
“It is not.”
For a moment, neither of you spoke. Snow gathered in your hair and melted against your skin, and you could feel his gaze following every drop of water as it slid down your temple, along your cheek, and toward your throat. His attention should have frightened you. Instead, it made you feel impossibly awake.
“You come here every year,” he said.
Your breath caught.
It was not a question.
“You have been watching me.”
“Yes.”
There was no denial, no shame, only truth. The honesty of it unsettled you more than any lie could have.
“For how long?”
His eyes softened, and that softness was somehow the most frightening thing about him.
“Long enough.”
A quiet, disbelieving laugh left you.
“Do you expect that to make me feel better?”
“No.”
“Do you care?”
“Yes.”
The answer came so quickly that it silenced you. He looked at you then as though there were no storm, no city, no world beyond the narrow space between your bodies.
“I care more than I should.”
Something passed through you, part warning, part pull, part memory you could not place.
“You do not know me,” you said.
His expression changed, and for the first time, he looked almost wounded.
“I know you hate summer because it lies.”
Your throat tightened.
“I know you drink your coffee too sweet when you are sad, even though you pretend you like it that way. I know you touch the first snow with your bare fingers every year. I know you close your eyes when you are trying not to cry. I know you smile at strangers who do not deserve it, and I know you forgive people because it is easier than admitting they hurt you.”
The storm roared around you, swallowing the distant sounds of the city.
His voice lowered.
“I know enough.”
You should have been horrified. A part of you was. But beneath the horror was something darker, something that listened with dangerous fascination, something that wondered what it would be like to be known so completely by a monster.
“You sound obsessed,” you whispered.
“I am.”
Again, no shame.
Your heart began to beat harder, and the man heard it. You knew he did, because his eyes darkened, and his gaze lowered to your throat with such intensity that you almost stepped back.
Almost.
“What are you?” you asked.
He smiled.
“Ask the question you mean.”
Your fingers curled at your sides.
“What kind of monster are you?”
His smile became something ancient.
“The kind that has waited for you.”
The words entered you like cold water. You stared at him, trying to decide whether you should feel terrified or strangely honoured. Perhaps both.
“Why me?”
For the first time, he looked away, across the deck, across the snow, toward the city drowning beneath winter.
“When I first saw you,” he said, “you were standing exactly where you are now. Everyone else had gone inside because the cold became unbearable. But you stayed. You lifted your face to the snow as though it was touching you gently.”
His voice softened, and the tenderness in it unsettled you more than his threats.
“I had not seen anyone look at winter like that in a very long time.”
You could barely breathe.
“I thought you looked lonely,” he continued. “Then I realised I was wrong.”
His gaze returned to you.
“You looked like you belonged to it.”
The words should not have affected you, but they did, deeply and dangerously.
“And what did you do after that?” you asked.
“I came back the next year.”
Your lips parted.
“And the year after that.”
The snow seemed to close around you both.
“And the year after that.”
A shiver ran down your spine, though this time it was not from the cold.
“You have been here every December?”
“Yes.”
“Watching me?”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of his confession was almost unbearable. You took one step toward him, and his eyes widened slightly, only slightly, but enough for you to notice.
“Does it scare you?” you asked.
“What?”
“That I am not screaming.”
His mouth parted, then closed again. For the first time, he did not have an answer.
The silence between you changed. It grew heavier, more intimate, until the storm swallowed the rest of the world and left only him, only you, and the snow gathering between your feet like a white grave.
“You should not come closer,” he said, his voice rougher now.
“Why?”
“Because I have imagined this too many times.”
Your pulse leapt.
He heard that too.
His eyes sharpened.
“Do you know what happens to people who get too close to me?”
You tilted your head.
“Do you know what happens to monsters who think I am prey?”
The look he gave you then was almost reverent, as though you had done something impossible.
Then he moved.
Not like a man. Like a shadow slipping free from the dark.
One moment he stood at a distance, and the next he was before you. You felt the cold wall behind your back before you realised he had guided you there. He did not slam you against it. He did not need to. His presence alone was enough to trap the air in your lungs.
His hands rested on either side of you against the wall, not touching, only caging, and somehow the restraint was worse than touch.
“You are reckless,” he whispered.
“You are dramatic.”
His eyes flashed, then he laughed under his breath.
“You should hate me.”
“I do not know you well enough to hate you.”
“You know enough.”
“No,” you said. “I know what you want me to see.”
His gaze searched yours.
“And what do you see?”
“A man trying very hard to look like a nightmare.”
“I am a nightmare.”
“Perhaps.”
Your eyes moved over his face, over the snow in his hair, the curve of his mouth, and the darkness of his eyes.
“But not mine.”
Something inside him broke. You saw it in the flicker of control giving way to something rawer, hungrier, and more vulnerable. He lifted one hand slowly, so slowly you could have stopped him if you wanted to.
You did not.
His fingers brushed a strand of wet hair from your cheek. His touch was cold, colder than the air, yet your skin burned beneath it. His thumb lingered near your jaw, feather-light and almost worshipful.
“You are not afraid,” he murmured.
“I did not say that.”
His eyes dropped to your lips again.
“No,” he whispered. “You are afraid.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“You simply like it.”
Your breath trembled.
His thumb moved along your jaw.
“You should not look at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like you are deciding whether I am worth ruining yourself for.”
The truth of it struck too close, and you looked away. He caught your chin gently between his fingers and turned your face back to his.
“Do not hide from me.”
The command was soft, but it was still a command.
“You do not get to tell me what to do.”
A spark lit behind his eyes.
“There she is.”
The words made your stomach tighten.
“Who?”
“The girl beneath the softness.”
His face lowered closer to yours.
“The one who would bite back.”
Your lips parted, and his gaze fixed there. For a moment, you thought he would kiss you. Instead, he stopped with only a breath between you, and the restraint made something twist painfully inside your chest.
“Tell me to leave,” he whispered.
You said nothing.
“Tell me to stop watching you.”
Still nothing.
“Tell me you never want to see me again.”
The snow fell between you in silver fragments, and you lifted your eyes to his.
“What is your name?”
He went utterly still. A long second passed, then another, before he finally answered.
“Jungkook,” he said at last. “Jeon Jungkook.”
The name moved through you strangely, not unfamiliar and not remembered, but something in between, like hearing a song from a dream.
“Jungkook,” you repeated.
His eyes closed for the briefest moment. When they opened again, something almost painful lived inside them.
“You should not say it like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I will want to hear it again.”
The confession was quiet and devastating.
You should have taken that moment to leave. Instead, you lifted your hand and touched the edge of his coat. His eyes dropped to your fingers, and the entire storm seemed to still around him.
“You are shaking,” you said.
His mouth curved faintly.
“I am not cold.”
“I know.”
His gaze returned to yours, and there it was again, that dangerous softness, that terrifying devotion. He looked at you as though he wanted to devour you and kneel before you in the same breath.
The wind surged again, violent enough to make you flinch. Jungkook moved instantly, his body shielding yours from the storm. It was instinctive, protective, possessive, and he seemed to realise it at the same time you did. His jaw tightened.
“You should go inside.”
“You just told me you have waited years for me.”
“I did.”
“And now you want me to leave?”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“I want you to stay so badly that it is no longer safe.”
The honesty of that should have sent you running. Instead, it reached into the darkest part of you and lit a match.
You stepped closer until your body almost touched his. He inhaled sharply, though you were almost certain he did not need to breathe.
“Maybe I do not want safe,” you whispered.
His eyes darkened into something almost black.
The first touch of his mouth was not rough. That surprised you. It was barely there, a brush, a question, a warning. You answered by leaning into him, and his restraint shattered.
The kiss that followed was deeper, colder, hungrier. Snow melted between you as his hand slid to the back of your neck, not forcing, only holding, as though he feared you might vanish if he let go. You felt the wall behind you, the storm around you, and the impossible stillness of his body against yours. He kissed like a man who had dreamed of this until dreaming had become torment, and you kissed him back like someone who had been waiting without knowing she was waiting.
The world seemed to dissolve around you. The city disappeared beneath the storm, the lights below fading into nothing more than distant ghosts behind the curtain of snow. Winter wrapped itself around the two of you until everything else ceased to matter, leaving only the darkness, the falling snow, and Jungkook.
When he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, and his eyes remained closed.
“I knew you would taste like snow,” he whispered.
You should have laughed.
You could not.
Your heart was beating too hard.
His fingers tightened slightly at your waist.
“I should let you go.”
“But you will not.”
His eyes opened.
“No.”
The word sounded almost like a vow.
The silence between you stretched, thick with everything unsaid. His touch remained careful and reverent, but the hunger beneath it was unmistakable. You felt it in the way his gaze traced your face, in the way his mouth hovered near yours again, in the way he kept fighting himself and losing by inches. This was not safety. This was surrender, not to him, but to the darkness inside yourself that had recognised him before your mind could.
The storm hid you from the city. The snow wrapped around you like a curtain, and beneath that white, merciless sky, you let the night become something secret, something that belonged only to the two of you.
When the world returned, it did so slowly.
The cold wall against your back. The wet snow on your skin. Jungkook's hand resting beside your head. His breath unsteady now, though not from exertion. His eyes fixed on you with such intensity that you felt stripped bare in a way no touch could ever accomplish.
“You are going to ruin me,” he said quietly.
The absurdity of it made a soft laugh escape you.
“Me?”
His expression did not change.
“Yes.”
“You are the monster here.”
“I know.”
His thumb brushed your lower lip.
“That is why it is so humiliating.”
Something about the vulnerability of that confession pierced you.
“You are afraid of me,” you realised.
His eyes sharpened.
“No.”
“Yes,” you whispered. “You are.”
The air changed again. He stared at you with something close to disbelief, and you stepped closer, watching the creature who had followed you for years suddenly look as though he had miscalculated the danger.
“You have watched me for years,” you said. “You know my habits, my sadness, my rituals. You came here tonight thinking you knew exactly what would happen.”
This time, he was the one who seemed caught.
“But you did not expect me to look back.”
His throat moved.
“You are dangerous,” he murmured.
You smiled.
“Only now you notice?”
For a moment, his expression was almost tender.
Then something beyond the glass doors caught his attention. His head turned slightly, and you followed his gaze to find your security-guard friend visible inside, moving through the corridor with a torch in hand. He looked anxious, calling something into his radio while his footsteps disturbed the thin layer of snow near the entrance.
Jungkook watched him, and the tenderness vanished.
Something cold and predatory took its place.
You saw it clearly, and perhaps that should have frightened you more than anything else. Instead, you touched his wrist.
Jungkook looked down at your hand, and the darkness in his face softened immediately. Too immediately.
That was when you understood.
He was not controlled by kindness, morality, or restraint.
He was controlled by you.
The thought should have disgusted you.
It did not.
“He is my friend,” you said.
Jungkook looked at the guard again.
“Is he?”
“Yes.”
A pause settled between you before his eyes returned to yours.
“Then he lives.”
The words were spoken softly, almost sweetly, as though he had handed you a flower.
Your blood chilled, not because you doubted him, but because you believed him completely.
“What are you?” you asked again.
He smiled sadly.
“You already know.”
You did.
You had known from the moment he appeared without footsteps, from the coldness of his touch, from the impossible darkness of his eyes, and from the way he watched your throat whenever your pulse quickened. Still, hearing yourself think the word felt ridiculous.
Vampire.
Jungkook leaned closer, his lips brushing your ear.
“If I showed you,” he whispered, “would you run?”
“No.”
His fingers flexed.
“You answer too quickly.”
“You asked the wrong question.”
He pulled back enough to look at you.
“What is the right question?”
You held his gaze.
“If you showed me, would I want more?”
For the first time that night, Jungkook looked truly shaken. Then his smile returned, slow, beautiful, and damning.
“And would you?”
You looked at the snow falling around him, at the city disappearing beneath white, and at the man who had stalked your winters yet somehow still seemed like the loneliest creature you had ever seen.
“Yes,” you whispered.
A sound left him, not quite a laugh, not quite a breath, but something closer to surrender.
“You will be the death of me.”
“You are already dead.”
His smile widened.
“Exactly.”
The storm raged harder, rattling the glass behind you. Inside, your friend called your name again, closer this time, his voice muffled by the weather and the sealed doors. Jungkook's gaze remained on you.
“He will come out soon.”
“Then go.”
His expression darkened.
“You want me to leave?”
“No.”
The answer was honest, and his eyes softened again.
“But this is not the only night,” you said.
He went still.
“You think there will be another?”
You lifted your hand and brushed snow from his hair. His lashes lowered at the touch, and the sight made something inside your chest tighten.
“I think you would tear the city apart before letting this be the only one.”
His lips parted, and there it was. The truth. The beautiful horror of him.
“Yes,” he whispered.
Your friend called your name again, and this time he was close enough that the sound struck through the storm. Jungkook stepped back, and the space he left behind felt colder than the winter air.
“When?” he asked.
The question was quiet, but beneath it lay desperation. You should not have loved hearing it.
You did.
“Tomorrow.”
His eyes brightened in the dark.
“Here?”
“No.”
A faint smile touched your mouth.
“You know where to find me.”
The look he gave you then was almost worshipful.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Of course he did.
That should have been the warning.
Instead, it felt like a promise.
The glass door opened behind you, and warm light spilled across the snow as your friend shouted your name in relief. You turned toward him for only a second, but when you looked back, Jungkook was gone.
There were no footsteps, no shadow moving through the storm, no sign that he had ever been there except the faint impression in the snow where he had stood.
Your friend rushed toward you and grabbed your arms.
“What are you doing out here? I have been calling you for ten minutes.”
You looked past him, searching the white darkness.
“Have you?”
His face paled.
“Were you alone?”
The question lingered between you.
You could have lied.
Instead, you smiled faintly.
“No.”
His grip tightened.
“Who was with you?”
You looked down at the snow near your feet.
Something lay there.
A single white rose.
Its petals were perfect despite the storm, delicate and unbruised, as though winter itself had protected it. Around its stem, tied with black thread, was a small note.
You bent and picked it up before your friend could stop you.
The handwriting was elegant.
Old-fashioned.
Only one sentence waited there.
*I have waited long enough.*
Your heart should not have answered it, but it did. Slowly, violently, like something waking from a very long sleep.
You folded the note inside your palm and looked out at the storm. Somewhere in the darkness, you knew he was watching. You could feel him, not as a threat, not exactly, but as a presence woven into the snowfall itself.
And for the first time in your life, the first snowfall did not feel like an ending to the year.
It felt like the beginning of something terrible.
Something beautiful.
Something that had already chosen you.
Beneath the white sky, with the city trembling far below, you found yourself smiling.
Because Jungkook had been right.
You should have been afraid.
But you were not.
Not nearly enough.
You did not sleep.
Or perhaps you did, but if rest had come at all, it had arrived in broken fragments, slipping between dream and memory until you could no longer tell which belonged to the night and which belonged to him. Sometime after midnight, the world inside your bedroom had begun to feel unfamiliar. The shadows looked deeper than they should have. The silence seemed too aware. Even the snow outside your window appeared to fall with purpose, as though winter had not finished delivering its secrets.
Every time your eyes closed, you saw him.
Dark eyes beneath falling snow. Black hair dampened by the storm. The ghost of a smile that had looked too gentle for a monster and too dangerous for a man. You remembered the way he had watched you, not like a stranger admiring something beautiful, but like a creature who had spent years memorising every piece of you and still found himself starving for more.
Jungkook.
The name lingered in your mind long after you stopped trying to push it away.
By four in the morning, sleep became impossible. You sat upright in bed, rubbing tired fingers over your eyes while the city remained hidden beneath darkness and snow. Outside, Seoul had been softened into silence. White covered the rooftops, the streets, the balconies, and the sleeping cars abandoned along the road below. The storm had continued long after the forecast promised it would end, wrapping the city in a veil so pure it almost made you forget what waited beneath it.
Almost.
You turned your head toward the other side of the bed.
That was when you saw it.
A white rose rested upon your pillow.
For a moment, you did not move. You simply stared at the flower lying beside you as though it had been placed there by a dream and forgotten by morning. Its petals were flawless, not a single bruise marking their pale surface, and tiny droplets of melted snow still clung to the outer edges. It looked freshly picked. Worse than that, it felt newly arrived.
Your breath caught painfully in your throat.
You lived alone.
Your doors had been locked.
Your windows had been closed.
There were no spare keys hidden beneath flowerpots, no open balcony door, no forgotten latch that could explain how a rose had appeared beside your sleeping face in the hours before dawn. The sensible part of your mind immediately began offering explanations, each more desperate than the last. Perhaps you had brought it home without realising. Perhaps exhaustion had made you move it during the night. Perhaps you had dreamed half of what happened on the tower, and this was simply the mind's cruel way of finishing the story.
The sensible part of your mind was losing the argument before it had even begun.
Because you knew exactly where you had left the first rose.
On the kitchen counter.
Inside a glass vase.
Not on your pillow.
Not close enough for its scent to follow you into sleep.
Slowly, you reached toward the flower. Your fingertips brushed the stem, and a shiver moved through you when you felt how cold it was. Not the faint coolness of an object left in a room overnight, but the sharp cold of winter itself, as though the flower had only just been carried in from the storm.
You stared at it for another long moment before releasing a quiet sigh.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
You were not entirely sure whether you were speaking to Jungkook or yourself.
Possibly both.
The rose, infuriatingly beautiful and silent, offered no defence.
You climbed from bed and carried it into the kitchen. The first rose still sat exactly where you had left it, waiting in its vase with its white petals untouched by time. For a moment, the sight made something in your chest tighten. One flower had been strange enough. Two felt like the beginning of a language you did not yet understand.
You placed the second rose beside the first.
They looked almost identical beneath the pale kitchen light, two perfect white blooms standing together as though they had always been meant to find one another. You hated how beautiful they looked. You hated more that your first instinct was not to throw them away.
Then you noticed the folded piece of paper hidden beneath the new rose.
Your stomach tightened.
Carefully, you unfolded it.
The handwriting was elegant and old-fashioned, written in dark ink that had not smudged despite the snow still clinging to the flower. Only three words waited for you.
*You kept it.*
No name.
No explanation.
No signature.
You stared at the note, then at the roses, then back at the note. A ridiculous laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
“You are insane.”
The terrifying thing was that the words came out sounding almost fond.
You set the note down on the counter and leaned against the edge of the sink, staring at the flowers as though they might confess something if you watched them long enough. Nothing about this was normal. A man you met in a snowstorm had appeared on a locked observation deck, admitted to watching you for years, kissed you as though the act had broken something inside him, and vanished before your friend could find him. Now a second rose had appeared inside your locked apartment.
Every sensible instinct you possessed told you to be afraid.
Yet fear was not the emotion rising most strongly inside you.
Curiosity was.
And that, you thought, might be the most dangerous thing about you.
By seven in the morning, you were dressed for work, your hair pulled back and your camera equipment prepared with the kind of practiced efficiency that came only from routine. The white roses remained on the kitchen table. You had considered throwing them away more than once, had even reached toward them with the firm intention of ending whatever game Jungkook thought he was playing.
You failed each time.
The notes, however, had been tucked carefully inside a drawer.
Not because they mattered.
Certainly not because they mattered.
You ignored the quiet voice in your head pointing out that throwing the notes away would have been significantly more normal.
Outside, Seoul remained buried beneath fresh snow. The city always moved differently after a storm. Cars crept along the roads with unusual caution, pedestrians stepped carefully over icy patches, and even the loudest streets seemed subdued beneath the weight of white. Snow had a way of making people remember their own fragility. It slowed them down. It softened them. It made them look up, if only for a moment.
You loved that about it.
For twenty-three minutes, the morning almost felt peaceful.
Then your phone rang.
The name flashing across the screen immediately ruined whatever softness remained.
**Minho.**
Your older brother.
You answered with a sigh.
“What?”
“Good morning to you too.”
His voice carried the familiar exhaustion of someone who had been awake far too long and had already seen something he wished he could forget.
You frowned.
“Night shift?”
“Worse.”
The single word made you straighten. Minho had been a detective long enough for tiredness to become part of his voice, but there was a difference between exhaustion and dread. This was closer to the latter.
“What happened?”
Silence greeted you, and your hand tightened around the phone.
Your brother only became quiet when something was wrong.
“There has been another body,” he said at last.
Immediately, the atmosphere shifted. The warmth of your apartment vanished. The comfort of morning disappeared. The roses, the notes, the impossible memory of Jungkook on the tower all receded as work entered the room with cold, professional hands.
“When?”
“Two hours ago.”
“Where?”
“Near Bukchon.”
Your stomach sank. Bukchon was beautiful, historic, quiet. The sort of place tourists photographed and residents protected with pride. The sort of place people wanted to believe remained untouched by the uglier parts of the city.
“You need photographs?”
“Already requested.”
You closed your eyes.
Of course they had.
“How bad?”
Another pause.
Then Minho said, “Bad.”
You hated that answer, mostly because it meant even he was disturbed, and your brother was very difficult to disturb.
“I will be there in thirty.”
“Be careful on the roads.”
“You called me to a murder scene, and now you are worried about traffic?”
“I am capable of worrying about more than one thing at a time.”
Despite yourself, your mouth twitched.
“I will see you soon.”
“Do not forget your gloves.”
“I am a crime scene photographer, Minho. I know how gloves work.”
“I am your older brother. Let me be annoying.”
“You are excellent at it.”
“Drive safely.”
The call ended, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than before.
For a moment, your eyes returned to the drawer where the notes waited. You thought of Jungkook's handwriting, of the cold rose beside your sleeping face, of the way he had said he had waited long enough.
Then you picked up your equipment and left.
The crime scene was already chaos by the time you arrived.
Police tape stretched across the entrance of a narrow alley, bright and obscene against the snow. Officers moved carefully over the slick ground while forensic technicians worked in quiet coordination. Their voices were low, their movements precise. Beyond the tape, neighbours had gathered at a distance, whispering behind scarves and gloved hands, their curiosity fighting with their fear.
You slipped beneath the tape with your identification visible and immediately felt the familiar change settle over you.
At home, you could be unsettled by roses and impossible men.
Here, you became still.
Here, you observed.
Snow continued to fall in slow, delicate flakes, dusting the shoulders of uniforms and settling along the edges of the alley. The scene might have looked peaceful from a distance. Up close, peace had nothing to do with it.
You spotted Minho near the far end of the alley.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing the permanent exhaustion of a man who had built his life around other people's worst endings, Detective Minho looked as though he had not slept in three days. His hair was slightly damp from the snow, and his expression tightened the moment he saw you.
“Morning,” he said.
He handed you a coffee.
You accepted it immediately.
“I love you.”
“That is the first nice thing you have said all day.”
You took a sip and let the warmth settle through your hands.
“Show me.”
His expression darkened.
Wordlessly, he led you forward.
The victim had already been covered, though enough of the scene remained visible to tell you why Minho sounded the way he had on the phone. The alley felt wrong. Not merely because someone had died there, but because of the stillness clinging to the place. The air seemed colder than it should have been, the snow around the body disturbed in ways that did not match ordinary movement. There were no obvious signs of panic from the surrounding area, no chaotic trail through the snow, no struggle scattered across the scene in the way you were used to seeing.
Whatever had happened here had been fast.
Too fast.
You set your equipment down and began working.
The first photograph was always the hardest for people to understand. They thought it required detachment, coldness, perhaps even a lack of feeling. They were wrong. It required discipline. You felt everything, but feeling could not be allowed to interfere with accuracy. Every angle mattered. Every shadow mattered. Every detail, however small, could become the difference between truth and silence.
So you worked.
One photograph.
Then another.
Wide shots first, then medium, then close. The position of the body beneath the cover. The shape of the disturbed snow. The entrance to the alley. The walls. The ground. The surrounding objects. The places where footsteps began and vanished. The faint marks that could have meant nothing and therefore had to be preserved in case they meant everything.
Minho watched you for a while before speaking.
“You are quiet today.”
“I am working.”
“You are always working. You usually insult me while doing it.”
You adjusted the lens.
“I am saving my energy.”
“For what?”
You paused for half a second.
A dark-haired man in a snowstorm.
A white rose beside your face.
A note hidden beneath petals.
You raised the camera again.
“Life.”
Minho gave you a look.
“That was suspiciously poetic.”
“You interrupted my morning.”
“You answered the phone with ‘what.’”
“And yet you still brought me coffee, which means you know your place.”
For the first time that morning, something like a smile crossed his face. It disappeared quickly.
The case pulled him back.
You followed his gaze toward the covered victim.
“Do we know who they are?”
“Not yet. No ID.”
“No witnesses?”
“None who are saying anything useful.”
You looked down at the snow, then at the alley walls.
“What about cameras?”
“Checking them.”
“Cause?”
Minho's jaw tightened.
“Not confirmed.”
That meant he had an idea and hated it.
You did not push.
Not yet.
Instead, you returned to your photographs.
Your job was not to feel.
Your job was to observe.
And you were very good at observing.
Perhaps too good.
Because ten minutes later, you noticed something nobody else had.
A single white petal caught beneath a nearby bench.
Your heart skipped.
It was almost hidden in the snow, half-shielded beneath the bench leg, so pale it might have disappeared completely if the light had fallen differently. But it was there.
White.
Perfect.
Unmarked.
Your gaze lingered on it, and something cold moved through your stomach.
A coincidence.
It had to be.
White flowers were common. Roses were common. Petals travelled. Wind carried things. Crime scenes collected unrelated fragments all the time, and good investigators did not fall in love with the first strange detail they found.
Yet your mind immediately betrayed you.
Dark eyes.
Snowfall.
White roses.
A stranger standing in the storm.
A second flower on your pillow.
You hated that your first instinct was not fear.
It was recognition.
Quietly, you photographed the petal from several angles. You documented its position, its distance from the body, the way it had settled beneath the bench. Then you took one final close-up, ensuring every delicate vein in the petal would be visible later.
Minho noticed.
“What did you find?”
“Maybe nothing.”
He stepped closer.
You pointed.
His eyes followed your gesture and landed on the petal.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then his expression changed in a way you did not like.
“You have seen that before?” you asked.
His gaze snapped to yours.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you looked as though you have.”
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Your fingers tightened around the camera.
“Minho.”
“Photograph it,” he said.
“I already did.”
“Then let forensics collect it.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
“I am doing my job.”
“So am I.”
He looked at you then, and beneath the detective's control you saw your brother's fear.
“Not here,” he said quietly.
The words settled between you like snow over a grave.
You looked back at the petal.
Not here.
Which meant there was something to say.
And he did not want to say it where the dead could hear.
A strange sensation crawled up your spine, the same feeling you had known on the tower. The sense of unseen eyes. Of attention. Of something waiting just outside the reach of ordinary understanding.
Slowly, you looked across the street.
At first, you saw only snow.
Cars moved cautiously along the road, their tyres hissing against wet pavement. A few pedestrians lingered beyond the police tape, curious enough to stare but not brave enough to come closer. Shop windows reflected the pale morning. Breath rose from mouths in thin ghosts.
Then you saw him.
Across the street, partially concealed by the curtain of falling snow, someone stood in complete stillness. His dark coat blended into the winter shadows, his black hair stirred faintly by the wind, and though the distance between you was considerable, you knew immediately.
Jungkook.
The detectives did not notice him.
The officers did not notice him.
The crowd did not notice him.
But his eyes were already on you.
Not the body.
Not the bloodless snow.
Not the alley.
You.
Your pulse changed before you could stop it.
For one suspended moment, the entire scene seemed to narrow around that gaze. The police tape, the officers, the murmuring crowd, even Minho beside you—everything blurred beneath the falling snow until there was only the impossible man watching from across the street.
And then, very slowly, you smiled.
Not fully.
Not warmly.
Just enough.
An acknowledgement.
A challenge.
A secret.
Across the street, Jungkook did not move.
But something in his expression changed.
For the first time, you wondered whether a monster could look frightened.
Not because he had been caught.
Because he had been seen.
And somewhere inside you, the part that should have been screaming remained terribly, dangerously quiet.
---
Jungkook had not meant to come so close.
That was a lie.
He had meant to come exactly this close and no closer, though the distinction was becoming increasingly difficult to defend, even to himself. He had watched from rooftops before, from opposite streets, from the reflection of windows and the shadowed corners of rooms where human eyes rarely wandered. Distance had always been his discipline. Distance had allowed him to love you without destroying you.
But last night had ruined him.
No.
That was unfair.
You had ruined him.
You had stood beneath the first snowfall and looked at him without screaming. You had spoken to him as though he were a storm to be studied rather than a monster to be feared. You had stepped closer when any sensible human would have run, and when he had kissed you, you had not treated him like a nightmare.
You had kissed him back.
For hours afterwards, that memory had followed him through the city with the persistence of hunger. He had told himself to leave you alone until the following night. He had told himself not to enter your apartment, not to stand beside your bed, not to place the rose where you would wake and see it. He had told himself many things.
Jungkook had always been very good at ignoring his better instincts.
The second rose had been a mistake.
A necessary one, perhaps, but still a mistake.
He had wanted to know whether you would keep the first.
The answer had nearly undone him.
You had placed it in water.
Such a small act. So painfully human. So unbearably gentle.
You could not have known what it meant. You could not have known that for centuries, the white rose had been the only symbol left of the boy he had been before hunger, immortality, and blood had remade him into something unrecognisable. You could not have known that keeping it felt, to him, like keeping a piece of his soul.
You kept it.
Even now, standing across the street from a crime scene he should never have allowed you near, those three words echoed through him with humiliating force.
He watched you kneel beside death as though death held no power over you.
That was what fascinated him most.
Most humans changed in the presence of the dead. They looked away. They grew loud to cover their discomfort, or silent because they had no strength left for noise. They pretended not to smell the fear that lingered in certain places, not to feel the final violence pressed into the walls.
You did none of those things.
You moved with calm precision, your camera steady in your hands, your gaze attentive and unflinching. You were not cold. He knew that. He had seen softness in you, had watched you cry when you believed nobody was there to witness it, had seen you smile at strangers and mourn things others forgot. You were sensitive in ways the world had failed to deserve.
But you were not weak.
No, Jungkook thought, watching you photograph the petal beneath the bench.
You were far from weak.
Of all the women in the world, of all the people he could have loved, he had fallen for the one person most capable of discovering exactly what he was.
The thought should have amused him.
Instead, it terrified him.
Not because he feared exposure. Hunters had come and gone. Priests, soldiers, scholars, fanatics, men with crosses and men with guns, all convinced they could drag a monster into daylight and call it justice. Jungkook had survived them all.
He did not fear death.
He feared your disgust.
He feared the day you might look at him and see only the bodies, only the blood, only the centuries of sins he could never wash clean.
He feared that you would stop seeing him.
The thought made something old and violent stir beneath his skin.
Then you turned.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
As though you had felt the shape of his gaze across the snow.
Your eyes found his.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
The distance between you was considerable. Snow fell heavily. Humans hurried past in coats and scarves, blind to the creature standing among them. Yet somehow, across the street, across the police tape, across the fragile line separating your world from his, you looked directly at him.
And smiled.
Not fully.
Not warmly.
Just enough.
Jungkook's heart stopped.
It was a ridiculous reaction for someone who no longer needed one, but it happened anyway. The dead organ inside his chest seemed to remember itself for a single impossible moment, startled into silence by the smallest curve of your mouth.
You smiled at him.
After the rose.
After the note.
After the tower.
After seeing him here, near death, near secrets, near everything he should have kept hidden from you.
You smiled.
The monster remained perfectly still, his expression carefully controlled, but inside him something beautiful and dangerous began to bloom. It was worse than desire. Worse than hunger. Worse than obsession.
It was hope.
For the first time in a very long time, Jungkook felt afraid.
Not of hunters.
Not of death.
Not of exposure.
Of what he might become now that you had looked back.
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Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday
Summary: Do vampires have a soul or the witch turned them into soulless monsters? Are witches always evil or vampires can make one of them fall in love? A story where Yoongi finds the witch who could save him and his brothers. Jungkook tries his best to keep her safe until Yoongi escapes from his dark prison.
Pairing: Vampire!BTS x Reader
Genre: vampire!au, magic background, prey hunting, killing, gore, story takes place in the Early Modern Europe, between the 16th and 17th century.
The memory returned to you with the cruelty of a blade drawn slowly from the dark.
It came the moment the other man stepped forward from behind him, his familiar face emerging from the shadows of the trees with a calmness that made your stomach twist. Lord Jin and Lord Taehyung stood before you, the two sons whose names now carried with them a strange and sickening weight, and as their presence settled around you, the memories that flooded your mind were so deviant, so twisted, and so impossible to accept that for one horrifying moment you wondered whether they could truly belong to you at all.
You could not have done those things.
Could you?
“Do you remember now, angel?” they asked again.
The words curled around you like smoke, searching for weakness, for shame, for the smallest crack in your composure that might allow them to slip back inside your mind. Your face warmed as fragments of the night before returned with unbearable clarity, though the images felt strange and distant, as if they had been painted onto your memory by hands that were not your own.
Then another voice came, soft and cold and impossibly familiar.
“Say they are still strangers to you.”
Yoongi stood behind them like a ghost summoned from the deepest part of the castle, his presence unseen by the men before you and yet more real to you than the ground beneath your feet.
Your heartbeat steadied.
If he wanted you to lie, he had a reason.
“I am sorry to disappoint you,” you said, gently pushing Jin away as you forced your voice to remain calm, “but no.”
You turned and began walking back towards the castle.
Behind you, one of them laughed quietly.
“You reacted to my touch,” he said. “You remember, do you not, angel?”
Heat rose to your cheeks against your will.
You hated that some part of you did remember, even if the memory felt wrong, even if it did not feel entirely yours. Shame and confusion coiled together inside your chest, but before either could weaken you, Yoongi’s voice returned.
“Lie.”
The command settled through you like a shield.
You stopped walking only long enough to turn your head.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves for accusing me of being a lady of the night,” you said, your voice growing colder as anger stirred beneath your skin. “And do not dare follow me.”
The power within you rose with the anger, pressing against your bones as though it longed for release. You spared them one final glance before turning away fully, and though their presence still lingered behind you, you refused to look back.
You wanted Jungkook.
You wanted his gentleness, his warmth, and the comfort of someone who would listen without turning your confusion into a weapon. He was standing in the garden when you found him, still tending to the flowers as though the castle had not become a place of nightmares and secrets around him. Without thinking, you went to him and wrapped your arms around him from behind.
Jungkook gasped softly at the sudden affection, but he did not question it.
Instead, he turned in your arms and pulled you against him, letting the world fade for a few precious minutes while you buried your worries in the safety of his embrace. His scent surrounded you at once, warm vanilla and quiet devotion, and the steadiness of him allowed you to breathe again.
After a while, he took your hand and led you to his room.
The chamber was familiar now, smaller and simpler than the others, filled with the gentle fragrance that belonged entirely to him. Yet as soon as you stepped inside, memories stirred with dangerous sweetness: the closeness, the strange bliss, the sensation of losing yourself beneath something forbidden and comforting all at once.
You needed that calm again.
You needed him.
“Jungkook?” Your voice trembled as you avoided his gaze and moved towards the windowsill.
He watched you quietly.
“I want you to do it again,” you whispered. “Please.”
Silence settled between you.
“I am the one asking you to,” you added, the words almost a plea.
Jungkook’s expression hardened, though the pain in his eyes betrayed him.
“I cannot do that to you,” he said, his voice stern with restraint. “I cannot lose control.”
A darkness rose in you then, seductive and strange, a confidence that felt as though it belonged to someone older than yourself.
“Control is just an illusion.”
The words left your lips softly, but they seemed to strike him harder than any cry could have done.
Jungkook came to you slowly.
He sat beside you, his gaze searching yours, and you felt the subtle shift in the air when his aura began to darken. His eyes drifted to your throat, his hands bracing on either side of you as though he were caging himself as much as he was caging you. Your heartbeat filled the space between you, loud and tempting, a siren’s song dragging him farther from his sanity with every pulse.
His upper body hovered over yours.
His breath touched your neck.
A small kiss was placed upon your skin before his fangs sank into you.
The sensation stole the air from your lungs.
It was forbidden bliss, darker and slower than before, and this time he fed from you with a careful restraint that made the intimacy of it almost unbearable. You could feel your heart beating in rhythm with him as he drank, could feel the strange euphoria of his bite spreading through your body until desire and surrender became difficult to tell apart.
“Jungkook,” you breathed, his name escaping you like a confession.
His grasp tightened around your waist while his other hand settled at the back of your neck, holding you carefully even as the hunger in him deepened. Blood slipped down towards your collarbone, and his venom moved through you like a fevered dream, pulling you into a state so dizzying that the world beyond his arms seemed to disappear.
When he finally stopped, he stared at you breathlessly.
His finger travelled across your collarbone, following the path of blood without breaking eye contact. His lips parted, and when he leaned down to taste a single drop from your skin, the sinful thoughts that crossed your mind made your whole body shiver.
Before you could act on any of them, Jungkook lifted you into his arms, carried you to his bed, removed your shoes, and tucked you carefully beneath the covers.
“I gave you what you needed,” he whispered, his honeyed voice gentle again.
The tenderness nearly undid you.
“Will you please stay with me?” you asked.
“There is no other place I would rather be.”
With those words lingering softly around you, you fell asleep in his arms, safe and sound despite the darkness that continued to move through the castle.
Almost two months passed after all the brothers had gathered beneath the same roof, and in that time the castle became a place where danger wore many beautiful faces.
Most of the incidents involved Namjoon and Jin, whose rivalry over persuasion and control grew more absurd and sinister with each passing day. They argued endlessly about who was better at luring people, who could bend a mind more easily, and whose charm possessed the sharper edge. Their competitions were rarely harmless, though the worst of their consequences happened far from the castle, in towns and distant roads where no one would easily connect the dead to the lords who lived beyond the woods.
Taehyung and Jimin were no better.
The spells they crafted to feed, kill, and manipulate continued to increase the number of bodies left in their wake, yet the horrors remained at a safe distance from the castle grounds. There had been a time when such cruelty would have shaken you deeply, when the knowledge of innocent deaths would have haunted your sleep, but living among monsters changed the shape of one’s heart.
You felt colder now.
That frightened you only when you allowed yourself to think about it.
Of all the brothers, Hoseok remained the one you admired most. He made a quiet but constant effort to make you feel safe, and after some time he asked you to think of him as a brother. You did, and the title settled comfortably in your chest because he had earned it with patience rather than demand.
You and Jungkook trusted him with the truth of your magic, though Hoseok only smiled sadly and admitted he had already known.
Your power was increasing day by day, and according to him, anyone who had ever known witches would eventually sense what you were becoming. To protect you, he helped you cast a spell upon a ring that would cloak your power from those who might use it against you. He insisted you remain with Jungkook until they were certain none of the others would try to lure you away from Yoongi.
That same night, once your magic had been hidden beneath the ring’s enchantment, you created another spell, one meant to wipe the existence of the brothers from the memories of those they had touched so that ordinary people might return to lives unburdened by monsters they were never meant to know.
It took hours to perfect.
By the end of it, exhaustion clung to you so heavily that even Jungkook’s concern could not keep you awake. He asked you to rest earlier because of the magic you had used, and you obeyed, falling asleep in his room with the faint confidence that you and Hoseok had done something good.
Morning had barely begun to break when Jungkook’s door opened.
A familiar presence entered the room.
Familiar, yet wrong enough to make unease gather in your chest even before your eyes fully opened.
You felt yourself being lifted from the bed.
“What are you doing?” you murmured, your voice thick with sleep as you blinked up and found Jimin carrying you. “Let me down.”
“No,” he said. “I have to take you to your room.”
“Why?” you asked, frowning as you tried to wake properly. “I want to stay with Jungkook.”
“You cannot stay down here. It is not safe.”
“You drag me out of bed and refuse to tell me the reason?”
Jimin glanced down at you, his expression unreadable.
“Jin and Namjoon brought a great many women here, and they are about to feast. Do you wish to see that?”
You fell silent for a moment before your suspicion returned.
“Since when do you care?”
“I do not care much about women,” he replied lightly, “but when it comes to you and your virtues, I find I still care enough. Besides, I enjoy how hard you try to resist. All of us at once must be difficult, must it not?”
His words should have unsettled you.
Perhaps they did.
Yet something inside you was tired of always being the one surrounded, tested, and treated as though resistance itself were a game invented for their amusement.
“It is not a fair game,” you said. “But given the chance, I could show you how I can lure someone.”
Jimin’s brows lifted.
“Oh, are we needy and greedy now? I would like to see that.”
“Then take me somewhere tonight,” you said. “Let me show you.”
“Where is that confidence coming from, little lady?”
You shrugged, though you did not truly know the answer yourself. Perhaps it came from lack of sleep, or perhaps you had simply grown tired of feeling intimidated by their power while your own remained treated as something fragile and unfinished.
You were supposed to be more powerful than all of them together.
Yet you could not even sleep alone in your own chamber.
That had to change.
It would start tonight.
Jungkook was deeply displeased when he learned of your decision, and he asked more than once to accompany you wherever Jimin intended to take you for your little bet. You refused gently but firmly, though a part of you softened at his protectiveness. The experiment would take place late that evening, and though Jimin did not tell you exactly where he planned to bring you, you knew enough about his tastes to suspect it would be somewhere filled with young, wealthy people who believed masks and music could protect them from wickedness.
Your prey would be there.
Jimin asked you to wear one of your black dresses.
You accepted the suggestion gladly.
The gown you chose left your back exposed, the dark fabric clinging elegantly to your body while your skin offered a striking contrast against the black. You took a long bath, then prepared yourself carefully for the masquerade ball, pinning your hair up so your back remained fully visible.
When you looked in the mirror, satisfaction moved through you.
You looked beautiful.
Dangerous.
Capable of becoming exactly what they believed you could never be.
Jimin knocked on your door and called for you to come downstairs.
When you descended the staircase, you found him waiting below, his gaze fixed on you in a way that made warmth rush quietly beneath your skin. His aura remained clear, untouched by hunger, yet you could hardly look away from him.
For the first time, you thought the game might be enjoyable.
The carriage stopped before the gates of an elegant mansion belonging to one of the wealthiest families in the old kingdom. Golden light spilled from the windows, and music drifted through the night like an invitation wrapped in silk. Jimin helped you from the carriage with the polished manners of a proper gentleman, a rare sight that amused you more than you allowed him to see.
He claimed that since neither of you had an invitation, he would take care of the matter.
You insisted that you would do it.
At the entrance, the servant requested your invitation, and instead of retreating, you leaned closer and whispered softly into his ear. His expression changed almost instantly, his suspicion melting into a pleased smile before he stepped aside and guided you both inside.
Jimin handed you your mask, and once you had secured it in place, he put his arm around your waist and led you towards the staircase overlooking the ballroom.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“I did what?”
“Convince him to let us in.”
“That is a secret you will never know, Lord Jimin.”
As you walked down the stairs towards the glittering crowd below, you felt countless eyes turn towards you.
The weight of their attention made your confidence falter.
“Jimin,” you whispered, your voice betraying more nerves than you wished it to, “I-I do not like people staring at me.”
He seemed genuinely surprised.
“For someone who came here to seduce men, it is rather odd to be frightened of being looked at.”
His hand tightened slightly against your waist as he leaned closer, his voice dropping into your ear.
“Do not embarrass me. I am planning on having a nice dinner tonight, and if you look like that, no one will come near us.”
You smiled sweetly.
“You can rot in hell, luv,” you whispered back.
Jimin’s laugh was quiet and pleased.
“Feisty, are we? This is how I want you most. Men enjoy ladies like you. Do some magic.”
The word magic froze something inside you.
Did he know?
Your gaze dropped at once to your ring finger, where the enchanted ring still rested securely against your skin. You forced yourself to breathe. No, you were safe. It was probably only one of his teasing remarks, thrown carelessly to see whether it would land.
A servant offered you both wine.
As you drank, Jimin spoke to you about the guests filling the ballroom, identifying names, titles, and family histories with the casual boredom of someone who had known such circles for too many lifetimes. Eventually, his gaze shifted towards a man in a blue suit.
“The man in blue.”
You followed his gaze and felt your breath catch.
“Oh my.”
“That is Prince Shownu,” Jimin said, amusement sharpening his voice. “He is your prey.”
You studied the prince carefully. He stood surrounded by women who smiled too brightly and leaned too close, each one clearly hoping to hold his attention longer than the others. Confidence threatened to slip through your fingers.
You turned to Jimin.
“Would I stand out?” you whispered. “Among all the women surrounding him?”
Jimin caught your waist and leaned close enough that his answer felt like it belonged only to you.
“You already stand out. Why do you think everyone is still looking at you?”
Your eyes drifted across the room.
He was right.
People were still watching.
Perhaps some of it was because of Jimin, for no one in that room looked like him, but something in their attention belonged to you as well.
You took a deep breath and left his side.
The prince saw you before you reached him.
His eyes met yours across the distance, and your heart began to race as you continued towards him. Before you could speak, he took your hand and lifted it to his lips with a small bow.
“Prince Shownu, Milady.”
You smiled.
“You may call me Milady, my Prince.”
As the evening unfolded, he asked you questions about countless subjects, from music and literature to the old families who filled the ballroom. For the first time in months, you felt strangely normal. Free. Untouched by curses, hidden kings, or brothers who carried death in their smiles.
Then Jimin passed through your line of sight with a smirk upon his lips.
A young lady followed him as though her life had begun and ended with his attention.
The game.
You had almost forgotten.
Turning your gaze back to Shownu, you allowed your voice to soften.
“Shownu,” you whispered, letting the power beneath your skin curl around each word. “Your only desire is to remain by my side. You would do anything to be mine. You are slowly falling for me.”
His eyes softened.
“Prince Shownu,” you asked aloud, “would you dance with me, please?”
“Anything to please you, Milady.”
The room filled with whispers the moment the prince placed his hand around your waist. You danced a waltz beneath the chandeliers, his warm hand resting against your back while the music carried you through the ballroom. You had not realised until that moment how much you missed human warmth.
When the dance ended, a small sadness touched you at the loss of it.
Jimin nodded towards the garden.
You followed.
Outside, the air was cooler and quieter, scented with trimmed hedges, damp stone, and night-blooming flowers. The two of you stopped in one of the more secluded areas, safely hidden from the gaze of the other guests.
“Where is your prey?” Jimin asked, his tone full of arrogance.
“Here,” you replied softly.
He looked around, expecting to see the prince approaching by chance.
You smiled.
“Shownu, my luv,” you called, your voice no more than a whisper. “Come here.”
It was enough.
Jimin’s eyes widened when the prince appeared moments later and wrapped his arms around your waist as though he had every right to be there. Jimin stepped forward, poked Shownu's cheek as if testing whether the enchantment was real, and then grabbed your wrist to pull you away.
“Do not touch her,” Shownu hissed.
“It is all right, Shownu,” you said gently.
The prince immediately stilled.
Jimin stared at you.
“You call the prince by his name? How did you do that? He is unapproachable.”
“I did what you asked me to do,” you replied. “I lured my prey. He is mine now.”
“Prove it.”
Something dark and pleased settled within your smile.
You knew exactly what Jimin expected, and you wanted to unsettle him more than you wanted to impress him. He thought he was testing the devotion of a prince, but what you craved most was not Shownu's obedience.
It was Jimin’s reaction.
“Shownu,” you said softly, “I want you to kill the woman standing next to Lord Jimin.”
Jimin’s eyes widened.
Shownu moved at once, his hands closing around the young woman’s throat as she gasped desperately for air.
“Now stop, Shownu.”
He obeyed instantly, releasing her so she fell to the ground, shaken but alive.
You did not want to destroy Shownu’s mind, not truly, but you did want to reach into Jimin’s and leave something there that would not be easily forgotten.
You turned back to him.
“Am I still weak in your eyes, Jimin?”
For once, he had no immediate answer.
He stepped closer and rested his forehead against yours, his eyes piercing through you while his aura darkened around him. Yet whatever power he attempted to summon seemed useless against you.
“You want to lure me, Jimin?” you asked.
“What if I do?”
“I am not yours to take.”
His lips curved.
“That is what makes it even more interesting.”
He stepped back so your eyes could meet properly.
“Yoongi will never be free,” he said. “Not as long as I live.”
The world seemed to narrow around those words.
Something cold and merciless moved through you.
“Then do not.”
Jimin tilted his head.
“Do not what?”
You looked at him calmly.
“Do not live.”
Jimin did not speak a single word during the journey back to the castle.
The silence should not have bothered you, and perhaps under different circumstances it would not have, yet something about his stillness felt unnatural. Jimin was not the kind of man who allowed thoughts to remain quietly within him. He spoke them aloud with a smile, turned them into weapons, shaped them into games, and used them to unsettle whoever had the misfortune of standing too close.
Tonight, however, he said nothing.
He sat across from you in the carriage with his dark gaze fixed beyond the window, watching the world pass in flickering shadows while the wheels rolled steadily over the road. You could feel that something weighed upon him, though whether it was anger, curiosity, or wounded pride, you could not tell. He remained silent until the castle finally rose before you, enormous and dark beneath the night sky.
Home.
The word came to you before you could stop it.
It was the first time you had called the castle that, even inside your own mind, yet the moment the thought appeared, it felt painfully true. The castle had become your home, with all its secrets, its beauty, its darkness, and its monsters.
His home.
Yoongi’s home.
The thought followed you long after Jimin disappeared into the corridors without a farewell.
It was midnight when the whispers came through your open window.
They slipped into your chamber upon the cold night air, soft and smoky, carrying the sound of a voice capable of stilling your entire body in seconds. You knew that voice now, or at least your soul did. Your beloved. Your king. Your Yoongi.
The moment you heard him, you closed your eyes and surrendered yourself to sleep, allowing your body to grow heavy while your mind drifted towards the dreamworld where he waited for you.
This time, the place was different.
You found yourself inside a chamber you had never seen before, bathed in the faint silver light of the moon. A pair of French doors stood open across the room, their sheer curtains moving gently with the rhythm of the wind, and everything within the chamber seemed softened by that pale glow, as though the world had been remade for the sole purpose of letting you see him clearly.
Yoongi lay upon a bed near the doors, his dark hair falling across his forehead in a way that made his face look impossibly beautiful beneath the moonlight. His gaze was deep, solemn, and unbearably tender as it settled upon you, and for one quiet moment you could do nothing but look at him, afraid that if you moved too quickly, the dream might take him away.
Then he offered you his hand.
The gesture was simple, yet it felt like an invitation into something sacred.
You crossed the room and placed your hand in his, allowing him to draw you down beside him. You had missed his touch more than you knew how to admit. The feeling of his fingers against your skin carried a strange and mysterious certainty, as though you had been born for this, for his hands to find you, protect you, love you, and one day be freed by you.
Whenever you were with him in your dreams, the boundaries between you seemed to vanish.
What he felt, you felt.
Where his sorrow lived, yours answered.
Where his longing burned, yours rose to meet it.
Together, you felt like one soul divided by a curse and desperately trying to remember its way back to itself.
“I missed you, my Queen,” he said softly.
The words sank into your heart.
There was so much love in the way he spoke to you that it almost hurt to hear it.
“I thought I would not see you so soon,” you whispered, though your voice cracked unexpectedly as the confession left you. “It has been almost three months since I last saw you, and so many things have happened.”
Yoongi’s expression softened.
“Do not forget that I am always with you,” he said, brushing his fingers gently against your hand. “You do not need to worry about a thing.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly broke you.
“I am so selfish,” you admitted, lowering your gaze. “I should have been more dedicated to your freedom, but I am trying so hard to take control of my powers.”
“They want you to stop trying to find me,” Yoongi said, and though his voice remained quiet, something dark stirred beneath the words. “And if they ever wish you harm, I want you to stop.”
“No,” you said at once, your heart stumbling painfully. “I would never.”
“This is what I wish,” he replied, still gentle but no less absolute. “No argument.”
The firmness of it frightened you more than anger would have done.
“And you would sacrifice yourself to leave me alone with them?” you asked. “Only Jungkook and Hoseok can be trusted. What about the others?”
Yoongi’s fingers reached for the pendant resting against your chest, the emerald you had worn since you were a little girl, the stone that had guided you long before you understood what it meant.
“With my pendant on you, no harm will be caused.”
The reassurance did little to ease the ache within you.
“We shall never be separated again,” you whispered, struggling to hold back tears as the depth of your longing finally revealed itself to you. You had not realised until that moment how fiercely you desired him, how much of your heart had already chosen him above anyone else.
The games his brothers played upon you would no longer hold you back.
At least, that was what you believed.
Yoongi looked at you then with an expression that made your breath catch.
“I did not think I would make it this far.”
Worry entered his eyes, and suddenly the room felt colder.
“My Queen,” he murmured, brushing your cheek with his fingertips, “it is already too late for the two of us.”
The air thinned around you as though someone had drawn every breath from the chamber.
You opened your mouth to ask what he meant, but before the words could leave you, Yoongi pulled you into his arms and held you tightly against him. He whispered something near your ear, words too quiet and fractured for your mind to hold, and then a sharp burning sensation bloomed beneath your right eye.
A soft whimper escaped you.
Yoongi held you tighter.
There was anger in his eyes now, but it was not aimed at you, and that alone told you something was terribly wrong.
“The night is almost done,” he said, his voice lower now, as though the dream itself was beginning to steal him from you. “You did all you could. You did your best.”
“The best of me belongs to you,” you whispered, meaning every word so completely that it hurt. “I will try harder and harder until you are back in your rightful place.”
His face changed at that, and the sorrow you saw there nearly tore through you.
“I wish I could protect you better,” he said.
Then he lifted your hand to his mouth and kissed your knuckles, and the softness of it drew a small, helpless sound from you. You had endured terror, confusion, danger, and desire, yet somehow the gentleness of his affection left you more undone than anything else.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Your heart seemed to stop.
Before you could answer, before you could say the words burning inside you, the edges of the dream began to darken.
Yoongi’s hold tightened one last time.
“Remember me.”
Those were the last words he gave you before the dream collapsed.
When morning came, you opened your eyes feeling light-headed but strangely happy, still warmed by the lingering certainty that you had met someone precious in the night.
Yet the moment you tried to remember him, the thought slipped away.
You frowned.
Who had you met?
You pushed yourself to recall the dream, reaching for the memory with growing frustration, but nothing clear returned to you. There had been a voice, perhaps, and moonlight, and the feeling of being loved so deeply that it should have left an imprint upon your bones.
But the face was gone.
The name was gone.
The love remained only as an ache without a source.
You decided to bathe and let the confusion vanish like mist beneath warm water. Your nightdress fell softly to the floor, and your hands moved instinctively towards your neck as though to remove something before stepping into the bath.
There was nothing there.
The absence seemed strange for a moment, though almost immediately you dismissed it. Perhaps you had been thinking of some expensive piece of jewellery you feared ruining, though the thought felt unconvincing even as you accepted it.
When you stood before the mirror, something beneath your right eye caught your attention.
A small rune marked your skin.
You stared at it, and the moment you saw it, certainty bloomed inside you with unnatural ease.
It was the rune your beloved had given you to claim you as his.
Taehyung.
After your bath, you dressed yourself in your best black gown because you wanted to look beautiful for him. By the time you reached the garden, morning light had softened the edges of the world, and the flowers shimmered faintly beneath the early dew.
Two hands closed around you from behind.
A hard chest pressed against your back.
You knew him immediately.
“Taehyung,” you breathed.
The sound of his name seemed to settle inside you like a command.
You were meant to be his.
You could feel it in your bones.
The silence surrounding your shallow breaths was broken by his low, husky voice as he leaned close and whispered words into your ear that were far from innocent. They were dark, intimate, and filled with a possessive hunger that made the blood beneath your skin stir. You had to be his, and only his.
Yet beneath that conviction, one question remained.
Why him?
Every morning inside the castle was different, and yet every day began to feel the same. The hours turned into a repeated circle of conversations, glances, touches, and habits, an endless routine that drew you closer and closer to the need of feeling Taehyung beside you.
It was a little after dawn when a light knock drew you softly from sleep.
Hoseok stood at the doorframe with flowers in his hands, their scent filling the room before he even spoke. Gardenia, soft yet powerful, spread through the chamber and wrapped itself around the remnants of your dreams.
His smile was bright enough to warm even the coldest soul, and yours was no exception.
He waited outside your chamber while you prepared for an early morning walk through the castle gardens. The two of you had not spoken properly in some time, not since Taehyung had begun occupying most of your days and almost all of your attention.
Hoseok had still kept you company over the past few weeks, though always carefully, as if he feared stepping too close to something he no longer knew how to reach. There had also been a young servant whose name you never managed to learn, because whenever you tried to speak with him, Taehyung appeared and took you away. There was sadness in the boy’s eyes whenever that happened, a sadness so deep and personal that it felt as though it somehow belonged to you.
Now, as you walked with Hoseok amongst the blossoming flowers, the garden seemed almost painfully beautiful.
The early sun rose gently over the castle, touching the roses that climbed the walls in shades of pink, red, and white until they looked like a sea of colour spilling over stone. The breeze moved softly through the petals, carrying scents of bloom and earth and morning light, and for a little while it soothed the restless places inside you.
When Hoseok asked whether you minded sitting on the grass, he did so several times, clearly worried about your beautiful dress.
You smiled and sat beside him anyway.
His eyes settled upon yours, concerned and kind in the way they always were whenever he looked at you.
“Are you happy here, with us?” he asked softly.
“I am,” you replied, offering him a reassuring smile.
“Is Taehyung kind to you?”
The question surprised you.
“Why would he not be?”
Hoseok did not answer immediately.
Instead, he offered you the small bouquet he had carried since coming to your chamber. The flowers were beautiful, but it was their fragrance that made your thoughts still. Something about the scent pulled at memories hidden too deeply for you to reach.
Lilies.
Night-blooming lilies.
Why did that matter?
“Do they mean something to you?” Hoseok asked gently.
“They are so beautiful,” you whispered.
“They are,” he said, though sadness had entered his voice. “May I ask where your pendant is?”
You looked at him blankly.
“What pendant?”
Hoseok’s eyes grew sadder.
He wanted to remind you of something. You could feel that much. Yet there was also something in his expression that told you he believed the task was yours alone, as though some truths could not be handed back by another person, no matter how desperately they wished to help.
Before either of you could speak again, Taehyung’s voice drifted across the garden.
“I see you have taken my bride for an early morning walk without my permission.”
The sound of him pulled you from your thoughts at once.
He approached with that effortless grace that always made the world seem to bend around him, and when he reached you, he helped you to your feet before pressing a kiss to your cheek in front of Hoseok. Embarrassment warmed your face, though you said nothing.
Taehyung’s eyes, however, were not soft.
They cut towards Hoseok with silent hatred.
Without allowing you the chance to speak, he took your hand and led you back inside the castle, through the corridors and into his chambers. The moment the door closed, he pinned you gently but firmly against the wall, his lips hovering only inches from yours.
He leaned into the curve of your neck and whispered words that made heat rise beneath your skin.
His cold breath against you should have felt familiar.
Instead, it felt wrong.
For reasons you could not understand, clouded images began to move through your mind, fragments of another man, another voice, another love so deep that it made your chest ache. Yet the thoughts felt like lies the moment they appeared.
Taehyung was yours.
You were his.
He sensed your confusion immediately and looked deep into your eyes.
“Why are you refusing my touch?” he asked, his voice low enough to make you shiver.
“I am sorry,” you whispered. “It was only a nuisance.”
His fingertips moved across your collarbone, and his words rang softly in your ears.
“I will give you what the others denied you,” he breathed.
The promise made your pulse quicken.
“Give me everything, Taehyung,” you said, because whenever he touched you, wanting more of him felt like the only truth left inside you.
“I shall make sure the world cannot touch you,” he whispered. “No one will touch you.”
He laid you down upon his bed after pressing a kiss to your forehead.
He never did more than touch you.
He never kissed you fully, never forced you to touch him, never crossed the final boundary he insisted must be chosen by you. He waited for the day you would ask to be his.
That was what he told you.
And because the rune beneath your eye burned softly whenever doubt tried to return, you believed him.
While you slept safely inside his chamber, Taehyung watched you with thoughts far darker than the tenderness he allowed you to see.
You knew what they all were, and yet you had never left.
That alone made you extraordinary.
You were in love with the second son, with Yoongi, the brother Taehyung had spent a lifetime envying and centuries trying not to hate. He had always wanted what belonged to Yoongi, though he rarely allowed the truth to become so plainly spoken inside his mind. You were the only one who had seen the monsters they were and still remained within the castle walls.
They were all monsters.
He knew that better than anyone.
They had committed atrocities across the years, sins that no confession could cleanse and no amount of time could undo. Yet Taehyung had always told himself that whatever he had done, he had done for family.
He had chosen to become the monster they could hunt.
He had chosen to be torn apart, blamed, feared, and bound eternally to the brother whose shadow he could never quite escape.
But you did not have to share the fate that had consumed them.
You could be free with him.
He wanted you free of their curse, even though you were the witch Yoongi had waited for, the witch who might free him and doom them all in the process.
Taehyung had never wished to be human again.
Not truly.
All he wished was for you to become like them.
For you to remain.
For you to belong to him.
And one day, when you finally asked him to make you his, he would turn you into one of them.
Always and forever.
For centuries, Yoongi had learned to endure darkness.
It had become the shape of his world, the walls of his prison, the air he breathed, and the silence that answered him whenever he called into the hollow depths of the castle that had once belonged to him. Time had passed over him with merciless patience. Kingdoms had shifted beyond the stone walls that held him captive, seasons had died and returned, and the world had continued turning as though the rightful king had not been buried alive beneath his own home by the very brothers who had once shared his blood, his name, and his childhood.
Yet there was one colour darkness had never managed to steal from him.
Red.
Pure red.
He loved the colour with a devotion that had once belonged to warmer things, though not merely because it reminded him of blood, nor because it carried the violence of battlefields and the memory of royal banners once lifted proudly beneath the rising sun. Red was passion, roses, dawn, fire, and life itself, but above all, red was the colour of your lips.
He remembered them far too well.
He remembered the way you would draw your lower lip between your teeth whenever your thoughts consumed you, the movement always slow enough to make his restraint suffer, always innocent enough to make the desire it awakened feel almost cruel. He had lived centuries without the comfort of sunlight against his skin, without the sound of laughter untainted by madness, and without the warmth of another soul beside him, and yet the image of your lips had remained sharper than any blade his enemies had once raised against him.
How could he be expected to resist such a sight when fate had not, in its infinite cruelty, made him blind?
Your beauty had captivated all of his brothers, though not one of them understood what it meant to look upon you and truly see you. They approached you in their own ways, each revealing the nature of his hunger without realising it. Some came to you gently, others with selfish sweetness, others with violence wrapped in charm, and others with the arrogance of men who mistook possession for devotion. To them, you were temptation, amusement, a pleasant game to occupy the endless boredom of immortality.
Yoongi despised them for it.
They thought of you as mortal, fragile, and temporary, a beautiful distraction placed inside the castle for their entertainment, something to be won and claimed before another brother could reach you first. They formed their silent alliances, moved in pairs, plotted without mercy, and turned your existence into another contest within the dark, blood-soaked world they had built for themselves. He had known those brothers for far too long, had felt their sins through the bond of shared blood, and had watched them become creatures who knew no law except hunger.
They had forgotten what reverence meant.
Yoongi had not.
Before the mess his brothers created, before your arrival at the castle, and even before you came of age, you had already been the most extraordinary creature he had encountered across all the centuries of his existence. Even as a child, when the world still believed you ordinary enough to be protected by ignorance, anyone with eyes could have seen the strange light within you. Your curiosity had been endless, your mind hungry, your eyes bright with the desire to learn more than the world was willing to give.
The day you woke in the woods was the day the spell your mother had placed upon you finally failed.
Your mother had wanted what Yoongi wanted. She wished to protect you until you were old enough to understand the power sleeping within your blood, until you could recognise it not as a curse or a danger, but as a birthright. They had both had their reasons for containing what lived inside you. Power unguided could destroy its bearer before enemies ever had the chance.
Hoseok and Jungkook had been the only brothers who stood beside Yoongi in that decision.
Blood connected all seven of them forever, and for Yoongi, that eternal bond had long ago become another form of punishment. In the first decades after the curse, he had felt everything his brothers felt. Their anger, hunger, sorrow, madness, lust, and cruelty had reached him through the bond until their emotions became a second prison within his own mind. It took more than a century for that connection to weaken enough for him to breathe without tasting their sins.
Jungkook had always been different.
He was the one cast away by the others because he refused to surrender entirely to their hunger. He chose a different path for his immortal life, one that did not require innocent people to suffer for his pleasure, his boredom, or his thirst. Yoongi had loved him for that, perhaps more fiercely than Jungkook ever knew, because in a family of monsters, the youngest had still tried to remember what mercy felt like.
When they went to your mother to mark you as his, she had not begged for your safety alone. She had asked them to teach you magic, to give you the opportunity to carry the legacy of your bloodline, and to become the powerful witch you were always meant to be. Hoseok had accepted her invitation without hesitation, taking into his care the books your family had guarded for generations, the same books that held the secrets of their salvation, and more selfishly, Yoongi’s salvation.
He remembered the first night your path truly bent towards him.
You had stood alone beneath the beautiful night sky, frightened without knowing why, caught between the life you had forgotten and the destiny calling you forward. The moment he gave you the calm you needed, you found your way to the castle, to the place where your soul already knew it belonged.
He guided you through the attacks his brothers prepared.
He whispered everything you needed to know when their gazes tried to trap you, when their scents attempted to seduce you, and when their spells curled like invisible hands around your mind. You resisted because some part of you listened to him. Your mind let him in. Your soul recognised him. Your heart accepted him before you understood who he was.
It was as though you knew you belonged to him long before you ever met him.
Then came the night you reached him.
You had come willingly through the dream, searching for the king hidden in the dark, and when you stood before him, when you knelt as though he were worthy of such devotion, something inside his long-dead heart had nearly shattered beneath the force of wanting you. His queen. His bride. His salvation. Your beauty, your skin, your impossible existence, and the gentleness with which you touched him had made him wonder whether even the dream had become too merciful to be real.
Your touch was like the sea.
It devoured without violence, held without chains, and cooled the fevered ruin of everything inside him that had burned for too long. It possessed depth, movement, and a strange kind of peace, the sort that could pull a man beneath its surface and convince him that drowning was merely another form of surrender. Yoongi had spent centuries inside chaos, inside silence, inside the hollow darkness of a castle that had forgotten how to breathe, and your touch had quieted all of it.
He was in love with your touch before he allowed himself to admit that he was in love with you.
Your voice speaking his name became a remedy for the centuries he had waited. Every time you called to him, every time his name left those dark red lips, the sound entered him like light through a crack in stone. You were the shining thing inside his endless night, the answer to a prayer he had stopped being proud enough to speak.
Then his brothers began to poison what was his.
The day Jin and Taehyung twisted your mind and made you believe their illusion had claimed your first surrender pushed Yoongi closer to fury than he had been in centuries. Even if it had been no more than fantasy, even if your body had not truly belonged to them in the way they wanted you to believe, their violation of your memory was enough to tear something ancient and merciless awake within him.
They were his brothers.
But you were his soulmate.
His love.
His queen.
He remembered the first time he saw you smiling at the thought of him. You had been alone upon the balcony, quiet beneath the weight of everything you did not yet understand, and for one brief moment, your smile had belonged to him alone. That was the day Jin and Taehyung tried to make you believe the night before had bound you to them, but no lie, no spell, and no brother of his would ever be allowed to claim what fate had already placed in his hands.
It took nearly all the strength he possessed to show himself to you.
His brothers knew the art of manipulation far too well. They could reach into a mind delicately, slowly, with words that sank beneath reason and created entire worlds where their victims loved them, trusted them, and mistook captivity for desire. Their tricks were old, polished, and cruel enough to ruin a person before that person ever understood they had been touched.
Had your mind not been clear, you would already have belonged to them.
Jimin had tried to seduce you in his own way as well, but every effort he made turned against him, every attempt failing to give him the outcome he wanted. Yoongi had watched it all, helpless and furious, believing that as long as your heart still recognised the truth, his brothers could not win.
Then the thing he feared most came to pass.
One of them succeeded.
Taehyung.
The little brother who had once chased after him through palace halls while their father trained Yoongi for the throne. Their father had intended Yoongi to become king, and unlike the others, Jin had been glad of it. Jin had never wanted the burden of a kingdom. He had dreamed instead of a life far from royal expectation, somewhere no one would recognise his name or bow because of his blood, somewhere he might love a wife, raise children, and live quietly as an ordinary man.
Jin and Yoongi had understood what it meant to have a queen.
A queen’s life was not merely beauty beside a throne. It meant danger, responsibility, fear, sacrifice, and the constant threat that every enemy of the king might one day aim their blade at her heart. A king’s wife, his heirs, his future, and the entire fragile dream of peace would always live beneath the shadow of possible loss.
Their kingdom had once been among the most respected in the world. No invader had conquered it, no enemy had succeeded in claiming what belonged to their father, and every ruler foolish enough to test its strength left with wounded pride, fewer soldiers, and emptier coffers. It had been a kingdom built on power, order, and fear as much as loyalty, and Taehyung had dreamed of seeing it restored not to peace, but to dominion.
Yoongi had known the shape of his little brother’s mind for a very long time.
Taehyung longed for power, respect, and the glory of their father’s kingdom, but above all, he loved being feared. He loved the idea of men bowing before him because their lives depended upon obedience. There had been days when the princes would gather and speak of their futures, each of them imagining lives befitting sons of a king, yet Taehyung’s dreams had always carried a sharper edge. Once, he had said that if their father enthroned him, he would eliminate every person who had ever defied their family’s dominion.
To take you by his side and make you fall for him was not desire alone.
It was strategy.
In time, he would have you completely beneath his spell, trapped within the confusion created by the rune beneath your eye until no memory could guide you back to Yoongi. Taehyung would become your master, and you, with all your power and beauty and destiny, would become his willing puppet.
The thought of Taehyung touching you as though he owned you for eternity made Yoongi’s blood burn.
The feeling that awakened inside him was unlike anything he had known before. It was not ordinary jealousy, nor merely rage, but something older, deeper, and far more dangerous. Power gathered beneath his skin as the hours passed, building with such force that even the darkness around him seemed to recoil.
The core of his awakening was your blood.
The little he had taken from you had altered him, changed him, and tied the rebirth of his power to the very thing he most desperately needed to protect. His anger, his need to save you, his desire to have you returned to yourself and to him, all of it fed the transformation overtaking his body. His change was nearly complete, and he could feel it in his bones.
Then the vision came.
He saw you with Taehyung in the garden, and he knew with absolute certainty that it was happening in that very moment. You were not wearing his pendant. The rune on your face was nearly complete, with only a week at most remaining before Taehyung’s claim became something far harder to break, and Yoongi was still trapped in the cold, filthy darkness beneath his own castle.
He hated helplessness.
He had not been born to rot as a prisoner in the heart of his own kingdom. He had been born to inherit his father’s throne, to rule where others bowed, to protect his people, and to command the castle that now held him like a beast. Yet despite all the power promised by his blood, he could not even help himself.
And then he saw the worst of it.
Taehyung leaned close to your ear, whispering how much he loved you.
You were about to say it back.
If those words left your mouth, even under the spell, even with the rune twisting your mind, Yoongi knew it would tear something from him that could never be restored. He could bear many things. He had borne captivity, betrayal, hunger, loneliness, and centuries of darkness. But he could not bear knowing that the first time you spoke the words I love you, they would be a lie given to his brother.
He loved Taehyung.
Despite everything, some ruined part of him still did.
He had spent centuries trying not to hate the brothers who locked him away, trying not to let bitterness consume whatever remained of the man he used to be, but anger was no longer something he could contain. It rose through him violently when Taehyung pressed his mouth to yours.
His body stiffened.
His heart thundered against his ribs.
His ears rang.
For the first time in centuries, his vision became clear.
Yoongi was reawakened.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the prison that had held him for centuries ceased to matter.
The darkness broke.
The castle answered.
And Yoongi stood outside beneath the open sky with only one purpose fixed inside his mind.
He had to find you.
He closed his eyes and searched for your scent, the intoxicating fragrance of you moving through the air like a path laid out by fate itself. Within seconds, he stood before you.
You noticed him first.
Taehyung, strangely, remained unaware of the brother standing behind him, but your eyes lifted and found Yoongi’s at once. The sight of you looking at him should have been enough to steady him, but then he saw the truth in your expression.
You stared at him as though you had never seen him before.
He knew exactly why.
The rune.
The stolen pendant.
Taehyung’s poison wrapped around your memories.
Your eyes locked with his while Taehyung’s lips still touched yours, and Yoongi had to hold himself frighteningly still. Had he moved before regaining control, there would have been six brothers left instead of seven.
You must have seen the wreckage in his face, the anger and grief written across him before he could conceal them. Yet within seconds, something shifted. A strange serenity settled over him, shadowed by the awareness of new abilities awakening inside his body, powers he could not yet name or separate from the older ones he had always possessed.
Your blood had caused his reawakening.
The new strength moving through him belonged to you as much as it belonged to him, born from your shared need to break free of every prison created around you, whether made of stone, lies, memory, or blood.
His steps carried him towards Taehyung.
His hand rose slowly, almost gently, and came to rest upon his brother’s shoulder.
Then he threw him aside as though he weighed nothing at all.
Taehyung struck the ground, stunned and frightened in a way that pleased something dark within Yoongi more than he cared to admit. A smirk touched Yoongi’s lips as he tilted his head and looked down at the brother who had dared to steal what was his.
After centuries of captivity and loneliness, it was time to speak to his family again.
Some of his brothers would be relieved.
Some might even be glad.
The others, he was certain, would wear the same expression Taehyung wore now when Yoongi finally spoke.
“Good evening, brother.”
It was one of the coldest nights of winter, the kind of night that seemed born from sorrow rather than season.
Above the castle gardens, the sky unfolded in fading shades of orange, lilac, and violet, the last remnants of sunlight bleeding softly across the horizon as the sun sank behind the distant mountains. The stars had begun to appear, bright and delicate against the deepening heavens, as though they blushed beneath the final warmth of the dying day. Soon the moon would rise fully and take its rightful place above the world, cold and silver and watchful, while the sun disappeared entirely into the open arms of the mountains.
The wind had already begun to strengthen.
It moved through the garden with gathering violence, dragging leaves from their branches and scattering them across the stone paths as though the night itself had grown restless. Heavy clouds gathered overhead with unnatural speed, consuming what little light remained until the garden was almost entirely swallowed by darkness. Somewhere beyond the castle walls, the first warning of thunder stirred inside the sky.
A storm was coming.
You could hear the desperate cries of the leaves as they were torn through the air by the wind’s fury, and yet you felt no fear of the storm, no fear of the night, and no fear of the shadows gathering hungrily around the garden. Nothing in that moment had the power to frighten you.
Nothing except the man standing before you.
You stood perfectly still, your eyes fixed upon his unfamiliar face, though unfamiliar did not feel like the right word. There was something intimate about him, something that unsettled you more deeply than recognition would have done. His features belonged to a stranger, and yet your heart reacted to him as though it had been waiting for centuries to see him again.
Taehyung had been thrown aside, and some distant part of you knew he might have been hurt, yet your feet did not move towards him. Instead, you remained rooted in place, staring into the dark eyes of the man who had appeared from nowhere, your mind screaming with a need you did not understand.
You wanted to touch his face.
You wanted to remember him.
You wanted to know why the very sight of him made something ache inside your chest.
“Yoongi, get away from her,” Taehyung shouted.
Yoongi.
The name echoed through your mind with such force that for one breathless moment you believed it would unlock something. You waited for memory to rise, for some hidden part of your past to break through the fog and explain why that name made your soul tremble.
Nothing came.
Only disappointment.
The emptiness hurt more than you expected.
Taehyung was beside you in a matter of seconds, his arms wrapping around you protectively as he pulled you against him. For the first time since you had known him, you felt his hands trembling. His entire body was tense, rigid with a fear he tried desperately to hide, and the knowledge unsettled you more than the storm ever could have.
Curiosity overcame caution.
“Who are you?” you asked, though your voice cracked for reasons you could not understand.
The question struck Yoongi like a blade.
For a brief moment, pain flickered across his expression before it vanished behind something colder. His gaze moved to Taehyung, and all tenderness disappeared from his face. The darkness in his eyes deepened, his jaw tightened, and the stillness surrounding him became far more terrifying than anger.
“Who am I?” Yoongi repeated, his voice quiet and cold, though not towards you. “I am the one who should be holding you.”
His words settled heavily between you.
They should have frightened you, yet they did not.
Instead, they made your heart feel as though it were breaking.
The whites of Yoongi’s eyes darkened into pure black, his irises burning with a shadowed intensity that made his stare appear almost lethal. It felt as though one look from him could tear Taehyung apart, and still, beneath the fear and confusion, your chest ached with the terrible certainty that this man had once meant something to you.
“She is not yours, brother,” Taehyung said, his voice no more than a whisper, though both you and Yoongi heard him clearly.
Yoongi stepped closer.
“Yours?” he asked, the word sharpened by centuries of restraint. “Does she even know how she became yours, brother?”
His hand lifted as though he meant to throw Taehyung aside again, but another pair of hands stopped him before he could strike.
“Hoseok?” Yoongi said, his eyes widening.
Hoseok stood between them, his expression grave as he held Yoongi back with quiet urgency.
“It is not time to fight,” Hoseok said, his gaze moving from Yoongi to you before settling coldly upon Taehyung. “She should not see us in that state of mind, not while she is so vulnerable.”
Only then did you feel the pain in your arm.
You looked down and saw blood dripping from your skin where Taehyung’s grasp had been too tight. Crimson stained his fingers, and the sight seemed to change the air around you completely.
Taehyung noticed it too.
A cruel satisfaction touched his face.
“Do you think you can take it, Yoongi?” he asked, staring deeply into his brother’s eyes while his thumb gleamed with your blood. “Can you resist her sweet blood?”
He lifted his thumb as though he meant to taste it.
Hoseok attacked him before he could.
Taehyung’s back struck the stone wall with enough force to silence the garden for a heartbeat, and Hoseok held him there, overpowering him so completely that Taehyung could not move an inch.
“Are you on his side?” Taehyung yelled.
“On his side?” Hoseok repeated, his voice thick with anger. “You and the others had him locked away for centuries. He is our king, Taehyung, and he is the best among us. How could you ask me that when you already know the answer?”
Taehyung smirked.
His eyes shifted past Hoseok, gleaming with satisfaction and darkness.
Hoseok followed his gaze.
Then he froze.
Yoongi had reached you.
His arms were wrapped tightly around your waist, holding you upright as his mouth rested against your neck. His fangs had pierced your skin, and the sensation that moved through you was overwhelming, forbidden and strangely familiar, as though your body remembered him even while your mind struggled to understand why.
His bite was unlike Jungkook’s.
It sank deeper, not merely into your flesh but into something far more hidden, stirring pleasure, memory, and longing all at once. His scent surrounded you, sweet and intoxicating like lilies blooming beneath moonlight, filling every part of your existence until resistance felt impossible.
You did not think you would have resisted him even if he had not used any power at all.
Your knees weakened, but Yoongi held you securely.
When a soft whine escaped your lips, he stopped at once.
His fangs left your skin, and you felt the gentlest touch of his mouth against the wound, soothing the ache until the pain faded. The tenderness of it confused you, because nothing about him felt safe, and yet nothing had ever felt more necessary.
“She smells so sweet,” Hoseok whispered.
Yoongi lifted his gaze towards him, a faint smirk touching his lips as he watched Hoseok approach with steps that seemed faster than usual, though unsteady enough to betray the hunger he was trying to conceal.
“How long has it been since you fed, Hoseok?” Yoongi asked.
“It has not been long, brother,” Hoseok replied, though his voice lacked conviction. “Do not worry.”
“You need to be strong if you care enough to help me protect her.”
Yoongi looked down at you then, his expression softening in a way that made your chest tighten. He asked quietly whether you would allow Hoseok to feed from you, explaining that if Hoseok had your blood, he would be able to sense you at any time of day should harm ever come near.
You nodded.
There was nothing to fear from Hoseok.
You did not know why you trusted Yoongi’s word so blindly when you could not even remember him, but trusting him felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Yoongi held you more securely within his arms as Hoseok came to stand behind you. Hoseok’s chest pressed carefully against your back while he moved your dress from your shoulder, exposing your skin with a gentleness that felt almost apologetic. His veined hands brushed your waist lightly, his touch as delicate as a feather, and the fragrance of gardenia surrounded you again before his fangs entered your shoulder.
The pain came sharply at first, then dissolved into something warm and dizzying.
Hoseok did not feed for long.
Taehyung’s voice erupted in rage, curses and accusations spilling from him while the storm continued gathering overhead. Hoseok pulled away and came to stand before you, smiling faintly with distant wonder. Blood stained his lips and chin, yet his eyes had turned a pure and astonishing blue, as though the sky had opened inside them and revealed the clearest light imaginable.
“Do you know what you have done?” Taehyung shouted. “You shared her as though she were nothing. I had her with me for so long, and I never fed from her.”
You could barely keep your eyes open.
The loss of blood left your body weak and cold, yet Yoongi never released you. His embrace remained the only thing keeping you standing, and somewhere deep inside you, beneath the confusion and the stolen memories, you knew that even if Taehyung held you the same way, it would never feel like this.
Rain began to fall.
Cold droplets touched your exhausted skin as the storm finally came alive above the castle. The rain ran down your face, and a small whine escaped you at the sudden chill.
Yoongi lowered his head and pressed his lips to yours.
The kiss was firm, but not hungry.
Not possessive in the way Taehyung’s touch had been.
It was full of emotion, sorrow, longing, and a tenderness so deep that it seemed to reach beyond memory itself. The euphoria that moved through you was breathtaking, but it was not the same as Jungkook’s kiss, nor the intoxicating haze created by the others. Yoongi kissed you as though he was trying to remind your soul of something your mind had forgotten.
When you pulled back, you stared into his beautiful face.
The only word you could speak was his name.
“Yoongi.”
The smallest smile touched the corner of his mouth.
It was not victory.
It was recognition.
It was the quiet acknowledgement that some part of you, the part stolen away by his brother’s spell, was beginning to return from the darkness where it had been kept.
For several moments, the storm, the garden, and the brothers disappeared around you.
Then Namjoon’s voice tore through the night.
“Yoongi, are you even listening to me? Take her away.”
The urgency in his voice startled you.
You turned to see what had frightened him, and terror immediately stole the breath from your lungs.
A horde of young men and women, all covered in blood, had stormed the garden and were throwing themselves at the brothers with wild desperation. Their movements were wrong, too frantic and unnatural, and all of them seemed to be trying to reach Jimin, who stood among the chaos with an evil smile curving across his face.
“So,” he said, sounding almost pleased. “It worked.”
“What did you do, Jimin?” Namjoon demanded as he tore one of the attackers away from him, disgust twisting his features before he flung the body aside and turned towards another.
“I changed them,” Jimin replied lightly. “I gave them my blood for amusement, to see if I could truly turn them into one of us. That young witch told me I could do it.”
Every pair of eyes followed the direction of his finger.
A young woman staggered through the chaos.
She looked to be in her early twenties, barely able to stand, her dress soaked with blood while a terrible wound marked her neck. Her steps faltered as she reached Jimin and gripped his arm with fading strength.
“S-something is wrong,” she whispered.
Jimin looked down at her with a strange kind of curiosity.
“I should have been half witch and half vampire,” she breathed, her voice breaking as death crept nearer. “But now I am dying.”
“I told you that you should have been stronger, little witch,” Jimin said, stroking her cheek with his thumb before turning her face towards you. “Do you see that girl over there? She is the most powerful of your kind. Could she take it?”
The young witch’s eyes fell upon you.
For one moment, they widened.
Recognition entered them like a final spark before darkness claimed her.
“Moonchild,” she whispered.
Then she collapsed onto the cold ground.
Her face turned pale.
Soon, she was dead.
The word remained.
Moonchild.
It seemed to echo through the storm, through the garden, through the silence that followed her death.
When your gaze finally left her lifeless body, you saw Jungkook standing beside Jimin.
“Moonchild?” you asked, though the question seemed meant more for yourself than anyone else.
Yoongi looked back at you, warmth softening his eyes as if he wished to assure you that everything would be all right, though the expression on his face told you he knew far more than he had yet said.
He called Jungkook’s name.
Jungkook obeyed instantly.
Soft words passed between the two brothers before you found yourself lifted into Jungkook’s arms. With a powerful movement, he leapt from the garden to your balcony, carrying you back into the safety of your room as the violence below continued beneath the storm.
Jungkook’s gaze was dark, almost predatory, yet the feeling inside his arms was painfully familiar.
The coldness of him should not have felt like warmth, yet it did.
It felt like something you had once called home.
Suddenly, memories began to return.
“Jungkook,” you breathed.
The smile you had missed so much appeared upon his face, soft and bright with relief.
“You remembered?”
His smile widened, and yours followed.
“I missed your face,” he whispered. “I missed your smile, your warmth, and everything that made you yourself.”
He placed a gentle kiss upon your forehead and helped you lie upon the bed. A short while later, Hoseok and Yoongi entered through the balcony, both of them smiling when they saw you awake.
Your own smile disappeared the moment Taehyung stepped into the room behind them.
“Do not worry,” Taehyung said quietly. “I will not hurt you.”
You looked towards Yoongi.
“Please listen to him,” Yoongi said, his voice careful. “He has something important to tell you.”
Reluctantly, you nodded.
Taehyung stepped forward, though he kept a respectful distance.
“When I heard the young witch call you Moonchild, I remembered something our father once told me,” he began. “The witch who turned us into what we are used a spell too powerful to be cast by one witch alone. She used ancient magic to bind our lives to the souls of all the witches our ancestors had killed.”
The room seemed to grow colder.
“All of those souls can return to life when a witch powerful enough casts the spell,” Taehyung continued. “I know that may sound good to you and your kind, but not all of them were good, and not all of them were innocent. The final ingredient required for the spell is something no one else can offer willingly except the Moonchild herself.”
You swallowed.
“And what is that?”
Taehyung’s expression darkened.
“Her soul,” he said. “And if that spell is cast, the woman who doomed us all will come back to life. One thing is certain. All of us will die.”
The silence that followed was almost unbearable.
You looked at each of them, then forced yourself to speak.
“By what you have said, I assume the Moonchild is me.”
A faint smile touched your lips, though it held no real amusement.
“Then I will not cast the spell. I do not want any of you harmed, even those who wish to kill me or feed from me.”
“I wish it were that easy,” Taehyung replied. “But it is not.”
He came closer and carefully took your hand. When he lifted the sleeve of your dress, an angry sound passed through the room.
“She already has the mark,” he announced.
“What mark?” Yoongi and Jungkook asked at the same time.
You looked down at your wrist.
A moon had begun to appear upon your skin.
“A moon,” you said quietly, trying to hide the fear gathering inside you. “Considering the name Moonchild, that feels rather cruel.”
No one laughed.
“When the moon becomes whole, the spell must be cast,” Taehyung said.
“And if it is not?” you asked.
Taehyung ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time since he began speaking, he seemed unable to meet your eyes.
“There is only one thing that can happen if you refuse.”
Yoongi’s voice softened into something dangerously close to pleading.
“What happens, Taehyung? Say it.”
Taehyung finally looked at you.
“She dies,” he said.
The words settled over the room like a curse with Taehyung's eyes setting in yours that were covered in sadness.
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Summary: Do vampires have a soul or the witch turned them into soulless monsters? Are witches always evil or vampires can make one of them fall in love?
A story where Yoongi finds the girl who can save him and his brothers. Jungkook tries his best to keep her safe until Yoongi escapes from his dark prison.
Pairing: Vampire!BTS x Reader
Genre: vampire!au, magic background, prey hunting, killing, gore, story takes place in the Early Modern Europe, between the 16th and 17th century.
Word Count: 16.5k
Warnings: vampires, killing, blood drinking, biting, fangs, immortality, obsession, witch, manipulation, slow burn, just some heavy kissing for now
Memories of the seven sons: 1| 2
Chapter one
The first thing you became aware of was the cold.
It pressed against your skin from every direction, seeping through the delicate fabric of your dress and drawing you slowly from the darkness of unconsciousness. For several moments, you remained perfectly still upon the damp forest floor, unable to determine whether you had truly awakened or whether you were still trapped somewhere within the remnants of a dream that refused to release its hold on you.
When your eyes finally opened, all you saw were trees.
Ancient trees.
Their towering branches stretched endlessly towards the pale morning sky, weaving together so densely that only fragments of sunlight managed to penetrate the canopy above. Everything felt impossibly distant, as though the world itself had been muffled beneath a veil of silence.
Confusion settled heavily within your chest.
You had no idea where you were.
More unsettling still was the fact that you could not remember how you had arrived there.
Slowly, you pushed yourself upright, brushing damp strands of hair away from your face as you looked around in search of anything that might offer an explanation. The forest stretched endlessly in every direction, untouched and unfamiliar, and no matter how desperately you searched for a recognisable landmark, there was nothing.
No path.
No buildings.
No signs of life.
Only trees and silence.
The realisation should have frightened you.
Instead, a strange calm lingered beneath your confusion.
As you rose to your feet, another sensation made itself known. Your body felt unusually light, almost weightless, as though gravity itself held less power over you than it should. Yet beneath that lightness was something else entirely. Something stronger.
Power.
The feeling coursed quietly through your veins, wrapping itself around your entire being like an invisible aura. It was not merely confidence or strength. It felt older than that. Larger than that. As though something hidden deep within you had awakened and was waiting patiently for you to notice its existence.
You knew something was wrong.
You simply could not bring yourself to care.
With a small sigh, you dusted off your clothing, only for your movements to falter as your gaze dropped towards the dress you were wearing.
The black fabric cascaded elegantly around your body, brushing softly against your ankles in delicate folds. Fine lace adorned the sleeves and neckline, intricate enough to belong within a royal ballroom rather than the depths of a forgotten forest.
You stared at it.
You had never owned such a dress.
At least, you did not think you had.
A sharp ache immediately pulsed behind your eyes.
Last night.
What happened last night?
You closed your eyes and forced yourself to concentrate, desperately reaching for memories that remained frustratingly out of reach. The harder you searched, the more intense the pain became until eventually you were forced to abandon the attempt altogether.
"There is no way I can remember everything now," you murmured softly to yourself. "Come on. Let's head towards civilisation."
Your voice sounded strangely small beneath the towering trees.
Barefoot, you began walking.
The damp earth pressed against your feet as you moved through the unfamiliar woods, each step carrying you deeper into uncertainty. Fallen branches cracked beneath your weight while the distant sounds of birds echoed faintly through the forest.
Time seemed to lose all meaning.
Minutes blurred into hours.
The forest remained endless.
Eventually, your foot caught against the root of an ancient tree hidden beneath the undergrowth, causing you to stumble forward.
You waited for pain.
It never came.
Frowning, you lowered your gaze.
Something dark stained your skin.
Curiosity overcame caution as you crouched down for a closer look.
The substance covering your feet had already begun to dry, turning from bright scarlet to a deeper shade of crimson.
Blood.
Your breath caught.
There was blood everywhere.
And yet there were no wounds.
No cuts.
No explanation.
A chill travelled down your spine.
Almost instinctively, you turned around.
Your gaze drifted towards the darkest section of the forest behind you, where shadows gathered between the trees with unnatural density. For reasons you could not explain, the darkness felt alive.
Watching.
Waiting.
Calling.
The sensation was impossible to describe, yet it settled within your chest with startling certainty.
Someone was calling for you.
Someone was waiting for you.
Someone knew exactly where you were.
The thought should have terrified you.
Instead, a faint smile touched your lips.
The feeling was strangely comforting.
As though some forgotten part of yourself recognised whatever lingered within those shadows.
Without fully understanding why, you turned away and continued walking.
Home.
The word echoed repeatedly through your mind despite the fact that you no longer knew where home was.
Yet with every step you took, you felt increasingly certain that you were moving towards it.
Hours passed.
The sky gradually darkened until night claimed the world around you, and still you continued forward. Exhaustion slowly began to creep into your limbs, but something stronger than reason urged you onward.
When you finally lifted your gaze towards the heavens, your breath caught.
The moon hung high above the world.
Its silver light bathed the forest in an ethereal glow, transforming the familiar woods into something almost magical.
You closed your eyes.
For the first time that day, genuine peace settled within you.
Almost unconsciously, your fingers drifted towards the necklace resting against your chest.
An emerald stone gleamed beneath the moonlight.
The sight of it stirred something deep within your soul.
Longing.
Heartache.
Home.
You did not know where the necklace had come from, nor why it felt so important, but touching it filled you with a sense of familiarity that nearly brought tears to your eyes.
With a quiet sigh, you continued forward until a narrow path suddenly appeared where moments before there had been none.
The change was so unexpected that you stopped walking entirely.
The forest had become silent.
Completely silent.
A cold wind swept through the trees, passing through you so completely that it almost felt as though your body were made from smoke rather than flesh.
Yet excitement stirred within you.
Something was waiting at the end of this path.
You could feel it.
The further you walked, the stronger the sensation became until eventually the trees parted.
Your steps faltered.
Before you stood an enormous castle.
Moonlight illuminated its towering walls and countless windows, transforming it into something that seemed torn directly from the pages of a forgotten fairy tale. Ancient stone rose proudly against the night sky while elegant towers pierced the heavens above.
It was magnificent.
Beautiful.
And impossibly familiar.
The moment your eyes landed upon it, something deep within your chest awakened.
The castle was calling to you.
You felt it as clearly as your own heartbeat.
Its towering gates stood before you like an invitation.
With every step you took, the pull became stronger.
Until eventually you stood before them.
You reached out.
The gates slowly began to open.
Then he appeared.
Your breath caught instantly.
The stranger looked as though he belonged within the very castle itself. Moonlight softened his features while an effortless grace surrounded him, making him appear less like a man and more like a figure from an ancient legend.
Without hesitation, he extended his hand towards you.
For reasons you could not explain, you accepted it.
The moment his fingers enclosed yours, a deep sense of calm settled over your heart.
"You must be tired, Milady," he said, his voice warm enough to send a shiver down your spine. "Shall we go inside so you can properly rest? These woods are no place for a beautiful young lady to wander alone."
Every instinct should have urged caution.
Instead, you trusted him.
"What is your name?" you asked softly.
A gentle smile appeared upon his lips.
"Lord Hoseok."
His gaze lingered upon you for a moment longer.
"But for you, simply Hoseok."
Together, you crossed the gardens surrounding the castle before disappearing beyond its towering doors, entirely unaware that somewhere deep within its ancient walls, another pair of eyes had already found you.
And for the first time in centuries, hope had awakened.
You awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of something loud echoing through the castle.
For a few moments, you remained still, your eyes heavy with sleep and your thoughts slow to return, while the last remnants of whatever dream had held you dissolved into the darkness around you. The blanket that had been draped over your lap slipped from your body as you pushed it aside, falling softly to the floor while you rose from the armchair and looked towards the enormous fireplace beside you.
The fire was still burning brightly.
Someone must have fed it while you slept, because the flames had not weakened at all, and they now devoured the fresh wood with a hunger that seemed almost alive. Their golden glow stretched across the living room, touching the edges of the furniture and paintings with trembling light, yet beyond that small circle of warmth, the castle remained vast and shadowed.
You crossed the room quietly and made your way towards the window.
Outside, a storm was rising.
It had not yet fully broken over the castle, but its power was already gathering in the sky with slow, deliberate violence. Heavy clouds rolled across the heavens while lightning moved between them in jagged flashes, illuminating the gardens and distant woods for brief moments before plunging them back into darkness. Thunder followed soon after, deep and commanding, as though the sky itself had been torn open by some unseen force.
Amazed by the strength of it, you pressed your fingertips against the cold glass.
There was something strangely beautiful about the storm.
Something untamed.
Something familiar.
For reasons you could not explain, you wanted to touch the lightning, to feel the thunder beneath your palms, to understand the fierce power that moved through the night as though it answered to no one.
Then you heard it.
Whispers.
At first, you thought the sound belonged to the wind as it wound itself through the ancient castle, slipping beneath doors and around corners like an unseen creature. Yet when you listened more carefully, the sound came again, faint but unmistakable, drifting from somewhere beyond the living room.
You turned away from the window.
The hallway beyond the door was almost entirely consumed by darkness, veiled in shadows so thick they seemed to have gathered there deliberately. Only a few candles remained lit along the walls, their weak flames trembling as though afraid of what lingered beyond their glow.
You stepped forward.
Your fingers brushed against the cold stone walls as you left the warmth of the living room behind and followed the whispers into the corridor. You should have called out. You should have asked whether someone was there, yet something playful stirred within you instead, something mischievous and bold that did not feel entirely like fear.
The whispers continued.
Then, at the far end of the hallway, you saw him.
A man stood beneath the shadows.
You could not see his face clearly, yet the shape of him felt familiar, as though you had seen him before in a dream you had not yet remembered. He did not move. He did not speak. He simply stood there, watching you from the darkness.
Then the scent reached you.
Jasmine.
It drifted through the air like fog, rich and intoxicating, wrapping itself around your senses until you could not help but close your eyes and breathe it in. The fragrance was astonishing, soft at first, then deeper, until it seemed to settle beneath your skin and awaken something hidden inside you.
When your eyes opened again, a smirk had curved upon your lips.
You looked at the man once more.
Your mind felt clouded, as though it had been touched by something not entirely your own, and when your lips parted, the voice that emerged from them sounded bewitching, dangerous, and far too confident to belong to the girl who had awakened lost in the woods only the day before.
“Your motives may be nobler than mine, but you still move around me. You are a shadow of mine. Do I belong within those shadows of yours as well?”
The words seemed to settle between you like a spell.
The man shifted from his place in the darkness and began retreating farther down the corridor, his figure disappearing little by little into the deeper shadows.
A sudden irritation stirred within you.
Why would he leave?
You wanted to play.
You still wanted to play, and the desire was sharp enough to make your heartbeat quicken.
You moved after him quickly, but before you could understand how it happened, the distance between you vanished. One moment he had been several steps away, and the next you were standing directly in front of him, as though the simple act of wanting had been enough to bend the world to your will.
The strangeness of it should have frightened you.
Instead, it thrilled you.
What a peculiar thing it was to take what you wanted simply by thinking of it.
“Why did you leave so quickly?” you asked, your voice carrying both bitterness and amusement. “Does my presence not please you?”
The man did not answer.
He only reached for your hand.
His touch was soft, almost deceptively gentle, as he led you towards the staircase and up into the part of the castle where the chambers waited in silence. You allowed him to guide you, though when you stopped outside one of the main doors, your fingers tightened around his hand with sudden force.
Only then did the candlelight reveal his face.
He was not Lord Hoseok.
And yet, even knowing that, you felt no fear.
That unsettled you more than his presence did.
Why were you not afraid of the men inside this castle?
Why did each of them seem to draw a different response from you, as though some forgotten part of your body recognised them before your mind ever could?
“That is not a way to treat a lady,” you said, your voice lower now. “Nobody touches me unless I want them to.”
You squeezed his hand harder.
A low groan left his lips, but his eyes never left yours.
They were unlike any eyes you had ever seen.
Violet.
Beautiful, unnatural violet.
The colour held you still for a moment, captivating in a way that felt almost dangerous, and when he lifted his hand to beckon you inside the chamber with long, elegant fingers, you found yourself following him despite every sensible thought warning you to turn back.
The chamber was unfamiliar.
The walls, the furniture, the shadows, all of it belonged to a place you did not know, and still the fragrance of jasmine made the room feel intimate, almost suffocating. Only then did you understand that the scent belonged to him.
You reached out as though to touch him, but he moved faster.
His arms slipped around your waist and drew you close to him before you could decide whether to resist. His face lowered to the curve of your neck, and he breathed you in as though your scent alone had stolen his restraint.
“You smell so different from the others,” he murmured, his voice deep and husky against your skin. “I am paralysed by this unique scent of yours. My desire is to lock you away and devour every part of you, day and night.”
His voice was nothing like Hoseok’s, yet it held a power of its own.
It was darker.
More sinful.
A voice that could coax secrets from the soul if one listened too long.
Your eyes fluttered closed despite yourself, and his words slipped into your mind like a lullaby written for ruin. He continued whispering against your ear, soft words that should have repulsed you but instead made your body feel strangely numb. One of his hands rested at the back of your head while the other held your waist, supporting you as weakness crept slowly through your limbs.
His lips brushed your neck in small, lingering touches, and each one sent a shiver over your skin.
The room seemed to blur.
The scent of jasmine deepened.
His presence wrapped around you more tightly, pulling you under.
Then the whispers returned.
Not from the hallway.
Not from the castle.
From inside your mind.
“Are they trying to lure my bride?” the voice asked, cold and intimate all at once. “You are stronger than them. Open your eyes. He is not me, my love. For I am waiting. Find me.”
The words broke through the haze like a blade through silk.
Your eyes opened.
And then you laughed.
It was not a soft laugh, nor was it the kind of laughter that belonged to innocence or amusement. It echoed strangely through the room, sharp enough to make the man before you still, and when he tilted his head to look at you, there was something almost cautious in his expression.
“What is so funny, Milady?” he asked, his husky voice quieter now.
Still smiling, you lifted your hand and touched the side of his face with your fingertips.
“This has been rather entertaining.” you said softly. “But if you lay your filthy hands on me once more, you may end up having none.”
The moment the words left your mouth, the anger inside you seemed to spill outward and fill the entire chamber.
The air grew thinner.
The walls felt closer.
The candles trembled violently in their holders as though the room itself could no longer breathe.
The man remained motionless before you, unable to move, and for the first time since he had drawn you into his chamber, fear touched his eyes.
Then the words came again.
They slipped from your mouth, but they were not yours.
“Beware of who you choose to challenge. If this is a game you wish to play, be informed that she knows how to play, and she plays the dirtiest games. Warn the others if you must, but you will be her pawns, and you will beg for her attention. Before you question her weakness, ask yourself this. Are you certain she was the one falling under your spell, or were you falling under hers?”
Your breath caught after the final word left you.
You had not said those things.
Not truly.
It had been him.
Your one and only.
Yet the meaning behind his warning remained beyond your understanding, slipping through your thoughts before you could grasp it fully.
The man before you understood enough.
You could see it clearly.
He was terrified.
Before you left the chamber, you turned back towards him, your voice gentle now, as though nothing at all had happened.
“What is your name? I would like to know.”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he bowed his head slightly.
“Lord Namjoon, Milady. The fourth brother.”
You gave no reply.
You simply closed the door behind you and returned downstairs to the armchair where you had slept before, though sleep no longer came easily. Your mind remained crowded with questions, with the scent of jasmine, with the sound of that mysterious voice calling you his bride.
By morning, you promised yourself, you would find out what was happening inside this castle.
You had to know.
Morning arrived beneath a sky heavy with grey clouds.
The weak sunlight struggled to break through them, casting the castle in a pale and mournful glow. Your head still felt dizzy from the night before, and the strange power that had filled you in Namjoon’s chamber continued to linger beneath your skin like a half-remembered fire.
There had been hatred inside you.
Power, too.
A dangerous kind of power.
And it had not felt entirely like yours.
You stretched beneath the blanket and slowly moved it aside. As your feet touched the floor, you noticed a pair of shoes waiting neatly beneath them, placed there while you slept.
A servant soon appeared and politely asked you to follow him to your chambers.
Your chambers.
The phrase settled strangely in your thoughts.
Did that mean you were a guest here?
Did guests in this castle receive such silent care, or was there another reason everyone seemed prepared for your presence?
You slipped into the shoes and followed the servant upstairs without asking any of the questions pressing against your tongue. A servant, you knew, would likely have little information to give you, and if he did, fear might prevent him from sharing it.
The room he led you to was the master bedroom.
You stopped just inside the doorway.
The chamber was enormous and richly furnished, far grander than anything you had expected. Heavy curtains framed tall windows, a great bed stood in the centre of the room, and every polished surface seemed touched by quiet luxury.
Why were you being given the master bedroom?
You let the question pass without speaking it aloud.
The servant crossed the room and opened the wardrobe opposite the bed, revealing a collection of dresses so beautiful and expensive that you stared at them in silent disbelief. Dark fabrics, lace, silk, velvet, embroidery, all of it waiting as though someone had known you would come.
“Could I ask you a question, young man?” you asked softly.
The servant looked startled by the kindness in your voice.
A faint blush touched his cheeks.
“Yes, Milady,” he said, stumbling over the words. “Ask me anything you like.”
The way he responded made you wonder how often anyone in this castle spoke to him gently.
“How many masters do you have?”
“Six, Milady,” he answered at once.
You frowned slightly.
He seemed to understand that you wished for him to continue.
“Four of them live here, and we are awaiting the arrival of the other two masters, Milady.”
Six.
And yet you clearly remembered seven portraits hanging in the living room, their names nearly faded as though they had watched over the castle for many years.
“Those are six,” you said slowly. “Where is the seventh one?”
The young man grew quiet.
Curiosity pulled you further in, and you sat upon the bed before patting the space beside you.
He hesitated.
Then, slowly, he approached.
As he came closer, a soft fragrance drifted through the air.
Vanilla.
The scent was gentle and warm, unlike Namjoon’s jasmine, and the moment it surrounded you, something inside your chest relaxed. He sat beside you carefully, and before you fully understood why, you found yourself leaning your head against his shoulder.
He was taller than you.
His dark brown hair fell softly around his face, and his eyes were a deep shade of blue that held more sadness than someone so young should have carried.
For the first time since entering the castle, you felt safe beside someone.
“Could you please talk to me?” you asked quietly. “About anything. I want to sit here and relax for a little. Please.”
You felt him looking down at you even though your gaze remained lowered.
After a moment, you shifted until your head rested on his lap, your body curled slightly at the edge of the bed. His hand moved carefully to your hair, hesitant at first, before his fingers began to stroke through the dark strands with a tenderness that made your chest ache.
“There was once a great kingdom,” he began softly.
The moment he spoke, you knew he was telling you a story.
“The King and Queen lived happily together until the King grew hungry for power. He craved heirs, but his Queen could not give him what he wanted, and because he loved her too dearly to seek another woman to carry his children, he went to a witch.”
His voice remained gentle, yet a sorrowful weight entered it as he continued.
“But no good comes from a witch who has once been betrayed by old and mighty kings. There would be a price, and someone innocent would pay it. The King did not know who that innocent soul would be, and worse than that, he did not care. Those men are the most dangerous ones, Milady. The ones who do not care who suffers because of their careless desires.”
His fingers continued moving through your hair, soothing a pain you had not realised you were carrying.
“The King was gifted with seven sons,” he said. “Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook. The second son was the wisest and the most gifted, and for a time the King was happy. But then he fell ill. He did not read the signs, believing his sickness came from age alone. The Queen died before him, and then the witch returned.”
You listened in silence.
“She came into his chamber and stood before him and his sons. There, she cursed them to become the immortal sons of death. It was a cruel irony, the name she gave them, and her laughter filled the castle so completely that some say it can still be heard within its walls. When the King died, five of the brothers locked the second son inside a hidden room. He was the rightful king, and he wanted to beg the witch for mercy because of his father’s mistake. But the others were relentless. They craved power, just as their father had.”
His voice cracked.
“The youngest brother was under their control for endless years. Then one day, after searching the castle for what felt like forever, he found the hidden room. What he saw inside was unbearable. His older brother was lying there, chained and weak, as though the darkness itself had been feeding on him.”
Tears fell from his eyes.
Your heart tightened.
You turned your face towards him and lifted your hand to his cheek, wiping away the tears with your thumb. You may not have understood yet why, but there was an immense urgency within you to keep him safe, to make him feel safe.
“Shhh,” you whispered. “I am here.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as though your words had wounded and comforted him all at once.
Then he continued.
“His brother was too weak to follow him and be rescued, but he told him there would be a witch born within the next two millennia who would lead them out of the darkness. The youngest brother kept visiting him whenever he could do so without being caught by the others. He did not want to leave the castle without him, so he stayed and helped him. He brought him small portions of food to make him stronger.”
The young man’s voice grew quieter.
“Then one day, the chained brother asked him to go outside and call out to the witch who had been born. She was only a tiny baby at the time, but she had to be marked as his so he could call out to her later. The older brothers discovered what the youngest had done and hid the second brother in the darkest place within the castle, a place not even his soulmate would easily find. But the youngest brother knew that one day she would return to her rightful place, and when she did, he believed his brother would finally be safe.”
He looked down at you then, and his smile was the purest thing you had seen since waking in the forest.
“Because she, and only she, was the Queen the King had been waiting for.”
A deep silence followed.
The story settled over you slowly, sinking into parts of your soul you did not know existed.
The young man brushed a few strands of hair away from your face, his gaze searching yours as though he wished to find the truth hidden inside you.
“The day came, and she returned,” he said softly. “Everything felt different when she arrived in the old kingdom God had forsaken. She was beautiful beyond imagination, with a pure and ancient soul, the kind only old and powerful witches once possessed.”
He paused.
Then he leaned closer.
“Is this why he chose you as his bride?” he whispered. “Because you are not only a beautiful creature, but because you actually care?”
Your breath caught.
Before you could answer, he gently helped you sit at the edge of the bed, freeing his lap. He moved closer and cupped your face between his hands, his eyes still fixed deeply upon yours.
You knew what he was going to do.
You did not stop him.
Your heart began pounding inside your chest as his face drew nearer. When you closed your eyes, he tilted his head and placed a soft kiss upon your lips.
It was gentle.
Almost reverent.
His lips were so soft that for a moment you forgot how to breathe.
He pulled away after only a few seconds, and when your eyes opened, you found him looking at you with an expression that seemed caught between wonder and guilt. He licked his lips before leaning closer again, and you turned your gaze aside, blushing deeply.
That had been your first kiss.
It was with someone you did not truly know, and yet somehow it had felt right.
The thought embarrassed you more than the kiss itself.
His hands touched your face again, careful and warm despite the coolness of his skin, and he brushed his thumbs across your burning cheeks before kissing you once more. This time, the kiss deepened slowly, guided by patience rather than force, and you allowed yourself to be drawn into it.
He taught you gently.
His arms gathered you closer until you were sitting upon his lap, your legs resting at either side of him as though your body had moved before your mind could object. His touch remained careful, as if he feared the smallest rough movement might break you, and that tenderness unsettled you more than hunger ever could have.
Your hand found his waist, and your upper body leaned closer to his without permission from your thoughts.
The heat between you grew.
His lips parted against yours, and when you allowed the kiss to deepen, he guided you through it with a confidence that left you trembling. His cold hands rested against your feverish skin, and though he kissed you with longing, there was something restrained in the way he held you, something that made every touch feel both dangerous and safe.
His lips drifted from yours to your neck, leaving soft kisses that sent shivers down your spine.
You felt him searching for what made your breath catch, what made your fingers tighten against him, what made warmth bloom beneath your skin. When he found the sensitive place along your neck, your body reacted before you could stop it.
A quiet sound escaped you.
He stilled for half a second.
Then he kissed you there again, softer this time, as though the sound had undone something in him.
His mouth travelled slowly along your throat and up to your jaw before returning to your lips. When his teeth caught your lower lip lightly, another sound escaped you, and you felt him smile against the kiss.
His hand moved beneath the fabric of your dress but stopped at your thigh, as though restraint returned to him just before desire could take him too far.
The closeness left you breathless.
The warmth of his attention sent sinful shivers across your body, and this time the sensation felt nothing like Namjoon’s attempt to lure you. This was different. This felt like something you had chosen, even if you did not fully understand it.
Then he broke the kiss.
His eyes were darker than before, filled with desire and regret in equal measure.
“I do not want to make you feel ashamed, Milady,” he whispered. “Please forgive me for my disgraceful behaviour. I am forever sorry for what I did to you.”
The apology was so earnest that you nearly laughed from how unexpectedly sweet it was.
Instead, you leaned forward and kissed him softly, reassuring him without needing to speak.
He remained still for a moment.
Then, carefully, he lifted you from his lap and stood before you.
He bowed.
“I will bring towels for your bath, Milady.”
You nodded, though just before he reached the door, a thought struck you.
“I never learned your name,” you said softly.
He turned back to you.
“It is Jungkook, Milady.”
Your eyes widened.
The youngest brother.
The one from the story.
The one who had found the chained king.
The door closed behind him, and you remained seated upon the bed, your heart still racing as the truth settled over you.
Jungkook.
The servant who had comforted you.
The young man who had told you the story.
The one who smelled of vanilla and safety.
He was not merely a servant.
He was the youngest son.
Jungkook left the room, and almost immediately the weight of everything you had learned settled heavily upon your chest.
There was too much to understand, too much to hold inside your mind at once, and the more you thought about the story he had told you, the more the walls of the master bedroom seemed to close in around you. The seven sons, the cursed king, the witch, the hidden room, the brother left chained in darkness, and the terrible possibility that this very chamber had once witnessed the death of a king all gathered inside your thoughts until breathing felt far more difficult than it should have.
You did not want to think about any of it.
Not yet.
Not while the castle around you still felt unfamiliar, not while every answer seemed to lead only to another terrible question, and certainly not while the faint echo of Jungkook’s voice still lingered in the room like something warm and safe.
You wanted him to come back.
The thought embarrassed you slightly, yet you could not deny it. His presence had settled something inside you from the moment he first sat beside you, as though whatever gentle sadness lived within him somehow understood the restless confusion inside your own heart. You needed his calmness. You needed the quiet comfort of his voice, the softness of his eyes, and the strangely peaceful scent of vanilla that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
You sat at the edge of the bed, waiting.
Only a few minutes passed before the door opened again.
Jungkook returned carrying a stack of towels in one hand and a large bucket of water in the other. The bucket looked impossibly heavy, yet he carried it with such ease that for a moment you simply stared at him, unable to decide whether to be impressed or unsettled by the effortless strength hidden beneath his gentle manner.
He placed the towels neatly upon the nearest table before setting the bucket beside the bathtub. Then he removed his suit jacket and began unfastening his cufflinks with slow, careful movements. You watched despite yourself as he rolled his sleeves to his elbows, his long fingers working gracefully over the fabric before his veined hands settled near the edge of the bucket as though it weighed no more than a feather.
The scent of vanilla filled the chamber again.
Warm, soft, familiar.
It eased you before he even spoke.
“Come here, Milady,” Jungkook said quietly. “I wish to try something.”
Curiosity drew you to him at once. You rose from the bed and crossed the room while he knelt upon the floor beside the bathtub, gesturing for you to do the same. When you knelt beside him, the two of you were close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed yours.
He placed his hand into the water.
“It is ice cold, is it not, Milady?”
You touched the surface and immediately nodded, withdrawing your fingers with a quiet laugh. “Yes, and I would very much prefer not to bathe in water that feels as though it came from the heart of winter.”
His lips curved faintly.
“Then make it warm.”
You blinked at him.
Jungkook’s gaze remained steady, patient, and impossibly serious. “Imagine that you want it warm,” he said, his voice soft enough that the words felt almost private. “You do not need to speak any spell aloud. You only need to call it within your mind, like a thought you are certain the world must obey. Picture the warmth beginning at the end of your fingertips and moving into the water.”
His fingers brushed gently against your waist, not possessive, not demanding, but grounding.
“Can you imagine it, Milady?”
You stared into his eyes.
He did not look away.
For several seconds, nothing happened, and then the air inside the chamber began to change. Warmth spread slowly at first, subtle enough that you wondered if you had imagined it, but then the fireplace, which had been reduced to dying embers, suddenly roared back to life. Flames climbed eagerly over the wood as though awakened by some unseen command, and one by one the candles around the room ignited until golden light flooded every corner of the chamber.
The water steamed beneath your hand.
You gasped and pulled your fingers back.
Jungkook, however, only watched you with quiet wonder, his eyes fixed upon yours as though he had expected this and still found himself astonished by the sight.
“I think you are warm enough to burn everything alive or dead inside this castle, Milady,” he said softly.
The words should have frightened you.
Instead, they made your heart quicken with excitement.
Jungkook took your hand and helped you rise to your feet before guiding you towards the bedroom door. When he opened it, you found the hallway outside shining with candlelight. Every flame had been lit, stretching down the corridor in a long golden path as though the castle itself had awakened to greet you.
“Did you do that before you came in?” you asked, unable to hide the awe in your voice.
He shook his head.
“No,” he answered gently. “You did it, Milady. I want you to remember how powerful you are.”
Then he lowered his head, pressed a kiss to your hand, and left the room with the same quiet grace with which he had entered.
For a while, you remained where you were, staring at the glowing corridor.
Something inside you had opened.
Something vast.
Something filled with terrifying possibility.
If you could call fire and warmth without even trying, if the castle itself could answer the emotions hidden inside you, then what else might you be capable of once you understood the language of your own power?
The thought followed you back into the chamber.
You let your dress fall to the floor and sat before the mirror to brush your hair. Candlelight surrounded you, softening the room and making your skin appear almost unreal beneath its glow. Your reflection stared back at you as though it belonged to someone else, someone older, stranger, and far more powerful than the lost girl who had awakened in the forest with blood on her feet.
When your hair fell neatly over your shoulders, you set a towel beside the bathtub and stepped into the warm water.
The moment your body sank beneath its surface, a sigh escaped you.
The heat soothed the ache inside your bones, easing some of the tension that had gathered within you since the night before. For several precious minutes, silence wrapped around you like a blessing. The castle was still. The candles burned softly. The water held you with gentle warmth.
Then the sound of wheels against stone disturbed the quiet.
Your eyes opened.
A carriage had entered the castle grounds.
Far below, beyond the warmth of your chamber, another presence arrived at the gates.
The stranger had not yet finished his meal when the carriage came to a sudden halt before the castle.
Irritation crossed his features as he glanced towards the driver, his fingers still resting idly against the neck of the girl lying across his lap. Blood stained the delicate line of her collarbone, and her breathing had already grown weak beneath the spell of his voice.
“Be quiet” he murmured, brushing his fingers against her skin with cruel tenderness. “I shall drift you into oblivion soon enough.”
His words calmed her at once.
He lowered his mouth to her neck again and fed until what remained of her life faded entirely. When he was finished, he let her body slip from his lap and wiped his lips with his thumb, a satisfied smirk forming as he stepped out of the carriage and adjusted his suit jacket beneath the night air.
The driver sat rigidly at the front.
“Haven’t I made myself clear?” the stranger asked, his voice light but edged with danger. “I do not like being disturbed from my meal. Look what you have done. You made me hungry again, and the girl inside the carriage is dead.”
The driver’s terror was immediate.
It pleased him.
Fear had always pleased him.
There was a particular beauty in the moment a person realised that no prayer, no plea, and no desperate attempt to run would save them. He enjoyed the scent of panic, the frantic rhythm of a human heart, the way men who believed themselves brave became nothing more than trembling prey beneath the weight of his attention.
Usually, he liked to play.
That night, he was not in the mood.
When the driver tried to run, the stranger appeared before him in an instant and ended his attempt before it had truly begun.
Once his thirst was satisfied, he turned towards the castle.
Old memories returned with every step.
He leapt over the gates rather than opening them and landed gracefully within the gardens, pausing only to inhale the fragrance of the flowers. They were still cared for. That amused him. After so many years, after so much blood and ruin, someone still tended the blossoms as though beauty had any place within their family.
Before opening the front door, he stopped.
A different fragrance drifted from inside the castle.
Sweet.
Unfamiliar.
Divine.
His smile widened.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“What do we have here?” His voice echoed through the hall. “Who do I have to thank for the delicious meal awaiting me tonight?”
He expected many possible greetings.
The one he received displeased him.
Jungkook descended the staircase with a calm expression that did not quite conceal the tension in his body.
“Why did you come back so early?” Jungkook asked. “You were not expected until next month.”
The stranger’s smile sharpened.
“Did you decide to eat?” he asked, inhaling deliberately. “I can smell that sweet poison all over you. Is she pure? She must be.”
Jungkook’s hands curled into fists, his knuckles turning white.
The reaction delighted him.
The stranger stepped closer, closing the distance until he stood only inches away from his younger brother. He leaned in and breathed in the scent clinging to Jungkook’s clothes.
“So divine,” he murmured. “If her scent alone is this intoxicating, then she must taste far more ambrosial than the ordinary humans I have been feeding on for decades.”
He turned towards the stairs.
“Shall I go and taste her?” he asked lazily. “Or did you already mark her, brother?”
Jungkook’s face darkened at once.
There it was.
A nerve struck.
The stranger laughed quietly, glad he had returned home after all.
Jungkook hissed, and the stranger bared his fangs in answer, provocation gleaming in his eyes.
“Tell our brothers I am back,” he said. “And inform our little guest that Lord Taehyung will attend her chambers soon, unless, of course, I decide to pay her a visit first.”
Upstairs, you could hear raised voices drifting through the walls, though you could not make out the words clearly.
You did not give them much attention.
This was not your home, not truly, and you possessed no authority within its walls. Whatever arguments the lords of the castle wished to have, they could have them without you.
You dipped your head beneath the water, letting the warmth close over your ears until the world became distant and quiet. When you finally rose again, the voices had stopped.
The silence felt almost peaceful.
Yet your skin had begun to grow numb from the bath, and eventually you stood, dried yourself, and selected one of the black dresses waiting inside the wardrobe. It was made of lace and fitted you like a second skin, elegant and dark enough to make your reflection appear as though it belonged in the castle after all.
The emerald stone around your neck shimmered.
You froze.
The glow lasted only a moment, but you had already begun to understand that the necklace never responded without reason.
A warning.
A sign.
This time, you would be careful.
Elsewhere in the castle, Jimin listened.
Your breathing was slow and steady behind the chamber door, the rhythm delicate enough to slip into his senses no matter how many walls stood between you. He had not seen you properly yet, but the way Jungkook hovered around your existence told him enough.
You had to be beautiful.
He almost knocked.
Almost.
But time was something he possessed in abundance, and he preferred anticipation when it promised a greater reward. So instead, he turned and walked towards his own chamber, his hand already resting upon the door when he heard your voice.
“Lord Jungkook?” you called softly, the door to your chamber opening only slightly. “C-could you come here, please?”
Jimin smiled to himself.
So hesitant.
So sweetly uncertain.
A simple woman, he thought, closing his own door behind him.
A simple woman who had somehow turned the castle restless.
He lay upon his bed and stared at the ceiling, boredom already clawing at him.
It was going to be a long night.
Worse than that, there would be no fun.
He was not accustomed to being unable to hunt. In the larger cities, he could feed whenever he pleased, and no one ever understood what had happened until it was far too late. Here, within the castle, restraint had become an irritation that gnawed at him from the inside.
He was hungry.
He closed his eyes and allowed the lesser sounds of the castle to fade away, searching instead for the pulse of a human heart. Soon he found two. One belonged to you. The other belonged to a man walking near the forest.
That would do.
Not long after, Jimin found the young man lost amongst the dark trees.
His face became soft, almost kind, as he approached. His scent filled the air around them, weaving itself into the young man’s senses until fear began to melt into trust.
“Are you lost, young man?” Jimin asked, his voice as sweet as a lullaby.
The young man nodded.
Such easy prey.
Still pure.
Still frightened.
Perfect after such a tiring day.
“Come closer,” Jimin said.
The young man took his hand and nearly collapsed against his chest, but Jimin caught his chin and forced him to look up.
“You will not scream or make a move,” he said softly. “Understood?”
The young man obeyed.
Jimin fed.
The taste was unspoiled, warm, and satisfying, though not nearly enough to dull the curiosity that had begun to gather around the woman inside the castle. As he drank, another presence appeared nearby.
“You are too late, brother,” Jimin said without looking up. “I am already finishing my meal.”
Namjoon stood beside him, rubbing his lower lip with his thumb in the familiar gesture that revealed thirst more plainly than words ever could.
“Let us head back to the castle,” Namjoon said. “I think we are going to have fun one of these nights. I promise you that.”
Jimin lifted his head, intrigue stirring in him at once.
It had been ages since they last hunted together.
And somehow he knew their next prey would be the woman their youngest brother had already set his eyes upon.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Under Jungkook’s guidance, your magic began to answer more readily.
“Are you ready to try it now?” Jungkook asked one afternoon, his voice gentle but focused. “Close your eyes, as I told you, and think of what we discussed.”
You obeyed, a smile lingering on your lips.
Jungkook watched you closely, though the tenderness in his gaze was accompanied by restraint. Ever since the kiss you had shared, he had been haunted by the desire to kiss you again, yet fear held him back. He had not fed on human blood for many years, and he refused to become like his brothers, no matter how violently hunger might rise within him.
Namjoon and Jimin had been feeding night after night since Jimin’s return.
Their powers would be growing.
That meant he had to protect you more carefully than ever.
You had to remain safe.
For him.
And for his brother.
“Can you feel it?” he asked. “Are you picturing it in your mind? When you are ready, do it.”
Your smile faded into concentration.
“What are you trying to do, Milady?” he asked softly.
“If you keep calling me Milady,” you replied, playful despite your closed eyes, “you will be the one to feel what I am thinking of.”
Before Jungkook could answer, thunder rolled across the sky.
He turned towards the window and found himself astonished by the storm gathering over the castle. Wind moved through the trees with commanding force, sending leaves into a wild dance, while rain poured from the heavens and lightning lit the dark grey sky in violent flashes.
The thunder echoed through every chamber.
“Come here, Mil—” He stopped himself. “Come here. The thunderstorm is beautiful.”
You smiled at his correction, though you did not move.
You were happy.
Not because of the storm.
Because it was yours.
Jungkook realised it as the windows flew open by themselves and wind swept into the room, sending fabric and candle flames trembling in its wake. He watched as you stood and opened your eyes.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” you asked, gazing towards the storm with awe. “The power of nature. It makes me feel powerful.”
You stood before him with the storm at your back, your hair stirred by the wind and your eyes bright with something ancient.
To Jungkook, you were beautiful enough to make restraint feel impossible.
He crossed the distance and kissed you.
He kissed you as though his life depended upon it.
That night, he carried you to your chamber after a day spent practicing magic. Exhaustion had softened your features, but there had been joy in you too, the kind that came from discovering a part of yourself that had always been waiting to awaken.
When he laid you upon the bed, your eyes silently pleaded for him to stay.
He covered you with the blankets and lay beside you.
“You will get cold if you do not get under the covers,” you murmured.
The softness of your concern nearly undid him.
It was as though you refused to fully acknowledge what he was.
What they all were.
In that moment, perhaps foolishly, he allowed his fangs to show.
“Do you think a vampire would get cold?” he asked.
He expected fear.
You gave him none.
Instead, you lifted your hand from beneath the blanket and touched his face. Your palm was warm against his cheek, and he leaned into it before he could stop himself, aching with the impossible wish to be loved by a woman like you.
Your fingers brushed one of his fangs.
“No,” he whispered. “Please, do not.”
But it was too late.
Your fingertip caught against the sharp edge, and a drop of blood welled upon your skin.
Jungkook tried not to taste it.
He truly did.
But the scent struck him with devastating force.
Divine.
Just as Jimin had described.
His aura darkened, and the fragrance of vanilla deepened throughout the room as hunger moved through him with frightening intensity.
Please do not fall for it, he begged silently.
But you did not hear him.
“Please,” you whispered, your voice unsteady. “Taste me again.”
His restraint frayed.
The instinct inside him awakened fully, and fear followed close behind it because he knew exactly what he was capable of when hunger overcame reason. Yet desire, need, and the memory of Yoongi’s warning seemed tangled together in a way neither of you could separate.
He gathered you onto his lap and moved your hair aside, exposing the delicate skin of your neck. You tilted your head as though offering yourself to him willingly, and the trust in the gesture nearly broke him.
“It will hurt for a few seconds,” he said, voice strained. “But I promise you that it will feel good. I will make you feel good.”
For one brief moment, the emerald necklace around your throat seemed to shimmer.
Then the glow disappeared.
Jungkook lowered his mouth to your neck.
The bite came with a sharp pain that quickly dissolved into something far stranger, something warm and dizzying that made your breath tremble. He drank carefully at first, but the taste of your blood was unlike anything he had ever known, sweet enough to make the world narrow until there was nothing left but you.
His arms tightened around your waist.
He held you closer.
A little longer.
Only a little longer.
When your heartbeat weakened, he forced himself to stop.
You did not faint.
You remained in his arms, dazed and trembling, with his venom running through your veins and his mark now bound to you.
Jungkook stared at you, shaken by what he had done and by how fiercely a single thought took root inside him.
You were marked by him.
You were his.
Only his.
When morning came, you woke beside Jungkook with your body heavy from sleep and your thoughts slow to gather.
For a while, you did nothing but look at him.
You studied the shape of his face, the softness of his mouth, the faint scar beneath his left eye that somehow made his beauty more impossible rather than less. He looked almost unreal in the early light, like a creature born from the quiet places between dreams and nightmares.
You wanted to touch him, only to make certain he was real.
But you did not.
You already knew he was.
The whispers had come again during the night, piercing the silence of the castle with the voice you had begun to recognise as your soulmate’s. He had warned you of evil drawing closer. He had told you to protect Jungkook, to let him drink from you if being marked was what would keep him alive.
Beware of the stare of the evil that is coming, he had whispered. Hell and darkness are close. Let him drink.
You had known it was him.
You had known the voice belonged to the one waiting for you somewhere within the castle’s hidden darkness.
The emerald necklace had grown heavier against your chest, and before you fully understood what was happening, you were already in Jungkook’s arms, allowing him to take what Yoongi had told you he needed.
It had not hurt for long.
That frightened you more than the pain ever could have.
Because after the pain came pleasure, powerful enough to leave you breathless, and for the first time you understood how dangerous wanting more could be.
Far from the castle, another scene unfolded beneath the cover of night, where cruelty wore a handsome face and spoke with the ease of something long practiced.
The stranger stood with his hand around a woman’s throat, watching the fear bloom within her eyes as though it were entertainment. Centuries had done nothing to lessen his fascination with the fragility of human life. Their pleading, their trembling, the way the light vanished from their faces when they understood no mercy was coming, all of it still amused him.
“Cry for me,” he whispered.
And she did.
His brother watched nearby, his own hunger curled behind an expression of indulgent boredom.
What followed was not love, nor tenderness, nor anything that deserved to be mistaken for desire. It was cruelty dressed in hunger, a violent indulgence taken by monsters who had long ago forgotten what it meant to see mortals as anything other than prey.
By the time silence returned, the woman lay dead upon the cold ground.
The stranger wiped his mouth and turned to his brother.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “You almost never leave the castle.”
His brother’s face remained unreadable for a moment before a grin slowly appeared.
“We have a guest at home,” he said. “A woman in her twenties, probably. Our beloved king has been more energetic this month. She has been staying with us for nearly two months, but since she and Jungkook began spending time together, strange things have been happening around the castle. Sudden thunderstorms. We cannot feed properly. We cannot leave our rooms at times, as if something forces us to remain inside. And strangest of all, we cannot lure her.”
Interest sharpened between them.
“I tried many times to enter her chamber,” he continued, “but she never fell under my spell. My scent should have rendered her helpless. It did not.”
The offer that followed required little persuasion.
“Help me lure her,” he said. “You shall have an equal share of the prize.”
The stranger smiled.
He was going home.
Back at the castle, Jimin stood in the shadows and watched you from below as you looked out over the blooming gardens.
He knew you could sense his gaze upon you, yet you did not turn.
This slightly irritated him.
Someone ought to teach you manners.
Perhaps he would be the one to do it.
Namjoon appeared beside him.
“What is she doing up there?” Jimin asked.
“When we come out of our rooms, she gets locked in,” Namjoon replied with visible annoyance. “I do not care anymore. Let her rot inside there.”
Jimin’s eyes remained fixed upon you.
“What if we make her ours?”
Namjoon said nothing.
“Would you not wish to taste her?” Jimin continued. “I still remember her fragrance from the kitchen. It has been two months, and it still drives me mad.”
Namjoon’s expression shifted.
“What would we gain from that? She is no good for us. There is something strange about her.”
“If we lure her together, she will not be able to resist,” Jimin said. “We are the strongest, and no one has ever resisted your way of luring before. Jungkook broke the spell once, but luck does not last forever.”
The idea settled between them.
By nightfall, they had made their decision.
When you fell asleep, they entered your chamber in silence.
Jimin sat on one side of the bed while Namjoon took the other. You slept deeply, your head turned slightly towards Namjoon, one hand resting upon your chest while the other lay near your face.
Namjoon leaned close, whispering softly to keep you calm should you begin to wake.
Jasmine filled the room.
His aura darkened.
Jimin’s hunger stirred in answer.
The blankets were drawn aside, and the air grew heavy with the intention of two predators who believed the night belonged to them.
Then the door opened.
“Leave her alone.”
Jungkook’s voice rang through the chamber, no longer honeyed or gentle, but sharp with authority.
“She is mine.”
Hoseok stood beside him, his eyes filled with disgust as he looked upon his brothers.
For a moment, silence held the room.
Then Jimin smiled.
“If you want her,” he said, his fangs lowering towards your wrist, “come and get her. Perhaps I will share a bite if you are a good brother.”
His teeth touched your skin.
And the night turned violent.
Once upon a time, there were two brothers.
They had been inseparable from the very beginning, bound not only by blood but by the kind of devotion that begins in childhood and, if left unbroken, can survive even the cruellest turns of fate. From the moment his little brother was born, the elder boy had adored him with a tenderness that seemed too pure for the violent world waiting beyond the nursery doors. He would sit beside the crib when the baby cried, singing the lullabies their mother had once taught him until the tears quieted and sleep returned. He would watch over him for hours, guarding him as though no darkness in the world could ever reach them so long as they remained together.
He had been there when his little brother took his first steps across the polished floors of the palace, there when he spoke his first word, there when he learned to read beneath their mother’s patient guidance. Every small achievement, every lesson mastered and every innocent joy, had been witnessed by the brother who loved him most. They grew together beneath the shadow of a kingdom that expected greatness from them, and for a time, it seemed as though nothing could divide them.
Then everything changed.
The younger brother began to crave power, and because he possessed enough of it to be dangerous, that hunger slowly reshaped him into something almost unrecognisable. The elder brother watched helplessly as the boy he had once protected fell deeper and deeper into an abyss of cruelty, pride, and bloodlust. He had cursed the darkness that had found them both, yet the greatest tragedy was that one of them had fought it while the other had embraced it.
That was the day the boy met evil.
And evil, recognising something familiar within him, welcomed him home.
Hoseok stood at the doorway and found himself staring once more into the darkness buried within his brother’s heart.
For a moment, he wanted to believe his eyes were deceiving him. He wanted to believe there was still some part of Namjoon left untouched by hunger, some remnant of the brother who had existed before immortality twisted them all into creatures that carried death beneath their skin. Yet the sight before him offered no comfort and no mercy.
Namjoon was gone.
Perhaps he had been gone for centuries.
You lay caught between two monsters who looked at you not as a person but as something to be possessed, displayed, and eventually discarded when their amusement faded. To them, you were not a frightened young woman sleeping beneath unfamiliar sheets, nor a soul entangled in a curse older than memory, but a prize to be claimed and fought over until one of them grew bored enough to destroy what remained.
Hoseok was tired of their games.
More than tired.
Disgusted.
“Before you do what you are thinking of doing,” he said, his voice controlled despite the anger burning beneath it, “I am giving you the chance to make amends by walking out of here and letting me take care of the girl.”
Beside him, Jungkook stood rigid with fury.
His eyes were fixed upon the bed, his entire body trembling with the effort it took not to tear across the room. Hoseok placed a hand against his chest, not because he doubted Jungkook’s strength, but because he knew how easily rage could become ruin inside men like them.
The last time he had seen Jungkook so enraged had been the night their brothers dragged Yoongi away and condemned him to the hidden rooms of the castle.
That memory alone was enough to make the air feel colder.
Jimin did not even bother turning around.
All Hoseok could see was the cruel curve of his smile, his fangs still pressed against your wrist as though your body were nothing more than an indulgence he had every right to take. The sight filled Hoseok with a revulsion so deep that, for the first time in a very long while, he understood how close he was to violence.
Namjoon laughed softly.
“She will make an exquisite little treasure,” he said, his words poisoned by hunger and amusement. “What is the problem with us keeping her? There are plenty of others awaiting their turn to be eaten.”
The words broke what little restraint Jungkook still possessed.
Hoseok felt him move before he saw it.
One instant Jungkook stood beside him, and the next both Jimin and Namjoon had been torn away from the bed and thrown against the far wall with such force that the chamber shook around them. Blood stained them both, their faces momentarily betraying shock before pride quickly covered it like a mask.
“You bit us,” Jimin hissed, his grey eyes burning with disbelief and outrage. “How did you dare to bite us?”
Jungkook stood before them, his expression darker than Hoseok had ever seen it.
“I only gave you a taste of your own medicine.”
The quiet authority in his voice made Namjoon laugh, though the sound carried none of his usual confidence.
Jungkook’s gaze moved between them, and when he spoke again, the words did not sound like a threat made in anger. They sounded like a vow written into the bones of the castle itself.
“The hands that touch her, the eyes that look upon her with hunger, and even the voice that dares to seduce her shall face my wrath. She is mine.”
Hoseok’s breath caught.
Mine.
The word struck him harder than he expected.
Had Jungkook marked you?
It seemed impossible. Jungkook had not drunk human blood for decades, and he would never have acted on such instinct unless something greater stood behind his decision. Something was happening inside the castle, something none of them fully understood, and Hoseok realised with growing unease that both you and Jungkook knew more than you had told him.
A conversation would be necessary.
Not later.
Soon.
While the world outside the chamber remained held in silence, your mind had already drifted elsewhere.
You were dreaming, and somehow you knew it.
The certainty settled over you the moment you saw him standing at the far end of the corridor.
He was there.
The man who had haunted your thoughts, whispered through your dreams, and guided you through the shadows of the castle without ever allowing you to fully reach him. Your heart lurched the instant you recognised him, even though recognition itself felt impossible, as though your soul had known him long before your mind had learned how to name him.
You tried to call out.
“Please, do not leave.”
Your voice did not emerge.
The words remained trapped inside your chest while he turned away and began walking through the corridor, his figure half-swallowed by darkness. Panic rose inside you, sudden and fierce. There were too many questions, too many fragments, too many aching places within you that only he seemed capable of touching.
You needed to speak to him.
You needed to know him.
The walls surrounding you resembled those of the castle, yet there was something different about this place. The air felt older, heavier, as though you had entered a hidden part of the world where time itself had stopped moving. You forced your legs forward despite the weight gathering within them, following him through the long corridor until the path ended before a wall of dark grey stone.
He passed through it as though he were made of mist.
Your heart stopped.
“Do not leave me again,” you whispered, your voice finally breaking free as tears began to gather in your eyes. “Do not leave me alone in this darkness.”
Your hand pressed against the cold brick wall.
For a moment, grief overwhelmed you so completely that it became almost indistinguishable from rage. You had to reach him. You had to be with him. The need was so strong that it frightened you, as though some ancient and ruthless part of your soul would gladly tear apart anything that dared to keep him from you.
Then Jungkook’s words returned to you.
You only have to think of what you desire, and your power shall fulfil it.
You closed your eyes.
What did you desire?
The answer was immediate.
Him.
Not safety, not answers, not even freedom.
Only him.
Every whisper that had guided you, every dream that had pulled you deeper into the castle’s secrets, every strange pulse of the emerald necklace resting against your chest, all of it had led you towards him. He had been behind every step you had taken since awakening in the forest. He had been protecting you before you even knew there was something to fear.
Now it was your turn to find him.
“I do not know who you are or what you are,” you whispered, your palm still pressed against the stone. “And I do not care. No questions are needed to be answered right now, for all I wish is to find you. No barrier shall stop me, and nothing shall stand between us.”
The words unlocked something within you.
A crack split through the wall.
Then another.
Then another.
The stone groaned beneath the force of your desire before collapsing into dust and ruin at your feet.
And there he was.
Waiting.
“Welcome, luv,” he said, his smoky voice slipping through you like a memory. “Come closer.”
His presence made your knees weaken.
No wonder his brothers feared him.
There was something vast and ancient in the way he looked at you, something powerful enough to make the darkness around him seem obedient rather than threatening. His eyes were so dark they appeared almost endless, like twin abysses capable of swallowing every secret you had ever carried.
You did not resist him.
You had never meant to.
You moved towards him as though your body had been created for the purpose of crossing that distance, and when you reached him, you lowered yourself to your knees.
His gaze sharpened with something almost tender.
“A Queen never kneels to her King.”
He took your hand and lifted you gently before guiding you to sit where he had been sitting only moments before. Then, with a grace that made your breath catch, he knelt before you instead.
You stared at him, unable to understand.
“And why would you kneel before me?”
His lips softened into the faintest smile.
“Is it not obvious?” he asked. “A King is nothing without his Queen. I shall bow only to you, and I shall know love only through your heart and your eyes.”
He kissed your hand.
The touch sent a rush through you stronger than anything you had ever felt before, deeper even than the warmth Jungkook’s lips had left upon your skin. This was different. This felt older. Sacred. Dangerous in the way destiny itself could be dangerous when it chose a life before that life understood the choice.
The need to feel him more strongly overwhelmed you.
“You know I must do this again,” he said softly. “I need a part of you to protect you, and you need a part of me.”
You understood part of what he meant.
He needed to feed on you.
Yet his final words unsettled you.
“What do you mean?” you asked.
Yoongi rose and leaned closer until his face was near yours, his voice dropping into something intimate enough to make the chamber itself seem to listen.
“Only one drop will be enough to protect you. I will be able to guide you more clearly, and the bond between us will become stronger.”
He scratched his wrist before lifting it carefully towards your mouth.
You opened your lips and tasted his blood.
It was sweet.
Strangely, impossibly sweet.
Like lilies blooming in moonlight.
A familiar sharpness touched your shoulder as his fangs sank into your skin, and for a brief moment the two of you remained bound together in a way you did not fully understand. You drank from him while he drank from you, and the exchange passed quickly, yet the intimacy of it settled into the deepest parts of your being.
When it ended, he wiped your mouth with a handkerchief, his eyes never leaving yours.
“You are stronger than I ever imagined,” he whispered, touching the emerald necklace at your throat. “Now wake up, and remember that I am always with you.”
The last thing you saw before the dream dissolved was his eyes.
They changed before you woke, the darkness fading into a luminous shade of amethyst so beautiful that it followed you even into consciousness.
When your eyes opened, four familiar faces surrounded you.
Jungkook, Hoseok, Jimin, and Namjoon stood inside your chamber, all silent, all watching you as though they were waiting for something none of them dared to name.
Jungkook opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, a violent crash sounded somewhere deep within the castle.
The noise was identical to the wall crumbling in your dream.
“What was that?” one of the brothers asked.
A smile spread across your face before you could stop it.
“He is awakened,” you said. “He is coming.”
The words eased something inside your heart.
He was closer to freedom now. You could feel it. Those were the signs he had told you to follow, and all that remained was to trust your instincts and find the hidden place where they had kept him imprisoned. They had caged him like a beast, but you were beginning to understand that the true beasts had been standing in front of you all along.
You ignored their silence and walked past them, only for a hand to close gently around your arm.
“Where are you going?” Jungkook asked, his voice soft and honeyed enough to make you smile.
You turned towards him.
“What is your brother’s name?”
Jimin laughed quietly.
“You say he is coming, yet you do not even know his name?”
“What I know is no concern of yours,” you replied.
Jungkook’s grip tightened slightly, and you felt his body shift towards the others. His aura darkened so suddenly that unease pierced through you. The change frightened you because it made him resemble them too closely, made you fear that anger might drag him into the same darkness that had claimed his brothers.
Before you could think better of it, you cupped his face between your hands and kissed him.
His eyes remained open, still fixed on Jimin.
“Do not do something that will hurt you,” you whispered. “I need you.”
The anger in his eyes softened.
For a moment, he only looked at you, his gaze piercing straight through whatever strength you had tried to gather around yourself. Then he took you into his arms and carried you from the chamber.
“Yoongi,” he whispered near your ear. “His name is Yoongi.”
Yoongi.
The name settled inside you like a key turning within a lock.
Jungkook carried you to his room, which stood near the kitchen rather than within the grander parts of the castle. Unlike his brothers, Jungkook lived almost like an outcast, hidden away from the luxury and authority that seemed to belong to the others so naturally.
You sat upon his bed while he removed his blood-stained shirt.
His hair fell elegantly to one side, and the candlelight turned him almost statuesque as he stood beside you, quiet and beautiful in a way that felt touched by sorrow. When he dressed in a loose shirt and sat beside you, he pulled you into his arms with a desperation he did not speak aloud.
His fingers threaded through your hair, loosening the pins until the dark strands fell around your face and across your bare shoulders. The dangerous shadow in his aura slowly faded, replaced by the familiar vanilla scent that calmed you more deeply than any words could have done.
How much you had come to crave that scent.
It soothed the parts of you that the castle kept frightening awake.
You curled into him, breathing him in as though the scent alone could keep you steady, and somewhere between one breath and the next, sleep carried you away.
By the time you woke, Jungkook had already left your side.
You returned carefully to your own chamber, avoiding the corridors where you might encounter anyone you did not wish to see. The door closed behind you without your touching it, and a quiet sense of pride warmed your chest. Your magic was becoming stronger. More obedient. More yours.
Yoongi would be proud.
The thought made your heart flutter.
All he wanted was for you to become what you had always been destined to be.
And you would.
You would become powerful enough to stand beside him proudly and fearlessly.
You opened the wardrobe and selected a crimson lace dress with exposed shoulders. The colour of blood suited the feeling inside you that morning, fierce and vivid and impossible to ignore. The emerald necklace at your throat reminded you that you were not taking a single step alone, that the man who had claimed your heart was with you even if the castle still kept his body hidden from yours.
You would protect him first.
Then yourself.
Jungkook had promised to be there for you, and you could not have asked for a kinder gentleman to remain at your side. Yet the truth settled quietly within you, complicated and undeniable.
Both Jungkook and Yoongi had stolen pieces of your heart.
You left the room without caring whether you met one of the brothers along the way. Fear no longer sat easily inside you. This castle belonged to their family, yes, but somehow it belonged to you as well, and the more your power awakened, the more certain you became that you had been meant to walk its halls.
As you approached the entrance, the sweet fragrance of vanilla drifted through the air.
“Jungkook,” you whispered.
You opened the door and stepped into the garden, following the scent that seemed to dance through the morning air. The sight before you stole your breath for a moment. Two months had passed since you had first come to the castle, yet there were still places you had not explored, secret corners and forgotten paths hidden behind stone and flowers.
You walked towards the back of the castle and stopped when an enormous maze appeared before you.
It suited the castle perfectly.
Grand, elegant, and daunting, its towering green walls stretched across the grounds like something designed to conceal both beauty and danger. Excitement stirred within you as you stepped inside, thinking of Jungkook and how he would find you soon enough. He always seemed to find you.
You held Yoongi’s necklace tightly in your hand.
It was the perfect place to practice.
“My desire is to follow the path to the end of the maze,” you whispered.
Your steps carried you deeper into the green corridors.
Fresh air struck your heated skin, rough and welcome, stirring a quiet sound from your throat at the pleasure of being outside and alone after so long within stone walls. Your memories remained unclear, but you did not force them to return. Not yet. You had enough to carry without dragging the past into the present before you were ready for it.
Then the scent of roses reached you.
It came softly at first, sweet and distant, before growing stronger with every step. You followed it eagerly, wondering whether a hidden rose garden existed somewhere within the maze. The closer you moved, the more intoxicating the fragrance became, until roses mingled with night-blooming jasmine, fresh lilies, cinnamon, clove, and the mysterious warmth of anise.
The scent enchanted you.
It clouded your senses.
Then a muffled sound pulled you from the spell.
You stopped.
What you saw beyond the turn in the maze shocked you.
A girl was pressed against the flowered wall, entangled with a man whose movements and kisses made it unmistakably clear that you had wandered into a private moment never meant for your eyes. Another man leaned against the opposite wall, watching with a look of dark approval that made your stomach twist.
You took a step back.
Too late.
Their eyes found yours.
The fragrances surrounding them thickened at once, folding around you until reality seemed to bend. For a moment, you felt suspended between the world you knew and a beautiful nightmare that invited you to stop fighting.
The blond man offered his hand.
He walked towards you with commanding grace, and though every warning inside you should have screamed, you found yourself placing your hand in his. He kissed your knuckles before leading you away from the scene you had witnessed, and you followed without understanding why you could not speak.
He stopped before you.
His eyes pierced into yours as though he were searching through your thoughts, opening doors in your mind that should have remained locked. His hand settled beneath your chin, guiding your gaze back to his whenever you tried to look away.
The warnings disappeared.
The necklace felt distant.
The castle felt distant.
Everything did.
Then another pair of hands seized your waist from behind.
Your back was pulled firmly against a second body while the blond man stepped closer in front of you. Cold lips brushed your neck, and another hand swept your hair aside to expose the vulnerable line of your throat.
The spell deepened.
The two men surrounded you with scent, touch, and whispered temptation until your thoughts became tangled and slow. Your body reacted to them before your mind could understand what was happening, and when their auras darkened around you, desire and fear became so tightly woven together that you could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
Their lips brushed near your ears.
“Will you be ours?” they asked at the same time.
“Yes,” you whispered breathlessly.
The word left you before you could stop it.
Their voices led you further into the darkness of the spell, and the man behind you lifted you into his arms while the other followed, holding your hand and pressing kisses against your skin as though devotion and possession were one and the same.
“Are you still pure?” the blond man asked.
You nodded, your cheeks burning.
“Not for long,” the brown-haired man said.
The blond man opened the castle door when you returned inside, guiding the way towards a chamber on the second floor. When you entered, the man carrying you lowered you carefully until your feet touched the floor. Their gazes fixed upon you, and the intensity of it sent a shiver down your spine.
You moved backwards until the backs of your legs touched the edge of the bed, and when you sat, both men chuckled softly at your innocence.
“Jin.”
“Taehyung.”
They spoke their names together, as if the sound of them should have meant something to you.
Their scent filled the room until the air itself felt thin and difficult to breathe. You closed your eyes for only a moment, but when you opened them again, you were lying between them, your heart racing while their dark auras pressed against you from either side.
“Do you have any experience at all?” Jin asked.
You shook your head.
“Are you aware of what we are about to do to you?” Taehyung asked, his words making heat rise to your cheeks.
You did not answer.
His smile told you that your silence amused him.
Jin turned you gently towards him, keeping his gaze upon yours as he whispered against your ear. “Has anyone touched you like this before?”
His hand moved along your clothed body with careful slowness, as though you were made of porcelain, and you shivered despite yourself.
“You are shaking beneath my touch,” he murmured, his smoky voice brushing your ear before his teeth grazed your skin.
Your body seemed to move under the influence of something that was not entirely yours.
Then the spell tightened fully around the room.
Your body moved on its own and gave into his touch. He was now on his knees, entering his fingers between the space of your collarbone and dress. He ripped the top of your dress apart, peeling away the rest of it and tossing it on the floor. A low growl slipped up Taehyung’s throat, gaining your attention. Taehyung moved closer to you. You sat still without knowing how to act, from both fear and excitement.
You closed your eyes as you were exposed to both of them. You could feel their eyes wandering around your body, examining every little detail. You could feel their stare burning up your almost naked body. Your hands covered your chest’s bare skin as both of their breaths were shaking with anticipation.
“Please stop looking,” you said in barely more than a whisper.
“Why?” they both said, their voices low and husky.
No answer could come out of your lips. Jin hovered over your body and put his cold lips on yours. He was not in a hurry. He kissed you slowly, sensually, his lips brushing against yours before he pressed his tongue to the seam of your lips and delved into your mouth. The taste of his kiss was captivating you and pulling you deeper into this heated session. You pulled apart and took shaky, shallow breaths.
“Has anyone kissed you before?” he asked.
“Jungkook,” you said softly.
Taehyung hissed low beneath his breath, the sound sharp enough to make your heart stumble, before his hand found your jaw and turned your face towards him with a possessiveness that felt almost ancient. His lips brushed yours once, barely there, a cruel promise rather than a kiss, and when he pulled away, his tongue passed slowly over his lips as though he had already tasted something forbidden.
You mirrored him without meaning to.
A faint, wicked smile curved his mouth.
Then he kissed you properly.
It was not gentle. It was fire wrapped in velvet, passionate and demanding, a kiss that seemed to pull every thought from your head until there was nothing left but him, his mouth, his breath, his darkness pressing against yours. You felt yourself slipping beneath it, losing the fragile thread of reason you had been clinging to, and the worst part was that you did not want to find it again.
You did not want him to stop.
Your senses blurred until the room itself felt distant, swallowed by candlelight and shadow. Then, just as Taehyung deepened the kiss, a cold breath ghosted over the side of your neck, followed by the tender, devastating brush of lips.
Jin.
He moved with the elegance of something beautiful and dangerous, his mouth touching your skin as though he had all the time in the world to ruin you. His fingers slipped into your hair, slow and deliberate, and the softness of his touch only made the hunger behind it more unsettling. Each kiss against your throat became deeper, more certain, until your body trembled between them, caught between Taehyung’s flame and Jin’s winter.
Jin drew closer, his presence enveloping you from behind, his arm sliding around your waist as he pulled you against him with quiet, effortless strength. There was nothing hurried about him. Nothing careless. He held you as though you were something sacred he had already decided belonged in the dark with him.
“Angelic,” they whispered together, the word leaving their mouths slowly, each syllable stretched and savoured like a secret prayer.
Taehyung claimed your mouth again before the sound trapped in your throat could escape. His lips moved over yours with sinful patience now, a contrast to the earlier violence of his desire, and when his teeth caught your lower lip, the sharp edge of a fang grazed you just enough to draw the faintest taste of blood.
His entire expression changed.
The darkness in his eyes deepened.
The kiss grew slower, hungrier, stranger, as though that single drop had awakened something in him he had been pretending to restrain. You felt it in the way he held your face, in the way his breath shuddered against yours, in the way his mouth returned to you again and again, unwilling to let you go.
When your eyes fluttered open, you found Jin watching you.
His gaze was dark, unreadable, and utterly consuming. He did not look at you like a man admiring beauty. He looked at you like a secret he had waited centuries to uncover, like a soul he had already recognised before you ever had the chance to run.
Your breath caught.
Taehyung leaned close to your ear, his lips brushing the delicate shell of it before his mouth trailed down the side of your throat in a path of slow, damp kisses that made your pulse betray you beneath him.
“Do you want more?” he murmured.
Jin’s fingers tightened gently at your waist, his voice following like smoke in the dark.
“Do you want to be ours?”
Taehyung’s mouth hovered over your collarbone, his breath cool against your heated skin.
“Always and forever?”
No answer came.
No answer could.
You looked between them, between Jin’s quiet, ruinous elegance and Taehyung’s wicked, burning intensity, and a soft smile touched your lips before you could stop it.
How could you say no?
The thought itself felt like surrender.
And in the silence that followed, with their shadows wrapped around you and their eyes fixed upon you like a vow, you realised they already knew your answer.
“Sweet dreams, angel.”
Their voices reached you through the fading dark.
“Do you think the spell worked?”
“I am better at this than Namjoon. I did that for years in France. Who do you think helped men seduce women? A simple perfume?”
“Then when she wakes up, she will fall for us.”
A hand touched your face, its thumb brushing your feverish cheek with almost delicate care, though there was nothing gentle in the words that followed.
“A mere look will be enough for her to fall for us. She will not be able to tell reality from dream.”
Morning came softly.
Sunlight crept into the chamber through heavy curtains, the fabric turning the brightness into a muted green glow that settled warmly across your skin. The day beyond the window seemed beautiful, and for a few moments you woke with the simple desire to go outside again, to breathe air untouched by the strange heaviness of the rooms inside the castle.
Your feet touched the floor.
You bathed slowly, dressed yourself in a dark green gown from the wardrobe, and pinned your hair into a careful bun. Just as you were about to leave, a whisper drifted through the room.
“Come back to me.”
You froze.
Then another voice followed.
“Come back to us.”
That was not Yoongi.
The difference unsettled you immediately.
The voice felt familiar, but not in the way Yoongi’s did. Yoongi’s voice settled in your soul like a truth you had forgotten, while this one curled through your mind like smoke, leaving confusion behind it. Your memories blurred when you tried to grasp them, slipping away before you could understand what had happened.
You left the room and decided to walk towards the woods.
Jungkook stood in the garden, tending to branches broken by the storm. Sunlight fell over him gently, and even though he was not dressed like his brothers, even though nothing about him demanded attention the way they did, he still stood apart from everything around him. He made warmth stir inside your chest.
You waved to him before continuing towards the trees.
His eyes followed you as you went, silent and watchful, until the shadows of the tall trunks finally swallowed you.
The woods welcomed you with birdsong and green light.
For the first time that morning, you felt almost glad to be alone.
That happiness ended when two figures stepped from behind the trees.
“Where are you going, little girl?” they asked together.
Your pulse quickened, though you lifted your chin.
“And why would I need to inform you of my intentions?”
“A question is not a proper answer to another question,” the blond man said.
“Then perhaps the question was not important enough to deserve a proper answer.”
His smile was calm.
Too calm.
“Do you not remember how important we were to you last night?”
Your head began to ache.
“What are you referring to?” you asked, discomfort rising inside you. “I do not know you.”
“May I help you remember?”
The blond man approached with graceful steps, his gaze piercing yours as your heart raced with both fear and anticipation. You did not know what he intended, but you knew with sudden certainty that you were not truly alone. The emerald necklace against your chest grew heavier, and though the sensation almost made you smile, you fought to hide it.
He guided you softly back against a tree.
His lips brushed yours, not quite kissing, only teasing, and you closed your eyes out of fear.
His fingers moved over your waist as if your body were an instrument and he meant to coax music from it. Then, when your eyes opened, you no longer saw him.
You saw Yoongi.
Your breath caught.
His lips parted against yours, and willingly, desperately, you allowed him to kiss you. It felt like a first kiss and a memory at once, soft and perfect and impossible. His hands seemed to fit upon your body as though they had always belonged there, and for one beautiful moment, you believed it was truly him.
