I cupped her hips, guiding her over me with agonizing reverence. The tension was unbearable. She moved slowly, on purpose, and I groaned as her name broke past my lips like a prayer I didn’t know I believed in.
“You undo me,” I rasped into her shoulder. “You unravel everything I am.”
“Good,” she whispered, dragging her nails down my chest. “Then I’m finally doing something right.”
She rode me into madness. Until all I could say was her name. Until all I could feel was her pulse, her heat, her mark burning into mine.
I knelt between her legs after — trembling, worshiping her with my mouth, my hands, my soul. We lay tangled in the sheets, her head against my chest. Her breathing was still shallow from the storm we’d made. But my calm was already splintering. Because I heard it again.
The voice.
His voice.
“You will not age. You will not die. Not until the blood of your mate runs down your blade. The only way out is through her heart.”
I blinked.
The mark pulsed — once.
Twice.
Like a countdown.
I turned away from her. Sat on the edge of the bed, head in my hands, heart pounding against ribs that no longer felt like mine.
She stirred behind me.
“Rheon?”
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t trust what I would say. Because I didn’t trust what I woulddo.
Seori
Oaths Beneath Moonlight
We met where we always did when everything felt like it was falling apart — the rooftop above Yuna’s apartment, where the city lights never reached, and the stars still felt like they belonged to us.
The night was cool. The kind that bit your skin just enough to remind you you were still alive.
I didn’t know how to start.
Didn’t know how to tell the only two people I trusted in this world that I had done the one thing I swore I never would.
I hadfallen for a demon.
And worse — I wasbondedto him. Yuna was the first to speak. She always was.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” she said gently, handing me a warm can of banana milk. “And I know that look. That’s yourI kissed death and liked itface.”
I choked on a breathless laugh.
“Yuna—”
“Spit it out, babe,” she said, plopping down beside me. Her half-fae aura was practically glowing tonight, a shimmer under her skin only I knew to look for. “Whatever it is, Minji and I can take it.”
Minji sat quietly beside us, arms folded, eyes sharp as ever. She didn’t say anything — but the way she tilted her head told me she already knew.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I finally whispered. “The mark… it reacted. On him. Onme.It’s real.”
