“And what about the fae girl?” I asked, glancing at him. “You practically snarled when she touched your arm.”
“She’s reckless,” Taeyang muttered.
“Which means you like her,” Jisoo said, sing-song.
“She talks too much.”
“She called you a brooding cliché with good hair.”
Taeyang’s eye twitched.
“It’s notthatgood.”
I laughed, despite everything.
“We’re monsters, cursed and hunted,” Jisoo muttered.
“But if these women are willing to stand beside us… maybe we’re not beyond saving after all.”
Seori
Marked and Hunted
It started with Minji’s scream. We’d been hiding in the forgotten tunnels beneath the Guild compound, trying to plan our next move — hoping for a day, even an hour, to breathe. But we never had a chance.
The second I stepped into the open chamber to get supplies from the stash I’d hidden years ago, they were waiting.
Not strangers. Not faceless hunters.
My team.
Daehyun, Ara, Jiwoo — the very hunters I trained beside, ate with, bled beside. I didn’t even feel the paralyzing rune they threw at my feet until my legs crumpled and the world tilted. I remember the way Ara’s hand shook as she pressed the cold steel cuffs around my wrists.
“I’m sorry, Seori,” she whispered. “They said you were dangerous.”
They dragged me through the inner sanctum like a criminal. I didn’t speak. Didn’t scream. But inside, something dark and ancienthowled.
My mark burned through my spine — a twisting ache that wouldn’t quiet. Rheon’s presence flickered at the edge of my mind like Shadowfire, distant butthere.
I’d told him to stay away.
I didn’t want him to see what they would do to me. But I didn’t know that Yuna and Minji were already inside, trying to stop it.
The elders formed a circle around me, their faces shrouded in silk and silence. I was thrown to my knees, blood still drying beneath my collarbone where they’d tried to draw wards on me.
Master Jin stepped forward.
“This ritual is designed to free your soul from demonic interference,” he said.
Minji pounded on the barrier wall.
“It’s a bond, not a possession!”
Yuna’s magic sparked through the glass like starlight trying to fight the void.
“You can’t sever a mating bond,” she growled. “You’ll kill her.”
“Then let the gods sort her soul,” another elder replied coldly.
