But I do.
I want her like breath. Like blood. Like the only soft thing I’ve everneededin this ruined world.
My hand curled into a fist at my chest, over the mark that hadn’t stopped burning since she looked at me. I could still feel her, like a thread wound tight through my ribs, tugging with every step she took away.
And I let her go.
Because I was afraid. Not of her—never her. But of what it meant. What it would make me become.
A mate. A weakness. A man capable oflove.
I was born to fight. To protect. Not to feel.
And yet here I am—on my knees in the dirt,feelinglike I’m bleeding from the inside out.
What have I done?
What the fuck have I done?
The wind howled around me like it knew.
Shemarked me—and I marked her. And I turned my back on her the second it became real.
I buried my face in my hands, every instinct screaming at me to run after her. To find her. To tell her that she is not too human, too soft, tooanything.
She is mine.
And I am hers.
But instead, I sat there in silence.
Because denial is a quiet death.
And I was already dying long before she ever looked at me like I was worthy.
Minji
A fire I never asked for
I watched it all unfold like a cruel play I couldn’t step away from.
Yuna, standing in the pale red light of the demon sky, her hand pressed to the fresh mark on her chest. Her breath hitched. Her eyes, usually fierce and burning with defiance, shimmered like they were about to overflow. And Taeyang—cold, furious, terrified—just stared back at her, as if fate had struck him down with a blade he never saw coming.
And still… he said nothing.
My heart twisted. I wanted to reach for her, to grab her hand and pull her away from the wreckage. But Icouldn’t move. Because in that exact moment—my own mark burned.
A searing heat, right under my ribs. Like something sacred had been branded into me. I gasped, clutching my side, staggering back as the air itself felt like it had thickened with dread.
He was behind me. I didn’t need to look to know.
“Minji,” Jisoo’s voice cracked like thunder softened by guilt.
I turned. Slowly. The pain in my chest wasn’t just from the mark—it was from the memory of his betrayal. The way he’d held Taeyang back. The way he let them take her. The way I was the reason he claimed to have done it.
“Don’t,” I whispered, voice shaking. “Don’t come closer.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, eyes wild. “They threatened you. I couldn’t risk—”
