C46 - Soul-ed MATE

“You don’t know that Bluebell,” comes a low voice from behind me.

I whirl to find Yoongi leaning against the door frame. His skin is paler than usual, the bandage stark white. His golden eyes swirl with sleep and drugs and pain, liquid gold.

“You shouldn’t be standing,” I say, accusing.

“And you shouldn’t be in Taehyung’s bedroom.”

My eyes widen. The room is certainly large and opulent. And completely devoid of personality. “This is his bedroom?”

“I heard you almost died,” Taehyung says lazily, not seeming concerned that we’re in his personal space, that he’s naked next to a boy almost blue with cold. “Did you lose…what? A whole teaspoon of blood?”

At least he sounds more like himself right now, amused and uninterested.

“A quarter cup, at least,” Yoongi responds drily. “We should talk.”

The air in the room thickens with words unsaid—words about guns and enemies. Words about Kim Yongdae. “You can talk in front of me. I want to know.”

Taehyung glances down at the boy in his arms. “In private.”

My heart speeds up. “Why? What happened to him? Does it have to do with your father?”

Taehyung slips from bed and bends to pick up his pants, revealing more than I expected. I make a squeak of surprise and turn my face to Yoongi. Embarrassment heats my cheeks.

Yoongi gives a low laugh. “Are you shocked, bluebell?”

It is shocking, even when Taehyung has his pants on. Taehyung’s chiseled chest abs contrasts with Yoongi, both of them naked from the waist up. Taehyung is a little leaner, more streamlined grace to Yoongi’s muscled power. My whole body feels tight with a strange kind of anticipation.

And I think my naïveté is more than coincidental. I think Yoongi likes keeping me in the dark—about his body, about his business. What else is he keeping from me?

“Tell me what’s happening,” I murmur, not far from begging. Maybe I’m already there.

Yoongi studies me for a moment. And in that moment I can almost believe he’ll let me in, that he’ll bring down the walls between us. That ivory tower I’m in keeps me apart from the city, but it also keeps me apart from him.

Then his golden eyes harden. “No.”

“Don’t do this,” I plead.

“Stay with him,” Taehyung says, brushing past me. “His name’s Jungkook.”

“What happened to him?”

Neither one answers me as they walk down the hall, intent on their mission. I have half a mind to follow them, to demand they let me listen, to make them lock me out if that’s what they’re so intent on doing.

But I can’t really leave the poor boy—Jungkook—alone. A few minutes in Taehyung’s embrace isn’t going to fix whatever made him ice-cold and catatonic.

And so, the footsteps rumble down the stairs, taking Yoongi away from me, along with his secrets. Secrets I’m more convinced he’ll never share.

!!~~~~!!

The boy lies in the bed, his eyes wide and unblinking.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

He doesn’t move, not even when I climb onto the side of the bed. I take his hand, surprised to find it warm. His hair had felt coated with ice when he came in.

How has he warmed up in just a few minutes? Whatever help Taehyung was to his body, his mind doesn’t seem improved.

“Jungkook?” I squeeze gently. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

No answer.

I don’t undress, but I do climb into the bed with him. If I can’t offer words of comfort or medical help, at least I can give him body heat. His hair still feels cold and wet against my arm. I can’t help but shiver as I curl myself around his body.

“No,” he whispers.

I push up on my elbow. “Jungkook?”

“Don’t leave me here.”

His eyes stare at nothing. I’m not sure if he knows I’m here, if he knows he’s safe. It seems like his mind is still back in whatever horror Taehyung took him from—which must be the worst curse of all.

His body is here, but his mind isn’t.

My chest constricts, the situation too familiar for comfort. I’m tucked away into an ivory tower, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe. Not while I’m hearing voices.

“I won’t leave you,” I say, almost fierce. The way I would want someone to promise me.

Like they mean it.

He begins to shiver. “Please don’t leave me.”

“Not going anywhere.” I press my forehead against his temple, the way Yoongi did to me in the restaurant. That feels like a lifetime ago, even though it was earlier tonight.

I had been hopeful about the future then, cautiously optimistic, excited to spend the evening at my favorite restaurant.

Now I’m grateful to be alive.

I wrap my arms around the boy—how old is he? From the brief glimpse of his body he doesn’t look that old. The frail body in my arms doesn’t feel big enough, strong enough. Not with shudders racking his slender frame.

We stay like that for long moments, only his halting breaths breaking the silence.

“So dark,” he murmurs, his voice almost dreamlike. He doesn’t sound afraid, only lost. “And cold. And heavy. That’s what you don’t realize about water. How heavy it is.”

My throat tightens. “Did you fall off the docks?”

My dad used to have a yacht on the lake outside Daegu, but we didn’t spend much time on it. A few company parties with his executives, lots of suits and hearty handshakes. One time the VP of Commercial Development, drunk on bourbon and his new promotion, went overboard.

He shakes her head, voice small. “The west side.”

I blink, unsure what he means. The lake is to the east, and besides, the west side usually refers to the jumble of tenements that house Daegu’s poorest population. There are no lakes there. No rivers. Barely any trees. Only miles of broken concrete.

So how did he end up drenched and shivering? “Did you go swimming?”

A violent tremble shakes his small body. He burrows his face into my chest, and I pull him close.

It feels strange to comfort someone like this. The closest friend I have is Hoseok, and even though we could talk about anything, he’s a force of nature. Too powerful to ever need solace.

For so long I didn’t have a mother to do this, to hold me, to stroke my hair. To whisper that everything would be okay.

And I find it gives me a kind of peace to hold Jungkook, as if we’re both helping each other. I’m not sure how long we stay like that, in that place between past and present, in the hazy shadows of trauma and relief.

It feels like the world might be passing us by, one of those fast-motion videos of the sky with clouds migrating across the city. This might not be the ivory tower Yoongi keeps me in, but it’s a safe house all the same. A building without time, without even reality to intrude.

Jungkook shifts slightly, and I know he’s awake. “Are you one of them?” he asks.

“One of who?”

“One of the darkmoons. The ones Taehyung collects when someone can’t pay the loan back.”

“Do you mean the strippers?” Taehyung owns clubs around the city.

I could have ended up onstage in one of them, working off my father’s debts, lap dance by lap dance. I should be grateful that I’m with Yoongi instead—and I am, but I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t know everything.

My father kept secrets from me. On good days I think he was trying to protect me. Then I remember that he sold me to Min Yoongi as part of a shady business deal well before the auction.

Regardless of his intentions, the fallout from his crash destroyed my life.

“Are they strippers?” Jungkook asks, his voice drowsy. “I thought he kept them for himself. I imagined a harem of omegas, one for every day of the month.”

The only time I’ve seen anyone at the Inferna was the night of my auction. Jihyo was there to help get me ready. And a few other men brought omegas on their arms, mistresses or sex partners. Temporary guests in a purely male environment.

Is that what I am?

“There aren’t other omegas. At least not here.” And apparently this is Kim Taehyung’s bedroom. Where else would he keep a harem but nearby? “What made you think there were?”

“He threatened to take me. If Dad didn’t pay.”

My hope dims. I don’t want to depress him, but I don’t want to lie either. “Maybe he wanted you to work off the debt.”

I don’t mention that he might auction him off to one of the alphas who bid on

me.

“No,” he says, voice slurred with sleep. “He told me what he wanted to do. Him and me.”

My eyes remain wide open even as Jungkook drifts off. At least right now his expression is peaceful. No nightmares like the ones that plague me.

Him and me.

That didn’t sound like a business arrangement. And he brought him to his bed. That didn’t look like business either.

And in that brief glimpse of Taehyung’s body when he got out of the bed, he was aroused. Even with his body cool and unconscious, he had been hard.

Then again it might not mean anything.

I know better than anyone how business and pleasure could mix.

!!~~~~!!

As a child my favorite cereal was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Even when I got older, my father let me eat that for breakfast every morning. His eyes would crinkle.

Never grow up, he said.

If I imagined anything, it would be making coffee before a full day of research, catching a few minutes with my husband, Kim Namjoon, before he left for work.

No amount of forethought could have prepared me for this morning.

A Southern breakfast spills across a long walnut table. Steam rises from a pile of fresh biscuits, a saucer of dark gravy beside it. Heaping bowls of fruit contain grapes and orange pieces and rosy strawberries. A stack of bacon could feed an army.

I have a small plate of scrambled eggs and cantaloupe slices. I would have thought I’d be queasy after the events of last night, but my stomach firmly reminds me we didn’t actually eat dinner.

Both Taehyung and Jungkook pile their plates high with waffles and fried chicken, digging in as if the calories are consumed by their intensity alone. And judging by the abs I saw on both of them last night, that would be true. They speak in low tones, their words too cryptic to decipher.

At the moment I’m too tired to try.

The strangest part of the breakfast is the boy sitting across from me. Someone brought over a duffel bag of clothes for me last night. A few pairs of yoga pants and slouchy t-shirts, so I loaned some to Jungkook.

By loaned I mean that I dressed him like a doll.

He stares at the pool of lukewarm tea in his cup, his expression blank.

We spent the night in the same bed. There’s a kind of kinship that comes from recovering together, even though I know basically nothing about him. I know his Dad got him into trouble.

If he lives in the west side, his Dad doesn’t have a lot in common with mine. Except that he sold his son, too.

“So, I’ll bring Jimin back,” Yoongi says, catching my attention.

Taehyung nods. “We can meet this afternoon.”

My eyes narrow. “Can you maybe talk to me instead of about me?”

“I’ll bring you back to my house,” Yoongi says in a dry tone. “And then meet with Taehyung this afternoon.”

“What about Jungkook?”

Both of them look at silent Jungkook, as pale as a ghost, his strawberry-blonde hair in unruly curls.

“What about him?” Yoongi finally asks.

I shake my head, impatient. “Who will take care of him?”

“I’ll find someone,” Taehyung says with that uncharacteristic solemnity. And I would break my promise to him.

“I’ll stay with him.”

“Absolutely not,” Yoongi says. “My house is the safest place for you, especially when both Taehyung and I aren’t there. The security team is already installed there.”

“Then he can come with me,” I say, nudging Jungkook’s foot under the table. It would help if he’d back me up. He continues to stare into his teacup. “If it’s safer there, then he’ll be safer, too.”

Taehyung frowns, watching Jungkook with a dark expression. “Take him.”

Without another word, Taehyung pushes back from the table and throws down his napkin. He strides from the room at a clipped pace, not looking back.

“What happened to him?” I ask Yoongi.

He shakes his head, expression grim. “You don’t want to know.”

“I should know if I’m going to help him.”

“I’m not sure there’s any help for someone who’s been through that.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

He meets my gaze, his golden eyes blazing. “I saw a lot of fcuked-up shit at the Darkmoon growing up. Omega raped, hurt. Beaten until they weren’t recognizable. And still I never saw anything like this.”

My heart thuds, imagining that little boy watching such violence. Being part of it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Virgin lily. I could have freed you. Never forget that. I could have paid a million dollars and then walked away, never fcuking that pretty little nerve.”

The words I’m glad you didn’t sit on the edge of my tongue. I can’t quite say them. I would have gone on with my life. Would have gone back to Daegu College. I can’t even imagine that life now, but it was the one I wanted for too long to throw it away.

He smiles without humor. “/He/ fcuked him. And then he drowned him.”

I suck in a breath. “How did he—”

“—Survive? Dear old Dad made sure to put a call in to Taehyung who had no idea if he’d find a dead body at the bottom of the pool.”

“Thank God he didn’t.”

“What Kim Yongdae did to him…most people would rather have died. So now you know why I keep you locked up. Why I’ll continue to lock you up. To keep you away from him. To keep you for myself. There’s really no end to the depraved things I want to do to you. We’re not so different.”

My stomach clenches. “What you do to me is nothing like what he did to Jungkook.”

“It’s convenient that you think so.” He tosses back the rest of his coffee. “Because I don’t plan to stop. Not for Kim Yongdae. Not for anyone. You’re mine, and I damn well keep what’s mine.”

!!~~~~!!!!~~~~!!