The Innocent: A Sequel to Hwarang: The Saga of the Sooks Book #3

Chapter 35: Foreboding

Soo Ho hadn't been able to sleep last night. A terrible sense of foreboding had kept him awake. But he wasn't sure why. He had no good reason to feel this insufferable tension, a suffocating fear that some evil was preying upon his beloved.

He had followed his girls, as he now thought of both Jung Sook and Bo A, to school every day for the past two weeks. Keeping a respectful distance. But showing up to prove his love by silently protecting them from any dangers that might be lurking in the shadows of the early morning.

But this morning, he had broken with that new routine to confront Jung Sook out in the street before they headed to her school. His inexplicable agitation had given him courage. And it had paid off. They had reconciled.

But then, his father had denied his request to marry her with his blessing. However, then Soo Ho had discovered that – unless his appa was wrong – she had lied to him. Which simply increased the tension already brewing in his gut.

He counted the hours until he would see her again. With a weary kind of dread. Because the foreboding was growing. And now it was coupled with the knowledge that another confrontation was coming. And he didn't want to do anything that would sever him from her again.

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After an extremely trying day at school, Jung Sook rushed home to begin making dinner for Soo Ho. She and Bo A got out the door late due to another argument between two of the girls. Jung Sook was weary of reprimanding young ladies who acted more like combatants in a war game than like the daughters of noblemen.

At least, Bo A was a shining light in her life. The sweet girl had begun to help with dinner preparations as soon as they'd walked through her front door. They were in the midst of slicing vegetables when a knock sounded on the door.

"I'll get it!" Bo A offered with a smile as she ran for the front door. Forgetting to leave her knife on the table.

A moment later, her scream shattered the stillness around Jung Sook.

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Bo A opened the front door and froze. Staring up at her father.

"Ahhh. Just the frippery piece of baggage I came looking for. I find that I've missed you, child. No one but your mother to push around now that you've gone."

He reached out to grab her, and she threw her hands – one still curled around the handle of the knife – up in the air. Which he took as a threat. Cursing at her, he grabbed her wrist and hauled her up against him, yanking the knife from her grasp. Her bloodcurdling scream filled the air around them.

And Jung Sook came running. "Unhand her!" she commanded when she saw that the man had the knife pressed against the child's throat.

He sneered at her. "Or what?"

Gripping her own knife in her hand still, she held it out towards him. "Or I will damage you!"

Where was this crazy courage coming from?

He snarled at her and tossed his daughter to the side to advance on the teacher. "How dare you tell me what to do with my own child?!" he stormed as he stepped towards her.

As he came within two feet of her retreating figure, she suddenly smelled the liquor on his breath. And her terror increased ten-fold. She would not be able to reason with a drunk man. She was still brandishing the knife at him. But he was pointing the other one at her. How she wished she had her sword.

He leapt suddenly, and she had only one moment to grasp. She pulled her wrist back and flung it forward, and he screamed as her knife bit into his shoulder. But, really, all she did was anger him. And make him drop his knife as he reached up to pull hers from his flesh.