His Baby Daddy [ Taekook ]

Chapter 24

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Mist clung to the ramparts like spun glass as Taehyung tightened the last buckle on his black war-saddle.
Six mounts waited in formation: two for ward-crafter twins Dara and Dain, two for Silver-Soil druids, one for Namjoon, and his own night-coated stallion, Zephyr. Every bridle had been ward-etched overnight — Mishil’s handiwork, runes gleaming pearl-white where starlight lingered.

Taehyung tested his twin blades, slid them home.  His pulse throbbed with equal parts dread and simmering purpose.  Seven nights, he had sworn to Jungkook — return whole or die buying time.

At the archway, Jungkook appeared, robe hastily belted, Ami at his shoulder.  Moon-lamps painted silver on the small swell beneath the fabric; the sight twisted something fierce inside Taehyung’s chest.

He dismounted, but kept the pact’s distance.
Words failed — too brittle to carry the gravity of what lay ahead.

Instead Jungkook lifted a palm.  “Leather,” he prompted.

Taehyung slid off his gauntlet and pressed their hands together, only the thinnest shimmer of pact-light between skin.  The warmth of Jungkook’s touch bled through, calmed the claws stirring under Taehyung’s ribs.

“Seven nights,” Jungkook whispered.
“Or fewer,” Taehyung vowed.

A pause.
Jungkook’s lashes dropped, then he met Taehyung’s gaze, unflinching. “Bring Yoongi word of the pup’s heartbeat. He’ll need that hope.”

Taehyung swallowed hard.  “I will.”

The opal choker at Jungkook’s throat flashed once, sensing imminent parting.  Taehyung stepped back, vaulted to the saddle.  Hooves struck marble; gates groaned wide.

As the company rode out, Taehyung risked one glance back.  Jungkook stood framed in torchlight, hand over belly, shawl fluttering like a dark banner in half-dawn.

Inside Taehyung’s mind, a low, unknown growl threaded with demon-fire: Protect.

He spurred Zephyr into the waking forest.

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The stench hit first: rotten copper and sulfur.  Yoongi knelt at the edge of the once-clear creek, now a ribbon of black sludge.  He plunged a wooden ladle; the liquid hissed, eating tiny holes through the ladle’s bark skin before dripping in viscous strands.

Behind him, patrol captain Sunni gagged. “Moon help us.”

Yoongi tipped the remains onto scorched earth.  “Blood-curse fused with demon ash,” he muttered.  “Older than Thorn-Heart.  Maybe older than the King.”

He rose, bones aching — a reminder that he was no pup. 

Guilt is useful only if it moves.

He turned. “Captain, relay: no shifts in this radius longer than twenty minutes. Wolves who breathe this rot lose control of forms.  We station silver-root braziers here, here, and at the birch ring.”