His Baby Daddy [ Taekook ]

Chapter 27

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The word hung in the air like a strike of thunder.

Pup.

The syllable was low, guttural, resonant with something far older than speech. It seemed to echo in the frozen courtyard, weaving through the smoke of warding fires and the sharp bite of winter wind.

Taehyung’s spine stiffened as if struck. His crimson eyes flashed faintly, catching the pale light of the moons overhead. Around him, silence descended. The Snow Moon warriors froze mid-step. The druids stopped their chanting, protective runes faltering in the snow. Even Namjoon, who had weathered storms of both blood and politics, went utterly still.

The Alpha’s declaration had shifted the air itself.

“Mine,” Ruhan growled again, voice deeper, throat vibrating with primal resonance. His towering frame lowered, nostrils flaring, as if the wolf within him clawed toward the surface. For the first time since Taehyung had entered the sacred clearing of the Snow Moon, something ancient and unbidden stirred in his chest—an ache he had no name for.

Taehyung stepped back instinctively, boots crunching against the frost-hardened ground. Confusion laced his voice, though he forced it to remain even. “What… did you just say?”

His breath fogged between them, thin and unsteady. “Did you just call me… mine?”

Ruhan blinked. His confident Alpha’s composure faltered for the first time, cracking into something unsteady, raw.

“I didn’t mean—” He stopped, jaw clenching as if the words betrayed him. His eyes burned pale blue in the torchlight. “It wasn’t me. It was… my wolf.”

Taehyung’s pulse pounded in his ears. He took another careful step back, his crimson gaze narrowing. “Why would your wolf say that to me?”

Ruhan’s hands curled into fists at his sides. Inside him, his wolf prowled restlessly, pulling and pushing against his restraint with the kind of longing and desperation he hadn’t felt since—

No. His breath hitched. That wasn’t possible. That was a wound buried long ago, left to scar in silence.

And yet… His voice dropped low, hoarse. His eyes swept over Taehyung again, not with hunger or claim, but with something far more dangerous—recognition. Stunned, unwilling, impossible recognition. “I felt something the moment you crossed the border.”

Taehyung’s brows furrowed. “What did you feel?”

“A scent,” Ruhan rasped, each word weighted with disbelief. “Not yours—not entirely. But something familiar. Something I haven’t smelled in over two decades.”

A chill crawled up Taehyung’s spine. The courtyard seemed to hold its breath.

Ruhan’s gaze did not waver. He studied Taehyung with a hunter’s precision, but behind it was awe, sorrow, and something softer he could not hide. Slowly, his expression crumbled from the rigid strength of an Alpha into the quiet bewilderment of a man who had just glimpsed a ghost.