Destined {𝕄𝕀ℕ𝕊𝕌ℕ𝔾}

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Jisung awoke to the crisp sounds of chirping birds and quiet bustling outside his bedroom door. But that was it. His eyes snapped open and he lurched into a sitting position, panic rising in his chest. It was almost as though someone had flicked a big red switch on his instincts, shutting them off without him even knowing it.

He sniffed the air, but nothingness met his nostrils; he grimaced. He was so used to his incredible sense of smell that it felt... wrong without it. As he forced himself to calm down, to take deep breaths – he knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for this – his eyes finally settled on the figure he hadn't noticed until now.

Minho looked absolutely stunning in the faint glow of the morning's first light, the sun catching the tiniest details from his long lashes that gently swooped over his pale, flawless skin, to the individual sparkles that seemed encrusted within it; he didn't need his enhanced vision to tell.

Something had changed, he knew it; his heart leapt in bounds and leaps at the mere sight of him, and something else tugged at his heart, nagging at his mind – for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was. He reached forward, thumb brushing over the vampire's cheekbone.

Jisung winced; he was much colder than usual. That, or he'd lost the superhuman temperature he'd always seemed to have. Minho's eyes snapped open, and he stared at Jisung for only a handful of moments before he leapt to his feet, eyes going wide as saucers.

"You're awake!" he exclaimed, moving much too fast for Jisung to see. Trying to follow his movements only served to give him a headache, and he winced, bringing his hand up to his head. Minho paused, sadness suddenly overwhelming his features, his shoulders sinking slowly.

"I... I'm sorry, Jisung." His eyebrows furrowed, but just as he opened his mouth to ask why pain flared from his neck. He jolted slightly, hand coming up to gently press against the wound, only for him to pull back immediately. That was even more painful.

"It's alright," he said softly, forcing his muscles to relax. "It's not your fault."

Minho's eyebrows furrowed, his face twisting a bit harshly. "It is." He caught himself, and Jisung watched him closely as he leaned back in the chair stationed by his bed. "I lost control. I could have killed you – you weren't in any position to fight back. It would have been so easy."

Jisung sighed and slid out of his bed despite his weak legs. He knelt in front of Minho, grabbing onto his cold hands. "But you didn't." He looked up into the other's eyes. "You didn't, so don't act like you did."

Minho sighed and averted his eyes. Jisung's grip on his hands tightened, though it still felt weak compared to his usual strength. It was almost as though he was human. A lingering voice echoed in the back of his mind, trying to exploit knowledge he knew was there, but he shoved it aside. "You didn't have to do this, Minho." He sighed, running his thumb over the other's icy knuckles. "You didn't have to throw your life away to become immortal, to have a crazed thirst for blood." He smiled sadly.

"But you did it anyway. You did it to save your friend. I don't think you... realize how much you sacrificed." He met Minho's eyes, and when he spotted the unchanging sadness and self-loathing within them, his own eyes hardened.

He inhaled deeply. "If I'm going to be honest with you, Minho... we need to move on from this. We can't afford to lose ourselves to self-loathing, or self-pity, not now. I have a very bad feeling about the Vampire King. Something horrible is about to happen, I can feel it."

He reached out and cupped his face, a soft, sad smile teasing the edges of his lips. "And when things inevitably go to shit... I need you by my side. I don't think I'm qualified to be this pack's Alpha, but that doesn't change the fact that I am, just like you can't change the fact that there's a part of you now that... craves blood and chaos. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Minho took a deep breath and nodded, grabbing onto the and held against his face. "I understand." Relief washed over every muscle in Jisung's body, easing the tension that had nestled its way in.

Just then, the door burst open, and two of his commanding wolves entered, panic strewn about their expressions. His hand fell from Minho's face as he shifted to face them, eyebrows furrowing, despite his body screaming at him to stop moving.

"A-Alpha!" The one who spoke was nervous, their face drained of all colour. "The wolves sent after you, they... they've all been killed, sir." His blood, as if by some strange, frozen current, turned to ice. His mind ran to Hyunjin, for all his shame – there had been several wolves on that expedition, and yet his Beta dominated his thoughts.

"Beta Hyunjin has not been reported dead yet, sir, but... nobody has sensed him since the attack." Again that creature, relief, gnawed at him; though this time it was not pleasant. This relief was vile and selfish and monstrous. How dare he be more worried about one man's safety than the deaths of several?

"Do you know how?" he said, his voice low as he slowly stood. The floor was cold against his feet, though through the anger of his assumption as to the way the events described to him had unfolded, he felt numb.

The ice in his veins grew thicker.

"Not yet, Alpha... we have our... suspicions, but nothing concrete. We haven't been able to find the bodies yet." He knew that, if the attack had been ordered by the Vampire King – which, most likely, it had been – there would be hell to pay. He would put an end to the war that had been ravaging his people for generations, no matter the cost.

It had gone on for far too long – they'd even forgotten about it in the fray of their personal lives. He'd forgotten about it. The parents of the children who died did not, nor had the comrades who'd fought, lost limbs, lost Mates. This was a wake-up call, a reminder that their war – their war had only just begun. And he intended to end it, and all future wars – he intended to continue his father's legacy, to find a way to kill the Vampire King, once and for all.

"Ready the Council. We can't postpone the inevitable anymore." 

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, but we are BACK! Sorry for the long wait, everybody, but I had some personal problems I had to deal with, and I wasn't feeling up to writing, so instead of writing shit I took an impromptu hiatus. Hopefully, I'll be able to snap back to my regular writing schedule.

Q: What's something you are proud of recently?

A: Well... I actually wrote 3k words for my NaNo project (which is just draft 2 of my novel, surprise, surprise) today, which boosts me up to 8,500 words -- still short by a couple thousand, but still catching up for my inability to write lately nonetheless -- and, although I'll definitely have to go back and edit I'm still proud of it.

Lots of love,

~Emilie