fatebound

The room was too big.

Too dark, too cold. The stone floor swallowed the heat from his bare skin, and the air smelled of melted wax and something sharp-metallic. Blood.

His blood.

A thin cut burned across his palm, but he didn't move. He didn't cry. The man had told him not to.

"Fatebounds do not cry."

Seokjin swallowed hard. He wasn't alone.

Across from him, seated on a cushioned chair, was the boy who owned everything Seokjin did not. Silk robes. Warm boots. A gaze too sharp for his age.

Kim Namjoon.

His master.

Seokjin hadn't called him that yet. No one had told him what to say. No one had told him anything-except that he belonged to him now.

The magic had said it first.

A ring of symbols-glowing, shifting, alive-wrapped around Seokjin's wrist like ink sinking into his veins. It burned. It felt wrong. And when the pain faded, so did something else inside him.

Namjoon studied him, gaze flickering to the symbols. His expression was unreadable.

"He looks..." A pause. A tilt of his head. "...smaller than I thought he'd be."

Seokjin's stomach twisted. He didn't know why.

Namjoon leaned forward, voice quiet, eager.

"Will he do anything I say?"

A hand pressed down on Seokjin's shoulder, forcing him to his knees.

"A Fatebound obeys without question."

Namjoon smiled.

"Good."

The first order came right after that.