The moment he broke came like thunder — silent, but destructive.

I was lying on the silken bed he made just for me in his hidden chamber. My body already aching from the pull of something ancient in my blood. The beginning signs. The tingling in my fingertips. The silver sheen in my eyes. The faint hum in my bones.

“I shouldn’t,” he whispered, standing at the edge, fists clenched, jaw tight. “But I need— I need to make sure they know.”

He meant the others. The creatures in this realm who could smell power, lust, and weakness like perfume.

I sat up, skin flushed, breath catching. “Then do it.”

He appeared at my side in an instant — hand around the back of my neck, pressing his lips against mine so hard it almost hurt. He kissed like he was starving, like my taste might end the ache that had haunted him since he first saw me. And when he pulled away, there was blood on his lip. His, not mine.

He claimed me with his mouth, his teeth. With the low, guttural sounds only I could pull from him. He didn't devour — he possessed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes wild, breath harsh. “But now no one else can touch you.”

That night, I fell asleep wrapped in his arms, newly marked — heart pounding, body throbbing with unfamiliar heat.

When the transformation finished days later, I emerged not as prey — but as his equal. A queen.

And Jaeshin… he knelt.

He looked at me, his eyes wide with disbelief, reverence — desire.

“Stand still,” he whispered, his voice dark and low. “I need to see everything.”

He kissed my collarbone first. Then the curve of my shoulder. His mouth was everywhere, reverent and slow, as if learning a new religion.

My skin now shimmered faintly under his touch. His hands caressed the inside of my wrists, his lips trailing from the base of my throat to the dip of my waist. Every kiss felt like a vow.

“You’re not mine anymore,” he said. “You’re above me. But I’ll still worship you.”

And he did. Every inch.

He held me like something holy, yet sinful. Groaning softly into my skin, tracing the markings that now glowed faintly along my sides.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured, against the arch of my thigh. “You were always perfect. But now—” he swallowed, “I might actually break for real.”

And when he looked up, lips red, hair wild, hands trembling — I believed him.