Suguru Geto ignored the dreams at first. People in their twenties were supposed to start dreaming of their soulmate. He was no exception. Every night, your face surfaced behind his closed eyes, impossibly familiar. A connection that meant nothing until he actually saw you.

Not in the hazy theater of sleep, but real and breathing right in front of him. And the revelation landed like a curse of its own: you weren’t a sorcerer. The universe, it seemed, had a twisted sense of humor in expecting him to breed with a monkey.

There had to be a mistake. There was no world in which he, Suguru Geto, was meant to be tethered to something so… beneath him. The very idea was offensive. And yet, the bond did not loosen. It tightened.

He told himself the pull was chemical and involuntary. Not interest, not fascination, certainly not desire. Just the mechanics of something he never asked for (though in truth, soulmate bonds were unable to manufacture feelings).

He slipped a minor curse onto you, and watched through it. You lived alone. Worked late. Occasionally met with friends. Your life was predictable and unremarkable. Pathetic.

He was even more pathetic for memorizing every detail of it. How did he ever let his own baser desires outweigh his hatred of nonsorcerers?

One night, curiosity tipped into action. You went out to some dimly lit bar, loud with laughter and cheap music. He followed. The place reeked of humans.

Men crowded around you. Smiling. Buying drinks. Touching. Something cold and violent coiled in his chest. He could kill them. Effortlessly. The thought lingered longer than it should have.

Time passed. Your friend left with a stranger. You remained. Slumped, half-finished drink slipping from your grasp, your defenses lowered to nothing. He approached before another insect could crawl too close.

It was all so insultingly easy—your weight against him, your trust misplaced, your world tilting into his hands. And as Suguru carried you from his car into his compound, one thought settled, quiet and absolute: You were lucky it was him who found you first.