Ruby

It’s hot. The room feels hot. It’s stuffy. Did he forget to let the windows open?

There are hands, a body holding him down. They’re so cold. Such a contrast to the way the room is cooking him up. He wants to breathe properly but his chest feels like they’re contracting each second he tries, like he’s running a marathon with no breaks in between.

“Master.”

A hand, gripping both of his wrists down to the bed with bruising grip, another pressing his tummy up against a cold moist chest to keep him in place. He shudders, holding back a sob so hard his throat threatens to close in on him.

“Hey, master.”

Heeseung tries to glare, agitated by the intentional name-calling, but he doubts his teary eyes will ever give an effect.

This person—this creature—has the audacity to smirk, belittling the lethargic fight Heeseung is putting up despite the situation he’s thrown in.

“Don’t look at me like that, Heeseung-ah,” he drops the act, a flash of blood eyes peeking at Heeseung from behind his shoulders, his nose pressed into the crook of his neck, eliciting a delicious shudder from Heeseung.

Smiling. “This would have been much easier if you had just accepted me.”

He shifts, the movement startling out a strung-out moan from Heeseung.

He shuts his eyes. Stubborn and willing away the burn at the back of his eyes.

Yeonjun found him in a dark market under the luxurious pretence of art and exotic animal exhibition in a secluded area of the state, the access to the forbidden area exclusive only to the wealthiest, darkest individuals one could find from every corner of the earth. Soobin had dragged Yeonjun to check out the exhibition, interest having been piqued by one of his familiar friends’ suggestion for good familiar scouting.

Yeonjun had been looking for a familiar for his brother, Heeseung, for quite some time now, just because the younger had seemed very keen on not getting one for himself.

“But why a dark market?” Yeonjun complaint, wary and drained from all the work he’s been going through for the last 2 weeks. “I could have just drawn out his blood and drugged him to execute the ritual himself.”

“Why go that far when you could just look for one?” Soobin gave him a tired glare. “And risking him summoning a devil from another dimension? He might as well summon a cockroach so that he could kill it the next second and be done with it.”

“But of all places,” Yeonjun glanced around the vicinity of the exhibition, at the hushed and sneaky ambience of the whole trading that was taking place. Booths and shops of different sizes accommodating different animals and peculiar objects, buyers and merchants communicating in so many different languages Yeonjun himself got a bit overwhelmed.

Soobin had left him to his own devices in search of rare inks for his massive collection of fountain pens, leaving Yeonjun to browse along the lanes of shops in the underground dark market.

One booth had an impressive stockpile of tribal witchcraft that had Yeonjun almost stepping in, until Soobin appeared out of thin air and dragged him over to one of the shops tucked away at the farthest corner of the market, a little out of sight and very disadvantageous from location aspect.

“Hyung, I found something very interesting,” Soobin directed Yeonjun’s gaze towards the interior of the shop by a hand to the chin, and Yeonjun spotted him as easy as it was picking out a rose from a bouquet of lily whites.

A young boy with ashen grey hair and skin as white as snow, sitting inside a clear glass panel cage in nothing but long loose black pants, his pristine wide shoulders bare and glistening underneath the artificial lighting of the shop, back facing Yeonjun as he came closer. His bushy white ears jerked at the sharp click of his heels, alerted.

It’s a snow cougar hybrid. One so rare people claimed hunters hunt them down to the ground for the immeasurable profit they bring.

“He’s young,” he sought the merchant for the boy. “How did you find him?”

“From a brothel. Supposedly he was a child of one of the women there, though no one stepped out for him when we asked for her. The owner couldn’t pay up his land and ran off, leaving the women and their children there,” the merchant answered Yeonjun’s every questions diligently, yet he seemed distant, a little indifferent even.

“So you must be experienced,” if you know what I mean, Yeonjun muttered under his breath, crouching down on one knee to have a closer view of the boy. The hybrid shifted the slightest bit so that he could glimpse at Yeonjun, their eyes meeting for a solid minute. His long messy bangs accentuated the bright cunning glow to his slanted eyes.

Yeonjun was astounded for the briefest moment. Despite the situation the boy was in, something in his eyes told Yeonjun he is not just an exquisite hybrid just waiting to be branded.

Despite his own intuition telling him not to buy him (for whatever reasons unknown), he pulled out a cheque for the hybrid.

“You’d never know, he could be useful for little Heeseung,” Soobin consoled as Yeonjun paid his bargain with a heavy heart. A good part of the bargain was that Soobin had implored him for the hybrid. A very good chunk of it was for his beloved little brother.

“He’s an odd one,” the merchant had slipped in between their discussion prior to Yeonjun’s decision on purchasing him.

“Why?”

“He’s never taken an interest in any other buyer that comes in here. It’s the first time he’s ever looked at anyone aside from the food I fed him,” the merchant added, a thin frown settling over his crinkled eyebrows. “You must have something he wants. Snow cougars are said to be one of the most intuitive creatures out there. You might wanna put an electric leash on him, just in case.”

“It’s not the money I’m worried,” Yeonjun observed as the merchant unlocked the chains joining the both of his hands together, fitting the boy into a loose sweater that complements his skin and hair, a tasteful appearance fit for the hungry eyes of the riches.

“Money will never be a burden for you, sir,” Soobin smiled, Yeonjun scowled.

“Heeseung-ah!” he yelled as soon as he hopped off the car and into the open living room, followed by Soobin who’s tugging on the hands of the timid hybrid.

“Heeseungie,” he drawled out, pitchy and annoying in a way that sometimes riled their father but could get away with easily.

“I’m here, I’m here,” the aforementioned came rushing down the stairs, his red hair bouncing with every step he took. Instantaneously, the hybrid’s eyes lit up with interest at the sight of the younger master. Yeonjun noted this with great scrutiny.

“What,” Heeseung halted midway down at the sight of the hybrid staring at him from behind Soobin’s towering height.

“Oh, hyung,” Heeseung took one look at his fair face and the little tuff of furry ears of his, and immediately scowled.

“Who is this?”

“Heeseung-ah. Say hi,” Yeonjun nudged the hybrid forward, comforting hands on his shoulders to ease the tension in the hybrid’s frame. “His name is Sunghoon. Your very own familiar, since you won’t summon one for yourself.”

“I’m fine without one,” at the mindless rejection, Sunghoon’s ears flattened against his head, his shoulders slumping deeply underneath Yeonjun’s palms.

“I told you I don’t want one. I don’t need…” Heeseung hesitated. It, he almost referred to them, familiars, as.

They’re still a human being, Heeseungie-ah, his late mother once said when his friends had belittled their existence in one of their classic history lessons. No matter how puny, even if it’s as small as an atom, that human nature within them still exist. They don’t deserve any worse than us.

“Them. I don’t need them. I can live by just fine.”

“Did you really think I could go by with my duty without Soobin just fine?” Yeonjun tried again, patient as always for his brothers.

“Soobin is your secretary,” Heeseung pointed out, arms crossed behind his back. A habit of his for whenever he’s trying to bite back argument from spitting out of his mouth when it’s not due.

“Familiar turned secretary. There’s a bold line between a familiar and a mere human being, young master,” Soobin helpfully added in, coming up behind Yeonjun to drape his long bunny ears over Yeonjun’s head to emphasize his point.

“Well, I don’t want him. Take him back,” Heeseung pressed on his words behind clenched teeth, turning on his heels to hightail out of there.

Sunghoon twitched at his tone. Yeonjun snapped.

“Lee Heeseung.”

Heeseung winched, his steps dying to a halt, wary now that Yeonjun used his full name on him. Yeonjun only ever calls him by his birth name when he’s being assertive or when Heeseung’s petulance is bordering on the line. They are from two different wombs, anyway.

“Just take what is given to you.”

Heeseung froze. Yeonjun bit his tongue, immediately eaten away by guilt at his choice of words.

Yet it did the trick. Heeseung reluctantly faced him back, eyes casted down.

Even after all these years, Heeseung’s wounded whenever he used those words against him. A statement that their grandfather would use to subdue Heeseung into granting his every wish. Including making him leave his family to reside here with them in this mansion, in return his siblings would be spared from any future difficulties. Yeonjun felt bad for using their grandfather’s method that Heeseung loathes with every fibre of his being, but if it could make the younger listen to him, then he’ll do it. For now.

“I brought him from a very dark place,” Yeonjun consoled, making his way around to stand in front of his little brother, tilting his head up so that they’re eye to eye.

Heeseung’s grown at an impressive rate for the last year, already coming up to Yeonjun’s eyebrows at 18. Yet he still possesses the childlike attitude that has both endeared and annoyed the living daylights out of their housekeepers.

“Things could have ended up very badly for him. You might even be doing him a favour by taking him in. Who knows? He could be of great use for you in the future.”

Heeseung glanced at Sunghoon, who stared at him with these hopeful pitiful eyes. Heeseung is weak to those type of eyes. Jungwon, one of their many many baby cousins, always win his way with him using those tactics.

What do you have to lose?

He relented, eventually.

“Fine. He’s sleeping on the floor,” as a general rule, familiars should be within the vicinity of its master for 7 days straight without a single separation period between them for their bond to officially tie together. This flaw in the nature of familiar-human bonding also enabled unworthy humans to tie their familiars to them against their will.

“Master,” Heeseung ignored the calling, nonchalantly making his way through the hallway, his heels making soft click-clack on the marble flooring.

Brisk footsteps followed in his trail, but careful in keeping a good distance from behind him. “Master.”

“Go away, Sunghoon.”

“I was assigned to be with you wherever you go,” the hybrid boy behind him replied, a tinge of stubbornness in his soft tone. “Master Yeonjun said the young master should not—”

“Okay, geez, stop stop,” Sunghoon’s light footsteps came to a halt at Heeseung’s abrupt burst.

Heeseung glared at him. “Stop calling me young master. I hate it.”

“Then sir?”

“No. That’s even more annoying,” Sunghoon cocked his head to the side, bemused. “Then what shall I refer to you, young master?”

That ticked Heeseung off but he’s willing to compromise here if it meant stopping the hybrid from associating him with the likes of his grandfather. The top of the family tree, the decision-maker of them all, holder of their freedom and power.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Heeseung. Hyung. These two, whatever. Just don’t address me like you would Yeonjun hyungie or any other like him and above. I’m not on their level and I don’t intend to.”

A pregnant pause between them as the gears clicked away in Sunghoon’s head, visible through his honest eyes and strong eyebrows.

Ashen grey hair, ashen grey eyebrows and white eyelashes. Everything about this boy was fair as the snow, befitting his blood as a snow cougar hybrid.

A sweet smile stretched his thin lips then, a little bewitching. “Heeseung-ah. Is this alright?”

Huh. That was quick, the acceptance. But Heeseung couldn’t complain, he wished for that anyway. But the way his name rolled off Sunghoon’s tongue reminded him of his siblings back at his late mother’s place, where they would occasionally drop the honorifics to get on his nerves or just being little devils.

He looked away, aware that his own eyes were softening at the gesture. He missed the smile broadening on Sunghoon’s face. “Fine.”

The boy tried hard, Heeseung can attest to that much. It took him a good month for him to warm up to Sunghoon, who tried his very best pleasing him, helping him with chores and homework even when Heeseung kept pushing him away with “I’m fine, I don’t need your help. Leave me alone”, teaching him little tricks and knacks to get on Yeonjun’s nerves for whenever Heeseung got bored of lessons and was trying to ditch classes.

“How about instead of running off into the woods and coming home to lecturing and ear pulling, we go mess with your brother instead?” Sunghoon had suggested once, just as Heeseung was about to climb over the precast stone walls containing the perimeter of the mansion. He’s got those mischievous glints in his black pupils again, the kind that gives the impression of a cunning predator.

Well, he is a cougar. “At least he won’t tell on you on Master.”

Sunghoon did a pretty damn job in slowly winning Heeseung over, despite this much time and effort he had to put in order to warm him up, memorizing all of his favourite desserts and learning piano keys and chasing after mares with him, like how Yeonjun would when Heeseung was younger, when Yeonjun didn’t have to carry their late father’s responsibilities and was out of their grandfather’s reach.

“Hyung,” Heeseung glanced downwards from where he’s trying to climb up an oak tree at the back of their garden, a massive decades-old tree that their family decided to leave unattended in memorial of their ancestors that used to spend their time around it. It’s grown out of hand, rivalling those much older and stronger that make up the entirety of the outskirts of the mansion’s walls.

“Please come down. You’ll break a bone if you fell from that height,” Sunghoon coaxed, staring up at him with wary eyes akin to a disturbed mother.

“It’s fine, I got this,” Heeseung insisted, kicking his way up to grab on a branch. He’s shaking on his arms though, having exerted himself beforehand from running away from Sunghoon. Of course the cougar managed to catch up on him in no time without breaking a damn sweat.

Sunghoon shook his head, reprimanding. “Young master Yeonjun won’t be pleased if he knew I let you up the grand tree without safety precaution.”

“Well, what do you suggest then? Jumping off from right here? I need to get up over that branch to have a proper landing.”

“Jump on me. I’ll catch you.”

Heeseung stared at him, the muscles of his arms and thighs comically quivering from holding himself upright for too long. “You look like I could mush you into pancakes with one blow and you expect me to believe you could catch me from 10 feet off the ground?”

Sunghoon spread his arms wide open in the air, a soft smile stretching his thin lips. Impish. “Just trust me.”

He’s not really sure what made him let go of his weight at that moment, what made him believe Sunghoon would not retract his arms midway and let him plummet straight into the ground and leave him to die alone; but Heeseung leapt off the oak tree anyways, free-falling right over Sunghoon’s frame.

Surprisingly strong arms caught him mid-air, bracketing him reassuringly against sturdy frame.

“I caught you,” Sunghoon grinned down at him, his eyes narrowing into thin crescents from his smile. Not an ounce of pain or discomfort visible from having to catch a falling 120 pounds worth of a teenager in the air.

Heeseung blinked at him, winded from the fall, and also from the way Sunghoon was holding him, arms secured around his shoulders and knees like he’s some kind of a damsel in distress falling off a tower.

Touche.

“Yea yea, whatever,” he squeezed Sunghoon’s shoulders, signing him to let go, but Sunghoon leant forward.

The slits of light penetrating the cracks of the thick trees above them burnt Sunghoon’s hair a fade shade of silver, casted soft shadows underneath his eyes and under the sharp slopes of his nose, but his eyes shone a bright cyan marigold, golden rings threatening to swallow Heeseung if he tried prying deeper. Heeseung could even count the scattered specks of freckles all over his face from up this close, one sitting snugly in the corner of his left lower eyelid hidden behind his thick eyelashes.

Their foreheads bonked against each other, Sunghoon shut his eyes, Heeseung too bewildered to react.

“I wish to get close to you,” he voiced out with reverence, his hushed words coming out in soft waves against Heeseung’s face. A blush threatened to creep up his skin at the proximity.

“You’ve been doing exactly that for the past month,” Heeseung replied, discreetly clenching his fists into tight balls, a flimsy attempt in maintaining composure.

“Can I share the bed with you, Heeseung-ah?” Heeseung hated when Sunghoon addressed him as sir or anything above, back when Heeseung started acknowledging him as a permanent member of the house, so Sunghoon naturally speaks to him as if they are of the same age.

It wasn’t supposed to make him feel attacked with butterflies in his tummy, though.

They hadn’t completed the 7 days bonding ritual, if he were to call it a ritual. Heeseung had been stubborn with keeping his distance from Sunghoon whenever it’s bedtime, always so cautious and apprehensive.

True, Sunghoon was a hybrid human, that fraction of human nature still resides within him, but he also had a wild beast coursing through his blood.

“Will you let me?” Sunghoon opened his eyes, bright irises piercing through Heeseung’s resolve.

“…sure.”

“Heeseung-ah,” Heeseung looked up from his book, head pillowed by his bolster and cheek mushed, to Sunghoon staring down at him, bundled up in his blanket with the seams bunched up to his chin. He would have resembled an overgrown golden retriever if it weren't for his stark grey hair.

“What?” Heeseung flipped through the page, leisure as a cat. One of his leg perched over the end of the bolster, the extension hitching the end of his nightgown up to his thigh. Sunghoon’s eyes flickered from the sight of the smooth tan skin to Heeseung.

“May I?”

Heeseung stared at him, understanding sinking into his expression like wet soap. The conversation and event that took place back in the woods that evening bled into his frontal lobe. Briskly, his cheeks coloured, though he hid them behind his book.

“Get in,” it’s the very first time he’s sharing the bed with Sunghoon, this little space of eternity in the twilight zone. He’s a little sensitive, having never shared a room—a bed, even—with anyone asides during his stay at Jungwon’s castle.

So when Sunghoon excitedly slithered right up beside him, the bed dipping underneath the extra weight, giving him this strange sense of warmth and giddiness, Heeseung couldn’t fight back the flinch from having Sunghoon shoving his face into his personal space.

“Oh, sorry,” Sunghoon scooted back a little, just enough for Heeseung to breath in the air not scented with the hybrid’s earthy scent. He appreciated the gesture. “This okay?”

“Yes.”

Sunghoon pillowed his cheek against his palm, staring at Heeseung deeply with such sweetness in his eyes it flustered Heeseung. “Hi there, hyung.”

“Hey yourself,” Heeseung bit back a smile, flipping the pages again but he’s already lost in the sea of Sunghoon’s eyes, as bright as the sunset hue.

And like that, six days went by uneventfully, just the same lessons and lunch with father and occasionally a dinner together with Yeonjun and his familiar, Sunghoon brightening up every time one of them mentioned how Heeseung’s already opened up to him considerably. 6 days of Heeseung getting accustomed to waking up to the sight of the cougar’s face right in front of his, their noses brushing from how close they were.

Sunghoon had a habit of sleeping on his stomach. On more than one occasion, Heeseung would jerk awake in the middle of the night to Sunghoon having him pressed up flush to his side by his arm, his face soft and lacking those usual mischiefs that seem to always cling to his face.

He wanted to bond with the hybrid, officially make him his familiar. Sunghoon put so much effort and commitment in him despite been promised a permanent stay in the mansion in Yeonjun’s behalf, if Heeseung were to reject him in the end. For Heeseung, Sunghoon was genuine.

It’s just that there is something holding him back, apprehension gnawing on the back of his mind like taunting demons in nightmares.

An ominous feeling suspiciously circling Sunghoon for whenever he’s looking at Heeseung like this:

“Are you daydreaming?” Sunghoon looked up from staring out through the window from the window seats as Heeseung came out from the bathroom, fresh from a scalding hot shower.

His skin was dusted pink all over from the heat and was glowing in the dusky lighting of the bedroom. For a moment, Heeseung swore Sunghoon’s eyes ran up and down his body like eyeing a hard-earnt meal, cladded in a loose satin nightgown and bare feet slowly padding through the carpeted floor.

It’s nothing special, it’s his usual nightwear, the type of style he wore every other night. Sunghoon had been sharing his room every day for the first day he arrived there, and only recently started sleeping on the same bed as Heeseung like what they agreed upon.

Somehow, he felt unbearably exposed underneath Sunghoon’s dark gaze like this.

“Yes?” Sunghoon smiles, and the intensity disappeared.

“Emm,” Heeseung climbed up the bed, alarmed at the quick shift of mood, suddenly hyperaware and conscious of how high his nightgown rode his calf as he got in, quickly throwing the duvet over his lower half in embarrassment. “Stop brooding and go to sleep already. We need to attend father’s friend’s congratulatory ceremony tomorrow afternoon.”

“We have the day off tomorrow,” Sunghoon buried his chin in the heel of his palm, his eyes never leaving Heeseung. His smile stretching the barest bit.

The moon was high up in the night tonight, illuminating the pitch darkness of the woods splayed wide across the window with a sheen of light. With his back facing the moon, Sunghoon looked like the shadow of the night, his eyes gleaming through the shadow of his face.

It’s almost uncanny.

“Master informed us our presences are not compulsory and that you should be focusing on your fencing instead,” Sunghoon got up from his seat, and Heeseung felt like he was abruptly hit with waves of fear.

Out of nowhere, he’s suddenly afraid.

“Okay,” he blurted out, briskly burying himself underneath the duvet and hugging the bolster tightly to his chest, heart beating suspiciously faster.

The mattress dipped underneath Sunghoon’s weight, he lifted the duvet up enough for him to slip in, the fabric making little swishing sounds that rung like bells in Heeseung’s eardrums.

“Goodnight,” Sunghoon whispered above his ear, it took him all of his will power not to winch at the proximity. What’s wrong with him and where was this ridiculous amount of fear coming from?

“’night,” he shoved his face into the bolster, willing himself to drift asleep despite the danger and warning sign flashing bloody red all over in his head at the moment. A hand stroked him over the duvet above his head, slowly.

Taunting.

“Sweet dreams, Heeseung.”

Something’s pressing him, suffocating him. Not to the point of unable to breathe, but discomforting. Heeseung hated this. What’s happening?

What’s—

“Sunghoon?” his eyes glazed over, heavy with sleep when he pried them open to the sight of a blurry figure, dark in the moonlit bedroom.

His eyes cleared out to the familiar outlines of Sunghoon’s broad frame, hovering over him, his face hidden in the shadows of the moon. When he tried shifting up on his elbows, he couldn’t lift a finger.

His wrists were bounded to the bed by Sunghoon’s hand, pinning him down above his head, caging him in.

Sirens went off in his head.

“Sunghoon,” he slurred out, sleep bleeding out of his head in urgency.

Even in the darkness, Sunghoon’s irises were a ring of ruby, gone was the rich marigold shade to them, glimmering and predatory in the dim lighting of his room, illuminated by the blood moon staring at them through the window in its full glory.

Heeseung’s goosebumps broke out.

“For a child, you’re quite lovely,” Sunghoon says, smiling. It wasn’t his usual kind smile.

This was not the Sunghoon Heeseung knew.

His cougar ears were gone, his hair had a black sheen to it, long loose bangs falling over his sharp eyes as black as a raven, and Heeseung was struck with the realization that Sunghoon, this Sunghoon that would remind him of his meal times and helped him out of any shit troubles he would get himself into, was not the cougar hybrid he had made them believed.

“But quite honestly this is the actual first time I had to invest a hefty lot of my time and effort into earning someone’s trust. You.”

Heeseung’s blood boiled, deeply hurt and betrayed at Sunghoon’s true colour surfacing.

He was deceived all along.

“You…what is this.”

“To put your faith in a low-life creature like me. How kind of you,” Sunghoon said, feigning innocence over Heeseung’s demands. The corner of his lips curled up into a smirk. Menacing. “How naïve.”

“I trusted you,” Heeseung spat out, yet the quiver of his lower lip betrayed the front he put up as of the moment. So everything was a lie?

“It wasn’t a lie,” Sunghoon could read his mind. Figures. “It was just a part of my feelings that I was willing to use to disarm you. What do you think of me now?”

“What’re you going to do?” Heeseung dodged, fighting back the lump threatening to crawl out of his throat and chest as his heart breaks. “Who are you? If Yeonjun hears of this, he will have you executed.”

“Oh, he won’t.”

Sunghoon dove down and kissed him, taking Heeseung off-guarded. The struggle he put was minuscule compared to the sheer amount of power Sunghoon exuded from just pressing him down with a hand, he kicked and thrashed but Sunghoon didn’t budge, undeterred. Like Heeseung’s attempts were nothing but mere swats of flies.

Sunghoon ripped away, eyes widening a fraction. Heeseung’s chest heaved with huge gulps of breath, teary from the assault upon him. Sunghoon’s tongue poked out to swipe over his lower lip, tongue coming away bloody.

Heeseung glared up at him despite the quiver threatening to break all over his body, the iron taste of Sunghoon’s blood pungent on his tongue.

Sunghoon grinned at him, gone was the kind sweet-hearted façade he’s made out of himself that had managed to fool even the most intuitive person like Yeonjun, like their grandfather.

Then his teeth bared, his canines growing and protruding out of his gums right in front of Heeseung shocked him.

This is not…

Sunghoon’s not a snow cougar hybrid. He’s not a shapeshifting creature that makes up only tens out of millions of creatures on earth. He’s the deceiving blood-sucking creature that his grandfather and family had both feared and worshipped for the entirety of their generations.

A vampire, a monster so vile even death spat him back out, lost in history and wandered the earth among the humans with no remorse over the deaths and sorrows he’s caused in the path he walked.

“I spent decades searching for your bloodline. Just when I thought maybe it’s time I succumb to my fate as it is and search for a way to perish once and for all,” Sunghoon bared his fangs, glimmering in the dark like a deadly knife ready to plunge itself into Heeseung’s chest. He could smell Heeseung’s fear flaring at the sight, at the realization. “Your brother came to me. I saw you in him. I knew by then it was you.”

As a child, Heeseung didn’t believe back then, when his mother used to tell him stories, the supposedly family secrets behind their late father’s death, the affairs surrounding their wealth and prosperous long life, the disappearance of their late ancestors, their weird rituals. Regarding them as just dishes to keep him away from grandfather, one time where he was just Lee Heeseung, son of his mother, not his father.

He should have known better, the reason behind his adoption, the implications of his grandfather’s fixation on having him there with them.

“My immortality,” Sunghoon hissed, tracing cold fingers across Heeseung’s cheekbones. The glow of his blood eyes was consuming, luring him in. “My damnation will be you.”

“You won’t brand me,” Heeseung tried standing his ground despite being held down like this. His will was slipping, he’s grasping on loose sands at this point. But he won’t give in. He couldn’t.

“I knew you. Our ancestors, grandfather speak of you as if you were both a deity and a devil sent to their downfall.”

“Yet you don’t seem to cower much under me.”

Heeseung shivered at his tone. He had studied about Sunghoon when his grandpa used to come over and accompany him in the study room. In order to persevere, Sunghoon needs a blood sacrificial, a soul to keep beside him for as long as their human life allowed them. Either he takes one for himself, or some does it for him. In return for the gesture, he grants the wishes and desires of those who handed him their own bloodline for a prosperous life on earth, power, wealth. Whatever they wanted.

He was the epitome of a fallen angel capable of fulfilling even the darkest of desires. At the cost of a human’s life, the very price Heeseung’s and Yeonjun’s ancestors were willing to pay since the time they found him.

There’s a trick, though. Things don’t come easily even to the great one and only vampire to ever exist in their era: the sacrificial human must be willing to surrender themselves to him. There was a mythical way of swatting away Sunghoon’s attempt at owning a soul.

Just don’t drink his blood when he offers. Easier said than done. Sunghoon has centuries worth of experiences and charms to easily break through anyone’s will.

“I wonder,” Heeseung’s breath hitched when Sunghoon dropped down, grazing his teeth across the skin of his neck. The tips of his canines were scaring the living shit out of him. “How much will it take for you to break.”

In one moment Heeseung was glaring at the back of Sunghoon’s hair, the human ears he’s adorned, fearing for his life, a moment of stillness with the waves of cold breath against Heeseung’s nape.

In the next he’s bawling his throat out as Sunghoon plunged his fangs inside his neck, tearing through the flesh so deep blood spilt through the clasp of his lips, seeping into the shoulder of Heeseung’s nightgown.

The pain was searing hot, so painful and burning Heeseung was blinking through tears, screaming.

So Sunghoon takes him. Going against all the strict rules of familiar-human bonds by forcing it on him. Not that it matters. Sunghoon didn’t come there for that reason.

Yes. Sunghoon wasn’t brought there by fate, it seems. It wasn’t Yeonjun who found him in the mundane dark places of a dark market ready to be sold off. It was Sunghoon who found them.

The room is spinning by the time Sunghoon flips him over on his back, dizzy and drunk from the blood loss, throat scratchy after having screaming and crying for help that never came. Sunghoon has not taken a load of his blood to keep him awake and breathing, but enough that Heeseung’s unable to fight back, even when he’s drilling his hips down on Heeseung, deeper and punching the breath out of him and choking on his spit.

Somewhere along the way, Heeseung hadn’t notice Sunghoon had released his wrists, the skin there throbbing from having been constricted of blood supply for so long. Only coming to realize when Sunghoon hitched him up by the small of his back to press against his chest, swallowing his cries and letting him scratch the skin of his back, a small attempt of refusal or a distraction from the overwhelming sensations he’s experiencing, weakened by time.

Heeseung tastes his own blood, head feeling like it’s stuffed full with compact cotton balls, his mind swirling but not numb to the pain. This is wrong. It hurts, hurts so much he feels like he couldn’t breathe properly. He’s never been subjected to such assault before that he was even willing to delude himself, just making this all out as just impeccable nightmare.

But the pleasure is undeniable. The gratifying surges of electricity at every thrust Sunghoon gives him grows intoxicating, overwhelming him to the point if this were in a very contrasting setting, he would have loved it, craved it.

But it’s not. This is Sunghoon growling into his ear, dragging his teeth threateningly over his jugular and drawing out whimpers from Heeseung’s trembling lips, his every touch leaving burning trails and deep indigo bruises all over his skin.

“Do it,” Sunghoon tempts.

“No…” Heeseung hiccups as Sunghoon pried his hands away from his face, intertwining their fingers deliberately and pinning them to the bed. Heeseung tries facing away, but Sunghoon yanks his face forward, smashing their lips together and he could only take and take take.

“Please,” Heeseung blinks through his tears, fat droplets wetting his cheeks like soaked sheets. “Stop it. End this.”

“Come for me,” Sunghoon replies, his teeth baring deadly fangs clean of blood.

“Heeseung.”

And Heeseung caved in with a cry, body convulsing underneath Sunghoon’s weight as he released, Sunghoon leading him through the hazy cog in his head with soft words, encouraging if he will. His legs fall slack beside Sunghoon’s waist, Sunghoon hitching them back up as he picks up pace.

Heeseung’s body follows in the rhythm of Sunghoon’s hips, dragged over the sheet and the friction burns the skin of his back, yet he could only let out shuddery moans in response, jerking at something warm and wet spilling into him.

When Heeseung’s consciousness almost slips away, blurry from exhaustion, Sunghoon tempts his with his blood, something wet pressed against his lips. When Heeseung opens his eyes, Sunghoon has his wrist pressed to his mouth, dark thick blood seeping through the large slit he’s cut across the white skin.

“Take me, Heeseung,” Sunghoon allures, cheekbones glistening with sweat from the moonlit. “Accept me, and you will be granted with everything you desire in this world.”

Still, Heeseung is still able to slap his attempts away, surprising Sunghoon with his steel will.

“No,” affirmative. Heeseung’s eyes still burn with profound fury as they glare at him.

Sunghoon’s face darkens, his aura wafting out of him in waves of death, instilling fear further inside Heeseung even in his subconsciousness.

“Just take whatever that is given to you.”

At this, Heeseung is shocked, the phrase bringing back memories. Sunghoon takes this opportunity to flash Heeseung his childhood memories, an illusion crafted accordingly to his memories projected all over the walls of his bedroom. Heeseung gawks at the vivid motions assuming his upbringing moments.

“Stop,” he closes his eyes shut, unwilling to look back but the images run like graphic movies in his head no matter how much he’s trying to block them. “Stop! Get out of my head!”

Heeseung sees himself being alone, as a child, the isolation from his peers as the whereabouts of his family circulated the town, the death of his father that allowed his grandfather to drag him away from his mother and siblings to lock away in this godforsaken mansion, her mother following in suit from having her heartbroken, Yeonjun, the only half-brother he had come to genuinely love and depended on who is now drifted away from him.

Heeseung understands the whole point of this memory walk is to accentuate the very aspect that had shaped him into who he is now: lonely. Misunderstood. Rebellious. The unwanted child simply was taken away from his own family to be sacrificed to this very creature.

Heeseung cries, pressing balled up fists to his eyes in hopes of stopping the rewind of his memories.

“That first night I slept here, in this very same room with you, you were just there, laying bare and vulnerable with nothing but your luxury blanket and nightgown securing you from the cold. I could have easily taken you, overturn you. Make you mine,” Sunghoon softly says. Heeseung feels his icy cold fingers stroking his cheeks, flicking away his tears.

“Why did I go through all those troubles just to get you to like me?” it’s like Sunghoon is talking to himself rather than questioning him. How should he know? What’s gotten him so fixated on Heeseung that he’s willing to go to this length to be accepted?

“I want you to want me,” this’s the first time Sunghoon has ever taken a huge liking of a human, especially someone who he’s only met, but the moment their eyes met the first time Sunghoon step foot in the mansion, he was already damned.

“Don’t you want to have someone with you, at all times? To be there for you no matter the situations?” Sunghoon peels his hands away, caresses his face with a gentleness void of the callousness and aggression from before, yet the tears trickle down Heeseung’s cheeks like a river.

A solid proof of how affected he is still from his past. “You won’t ever have to be lonely. Ever again.”

“What do you want from me,” Heeseung demands, lips wobbling because he can’t take this anymore. This heartache, the pain.

“All of you,” Sunghoon says, truthfully, angrily. He swoops down for a kiss. “I want all of you.”

So Heeseung succumbs.

Soobin cracks his neck as he gets off the bed, glaring at the blood moon in its full glory up in the vast spread of the night sky, void of accompanying stars and rolling clouds.

He fingers Yeonjun’s hair absentmindedly, combing through them and untangling knots resulting from their previous tumbling in bed. Yeonjun shifts to his side, back facing him and the duvet dips down his shoulders enough for the bite marks and bruises to peek out. Soobin cards his fingers through his hair, his rabbit ears absent in the presence of his human ears.

The taste of Yeonjun’s blood is still pungent in his tongue, not truly sating his thirst but it will do for the night.

It is the holy night of the vampire, anyway. His own desires can wait.

“Took you long enough,” he says to nobody, hearing a distinct soft cry at the far end of the mansion. Where Heeseung’s room is tucked in.