Archive of Our Own

“They know we’re coming, right?” Jaeyun asks, glancing over at Heeseung as he adds to the pile of packed boxes of her belongings beside her, gnawing at her bottom lip in worry before shifting her gaze back over to the house that stands tall and, quite frankly, comically on theme in front of them.

She shouldn’t be surprised. Heeseung had made it explicitly clear that her new roommates were vampires. And he’d made it clear that they’re old vampires, centuries upon centuries old and traditional, stuck in their ways, unwilling to accept most facets of modern life and adapt to it.

It all sounded like a huge, bright red flag to her. She knows all too well what beliefs traditional vampires held about werewolves like her, and the whole point of her finding a new place to stay was to escape the pressures and expectations of upholding a role in society that she’d never once asked to be a part of.

But Heeseung had assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem, that his friends had offered her a place to stay out of sympathy and nothing else, no desire to have one less werewolf in the world. After all, they tolerated him just fine.

It hadn’t done much to reassure Jaeyun that her life wasn’t in danger, that she didn’t need to worry about her throat being ripped out the second she stepped foot on their property, but then again – she’s here, standing outside of their front door with the ornate floral pattern carved into the dark wood, and all her blood is very much still in her body, where it belongs.

“Of course they know we’re coming,” Heeseung answers simply.

Jaeyun looks up at the house – way up, up to the third floor with what seems to be an observation tower on the roof – and brings a hand up to her face, blocking the sun from her eyes so she can get a better view. “All the curtains are closed,” she points out.

“Well, they are usually sleeping this time of day, so.”

“Right,” she mutters. Somehow, she’d forgotten about that miniscule detail. It doesn’t do much to subside the uneasy feeling washing over her, all her instincts telling her to turn and run in the other direction. And she doesn’t really trust her instincts anymore, ever since they’d gone and changed on her – but she has to admit that they might be onto something, this time.

They’re in the middle of nowhere. Heeseung had to drive her nearly forty minutes out of the town they both attend university in to get here, the dirt road stretching long and winding through a forest and up a hill, and at the top of it sat the most stereotypical depiction of what Jaeyun would imagine a vampire’s house would look like, a victorian mansion with black brick walls and ivy growing through the cracks.

Not that she’s met many vampires. Or any, actually, because they’re increasingly rare, and they would have no reason to ever be in any of the circles that Jaeyun often found herself running in.

Actually, speaking of – she looks over at Heeseung again, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “How’d you meet them, anyways?”

Heeseung avoids her gaze, and gives her a vague answer of, “At a party.”

And, over the last few days, Jaeyun has come to despise most things about being an omega, but right now, she decides that she hates this part the most – the way she can smell the faint arousal rolling off of Heeseung in nauseating waves, the way she can hear the uptick in his pulse, the way it races, the way it gives up any chance he had of being subtle. “A weird vampire sex party, right?” She asks, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“No,” Heeseung says stubbornly. “A normal vampire party – that I happened to have sex with them at.”

“Gross,” Jaeyun sighs, even though she’s actually kind of relieved. No werewolf-hating vampire would have sex with a dog like Heeseung, regardless of the fact that he’s a beta, that his scent is almost undetectable most of the time and he doesn’t have any of the unfortunate quirks that Jaeyun has.

She envies Heeseung for it now, but she didn’t always. Because Jaeyun used to be a beta, or at least, she was thought to be a beta, until she woke up a few nights ago burning from the inside out and dripping onto her sheets and confused, so confused, but not nearly as confused as her roommates, her pack.

She was a late bloomer. Really late, at almost twenty-two. Everyone had assumed that she was a beta, and when it turned out she wasn’t, she wasn’t the only one disappointed by it.

They didn’t have room for any more omegas, didn’t want any more omegas. It would cause tension between the other alphas, even though the last thing she wanted was to be involved with any of them. That’s fine. Jaeyun can find a new apartment, a new pack, a whole new start. But then they told her she had to leave now, in the middle of the night, lest she risk being claimed by the newly presented alpha in the room down the hall from her who thought she smelled a little too good.

That’s fine, too. She knows that alpha well enough to be confident that he wouldn’t have acted on his impulses, because she’s been aware of his crush on her since he moved in, and he’d made no moves whatsoever – but she also knows when she’s clearly not wanted somewhere, and had no plans to overstay her welcome.

So, she spent two nights getting the worst sleep of her life on Heeseung’s double bed in his bachelor pad, the bed that feels like it’s made of nothing but cardboard, and they’d done their best to find her a new apartment, but with such short notice, and such a small amount of money in her bank account, they’d had no luck whatsoever.

And then, hesitantly, Heeseung had told her that he had two friends who lived out of town and had tons of space, and that, until she was able to find a dorm or an apartment, she could stay in one of their guest bedrooms. It sounded almost too good to be true – because it was.

The catch, of course, came about thirty seconds later, after Jaeyun had already expressed her excitement at the idea. Heeseung had, gently, like he was afraid she might attack him if he delivered the news too loudly, told her that they were vampires.

Alright. That’s less fine, but not a complete dealbreaker. Jaeyun really needs a place to stay. She loves Heeseung, but she hates his mattress, and the way he stays up all night shouting at his computer, and the way he sings loudly in the shower first thing in the morning, and the way his room is so undecorated that it kind of feels like an asylum, and she just – she needs her own space.

This house has space for her. She’d be a fool to turn it down, even if it comes with some risks of its own.

“What kind of sex? Like, really kinky? Did they bite you?”

Heeseung stares blankly at her for a long moment, unblinking, brows furrowed. “Why would you ever want to know that?”

“So I know if they’re into drinking the blood of unsuspecting werewolves,” she hisses.

“I wasn’t unsuspecting.”

“But they did bite you.”

“A little,” Heeseung shrugs. “But, and this is just a suggestion, how about if you’re so concerned about what they might do during sex, just – don’t have sex with them?”

And Jaeyun has no plans to, not with her new, unfamiliar body that she’s still getting used to, so she doesn’t even dignify him with a response. She has no interest in what sex is like for omegas, despite her biology now being hard-wired to bare her neck and turn over to show her belly to anyone that her traitorous instincts tell her would take good care of her. She doesn’t want to be cared for, doesn’t want to be treated like something delicate, doesn’t want to just lay there and take it. She wants to keep having the same old meaningless sex she’d been having as a beta, and she doesn’t want anything to change.

Really, she doesn’t. It’s just that – well, it’s just that not all of her seems to know that.

As a beta, she only ever slept with omegas, with those who were more on the submissive side. She was never interested in anything else, never had a desire to explore different dynamics with different partners. Now, though, it seems to be all she can think about, no matter how hard she tries to convince herself that it wasn’t actually what she wants, but rather, her new body planting new ideas in her easily-persuaded mind.

Regardless of any of that, she’s not going to be having sex with any vampires, whether or not they’re biters, whether or not they’re cool with werewolves. She’s just going to live with two of them, in this creepy house, and focus her energy on trying not to die.

Maybe it’s not much of an improvement, compared to her last living situation. Maybe she would have been better off getting torn apart by knot-headed alphas than becoming a vampire’s mid-evening snack.

But it’s the best option she’s got, and she’s not going to cower away from it in fear. That’s just not who she is, no matter what anyone – even herself – has to say about it.

🩸

Jaeyun thinks she’s gotten over the strangeness of the whole situation by the time Heeseung has helped her unpack the few boxes she’d brought with her, by the time her clothes are filling the once empty dresser they’d left for her, by the time her bed is made.

(Her bed is, by the looks of it, brand new and never used. She assumes they likely ordered it once they knew she was coming, and she wonders if there was a coffin in here before, or some sort of perch to hang upside down from like a bat.)

She thinks that she can get used to this place, to the dust and cobwebs she’d spotted in every corner as Heeseung had quietly led her through the house and up the stairs, telling her that Jay and Sunghoon would give her a tour once they were awake. And she thinks she could even manage to get used to that, to the quiet that fills the house during the day, to all the curtains being drawn except for, rather thoughtfully, the ones in her room.

And then Heeseung leaves, with a promise to call and check in on her once he was done his afternoon shift, and the quiet becomes instantly stifling, every mysterious creak of the floorboards outside of her room putting her on high alert, wondering if it was the alleged Jay or Sunghoon coming to slash her throat with their claws – do vampires have claws? – and bleed her dry on the fancy vintage rug that sits under her bed frame.

She’s a little too on edge to leave her room, to go explore the house and see if she could find any evidence of her new roommates being bloodthirsty killers, but she does manage to crack the door open a few times throughout the afternoon and early evening, wondering which of the closed doors lining the hallway they were behind, when they would wake up, if they would come looking for her once they did –

She gasps as the door at the other end of the hall from her creaks open, panic overtaking her critical thinking skills as a tall woman with mid-length dark hair comes into view. She has her back turned to where Jaeyun is peering through the gap in her door, so she can’t see her face, but she can see her hands as she pulls her own door shut, her long, slender fingers adorned with claws wrapping around the doorknob and turning it.

The sun isn’t even fully down yet, not even close. Jaeyun thought she had more time, but now the woman – the vampire, she reminds herself – is turning around, and –

She pulls the door shut, wincing when it slams and echoes through the room and, surely, the hallway on the other side of it.

For a while, there’s only silence, and that silence remains completely unbroken, except for Jaeyun’s frantic panting, until there’s a knock on her door. She hadn’t even heard footsteps. She holds her breath, even though she knows that she’d been seen, that she’s not fooling anyone.

After several long seconds, a voice, deep and honey-smooth and hesitant, rings out around her. It doesn’t sound like she’s speaking from the other side of the door, but rather, like she’s speaking directly in Jaeyun’s ear. She knows she’s alone in the room, because she looks behind her and checks, and deduces it to be some sort of vampire ability of projection – and that does nothing to make her feel any less unsettled.

“May I come in?”

Jaeyun freezes up, and hesitates. She knows vampires can’t enter someone else’s house or room without being invited – but does that apply, here? This is their house, but Jaeyun’s room now, and she’s not sure how muddied the lines can be before the vampire rules just give up and let them roam freely. Was the transition of ownership instant? Does she have to sign a lease? If she says yes, can the vampire at her door come and go at will?

“If you’re in there,” the voice starts again, almost stilted, and clearly just humouring her attempt to hide, “And you’d like to come down later for a tour, feel free. And if you’re hungry, we filled the fridge for you. We weren't sure what to get, because neither of us have been to a grocery store in quite some time, but – if there’s anything in particular that you’d like, just let us know.”

And – huh. Jaeyun, admittedly, feels a little silly now, crouched in front of her door, gripping the gold doorknob like she was planning on holding it shut just in case the vampire on the other side decided to use brute force to push it open.

She reminds herself that she’s here for her own safety, that they’d offered her that, to keep her from being left with unruly alphas or having nowhere to go. She’s not a prisoner, nor is she someone who has fallen into a trap. She was invited, and she accepted of her own free will, and if they want her to leave, it’s very likely that they’ll just tell her that instead of draining her blood in her sleep.

This is as close to a normal living situation with normal roommates as Jaeyun can get right now, so she might as well treat it like one.

She cracks the door open just enough to see through with one eye, letting it flit over the features of the vampire standing there. Despite knowing full well that this isn’t the case, the first thing that Jaeyun notices is how young she looks. If she didn’t know any better, she would think they were the same age, that she could just be any one of Jaeyun’s classmates.

Except – she’s beautiful, almost unnaturally so, her features simultaneously delicate and striking, enticing and uncanny. Her skin is perfectly smooth and pale, not a laugh line or an acne scar in sight. (Unlike Jaeyun’s own skin, which she’d ripped open just this morning in Heeseung’s bathroom, wanting to get all of her whitehead popping urges out of the way before she became too afraid to draw blood in her new home.) Her eyes are a deep shade of brown, but Jaeyun can see traces of red in them, and knows from her frantic Google searching on the drive over that they turn red when a vampire is hungry. Her lips are a shade of deep pinkish-red, but they almost look like they were stained that way from years and years of drinking blood. Her hair is shiny and not at all lifeless, which surprises Jaeyun, because she’s lifeless, undead, and therefore she’d expected that she’d look it, too.

And, really. Jaeyun had opened the door with the intention of not being rude, of greeting her politely and showing her that she was set on being a good roommate, but after several long seconds of gawking at her, she realizes that goal is far out of reach now.

“Thank you,” she eventually manages, quiet and a little bit pathetic.

A lot pathetic, actually. And it gets impossibly more so as soon as the woman – the vampire, she reminds her useless empty brain – smiles at her, sharp fangs peeking out from behind her lips, almost shining despite there being no light for them to reflect off of, because Jaeyun isn’t opening the door enough to let out the dim light coming from the setting sun.

She yelps helplessly and slams the door again, this time directly in the vampire’s face, and she feels bad about it instantly, but not enough so to open it and apologize and start this whole interaction over again.

It’s just your instincts, Heeseung had told her. Werewolves and vampires historically don’t make good friends. Your instincts are going to tell you to avoid them, but they haven’t actually been our enemies for like, centuries now. They’re harmless.

And Jaeyun hates her instincts, both her new ones and sometimes her old ones, so she wants to believe Heeseung, really, she does. Maybe they are harmless, but Jaeyun’s heart races for several minutes after she closes and locks the door again, and she doesn’t think she’s going to be strong enough to fight against this particular instinct, because it’s one that feels more like self-preservation than anything else.

Her heart races, thumps loudly in her chest, pushes blood through her veins, and she wonders if somewhere in the house, they can hear it.

🩸

A few days pass, and Jaeyun manages to go all of them without seeing either of her roommates, not even once, not even in passing.

She hardly leaves her room, except to go down into the kitchen – and only once the sun is highest in the sky, when she’s sure that there’s no chance of either vampires being awake – and check the fridge later that first night, when she can no longer ignore her hunger in favour of her safety. She opens the fridge door, and in what must be a joke of some kind, she finds a shelf full of raw meat among all the bags of blood. She stares at it mournfully for a while before ordering a pizza.

Jaeyun adjusts. She makes the best of what she has, which is days filled with silence and nights filled with listening to the voices of her cohabitors when they emerge from their rooms and spend their nights doing god knows what.

(Although she can guess what it is, sometimes, based on the noises she hears echoing from their rooms, and she hates the way she has to put on headphones and blast music just to keep heat from stirring in her gut every single time.)

She begs Heeseung over the phone to come visit on his day off, and he does, but he spends all of it trying to convince her to give Jay and Sunghoon a chance, to at least introduce herself.

“I can’t,” Jaeyun whines, letting her head fall into her hands, curling in on herself. “They’re scary.”

“You haven’t even met them,” Heeseung points out.

“I met one of them, and she was scary,” Jaeyun argues.

“Oh yeah? Which one? What was her name?” Heeseung asks, disbelief dripping from his tone.

“I didn’t catch it,” she says stubbornly. “It was either Jay or Sunghoon.”

“Yun,” Heeseung sighs. “They’re both perfectly nice. I actually think you’d like them, if you gave them a chance –”

“Heeseung, they’re like – they’re going to eat me.”

“Not unless you ask nicely.”

“Shut up,” Jaeyun hisses, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

“You know,” Heeseung starts after a long pause, likely with the intention of making her realize how ridiculous she’s being. She has no such intention of realizing anything close to that, but she lets him carry on anyway, “You’re literally a predator, too. They’re not the only ones.”

Jaeyun feels her lips pull into a pout without her permission, feels herself shrink even more, making herself small, docile, delicate. God. Heeseung’s only a beta, and even his scolding is enough to have her cowering. She straightens her spine, takes a deep breath, and tries to come up with anything to say that isn’t, but I’m an omega. Because she’d really rather not say that.

“What’s this really about?” Heeseung asks gently. “You’re acting even weirder than usual.”

Jaeyun manages to huff out a quiet laugh, and shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she insists, but then she feels it – the truth, rising like bile in her throat, emboldened by the presence of her best friend, someone she trusts implicitly, someone who knows her inside and out. Heeseung had been there through every stage of her life, and had understood her, and surely, that wasn’t going to change now that she’s an omega and he remains a beta. “I think I just… I’ve been feeling weird, ever since…” she trails off, not wanting to put it into words.

Heeseung just hums, and nods, like he understands without her needing to explain – because of course he does. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an adjustment.”

“Yeah,” Jaeyun breathes, and it sounds almost relieved. “I thought I knew what I liked, what I wanted, and I was okay with it, but now it’s like – it’s like my wires just got all crossed and now I can’t stop thinking about getting fucked within an inch of my life.”

It’s blunt, her phrasing, but Heeseung doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. They've had much more explicit conversations in much more blunt forms, after all, and Jaeyun is relieved to see that that level of comfort hasn’t changed along with everything else. “And when you thought you were a beta, you weren’t into that?”

“I’ve only ever dated omegas,” Jaeyun reminds him, even though he knows. “I would – sometimes, Sunoo would fuck me, but it was mostly just really cute when she tried.” Heeseung wrinkles up his nose, clearly not interested in discussing her sex life with their mutual friend, but Jaeyun isn’t deterred, tacking on, “And Jungwon only ever wanted me to peg him. You guys are gonna make a great couple, honestly.”

And that’s definitely enough for Heeseung, who’s allergic to both discussing his feelings for Jungwon and to thinking about Jaeyun’s past relationship with him. He shakes his head so violently that Jaeyun hears his teeth clack together.

“So,” he interrupts, “The problem is that you want the kinky, bloody vampire sex.”

“No,” Jaeyun says, appalled at the suggestion. “That's all – unrelated, I just –”

“That was unrelated? Why even bring it up, then?”

“To rub it in your face,” Jaeyun admits.

Heeseung sighs, long and mournful. “What is the problem, then?”

“The problem,” Jaeyun starts, her voice wavering ever so slightly, “Is that I feel all weak now. Like I can't protect myself, like – like I need someone else to do it.”

“Why do you think that?” Heeseung asks, not judgmentally, just out of genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Jaeyun says helplessly. “Maybe I’m just – maybe I’m wired that way now.”

“Do you think the other omegas we know are wired that way?”

“No,” Jaeyun says automatically, thinking of Jungwon and Sunoo, who never took shit from anyone, who commanded every room they walked into just by existing in it. They were pretty and enticing – something Jaeyun’s not sure she’s ever really been, at least, not in the way an omega should be – but they were also a lot more than that. She’d never reduce them to just their biology.

And, okay. She gets the point Heeseung is trying to make.

“It’s different, though,” she sighs.

“Why? Because you thought you were a beta?”

“Because I was a beta. I felt like a beta. And I was fine with it. And now I feel like – like I’m expected to act a certain way.”

“You only need to act like yourself,” Heeseung assures her.

“But what if – what if this is myself? What if I like being… I don’t know. Taken care of?”

“Then that’s fine, too,” he says easily.

“It’s degrading,” Jaeyun huffs.

“To who? Yourself?”

“To omegas,” she says, entirely unconvincingly.

“The only thing that would be degrading to omegas,” Heeseung starts, speaking slowly and deliberately, like he’s dealing with a child, “Would be if you refused to be who you want to be, because you think it would make you lesser. If you feel like being a pillow princess from time to time, if you want the hot vampire sex, then whatever. Who cares?”

“You sound like a perv,” Jaeyun tells him, dodging the topic, failing miserably when Heeseung doesn’t take the bait. “I’m not saying I want to sleep with them,” she adds.

“Okay, sure.”

“I don’t,” she repeats, even though she kind of can’t stop thinking about the fact that Heeseung had slept with them. She wonders what it was like, what they’re like, how it felt to be with the only other creature that’s as strong as them, that could kill them if they wanted to – and they have, historically, and yet Jaeyun still can’t stop thinking about them. “I don’t even know them.”

“Okay, sure,” Heeseung repeats, sounding even less convinced.

And her words are true, she doesn’t know them, but deep down, Jaeyun knows that small detail has made no difference in her inability to stop thinking about them, to stop imagining them. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees flashes of blood soaking her white sheets, of sharp nails digging into skin, of being taken apart by tall, unnaturally beautiful women with hungry red eyes. She was fantasizing about women – vampires – that she couldn’t even bear to look at, that she was kind of afraid of, and she’d never felt more pathetic in her life.

Jaeyun can admit that she wants to be taken care of. She’s making peace with it. What she can’t admit, though, is that her idea of being taken care of has nothing to do with wanting to be treated like something delicate, something breakable – and has far more to do with wanting to be recognized as delicate, and then broken anyway.

And now she lives with two of the only creatures that could well and truly break her. And she can’t bear to look at them, because she knows they’ll be able to see – or sense, or smell – her want, her desire.

So it’s for the best, that she keep her distance. She’d really rather not have to move back in with Heeseung.

🩸

And then, one week into her time at her new home, she turns on her shower with the intention of washing away the sweaty evidence of her most recent dream about two vaguely faceless vampires railing her into the mattress – and finds that the water is ice cold, and that it doesn’t warm up in the slightest, even after she stands there for several minutes waiting for it to do so.

Jaeyun’s not helpless. She’s smart, and capable, and that hasn’t changed in the time since she presented. But she hasn’t got even the faintest clue of how to fix this.

She calls Heeseung first, even though she resents having to ask for help from him, but it goes to voicemail three times, and she groans in frustration. She calls Jungwon, and then Sunoo, but – nothing.

She can’t be sure if they’re ignoring her, or if her calls aren’t going through, because when Heeseung said that Jay and Sunghoon are traditional vampires, he meant that they live in an area with hardly any cell service, and certainly no Wi-Fi. Jaeyun spends most of her days sitting in front of her open window, holding her phone up in an attempt to get her data to work so she can mindlessly scroll in peace.

It’s still early in the morning, because Jaeyun has been having some trouble sleeping. The sun hasn’t even come up yet, so when she slides on her slippers and tiptoes her way down the stairs, she knows that they’re somewhere at the bottom of them, that they can hear her coming.

Sure enough, she peeks her head around the doorframe to the living room, and into view comes two vampires, sitting on their red velvet couch side by side, flipping through pages of their respective books and pretending that they aren’t well aware of her presence.

“Hi,” Jaeyun says, keeping her voice quiet, because some part of her is afraid that they actually haven’t noticed her, that that was the only reason they hadn’t kicked her out yet.

When they look up, and their eyes fall on her, Jaeyun feels a slight chill shoot down her spine. The one she’d already met closes her book first, while the other just peers at her over the top of hers. Jaeyun dares a glance at her.

Her hair is shorter, cut bluntly right above her shoulders. She has claws, too, but they’re not nearly as sharp, or as threatening. Her skin is a little less pale, a little more tan and flushed, and it all makes her look slightly more human, deceptively so. She’s impeccably dressed – they both are, actually, their blouses perfectly pressed and their skirts perfectly pleated. Her features are sharper, cutting right through Jaeyun, like she’s sizing her up, her lips quirking into a small, smug smile. She’s beautiful, too, in that same uncanny way, but she does seem a little closer to being real, like she hasn’t been a vampire for nearly as long.

Jaeyun doesn’t know if that’s true. She doesn’t know them. But now, she’s standing face to face with them, and she can no longer deny that she’d very much like to get to know them.

“Hello, Jaeyun,” the paler one greets, and she fights a losing battle against another chill, wringing her hands together anxiously as she waits for – something, but she’s not sure what. Permission, maybe? Instructions? “Please, sit.”

She sits, rushing over to the chair that the vampire was gesturing at, plopping herself down in it and folding her hands in her lap, shoulders slumping, trying to make herself small.

“We were convinced we’d never meet you properly,” the one with the short hair says, sounding amused by the idea of her hiding from them for a whole week. Jaeyun can’t blame her – it is pretty amusing, she supposes.

“Sorry,” Jaeyun manages. “I was – I was just uh, adjusting, I guess.”

“That’s alright. Now we’ve officially met,” the paler one says easily, reaching over to the table beside her, grabbing her wine glass full of – right. Not wine. She takes a long sip, her eyes never leaving Jaeyun as she does, and her lips are stained a darker red as she pulls the glass away. Definitely not wine. “I’m Sunghoon.”

“Jay,” the other chimes in with a vaguely disinterested nod in her direction.

“Nice to meet you,” Jaeyun mumbles, reaching up to anxiously tuck a piece of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear.

“Is there anything we can do for you, Jaeyun?” Sunghoon asks politely.

“Um, yeah, actually. The shower in my room isn’t working?” Jaeyun says, unsure of why it comes out as a question. “The water isn’t warming up.”

“I can fix it,” Jay tells her, attempting to get to her feet.

“Absolutely not,” Sunghoon sighs, reaching an arm out and stopping Jay from moving, forcing her back down onto the couch. “Sorry. Jay thinks she can fix everything by herself. I’ll call a plumber tomorrow.”

“No worries,” she says softly, plastering on a polite smile. “Is there – is there another bathroom I can use?”

“You can use mine. Just make sure you open the window after,” Jay says. “I don’t want my room to smell like wet dog all night.”

Jaeyun can only manage a weak laugh.

“She’s joking,” Sunghoon assures her.

“Sure,” Jaeyun shrugs. “I’m used to not leaving a scent anywhere, anyways, if you were worried about that. My last roommates were pretty, uh, territorial,” she finishes lamely, once again tucking that stray strand of her hair behind her ear, and then doing it again when it immediately slides back into her face.

“They just wouldn’t stop peeing in your shoes?” Jay jokes, and Sunghoon chokes out a laugh, her sharp teeth on display until she turns her head as if to shamefully hide her amusement.

Jaeyun forces another small chuckle, too, even though she can recognize when she’s being made fun of. She’s learned that it’s usually just better to go along with it, but – she can’t help but correct the record anyway.

“They wouldn’t stop trying to rip my throat out every time I left my room, actually,” Jaeyun clarifies, and a pleased sort of feeling washes over her as she watches them both snap their mouths shut, sufficiently silenced by her jarring statement. “I was the smallest beta, so – easy target, I guess. I think a few of them wanted to eat me. And then I presented as an omega, and it was… different, but still the same general idea. And then they kicked me out.”

“Seriously?” Sunghoon asks, her thick eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I’ll never understand the way you mutts function,” Jay huffs. “I thought you were supposed to be like, a pack, or something.”

Sunghoon nudges Jay’s side. “She probably doesn’t appreciate being called a mutt.”

Jay, to Jaeyun’s surprise, actually looks a little guilty. “Force of habit,” she mumbles, dropping her gaze down to pick at the skin around her nail.

“We’re still working on the species sensitivity training course,” Sunghoon says gently, leaning a bit closer to Jaeyun with a sly grin, like they were in on a joke together.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Jaeyun says quickly, almost frantically. “You don’t have to like, change how you live or talk or anything while I’m here. I’m tougher than I look,” she insists, even though she’s not entirely sure that that’s true.

Sunghoon laughs again, but it doesn’t seem like it’s at her expense, this time. “I bet you are,” she says. “We just want you to feel comfortable here.”

“I already do,” Jaeyun says simply, getting up from her chair, watching as Jay and Sunghoon’s eyes follow her movement. She feels a little bit studied by them, a little bit observed in a way that reminds her that she really isn’t the only predator – if she can even be called that – under this roof. “You’re not going to drain me of all my blood in my sleep, right?” She asks after a moment, sliding her socked feet back into her slippers, eyeing them warily.

Jay’s gaze slides over to Sunghoon, who meets it with a small amused grin, and then she looks at Jaeyun again, her expression smug and taunting. “You’re not my type,” she says coolly. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jaeyun says, genuinely reassured, despite the fact that they’re definitely still mocking her, despite the fact that she’d technically just been rejected. She’ll take the mockery, and the rejection, so long as her life isn’t in actual danger – anything is an improvement to her last living situation. “Unless you’re about to make another wet dog joke.”

She hadn’t meant for there to be any sort of double meaning behind her words, but for some reason, once they’re out, her face burns with embarrassment. Sunghoon snickers, her head tilting to rest against the wall behind the couch, her gaze drifting up and down Jaeyun without trying to disguise it for anything other than what it was – interest.

Jaeyun doesn’t know what that means, but when Jay looks at her too, it’s all over her expression, too – and hers is even more blatant, even as it walks the line of mockery in the way that everything Jay says seemingly does.

She doesn’t know what to do with it, even though she recognizes it, even though the meaning of the look is gradually starting to dawn on her. She just stands there, frozen under their red eyed gazes, unable to do more than anxiously gnaw on her bottom lip and shift her weight from side to side, waiting for one of them to free her from this limbo, to offer to show her to the other shower, to rip her throat out, to do something, anything.

And then – well. Jaeyun is still getting used to her fangs. As a beta, she didn’t have any, because she didn’t need them, because she’d never be expected to give someone a mating bite. When she presented as an omega, her teeth ached for a whole day, and suddenly, there they were. Sharpened canine teeth, made for tearing through flesh, for claiming.

She often forgets they’re there entirely, and she forgets that she needs to put in effort to keep them from coming out in times of excitement, or stress.

She hisses in pain as the skin of her lip slices open, and brings her hand up to her mouth, eyes going wide when her fingers come back stained red, when she feels a thin trail of blood drip down her chin. She blinks, stunned, and the duration of the blink is all the time it takes for Jay to cross the room, no longer held back by Sunghoon. Jay’s in front of her, mere inches from her face, and Jaeyun wants to scream, or shove her away, but she’s paralyzed with fear, with the instinct to cower, or – even more unsettlingly, the urge to turn her head and bare her neck.

“How cute,” Jay coos, bringing a hand up to cup Jaeyun’s jaw, holding her in place, her thumb swiping across her lip. “Sunghoon, come look. She has her teeth out.”

Sunghoon just hums from her spot on the couch, feigning disinterest, but Jaeyun can still feel her gaze all over her.

“You’re just a pup, aren’t you?” Jay asks tauntingly, using the same blood covered thumb to press into one of her fangs. “They’re so small. And dull.”

Jaeyun feels a shiver wrack through her again. Jay’s tone, snide and condescending, and her teasing, increasingly cruel, should be making her angry, should be making her want to rip her throat out with her teeth. And it is, but it’s also making heat gather in her gut, making her feel warm all over as her blood boils where it’s pumping through her veins, making slick inexplicably gather in her underwear.

Biologically, Jaeyun isn’t built to react this way to anything other than an alpha werewolf. This reaction to Jay’s sudden proximity, to her degrading words, doesn’t make any sense – and yet, it feels completely natural, completely in line with what Jaeyun’s instincts want for her. That should make her want to fight against it. She’s not sure it does.

“Sunghoon,” Jay urges again, her tone sharper this time. “Look.”

“You’re scaring her,” Sunghoon points out, but she stands anyway, appearing suddenly in front of Jaeyun faster than her eyes can even process.

“She likes it,” Jay counters. “Can’t you smell it? Wet dog.”

Jaeyun whines, her small attempt at fighting back even though she doesn’t really want her to stop, not at all. And this must be obvious to Jay, because she just laughs at her, pushing a little harder on her fang. It still doesn’t break the skin, and Jaeyun feels humiliation wrack through her.

“I meant it when I said you’re not my type,” Jay tells her, then tilts her head to the side, towards Sunghoon. “But you’re her type. She just won't admit it.”

“You like her, too,” Sunghoon argues quietly.

“Maybe,” Jay admits. “You’re not my type, pup, but maybe I like you anyway. You must be a special little mutt.”

“Jay,” Sunghoon chides, hooking her chin over her shoulder, giving Jaeyun a good view of both of them, their cheeks pressed together, their red eyes and their considerably sharper fangs peeking slightly out of their mouths. Her gaze flickers down, and she feels the satisfaction they both get out of it, feels the air get impossibly thicker with understanding – understanding about where this was going, about what was going to happen, about what Jaeyun was wanting from them. “Don’t call her that. She’s a pretty one.”

“Please,” Jaeyun manages, but Jay’s thumb is still in her mouth and her fangs are still out, so it comes out with a thick lisp, more of a pweathe than anything else.

“Pretty puppy,” Jay agrees, “But too dumb to even talk. Isn’t that right?”

Jaeyun attempts to shake her head, and the movement has her fang catching on Jay’s thumb, finally slicing through the skin after all the teasing she’d done. Jay hisses in pain, and Jaeyun tastes blood on her tongue – whose blood, she’s not sure, because Jay doesn’t actually have any of her own – and it makes her dizzy, although she’s not sure whether it’s with fear or lust.

“Come on, Jaeyun,” Jay goads, and she doesn’t know what she’s asking her for, but she suddenly wants nothing more than to give it to her. “Tell us what we can do for you. We just want you to be comfortable,” she echoes Sunghoon’s earlier words mockingly, malice dripping from every single one.

Jaeyun should probably be frightened. She is frightened, a little bit, but – but she’s not about to break. She’s not about to cower away. She wants this, and she knows they can sense that wanting, can feel it, can smell it on her. What she’d been fearing all week – that is, walking into their trap and watching it fall into place and lock her in there – had happened, but Jaeyun knows they aren’t going to hurt her.

They’re going to give her exactly what she wants, but only if she can build the nerve to ask for it.

Jaeyun’s got a lot of nerve. She always has, and no change in her biology has taken that from her.

“Kiss me,” she gasps out, and it all happens just as quickly as she’d appeared in front of her – Jay surges forward, crashing into Jaeyun without putting away her own fangs, and she feels them slice through the already partially healed skin of her lip as their mouths move together, reopening the cut and enabling dollops of her blood to drip onto her chin as Jay greedily licks them up.

“She tastes good,” Jay mutters after swiping her tongue along the blood pooling on her bottom lip, moving to mouth at her jaw so she can make eye contact with Sunghoon, who is still standing behind her, hands gripping Jay’s hips like she was ready to pull her away at the first sign of real discomfort from Jaeyun. “For a mutt.”

Jaeyun pants out a pathetic whimper, her features screwing up – in pain, or in pleasure, she’s not sure, because Jay has moved to her neck, her sharp fangs pressing into her pulse point. The slightest movement from either of them would have them puncturing the skin, and then Jay could drink from her, this virtual stranger with her life in her hands, under her teeth, in her veins.

“Jay, no,” Sunghoon says firmly, and then Jay is gone, because she’s pulled her away forcefully enough to have both of them hitting the wall a few feet behind them with a bang that snaps Jaeyun almost entirely out of her trance. “She’s just a puppy, remember?” She mutters in Jay’s ear as she reaches up to cup her jaw, and it’s clearly only meant to be heard by her, but Jaeyun is aware now, cognizant and mildly disappointed by the interruption.

“I’m – I’m not –”

“Come on, Hoon,” Jay practically purrs, tilting her head back to rest on Sunghoon’s shoulder, putting a hand on her cheek and flashing her blood stained teeth at her in a predatory smile. “She wants it. She’s practically begging for it.”

Jaeyun glances down at her blue silk pyjama top, the way the material has a few drops of blood seeping into it, the way the top button is undone without her being able to trace how exactly it got that way.

“You could have hurt her,” Sunghoon scolds. “I’m sorry, she’s – she’s not very good at controlling herself.”

Jaeyun feels her pulse pick up, feels a warm flush spread across her skin, but she can’t bring herself to find words, to express just how much she wouldn’t mind being hurt by Jay, by either of them. She’d just met them, doesn’t really know them, but she can tell that they’d hurt her just right, that they wouldn’t do it with any intention of causing real lasting damage – if they even could. Jaeyun is tougher than she looks.

It goes completely silent for a long moment, and then Jay says, slow and full of meaning, “You hear that?”

Sunghoon glances at Jaeyun, then back at Jay, and she knows they were listening to the pace of her heart, and she watches the movement of her throat as Sunghoon swallows, and nods.

“She’s into it,” Jay declares.

“I’m into it,” Jaeyun says weakly, finally finding her words, and really meaning them.

“Are you?” Sunghoon asks. “All of it?”

“All of it,” Jaeyun confirms. “Everything.”

She kind of needs it, if she’s being honest. Jay had been touching her like she wasn’t afraid of breaking her, but she’d also been giving her the attention, the exact type of care that Jaeyun had been looking for. She can handle it. She’s tough.

“Okay,” Sunghoon says, and then promptly tightens her grip on Jay, contradicting her verbal acceptance of the situation at hand. “Jaeyun, has anyone ever drank your blood before?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you know the risks?”

She shakes her head again.

“Then this isn’t happening tonight,” Sunghoon says, and Jaeyun is momentarily confused, because it’s seven a.m., and then – right. Vampires. One would think she would remember that just fine now of all times, but her head is kind of spinning. “We’ll talk about it in the morning, once we’ve all had time to think.”

Jaeyun isn’t going to be thinking about anything in the next twelve or so hours. She’ll probably just sit in a dark room, rocking back and forth in the corner, desperately replaying every moment of Jay kissing her and touching her and almost biting her while Sunghoon watched, holy shit –

“You never let me have any fun,” Jay says through a childish pout.

“I never let you murder unsuspecting humans, you mean.”

“She’s not a human,” Jay points out in annoyance. “And I wouldn’t have killed her.”

“You could have. She’s just a little one,” Sunghoon sighs, and Jaeyun kind of hates the way they’re talking about her like she isn’t standing right there, the way they’re making it clear that they think of her as less than them. She hates it, except – her palms are sweating a bit, and she’s pretty sure she’s completely soaked through her underwear at this point.

God. She’s all kinds of fucked up.

Her attention is caught again by Sunghoon releasing her grip on Jay, hesitantly so, like she’s ready to restrain her again at the first sign of movement towards Jaeyun. Jay crosses her arms, and slumps back down onto the couch, her posture not at all what Jaeyun would expect of a vampire as intimidating as her.

She knows the moment is over, but it still thrums through her, even as Sunghoon puts a gentle guiding hand on her back and tells her that she can use her shower, clearly not trusting Jay to have her in her room without disaster occuring. Jaeyun’s hands are shaking a bit, and she feels like a livewire ready to spark, all of her pent-up energy now having nowhere to go. Her teeth itch, a bit, like they’re aching to bite down on flesh and muscle.

“I’m not… I’m not that little,” Jaeyun manages eventually, stepping into Sunghoon’s room, letting her close the door gently behind her. “I’m an omega, but I’m not…”

“I know,” Sunghoon almost coos at her, contrasting her confirmation that she doesn’t think of Jaeyun like that. “But you’re not as strong as us. Certainly not as strong as Jay. She’s…” she trails off for a moment, almost in consideration, “Younger than I am. Still reckless, and dangerous.”

“How much younger?” Jaeyun asks.

“Quite a few years,” Sunghoon answers vaguely, leading her through the very well-decorated room to the attached bathroom, Jaeyun straining her neck to look around and take in every detail. There is a bed, not a coffin or a perch, which she finds noteworthy. Every inch of the room is decorated with art – she’s pretty sure she sees several pieces of pottery on display that look like they were made before modern society even existed. It’s what she would expect, from a vampire like Sunghoon. “I turned her. She was almost dead, when I found her. I wasn’t sure if the bite would even take, if she was strong enough to handle it, but – it did, and she was.”

“I’m strong enough to handle it,” Jaeyun asserts, then pauses. “Not – not that I want you to turn me. I’m fine with being a mutt. Can… can you bite someone without turning them?”

“Yes,” Sunghoon says, and closes the bathroom door, too. Jaeyun certainly feels cornered, but she doesn’t feel afraid. “There’s quite a few steps to it. As long as we leave blood in your body, you’ll remain as you are. But I don’t trust Jay to leave blood in your body.”

“You guys drank from Heeseung, didn’t you?”

“I drank from Heeseung,” Sunghoon points out, and if Jaeyun didn’t know any better, she’d think her cheeks were turning a little pink. “Jay just cleans up my mess, but any more than that, and…” she trails off. “I shouldn’t have let that go on for so long. I’m sorry. Are you feeling okay?”

Jaeyun nods, a little too eagerly. “I’m great,” she squeaks out, then clears her throat. “I’m all good. Really. I… I liked it.”

Sunghoon smiles at her, soft and almost understanding, but there’s traces of pity in it. Her stomach flips anyway, likely a symptom of being in a confined space with undoubtedly the most beautiful woman she’s ever laid eyes on.

And, according to Jay, Jaeyun is her type. She doesn’t quite know what that means.

“You – you’ve um, you’ve slept with werewolves before,” Jaeyun attempts, her voice now coming out meek and shy.

“I have,” Sunghoon confirms.

“And they lived to tell the tale.”

“Of course.”

“And you – you like them,” she says, and then clarifies, “Like – werewolves. Like me.”

Sunghoon nods, her jaw clenching a bit as she busies herself leaning over the tub and turning on the ornate gold faucet. “I don’t technically have a shower installed in here,” she tells her, completely redirecting the topic. “But you can use the bath for as long as you want. Do you want me to bring you some clean pyjamas for when you’re finished?”

Jaeyun looks down at her blood stained shirt again. “Sure, but –”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Sunghoon repeats, turning to face her, her arms crossing over her chest – Jaeyun has to tear her eyes back up to her face so quickly it actually makes her a little dizzy – and her expression turning almost stern. She pauses, for a moment, and then says, “Or, tonight, for you. Take the day to think about what you really want, and what you think you can handle.”

Jaeyun bristles ever so slightly, her brows furrowing, her lips pursing together in dissatisfaction. “I know what I can handle,” she argues stubbornly.

“Heeseung said you presented less than two weeks ago. And you just got thrown out of your pack, Jaeyun. I’ve known many werewolves over many, many years, and I know what that does to them. You’re weak right now, yes, but you won’t be forever. You just need some time to… grow into yourself. There’s nothing wrong with it, but for now, you need to be careful.”

And Jaeyun may have new instincts now, a new way of being wired, but some things will always be true about her, a built-in facet of her personality. One of them, much to the chagrin of everyone in her life, is that the moment she’s told that she can’t do something, it becomes her mission to make it happen. At her earliest convenience.

Which, if Sunghoon is implying what she thinks she’s implying, will be as soon as she grows into herself, whatever that means. Jaeyun will just have to find a way to convince Sunghoon that she’d accelerated that process, that something miraculous had taken place over the next twelve hours.

🩸

By the time the sun goes down, and she plants herself down on the couch to wait for her roommates to wake up, Jaeyun knows exactly what she wants – but, then again, she’d known the moment she found herself in Jay’s hold, and maybe even before that, from the first moment she stepped foot on their property and felt that she was on the verge of something that she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist diving head first into.

Jaeyun wants someone who can break her, just a little, just the way she wants. Sunghoon and Jay can do that. They can, but they seem unwilling to. It’s a problem, and one that she intends to solve before the night is over.

And then – Sunghoon sweeps into the kitchen shortly after seven, awake as early as she always is, greeting Jaeyun with a surprisingly warm, although slightly stiff smile and a wave. “We’ll be a while,” she tells her, switching on the coffee pot and resting against the counter as she waits for it to heat up.

“That’s okay,” Jaeyun quips, getting up from the couch and joining her, pretending to look through the contents of the fridge. “I can wait.”

Sunghoon just hums, mercifully not pointing out how clearly eager Jaeyun was for their promised conversation. “Sorry about that, by the way,” she tells her, and it takes Jaeyun a moment to realize that she’s looking at the fridge, too. “Jay had good intentions when she picked it out, I think. She just doesn’t know much about the dietary habits of werewolves. And, honestly – I don’t either.”

“All good,” Jaeyun assures her. “I’ve been ordering out – and I can buy my own food, anyway. Some of the alphas I used to live with would have eaten it, but it’s uh, it’s not really my thing.”

Sunghoon laughs, her arms crossing over her chest again. Jaeyun drops her gaze to the floor and accidentally shuts the fridge door on her hand, and pulls it out, giving it a little shake. “Not into the carnivore diet?”

Jaeyun slides her eyes over to her, hoping she’s being subtle, surely failing spectacularly. “Not always,” she says simply. “What about you? I didn’t know vampires drank coffee.”

“Jay does,” Sunghoon informs her, with an almost fond smile on her lips. “Like I said, she hasn’t been like this as long as I have. Caffeine does nothing for her, but I think she just doesn’t want to let go of the routine of drinking it.”

And Jaeyun can understand that particular instinct, to cling to aspects of a past version of herself, even if she can’t quite make them fit with the person she is now. “So how old is she, then?”

“A hundred and fifty, give or take a few years,” Sunghoon tells her, raising her voice ever so slightly so she can be heard over the sound of the coffee maker whirring. “Practically still a fledgling.”

“And how old are you?”

Sunghoon just tilts her head, her smile turning a little more amused, her eyes narrowing a bit. “Six hundred. Give or take.”

Jaeyun’s eyes go round in surprise, and she blinks a few times, trying to arrange her features into a more neutral expression. Werewolves, generally speaking, have a longer lifespan than the average human, but very few of them lived to be older than Jay – let alone as old as Sunghoon. “Wow,” she manages after several long seconds. “So – to you, me and Heeseung must be like, really young.”

“Is making me feel like a cradle robber part of your strategy to convince me you’re ready?”

Jaeyun chokes out a surprised laugh, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth until the moment passes, until she can take a steadying breath and try to give her a serious answer without bursting into nervous giggles. “Is it working?”

“Not at all,” Sunghoon says with a click of her tongue.

“I think that should be a point in my favour,” Jaeyun argues. “At least you know I’m not afraid of you killing me – because if you were going to, you would have after I called you old, right?”

Sunghoon exhales through her nose, pushing off the marble counter and taking a step closer to Jaeyun, close enough that she knows she’s breathing in her scent, that she can smell everything she wants her to smell on her – her want, her confidence – but also everything she’d rather hide – her fear, because it is still there, prickling her skin no matter how much she’d like it to stop.

“But you are afraid, aren’t you?” Sunghoon asks, her dark eyes trailing over Jaeyun’s features, like she’s searching for something in them. She doesn’t know why she’s bothering to search when Jaeyun’s biology insists that all her emotions be worn on her metaphorical sleeve, but maybe Sunghoon thinks there’s more to her than that. She likes that idea a little too much, that the vampire doesn’t just look at her and think omega, that she looks a little deeper than that.

Jaeyun pauses. “Sure,” she finally admits. “A little. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want it.”

“Hm,” Sunghoon hums, and Jaeyun watches her eyes flash red for a brief moment. “Brave little puppy.”

If Jaeyun had a tail – which, actually, she does sometimes, but not in her current form, and not in any form that she plans on being in anytime soon – it would be wagging, whipping back and forth with undisguisable excitement, making it clear exactly how she feels about Sunghoon’s condescending words. And she’s sure that it’s still pretty obvious, but she clings tight to what little dignity she has left, swallows back her eagerness, and tries to be patient, for once.

After a long pause, Sunghoon sighs in something like defeat, and Jaeyun tries not to perk up as she turns around, turning off the coffee maker and taking her time pouring a steaming cup of coffee. When she turns around again, she holds it out to Jaeyun in offering.

“Tell you what,” Sunghoon starts, letting Jaeyun wrap her hand around the cup and take it. “Bring that up to Jay for me, and then wait in your room. I’ll be up shortly, and then we can talk.”

“Isn’t that what we just did?” Jaeyun asks, partially in an attempt to see if her efforts had worked in winning Sunghoon over.

Sunghoon, at the very least, seems to find her amusing. She smiles, her sharp fangs catching all of Jaeyun’s attention, like she’s taunting her with them, showing off the object of her fascination without actually giving it to her. And then she reaches out, and it takes everything in Jaeyun not to flinch, to stay perfectly still and hold her gaze as she smooths a hand down her hair, brushing a stray hair out of her face with her claws, taking a moment to trace the side of her jaw. Jaeyun flushes from head to toe, and then Sunghoon pushes her long ponytail off of where it’s resting on her shoulder and drops her hand back to her side – and inexplicably, all the warmth goes with her.

Nothing about Sunghoon should be this warm. She’s made to be cold, and lifeless, and cruel, but so far, she’s none of those things. She clearly has put a lot of effort into fighting against her nature, her instincts, and for a moment, Jaeyun finds herself admiring her for more than just her beauty.

“Go on, little one,” she urges, then glances down at the steaming cup of coffee still clutched in her hands. “Leave that outside the door, and then wait for me in your room. If you can do that, then we can talk.”

She’s sure it’s a test – of her obedience, of her willingness to listen. But she’s not sure that, if she follows Sunghoon’s instructions, it will get her any closer to her goal. So Jaeyun decides to take a page out of her book.

She’s not the docile omega everyone surely expects her to become, that nature has told her she will be. She’s not pliant, not obedient, at least, not when she doesn’t want to be. And she certainly doesn’t want to sit around in her room, waiting for Sunghoon to decide that she’s ready for something she already knows she wants.

She marches up the stairs and down the long hallway separating her room from theirs, and doesn’t even hesitate – she walks up to Jay’s door, finds it already open a crack, and lets herself in.

There’s a king sized bed in the middle of the artificially dark room – which is decorated quite similarly to Sunghoon’s, giving Jaeyun the impression that this house belonged to Sunghoon first, that she’d had to prepare a room for Jay when she moved in all those years ago, just like she did for Jaeyun a week ago – with rumpled sheets and a fluffy looking duvet and pillows flung carelessly onto the floor beside it. Under the duvet, sprawled out across the mattress, there’s Jay. Her shoulder length hair is tangled in knots on one side, and her eye mask has slipped partially off of her face, and she’s snoring loudly, unphased by the sound of Jaeyun walking over and putting the mug down on the bedside table.

Jaeyun looks down at her, trying to build the nerve to wake her, to take matters into her own hands and go after what she wants, but she once again finds herself frozen in place, paralyzed with fear. She looks so human, but Jaeyun knows she could kill her in an instant if she so chose to.

God. What was she thinking? Sunghoon was right. She can’t handle this. She’s not ready for it. She needs to let go of this fantasy and resign herself to a lifetime of boring missionary sex with boring knot-headed alphas, and she needs to do it fast, before she gets herself killed.

She takes a step back, ready to flee back to the safety of her own bedroom and seriously reconsider her priorities in life, and then – Jay’s hand slides out from under the duvet in a flash of movement, and her fingers wrap around her wrist in an unrelenting grip, her short claws digging in briefly before they retract, like a warning of what might happen if she tries to step away.

And then, before Jaeyun can even begin to squeak out a weak protest, the hand around her wrist pulls, until she’s falling forward, until Jay turns over and wraps her arms around Jaeyun’s waist and, in only an instant, maneuvers her until she’s sitting on her lap, faces mere inches apart, trapped.

She was a fool to ever think she was anything resembling a predator in this house. She’s at the bottom of the food chain, prey, and she’d just served herself up on a silver platter for Jay.

And yet – heat gathers in her gut once again as Jay presses her nose to her neck, nuzzling against her pulse point, scraping a single fang against it, and goosebumps raise across her skin, and everything in her is telling her to tip her head back, to bare her neck, to let Jay devour her.

“Aw,” Jay coos, “You brought me coffee?”

Jaeyun can only manage a whimper.

“Aren’t you thoughtful,” Jay says absentmindedly, and then a fang scrapes against the skin of Jaeyun’s neck again. “But I think I want something a little sweeter to drink this morning.”

Jaeyun, despite all her capacity for logic telling her this is a very, very bad idea, nods with an eagerness she can’t even bring herself to be ashamed of.

Jay’s fingers wrap around Jaeyun’s hair where it’s pulled into a loose ponytail, and then she yanks on it, forcing Jaeyun’s head to tilt back and slightly to the side, exposing her neck completely. She gasps, a shudder wracking through her as Jay presses her fangs to her pulse point, not breaking the skin but applying enough pressure for her to feel them, and – then, nothing. Several long seconds pass of Jaeyun squirming in her lap as if to pretend she’s even going to make an attempt to escape, but Jay never bites down.

The door creaks open behind her. “Both of you are so predictable,” Sunghoon sighs in exasperation.

And then Jay’s gone, pulling away from Jaeyun’s neck with only a small kiss left where her fangs had just been sitting, her grip on Jaeyun’s hair unrelenting so she can’t turn and see her face. “So are you,” Jay points out. “Are you ever going to stop testing me?”

“Are you ever going to stop failing?” Sunghoon counters, and Jaeyun can feel her getting closer, like there’s some kind of magnetism between them – all three of them, truthfully – and something in Jaeyun is being drawn closer to her, despite the hold Jay still has on her.

“I didn’t bite her.”

“You were about to.”

“I just wanted to get you in here,” Jay counters.

“There are other ways,” Sunghoon says dryly.

“Sure, but none of them are as fun,” she says, pressing her mouth to Jaeyun’s neck again, absent of any fangs, only a sharp smile in their place. Still, she shudders. “Come on, Hoon. She tastes good. You’ll like her.”

Sunghoon is, suddenly, right behind Jaeyun, her lips brushing against the shell of her ear, her voice husky and low and sending chills down Jaeyun’s spine as she says, “We could kill you.”

Jaeyun has to bite down on her lip to keep from moaning. She needs to get in touch with a therapist, probably.

“You won’t,” she manages, her voice hoarse even though she’d barely spoken a word.

“It’ll hurt,” Sunghoon tells her. “At first. It’ll hurt a lot.”

“She likes that,” Jay observes, likely based on the way her breath catches in her throat, the way her pulse picks up.

“I do,” she assures them. “Please. I want it to hurt.”

“See? Little omega is in a rebellious phase,” Jay mutters, dragging her mouth down to her collarbone, gnawing on it briefly with her human teeth. “Alphas just aren’t enough for you, hm? Need something more dangerous?”

“I’ve never – I don’t –”

“Oh,” Jay says, sounding amused. “You’ve never even been with an alpha, have you? You’ve never been fucked just the way you need, you poor thing. You really are just rebelling.” There’s a long, heavy pause, and then a quiet chuckle. Jay’s hand slides up her pyjama-clad thigh, and squeezes, just the faintest presence of claws pressing into her skin. “Or – is it really rebelling, when it’s what you’re made for?”

Jaeyun whines, high and pathetic, and without any shame whatsoever. Jay’s words are rolling right off of her, even though they’re condescending, even though she should hate them – because she’s right. Instinct or not, nature or not, all Jaeyun wants is to get fucked just the way she needs, no matter what part of her it is that needs it. If it’s her omega, then – fine. At least they can agree on something, for once.

Jaeyun doesn’t want to be a stereotype. She doesn’t want to need this, but she does, and it’s only taken one week for her to grow tired of fighting against what she needs – not that she was putting up much of a fight to begin with.

Something in her had changed, but she doesn’t think it changed that night, a week ago, when she presented. It had changed the moment she stepped into this house, the moment she sensed the vampire’s presence. Her omega wasn’t telling her to be submissive – it was telling her to submit specifically to this, to Jay and Sunghoon, to let them give her what she’d likely always needed, even when she was a beta.

“Yeah,” she breathes, already mindless and lost to the feeling of Jay touching her, even though she’d hardly done anything yet. “Yeah, I’m made for it. I can take it.”

It sounds almost proud, when she says it. She’s made for this. Her body had changed, but it had changed into something that might just be stronger, even if it’s softer.

Sunghoon’s hands settle on her hips – her claws digging in but not breaking skin, even though Jaeyun kind of wants her to – just as Jay tightens her grip on her hair and pulls again, with a roughness that has her gasping out in surprise, although she probably should have expected it. It’s what she signed up for, willingly and enthusiastically, after all.

Jay treats Jaeyun like she’s nothing more than a doll, a play thing, maneuvering her into the perfect position – that is, still in her lap, wedged in between them with Jay pressed against her front and Sunghoon pressed against her back, her head resting on Sunghoon’s shoulder with Jay’s fingers still wrapped around her ponytail to keep her neck exposed, bared, primed for fangs to sink into – and holding her there with an iron grip. She’s trapped. Cornered, by two of the strongest predators she could ever encounter, but she’s not afraid.

“Pretty little pup,” Sunghoon mutters, her lips brushing the shell of Jaeyun’s ear, her hand travelling under Jaeyun’s pyjama top just so she can scrape a single claw down her hip bone. She shudders, stretching her neck impossibly more, practically begging for it without words, for whatever Sunghoon will give her. For now, it’s just an open mouth kiss to her pulse point, fangs nowhere to be found. “I understand why those mutts found you so hard to resist. I want to eat you up, too.”

Jay presses her mouth to Jaeyun’s collarbone, and she’s snapped out of her slight daze to realize that she’d apparently been using her free hand to slowly unbutton her shirt for the last minute or so, and now she’s sliding it off her shoulder, letting it bunch up around her elbows as she refuses to release her grip on Jay’s arms, like she’s her lifeline, even though she’s probably the most dangerous thing in the room.

And, as if to prove it, Jay brings a hand up to rest on the center of Jaeyun’s chest, hooking her finger around the cotton fabric of her bralette, slicing a claw through it with ease and exposing her even more.

“That was my favourite,” Jaeyun pants out, her breath hitching as Jay’s hand – with her claws carefully retracted now, something Jaeyun wasn’t aware they could do – slides down to cup her breast, kneading at the flesh and flicking a finger over her nipple until she lets out a stuttering moan. She can feel, because both of their mouths are pressed to her skin, when they smile in smug satisfaction, and it sends something like a chill across her skin.

“She really is a little one,” Jay hums, speaking directly to Sunghoon like Jaeyun isn’t even there, ignoring her protest completely as her hand moves from her chest to squeeze at her waist, as if to prove her point. And then that hand continues travelling down, smoothing and wrinkling the fabric of her pyjama shorts as it does, sending chills up her spine and even more intense heat settling in her gut.

She moves without even realizing, grinding down against Jay’s leg and gasping as sparks of pleasure – and relief, because she’s been aching for some kind of friction for what feels like an eternity now – shoot through her.

Jay’s claws dig into her thigh. She gasps, feeling the skin break under them ever so slightly, not enough to draw more than a few dots of blood in their wake, just enough to act as a clear warning.

“Jay,” Sunghoon starts, her voice smooth as honey in Jaeyun’s ear, her tone mocking. “You’re being mean. Give her what she wants.”

Jay just grins, her fangs on full display, and leans back, propping herself up against her pillows, taking her hands off of Jaeyun entirely. “She seems perfectly content to take what she wants, when she wants it,” she counters, and in the trance-like state Jaeyun has found herself in, all she can do is confirm her theory, grinding down again with even more tenacity, a long, whiny moan leaving her parted lips as she feels herself soak through her underwear. Even Jay’s bare leg is slightly shiny with slick now, and Jaeyun is practically drooling for her, but she’s not touching her anymore. “Go ahead, Jaeyunie. Take what you want like a bad, dumb dog.”

Jaeyun shudders, but she doesn’t protest – she might be a bad dog in Jay’s eyes, but she does know how to follow instructions when she wants to. When she needs to, because everything is aching and heating inside of her to an uncomfortable degree, and she needs to come soon, or she’s convinced she might just burst into flame. And she knows Jay and Sunghoon are particularly sensitive to heat and light, so she’s really just being courteous when she starts slowly writhing against Jay’s leg.

“That’s it,” Sunghoon encourages, her lips brushing against the shell of Jaeyun’s ear again, her words contrasting Jay’s declaration moments ago as she mutters, “Good pup.”

Jaeyun sighs, and tips her head back from where she’d dropped it forward in something like shame, resting against Sunghoon’s shoulder, bringing her mouth – and her fangs – almost level with her exposed neck. It’s an invitation, but all she gets is a light scrape of very human, if not slightly sharp, teeth. She groans in something like frustration, the stimulation from Jay’s leg not nearly enough, the teasing from Sunghoon far too much.

“Please,” Jaeyun whines. “I can’t – I can’t do it.”

“Useless,” Jay sighs, and Jaeyun feels a pang of regret at not being able to please her, to impress her with her ability to get herself off – and then she feels it. Jay’s fingers, thoughtfully de-clawed, are doing a light dance along the waistband of her pyjama shorts, still teasing, but making an unspoken promise to Jaeyun that she would get some kind of relieve. She knows what Jay is waiting for, so she keeps grinding against her, putting on a show to convince Jay that she really is trying.

Sunghoon’s claws dig into the skin of her hip bone, enough to leave marks, if not draw blood, and as Jaeyun hisses through her teeth, Jay laughs, and slides her hand into her shorts without any further overture. Her hiss of mild pain turns to a yelp of surprise, and then fades into a pathetic moan as Jay swipes her fingers through her slick folds. All of the sensations – the pain, the shock, and the hot white pleasure turn in her gut and create something Jaeyun is sure she’s never felt before. something she’s sure she won’t ever feel again, at least, not without Sunghoon or Jay present.

“She’s not even wearing underwear,” Jay informs Sunghoon, who is mouthing at Jaeyun’s neck like she’s her own personal chew toy, still not breaking the skin, but surely leaving a litter of small bruises and red marks. Jaeyun feels a bit like a slab of meat, being tenderized and prepared for the meal to come. “Knew you were a bad puppy, Jaeyunie.”

She stutters out a helpless moan in response, hips gyrating uselessly, all her movement easily stopped by Sunghoon’s iron grip as Jay continues to tease her, touching her everywhere except where she needs her most. Jay laughs again, low and honey-like, and then her fingers are circling Jaeyun’s entrance, dipping in to gather some of her slick and make even more of a mess of her. She’s waiting for something, and Jaeyun thinks she knows what – so she redirects her attention, letting her heavy-lidded gaze move upwards, straining her neck even more until she’s looking back at Sunghoon.

“I’ll be good,” she assures Sunghoon, too out of it to really know what she’s saying, but – she knows she means it. She knows she’ll do just about anything to get Sunghoon’s teeth in her neck, to get Jay’s fingers inside of her.

“Of course you will,” Sunghoon coos, reaching up with the hand that had been holding Jaeyun still and pressing a single claw into the plush pink of her lip. Jaeyun darts her tongue out on instinct, panting like a true dog, and feels Sunghoon’s claws retract as she slides her fingers into her mouth. It’s like she’s gagging her, keeping her quiet even though there’s no one around them for miles and miles. Jaeyun is all alone out here, trapped between two predators, and no one will hear if she screams for help.

She shudders, and sucks on Sunghoon’s fingers, spit gathering at the corners of her mouth and dripping down her chin. Sunghoon hums in something like approval, and Jaeyun’s tail metaphorically wags again, and then –

And then –

Jaeyun’s vision whites out, and her eyes roll even further into her skull, and Sunghoon’s fingers do very little to muffle her cries as two sharp fangs puncture her skin and the vein they were positioned above. She squirms in their collective punishing hold, rocking back and forth like she can’t decide whether or not she was trying to get away from Sunghoon or grind down on the fingers that Jay is finally pushing inside of her, like she’s caught between escaping the pain or leaning into the pleasure – even though she’d asked for both, had wanted both desperately.

Numbness spreads across her neck and collarbones, until she can hardly feel anything at all, and when she recovers enough to look down, she can see a stream of blood, her blood, dripping down her exposed stomach. Jay is all over it, her tongue sliding up the smooth plane of Jaeyun’s stomach as she licks up the leftover rivulets of blood, her hand in Jaeyun’s shorts focused on bringing a little more pleasure to the painful experience of Sunghoon drinking from her.

And, the thing is, it’s working. The muscles in her neck still burn where they’d been torn through, but that’s the only pain that remains, and even then, it’s fading by the second, overtaken by the hot sparks of warmth spreading from her core, swirling in her gut, making her feel like she’s suddenly come down with a terrible fever.

She tries to focus on that, on Jay’s skillful fingers pumping in and out of her, the heel of her palm grinding against Jaeyun with each thrust. Someone is speaking – a chant of please please please more feels so good please – and she quickly realizes that it’s her, that at some point, she’d lost complete control of her motor skills.

She doesn’t feel in control of her body, not in the slightest. A week ago, the idea of that would have horrified her. Now, she just wants more, and she can’t stop herself from begging for it.

She doesn’t even realize it, doesn’t consciously process it when it happens, but eventually, warmth begins to spread from her neck too, where Sunghoon is still drinking from her, a fuzzy, dazed feeling overtaking her as the most painful part of this also fades away into pleasure. She’s never been more overstimulated in her life. Every nerve in her body is on fire, and Jay and Sunghoon are both stoking the flames, poking and prodding at her until she’s sure to burn up and be reduced to nothing more than a helpless, useless pile of ash.

And then Sunghoon releases her fangs’ death grip on her neck, and a fresh wave of blood streams from her now open wound, but not an instant is wasted before it’s licked up, Sunghoon at the source, Jay still happily lapping up the leftovers, and Jaeyun is – she’s –

“More,” she wails, turning her head completely to the side where it still rests on Sunghoon’s shoulder, practically begging for those sharp, predatory teeth to get back where they belong.

“So needy,” Sunghoon sighs, but one of her hands is sliding into Jaeyun’s shorts a moment later, joining Jay and her ministrations, bringing Jaeyun that much closer to the edge.

“And here I thought she’d be easy,” Jay laughs.

“Mm,” Sunghoon hums in amusement. “You were right, though. She’s worth the effort.”

Pride blooms in Jaeyun’s chest just as dull pain blooms in her neck again, Sunghoon’s teeth sliding back into the wound she’d left on her neck, and this time, she can really focus on the feeling of it, the feeling of Sunghoon sucking out her blood, the way her head spins like maybe, they’d taken too much from her, like she really had overestimated her ability to hold her own against the two vampires. But, then again – she’s still alive, still mostly upright, still tumbling towards the edge, and it feels good, it all feels good, like she knew it would.

Sunghoon releases her neck once again, and Jay’s teeth scrape across her stomach as she tries to taste Jaeyun as much as possible, and someone is touching her just right, and someone is calling her a good girl, not dog, not puppy, but their good girl, and –

A ferocious scream rips out of Jaeyun’s throat as she comes, falling apart entirely in their arms as she goes completely boneless, but – they hold her up. They hold her up, and she’s not afraid of them, not even a little bit, not even as her vision blurs and blackens around the edges from the blood loss. Someone is kissing her, nothing more than lips messily pressed to her chin and jaw, and someone is whispering in her ear – Sunghoon, she thinks – telling her how good she did, how good she tasted, and for the first time, those instincts she hates so much are completely quieted, completely satisfied.

That feeling of satisfaction doesn't go away. Sunghoon and Jay carefully lay her down on Jay’s ruined sheets, and there are feathers from Jay’s pillows and duvet everywhere, leaving Jaeyun to wonder which one of them had torn through the fabric with their claws. They clean her up, with perfectly warmed wet cloths and gentle hands, and Jaeyun is, for once, satisfied.

Her new instincts, her new body and biology, can’t be all that bad, not really. Maybe they’ll learn to get along one day, to find perfect harmony and turn Jaeyun into something more than what she was, something stronger, something softer, something that can handle the things she wants, the things she’s probably always wanted.

After all, they definitely agree on this.