Chapter Text
The night was heavy with the smell of iron and ash.
Somewhere deep in the forest, a wolf howled—broken, desperate—before the sound cracked into silence, the kind of silence that pressed against the ribs like a weight too cruel to bear.
Seungcheol knelt in the blood-soaked earth, his hands trembling as he gathered Jihoon’s body against his chest. His mate’s skin had already cooled, lips drained of color, eyes closed in a stillness that would never break again. Jihoon’s blood clung to him, warm at first but cooling too fast, seeping into the creases of his palms, staining him in ways no amount of scrubbing could erase.
His mate’s heartbeat was gone.
The bond—silent.
The world—hollow.
Seungcheol waited. For the sharp rip through his chest, for the unbearable tearing of his soul as the mate-bond severed. He braced himself for the collapse, for the familiar story that every Alpha knew: when one mate dies, the other follows.
But nothing came.
No consuming darkness.
No shattering pull dragging him into death.
No final breath to echo Jihoon’s.
Only the cruelty of survival. Only the merciless reminder that he was still alive.
Alive, while Jihoon was not.
The pack lingered at the edges of the clearing, eyes lowered, too afraid to come close. Their Alpha—once proud, once warm—was hunched over in the dirt, drenched in grief, his fury simmering like wildfire beneath his skin. They didn’t understand. None of them dared to whisper the question out loud, but it pressed in the air like smoke:
Why was he still breathing?
From that night on, Seungcheol’s heart turned to stone. His laughter, his warmth, the softness he had once reserved for Jihoon—all of it buried beneath ice and ash. The world would never touch him again. Not his pack, not fate, not even the moon itself.
Or so he thought.
Because far away, under the same silver moon, another boy lived untouched by this tragedy.
Yoon Jeonghan was only eighteen that night.
While death gripped the forest, Jeonghan’s world remained human and ordinary. He sat in a cramped living room with his friends, their voices filling the space with laughter. A cake sat in front of him, eighteen flickering candles painting his face in gold. They teased him for closing his eyes too long while making a wish, nudging him until he finally grinned and blew the flames out in one breath.
To Jeonghan, it was just another birthday. Another year of studying, of silly dreams, of late-night talks with friends who promised forever. He didn’t notice the full moon outside the window, silver light tracing the slope of his cheek. He didn’t notice the faint stirring in his blood, too quiet to be felt, too patient to reveal itself.
For three years, he would go on like this—ordinary, blissfully unaware. Human.
But fate does not sleep.
It waited. It lingered in the marrow of his bones, hidden until his twenty-first birthday. Until another night under a full moon, when the candles were lit again, and the laughter of his friends carried through the air. Until the moment his skin burned and a mark bloomed across his neck like fire, branding him with a destiny he had never asked for.
He didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know that the mark tied him to the Alpha who swore never to love again.
And when their paths collided—when grief met innocence, when stone met fire—neither knew if the bond would save them…
or destroy them both.