Bound by Blood

Chapter 142- what goes up must come down

It makes me ache because I can feel the hurt and emotional jumbled mess she's feeling, feel it resonate through our bond.

"And your mates? None of them have noticed?" Eunwoo asks, voice sceptical. Because given how smitten and downright consumed they were by their love for her, there was no way they hadn't picked up on it. 

It doesn't make sense.

She raises her head, guilt in her eyes at being caught out.

"I always go to clear my head when I have nightmares." She mumbles.

But there's something still missing from that. Surely her emotions would've woken up at least Yoongi hyung.

"And?" I prompt.

"And...they think I've been working for the new opening. They're used to me getting out early and think the negative emotions are because of my worries." She adds.

I look at her in disbelief. She's been letting her mates misunderstand the emotions, the reasoning behind them. She's let them take the dark circles and exhaustion as signs of her working hard once more.

I knew their relatively newer bond as a completed coven also meant they couldn't detect lies or unconscious tells so quickly, so innately, in the same way that I'd brushed off my own nightmares as just restless sleep. But she needed to know it was fine to feel weak and vulnerable, to let them share that burden.

She was doing this all to stop Yoongi hyung from hurting, because he was overcoming a much longer, much deeper trauma with Chul.

I hated and loved her for it.

There's a small sound of discontent that slips past Jinyoung hyung's lips.

"Chickie...we've known the coven for nearly a century. I know they will beat themselves up more if you keep it in for longer. These things are better said earlier." He says.

She ducks her head down.

"I just want it to stop. I'm scared to sleep but I'm so tired that I can't help it." And there's no mistaking the panic hysteria beginning to climb in her words.

I immediately turn to her, Eunwoo's body caving in protectively as I look at my mate with hurt in my eyes, silently telling him to stop because she was hurting. 

But then, the front door to the nest opens, the familiar presence of a mate stepping in brushes through the bond, a light caress in greeting.

"I'm home! Look who I found on the doorstep!" JB hyung's voice comes calling through, the shift in the nest alerting us to someone else entering.

But when they do step through to the living room, the two of them together, both pair of eyes flash red. Vibrant vermillion red.

One that burns red with surprise and then alarm.

And the other with urgency and sheer relief.

JB hyung and Yoongi hyung.

And I know in that instant that there's no hiding from him now. There's no way for (Y/N) to escape or avoid this. Not with her emotions bleeding out of her unconscious posturing, or with the way the four of us are huddled around her.

There's no hiding it and no avoiding it.

Not when Yoongi hyung's face crumples and he's darting forward immediately for her, rushing forward to his mate.

To the one whose emotions are yanking him forward, yanking him to her.

And as he folds (Y/N) into his arms, cradling her like she's the most precious thing he sees, the most precious being, I know that even if it's hard to open up, to share her agony that her mates won't let them shoulder it alone. That even if it's been a few years since they've mated, they've still got a lifetime to navigate together.