Beastly Beauty ✓

41. The Masquerade (II)

Trigger warning: The following chapter contains violence, graphic descriptions, sexual assault (nonconsensual kiss), and character death.

41 | THE MASQUERADE
(Part Two)

Namjoon appeared to me for the first time as two separate identities. Those familiar irises were as warm as I remembered them, shining with the longing of a kid whose first love was ripped apart from him. But that grin staining his mouth was too sinister to belong to the boy I once knew.

My struggle to part from him was short-lived as his grip on my neck locked down and the tips of his claws pricked my skin through the gloves, keeping me strained and at his mercy.

"Don't run away from me, Jangmi. Not now that I finally have you back." Again, his voice was equal parts desperate and forceful. Then all the darkness in his expression lightened back to his usual demeanor. "Now keep dancing with me a little while longer. We'll get to the messy part soon enough."

I wanted to run, but my past self demanded answers from the one she had granted her heart to long ago. She needed to understand his betrayal even if what she had felt for him was something too youthful, too naive to be true love. For her, at the time, it had been real.

Namjoon released my nape and resumed the stance for our tango. I bit back all the fear. Just long enough to know why.

The others likely hadn't noticed Namjoon's discreet shift yet considering how buried we were within the crowd. I had time to question him before the plan would ensue.

As his arm wrapped around my waist and we began turning, eyes locked, I whispered, "I don't understand how you... I was so sure it was Yoongi."

He let out a scoff. "Yoongi hates my kind more than anyone. And the only interest he has in you is about your power. Descendants rarely can summon their abilities until they've met another Descendant and spend months learning to use it."

"But—" I gasped when he lifted me by the waist. We slowly spun, then he lowered me to where our noses brushed, and he smirked as he set me down and kept my body plastered against his. It was all I could do not to grimace.

Just a little longer. Just until he acts, then Hoseok and the rest will be able to stop him.

"But last night... the dream."

"You're smarter than that, Jangmi. I've made you see whatever I wanted you to see since the first time I visited you in your sleep. I needed to see your face in person when you remembered who I really am, so I let you believe your little theory about my identity a while longer."

"What about Yoongi and Taehyung? How did you trick them?"

He dipped me before answering. "Hoseok was still a kid, little more than a teenager when he erased your memory of us. Would it be so hard for an adult of our kind, especially one who's been building his power for years, to give false memories?

My mind wouldn't stop racing, and I nearly stumbled if not for Namjoon's reflexes.

"You always were so clumsy for a dancer," he said while he resumed the lead.

"And you were always so protective," my hushed voice cracked as I recalled so many moments when he'd been there to stabilize me, to support me when I fell both physically and emotionally. So many times the security of his presence had wrapped around my fragility.

His head tilted the smallest bit—a movement, I finally realized, the Hood often made in my nightmares. His brows furrowed, eyes still gentle while they took in my face. A tear rolled down my cheek before he pulled me into his chest, hand on the back of my head. "Jangmi, my sweet dancer, why are you crying?"