Strings of Fate

64- Hold On

You felt sparks of gold energy start to pool into your chest. It was painful to hold it in, but you compressed it, added to it until your chest was almost glowing with the compiling power. You just needed to grab hold of Taehyung's bond. If you didn't and released this energy, he could be seriously hurt.

"Time's up, Y/N," Mireu sneered, crouching down right in front of you and lifting your head up with the blade of a long knife. When your eyes met, for a moment you saw the deep, unbearable pain he was feeling with the loss of his mate. The same pain that you have been on the brink of twice now.

You could sympathize with this terror, with this fear, but he had done so many other things that you could not forgive him for. If you had to kill him to save Taehyung, you would.

You felt a flicker of your bond with Taehyung and seized it with enough ferocity that he gasped out loud.

Hold on. Taehyung gave a short nod.

The sparking golden energy you had been gathering in your chest exploded. You felt it vibrating in your body and along your bond with Taehyung. The lights above you shattered and you ducked your head as shards of glass rained down from above, holding onto Taehyung's bond with everything you had.

Your surrounding captors were all thrown back in different directions. Uri hit a heavy wooden table and toppled backwards over it, Himchan was sent sprawling for the second time this morning, Jihun was blown backwards onto the air mattress that had the decaying corpse of his mate. He screamed in disgust and frustration as he tried to disentangle himself. Seongho didn't go as far, probably because he was furthest from you, but he was off his feet and away from Taehyung and that's what mattered most.

Mireu was closest to you and got the worst of the blow. The blast alone had broken bones, you heard them snapping right before he hit the industrial metal shelves. A bone chilling crunch when he hit made you gasp in horror and your stomach clench painfully. Mireu crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.

He was dead, you could tell by just looking at him. His head was at a weird angle, a thin line of blood was painting itself from the corner of his mouth down his cheek, and his dark eyes were like matte stone, devoid of any life. You had killed him, you hadn't meant to, but you did. There was a sickening drop in your stomach.

When Taehyung groaned, you refocused on the present. You scrambled to him and yanked him to his unsteady feet. Even though he was completely healed, he seemed disoriented. Maybe the explosion had affected him as well, maybe your bond wasn't as strong as your other mates, but he was alive and that was all you cared about.

There was a cry of anguish that morphed into a bellow of rage. Seongho was pushing himself to his feet and there was murder in his eyes. You knew if he caught either of you, he would tear you apart, instantly in the most violent way he could manage.

"Run Taehyung!" You screamed, shoving him towards the exit. You both started running and you prayed that Uri and Himchan would still need a moment to recover. A hand grabbed a chunk of your hair and yanked backward, throwing you to the ground. You rolled and then scrambled away, narrowly avoiding Seongho's kick to your stomach. You felt pieces of glass and other debris cut at your skin as you rolled, but they healed just as quickly.

"Your mate isn't leaving alive!" He yelled, "You've killed two of mine, it's only fair that I get to kill one of yours!" To your relief, you had bought Taehyung some time and he was running. You knew there was another entrance through the maze of shelves at the back, that was the way they had entered earlier so you got to your feet and started running in the opposite direction.

Taehyung's ears were still ringing from the explosion. Y/N had healed him, but he still felt weak and disoriented. When Y/N shoved him and told him to run, he didn't question it, like an idiot he assumed that she was right behind him. He wrenched the door open and stumbled out into the early morning light.

He turned back to look for Y/N, but she wasn't there. Instead Himchan's tattered figure was stumbling towards him. He was dragging in ragged breaths as if a monster inside was straining against his lungs, clawing them to paper shreds in their haste to get out.

"I can't let you go back, I can't let you tell them what I've done!" Himchan seemed totally foreign to him. The quiet, demure beta looked wild and desperate.

"Himchan, let me go to my mate. She needs my help!" Taehyung moved forward and the beta's claws extended. A sharp growl came out of his chest and his body tensed, lips curled as he took on an offensive pose. Taehyung stopped. Himchan was a member of the Guard, he was a fighter and Taehyung was not. Taehyung knew who would win a one on one fight between the two of them.

"Why Himchan?" Taehyung cried out. His worry for Y/N was growing and his panic was made frustrating by the fact that the person keeping him from his mate was a man he had trusted and cared about before this.

"Because they said they would save her!" The beta screamed, spit flying from his mouth as he began to cry. Save her... There was only one person it could be, Sooah, his mate. Despite everything that Himchan had done, Taehyung's heart ached for him. When Jimin had been attacked, he had felt the pain of losing a mate. There was nothing more exquisitely painful.

"I'm so sorry Himchan!" His voice croaked and he bowed his head.

"Y/N would do anything to save you," Himchan took a few staggering steps towards Taehyung and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Himchan's eyes were wide and crazed. Taehyung reacted a few seconds too late.

As Taehyung turned to run, Himchan hit Taehyung in the kidney and knocked the wind out of him. Taehyung, distracted and in pain, wasn't able to fight as Himchan once again shot him up with the same solution he did earlier. He cried out as the needle tore through the muscles in his neck. The liquid he injected was cold as it seeped into his body. He struggled to fight Himchan off, but his limbs were already giving out on him.

His hearing was going in and out, but he thought he heard the sound of howling wolves in the distance.

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Taehyung is killing me right now with all these photoshoots 😭 And his new song? 💀 I'm so excited for Layover, how about you??

As you can probably tell, we are getting close to the end of this story... I don't want anyone to be blindsided when it ends because I've been there so I'm sort of giving you a heads up 😅Are you nervous about how it will end? Don't worry, I got you! One more update this week to look forward to.

And I don't think I can ever say this enough, but thank you for how much you have supported this story so far, your comments make my day so thank you!!

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