Bound by Blood

Chapter 106- and nothing can put them together

TAE POV:

Blinding, consuming panic and fear. When I step out of the art shop, rushing out because the mating bond had flared and been set ablaze, only to find an empty bench.

Empty. Vacant. Unoccupied by our baby mate who I had left there minutes ago.

I try to swallow past the thick feeling of guilt and consuming rage, when I realise after desperately scanning my surroundings that she hasn't wondered off. She's gone.

And Kookie...he looks devastated. Looking at me if he can't believe it, doesn't want to believe it.

I don't want to either.

Don't want to believe that me walking into a shop could've led to this. That me sitting her down to sit on a bench with a promise to be back soon would mean I had to return to an empty bench, the lack of my mate glaringly present and obvious.

And the heavy overwhelming realisation of how my actions have led to this pushes me to the very brink of the edge- teetering dangerously between remaining or shifting.

I can't stop spinning around, trying to see her, trying to assure myself that she's just popped into another shop but the evidence glares at me. There's no trace of her. The shameful tears of regret trickle down my cheeks and Kookie silently cries- shocked and stunned by how our lives could turn around so quickly. Be upturned so rapidly.

"(Y/N).... (Y/N)." Kookie keeps muttering, a broken crying plea for his only younger mate, eyes roving- constantly flickering from between red and brown; instincts warring with themselves, pained at having failed to protect. And me...it seems like the voice has been stolen from my lungs, the sounds snatched from my mouth and I can only desperately search silently with my eyes for her.

"Hyung he..." Kookie cries, voice wavering.

"Took her." I finish, voice tight and wavering and trembling, words coming out low and murderous and hateful and pained all in one. Because we've both reached the same conclusion. Because only one despicable, filthy thing could've done this.

I spin turning to grip Kookie firmly and looking at him intently. The buzzing, itching need beneath my skin growing more and more with each passing moment, with each unstable feeling. With each crashing wave of realisation that me, I did this.

But still I need to get Kookie into a more reasonable, focused mindset- one of the two of us need to be composed, and it can't be me; not with the way my footing is becoming unstable and I can feel those instincts pushing at that thin veil which would tear and cause me to shift.

"Baby I need you to focus. Kookie listen to me darling." I say, voice tinging on slightly hysterical, trying to get his attention.

But he looks like if he's lost his world, and the other looks not too far off from the same predicament.

I pat his cheeks.

"Kookie...Kookie look at me. Listen baby. Listen." I say, hating the roughness to my voice, the firmness I need to instil in it to get him to focus.

He looks at me, shattered and distraught, and I fight the urge to just wrap him tight and never let go.

But he needs to listen.

He needs to be strong and have a level-headed mind.

"Call Joon hyung. Let him know." I say, feeling the haziness begin to seep into my mind, enveloping it in a foggy daze.

His fingers shake as he gets his phone out.

Presses it to his ear as I hold onto him, trying to hold on- both literally and as a way to combat the urge that grows higher and higher.