No one spoke a word or moved a muscle. The air felt almost sacred as Taehyung clutched Sunny's body to his own. One arm was wrapped around her head, holding it to his neck, while the other wrapped around her torso in a tight hug.
It was painful to watch and even more painful to hear him sob and beg Sunny not to leave him. Twenty years was hardly enough considering how long he had waited for her.
Zephyr broke the group trance first, tripping over the bodies of the dead as he made his way to Taehyung and Sunny. "You've given her blood," he stated as he knelt beside them. "It's not over yet."
Taehyung shook his head. "There's nothing. No response. I feel nothing from her."
"Give her to me," said Zephyr, trying to tug Sunny from the arms of her husband.
"Over my dead body," Taehyung ground out, his eyes a deep burgundy.
Zephyr leaned back on his heels, hands before him in surrender. "Fine. Take her upstairs to your room. I'll be there in a moment."
Taehyung lifted himself and Sunny with ease and rushed up the stairs. Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief as the pair disappeared down the hallway.
"She will be okay, right?" said Jungkook, staring at Zephyr with golden eyes.
Zephyr sucked in a deep breath. "Depends on how good our luck is."
Grabbing Aydan by the arm, Zephyr dragged him off to a door on the side of the grand foyer. It slammed behind them, and the room was silent once again.
"You two head upstairs and find some clothes. Jimin and I will clean up here," sighed Hoseok, looking tired and a bit haggard.
Jimin smiled as brightly as he could and nodded his agreement, even though the strength-giving adrenaline was wearing off. "Yeah, let us take care of this mess. It would be best if you guys got yourselves ready if Taehyung goes off the deep end. Pretty sure you're the only one besides Sunny who can talk him down, Kook."
Jungkook sighed and lumbered towards the staircase. He looked back over his shoulder and, with no sound at all, beckoned Jaci to follow. She did, and the two wolves went back up to the room they had shared overnight.
Once inside the room, Jungkook looked at himself in a long mirror on one of the walls. His fur was matted with blood and gore. He looked more like a dead Alpha than a living one, more like one who had been defeated in battle and ran off with its tail between its legs.
Jaci walked up behind him, looking at the reflection of them together. Her fur fared no better. They would both need hot showers that included vigorous scrubbing.
"I'm proud of you, my Alpha," she said, nuzzling her cheek against his face.
Jungkook felt shy at her praise. She had said it so quickly, and he felt more assured that she accepted him and their positions.
"I'm proud of you also, my Luna," he responded, leaning his large head over to bump hers. "You fought so well. Thank you."
Jaci pushed her muzzle against his neck and chuffed out a contented sound.
"You get cleaned up first," she said. "Taehyung needs you."
Jungkook lowered his head, a soft whine building in the back of his throat. "If he loses Sunny, I don't know if I can even calm him down. He will be lost."
"Let's not think about that," said Jaci softly. "Go get cleaned up. I'll wait for you."
Jungkook nodded and grabbed some clothes before shuffling off to the bathroom. As soon as the door was closed behind him, he shifted, standing tall once more. Looking in the mirror, he looked worse in this form than the other. Barely any of his skin was absent of blood. He wasn't even sure if some of it wasn't his own.
He turned the shower on as hot as he could stand and let it cascade down his body, washing away all remnants of the filthy Hunters he had killed. His muscles ached. Looking down at his chest, he ran his hand over the jagged mark, still pink and healing. It had gotten tight and itchy as it healed. He wondered if he would be left with a scar or if his werewolf genes would completely cure it.
He decided to stop daydreaming and finish what he came into the bathroom to do. His nose was irritated from all of the scents it had inhaled, and all he wanted to do was have Jaci's scent fill his nostrils and erase all of the horrible smells.
The thought of his Luna, his mate, filled him with a giddy type of glee. She had called him Alpha and defended him. She fought beside him, and the love he had been clinging to was threatening to burst out of its confines.
Jungkook reached up a hand and wiped away the fog from the mirror over the sink. The reflection there looked much better than before. No blood, no gore. Just his face covered with a goofy little smile.
He was utterly whipped for the new she-wolf waiting outside for him. Ultimately, and totally whipped.
***
Jaci assured Jungkook that she would be fine alone and that he should hurry over to Taehyung and Sunny's room. She would join them as soon as she finished cleaning up.
Jungkook reluctantly agreed, only because he knew Taehyung was probably spiraling at the moment. So he went down the hall and knocked on their door, waiting for any response that would permit him entrance. But he received none.
Lack of response would not deter him, however. He slowly turned the knob and opened the door, his eyes widening with the sight before him.
Sunny lay motionless on the bed while Taehyung was pacing at the foot of the bed, his eyes never leaving the body of his wife. Zephyr sat beside Sunny, dropping some concoction into her pale lips.
Jungkook moved into the room and quietly shut the door behind him. He could slice tension in the room with a knife, and Jungkook felt uneasy being here. He stopped by Aydan and nudged him, silently asking for an update.
Aydan looked over at him, seeming to be relieved Jungkook had arrived. He shook his head sadly and looked back towards the bed.
Jungkook's heart sank as he heard Zephyr mumbling from his place beside Sunny.
"Why isn't it working? She should be responding by now."
Taehyung's guttural growl filled the air. His chest was heaving as his emotions grew heavier. "If you don't bring her back, I will not rest until you are as dead as she is," he snarled.
Jungkook took his cue and walked over to Taehyung, laying a calm, soothing hand on his friend's tense arm. "Hyung, it's me."
Taehyung's red eyes slowly broke away from their focus on Zephyr and looked into Jungkook's gaze. Immediately, the vampire crumbled, his eyes spilling over with large, salty tears.
"Jungkook, what am I to do now?" he whimpered, falling into Jungkook's embrace.
Zephyr quietly pleaded with Jungkook to remove Taehyung from the room so he could work on Sunny without fear of having his throat ripped out. Taehyung vehemently refused, but Jungkook was able to coax him to take a break from his vigil for a while.
The pair moved across the hall to an empty bedroom. It had a red theme, but it was tastefully done. The fireplace sat ready to be lit, so Jungkook did so, hoping to take the damp chill off the room.
As usual, Taehyung didn't notice the cold as he collapsed down onto the sofa, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shook as heavy sobs ripped through him—Jungkook's own heart felt ready to break for his friend.
"I can't...Jungkook, I can't be without her," sobbed Taehyung, looking sadder than Jungkook had ever seen.
"Why doesn't she wake? Why does she tease me like this? Doesn't she know how badly I worry for her?"
Jungkook sat next to Taehyung, bearing his friend's grief in silence.
"We should have stayed home, Jungkook. We should have just let Jaci do her thing. Sunny would still be alive if we had."
Jungkook tried not to take to heart the bitterness in Taehyung's words. He knew Taehyung was lashing out in grief, saying things he would never say if Sunny were alive and well.
"It's not fair! I waited over 500 years for her!" screamed Taehyung, grabbing the coffee table in front of the sofa and hurling it across the room.
"I suffered through so much loneliness!" The overstuffed chair soon found itself in pieces next to the former coffee table.
"How dare someone kill my wife! My beloved Sunny!" he sobbed as anything near his hands became projectiles.
Cups from the tea set on the end table had been broken into a million pieces. Pillows from the sofa were shredded. Hundreds of years old tapestries were torn from their hangings and diminished to a pile of scraps. The room echoed with screams and sobs.
Jungkook just tried to stay out of the raging vampire's way. He had waited for his entire life for his fated mate, so he could understand the anger that spilled out of the vampire.
"No one will ever take her place," shouted Taehyung, his chest heaving from his exertion. The room was in shambles, and it eerily matched the current state of Taehyung's heart and mind.
"I won't rest until every Hunter in that blasted Society is dead, Jungkook. I won't! You just watch. I will find every one of them, split them down the middle, gouge out their eyes, and feed their entrails to the vultures. I will do it slowly, so they suffer. I want them to feel every ounce of pain I am feeling this very minute."
His chest heaved with every ebb and flow of his anger. Jungkook felt a twinge of fear, even though he knew Taehyung would never hurt him.
Even so, this was a dangerous path Taehyung was heading down. If Jungkook knew Sunny as well as he thought he did, and of course he did, Jungkook knew she would never approve of Taehyung going on a revenge-fueled rampage. So he would have to do something.
Stepping forward, he braced himself for whatever anger Taehyung might throw his way. Then, grabbing his friend's arm, he jerked Taehyung to a stop. The vampire snarled and growled; his rational mind seemed to be slipping away. Jungkook frowned. This was becoming a hazardous situation.
"What are you doing, hyung? Are you giving up on Sunny?"
"If she were alive, we would have been told by now!"
"And if she were dead, wouldn't we also know by now? Sunny needs you right now. She needs your strength, not your anger. Calm down so you can go be with your wife."
Taehyung's stern gaze softened, and his head dropped. He nodded slowly and pulled in a deep breath. "I know you're right, Jungkook, but I'm going crazy. Every tick of the clock feels like she's getting further and further away from me. I don't want to watch her die. I can't do it again."
Jungkook hooked his hand around the back of Taehyung's neck and pulled the vampire onto his shoulder. Taehyung's shoulders shook with silent sobs, and Jungkook wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
"Sunny is so tough, Hyung," he whispered, "and she loves you too much to let something take her away from you. She's going to pull through. Trust her."
Taehyung pulled away, wiping his eyes and face with his hands. He looked around the room and sighed. "I made a mess."
Jungkook looked around and chuckled softly. "Yeah, Aydan is going to be annoyed."
Taehyung only afforded Jungkook a small smile before slowly turning and leaving the room. Jungkook followed him to make sure he went to Sunny, and as soon as the door closed, Jungkook headed back to his own mate.
***
Jungkook lightly knocked before opening the door, just in case, Jaci wasn't presentable yet. But she was already in her pajamas and snuggled under the thick royal blue blankets of the bed. Vanilla and ginger filled the room so much it nearly managed to send Jungkook into a tailspin of hormones. He toyed with the idea of going down to help Jimin and Hoseok, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the alluring scent of his mate.
He padded over to the bed and stretched himself out on top of the blankets, resting his head on his folded arm. Jaci's damp hair smelled like a light floral scent that he couldn't quite pinpoint. The shock of white hair was still there right behind her ear. He looked at it curiously and reached out to pick it up between his fingers.
What had caused this? He had never seen a werewolf's human hair change color. Instead, it was the purest white he had ever seen, much like the snow on Taehyung's mountain.
"Snuggle up," he heard her mumble as she scooted back towards him.
He grinned and wrapped an arm around her middle. He pressed his nose to her neck and breathed her in. It calmed him to be engulfed with her scent and presence.
"Taehyung okay?"
"For now," he whispered in reply. "Let's get some rest. There's nothing we can do anyway but wait."
Jaci nodded and scooted back a bit further, pressing herself into him. She sighed contentedly and was soon soundly back asleep.
Jungkook curled himself around her, feeling a sense of euphoria washing over him. This was such a new and beautiful experience for him that it nearly made his heart burst. Having a fated mate beside you was one of the greatest joys a wolf could ever have, and he was so happy to experience it finally.
Pressing his face into her cool, damp hair, he closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.
AN: Thank you for patiently waiting for me, Readers. You are the best. I can't say it enough.
💜 -AR