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I was there again. Screams. Blood. Pain. The terrible smile hovering over me.
“Your friends?” the King of Behind questioned mildly.
Part of me knew this had all happened before, but I still wasn’t ready when the knife sliced into my hand and pain roared through my body so intense, I was sure I was going to be sick. I could only cling to one thought:
No. He could cut me into a million pieces, he could smile at me until his stupid face was seared forever into my mind, he could kill me, but my answer would still be no.
My body grew cold as wave after wave of agony crashed into me. The sound of my own screams made my ears ring.
No.
Suddenly, I was wrapped in inexplicable, blissful warmth. I closed my eyes, relishing in the phantom embrace before the next cut came and—
“Ruth.”
I opened my eyes to JinYeong, his face inches from mine, a worried crease between his eyebrows and a troubled look in his dark eyes. “My Ruth,” he said softly. “You were dreaming.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, meaning for it to sound sarcastic, but it came out all trembling and pathetic. “Reckon I know that." With my left arm pinned between me, JinYeong, and the couch, I instinctively raised my right hand to wipe away the tears I could feel tracking down my cheeks. It didn't work, of course, and it hit me with a fresh wave of horror and anguish that I didn’t have a right hand anymore.
JinYeong must have seen me shift and knew what it meant, because he quickly moved to brush away the tears himself, his thumb gliding delicately over my cheeks. I took the chance to look at him—really look at him, since the last time I'd seen him all bloody and cut up, it had been pretty dark, and I’d been standing on my last legs. The light was dim now, too, but I was sure the wounds on his face were already healing, which meant the others riddling the rest of his body must have been doing the same.
“I said it was a bad idea for me to leave,” JinYeong said, and I had no clue what he was talking about until his eyes flicked away from me. I followed his gaze to see Zero at the dining room table, a book laid out in front of him. It was so normal that my eyes stung with tears again.
I'd missed "normal." My normal. The one where Zero frowned over his books, JinYeong needled me at every opportunity, and Athelas quietly sipped tea in his chair. There was a distinct ache in my chest holding the grim acceptance that my normal could never be pieced back together in the same way again.
“You’re not a cure-all for everything bad that happens to her,” Zero replied, though I didn’t sense much conviction in his words. He mustn’t have either, because in a moment he mumbled something about coffee and stood back from the table, disappearing from view.
I tried to understand the context for their conversation, even tried to think of something snarky to call after Zero, but even in the dark, I could sense the world spinning a bit. I closed my eyes to make it stop and felt JinYeong’s breath at my neck, giving me fair warning before the bite. It barely even hurt by that point—I had no idea how many bites I'd gotten since he'd found me.
“How long have I been asleep? What time is it?” I asked, too tired to look at the clock and find out for myself. Despite the vampire spit, everything hurt. My throat was still raw and scratchy from screaming, the stump of my arm still throbbed, and a headache that probably meant hunger, thirst, and overall getting soundly beaten up pounded at my skull.
“Very early,” JinYeong said. “You have only been asleep for a few hours.”
I suddenly realized I couldn’t recall when I’d actually fallen asleep, and tried to think back past the drum beating in my head. There were fuzzy memories of getting home, feeling a sense of relief at being in my house again, then swaying just inside the kitchen, and multiple hands reaching out to catch me. Maybe I passed out, because the next thing I remembered was someone—must have been Morgana—helping me shower and get dressed, then her and Zero bandaging the stump of my right arm.
Speaking of my right arm, JinYeong's hand currently hovered around the shoulder that came to an abrupt and awkward end. Hovered, but didn't touch, as if he were afraid that doing so would make the loss real.
"It's all right," I said softly—not because it was all right, but because the pain in his eyes almost physically hurt somewhere deep in my chest.
"How did it happen?" he asked. His voice was quiet, but deadly, that pained look slowly morphing to one of anger.
"Doesn't matter."
"It does matter." He precisely articulated each word, meeting my eyes with a mixture of grief and rage so intense I had to fight not to look away.
"The old king is dead," I reminded him. "There's no one for you to take revenge on."
That must have been enough of a confirmation for him, or maybe he already knew that if I'd lost the arm while fighting, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell him. He pulled me to him in a tight embrace, his chest spasming in a silent sob.
“Oi,” I muttered, wiggling my arm free so I could place my hand on his head and trying to think of a good insult to stop my own tears from returning. I was distracted when I found his hair damp, and then realized he wasn’t wearing a suit jacket—just a button-up shirt, and even then, the top few buttons were undone. He didn't even have a tie, and now that the vampire spit was making me slightly more aware, I smelled shampoo more than his cologne.
I realized that at some point, Zero must have ordered Jinyeong to shower, and rather than take his sweet time like he usually did, his untidy, slightly-damp appearance told me he’d cleaned up as quickly as possible to get back to me.
My fingers tightened in his hair as a lump formed in my throat. “Oi,” I tried again, though my voice came out in a shaky whisper. “Didn’t give you permission to drench my favorite hoodie.”
He huffed a laugh. “You do not have a favorite hoodie.”
Well, that was true, seeing as I went through them nearly as quickly as we went through coffee in this house. “How do you know?” I countered anyway—anything to keep from thinking about the dream-memory lingering in the back of my mind.
JinYeong lifted his head, eyes still damp with tears. “Because I know you." The words were simple, but I felt the weight of each one like a solid, reassuring warmth closing around my heart.
I couldn’t help it. With my hand still in his hair, I pulled his head down to kiss him. He made a sound in the back of his throat that I felt more than heard—but whether it was sorrow, pain, surprise, or something else entirely, I didn’t know. His arms instantly wound around me and pulled me closer. I reached out to hold onto him, only...I couldn't.
My sob broke us apart. JinYeong rested his forehead against mine and kept on holding me. “My Ruth,” he whispered, “do not cry.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said with a sniffle, carefully using my left sleeve to wipe my face. JinYeong just watched me, one thumb rubbing gently across my ribs.
Needing a distraction, I looked around the dark living room. “Where is everyone?”
JinYeong settled us back against the couch again, every movement measured and gentle. He tucked me into his side where I was more than happy to absorb his warmth. “Hyeong is in the kitchen,” he said. I nearly smacked his chest for telling me something so obvious, but for one, I’d have to move from my very comfortable position for that, and for another, I got the feeling that he wasn’t trying to annoy me, but reassure me by stating even the most basic facts.
“The dogs left to—” He stopped short, glancing down at me with an uncertain look.
“Bury their dead?” I finished as I toyed with a button on his shirt, trying to ignore the hollowness in my middle as I said the words.
“Yes,” JinYeong agreed, then pressed a long kiss to my hair. “The zombie is on the porch—I think she is waiting for the dogs. The North Wind took everyone else with her to bring the girl back to her parents. And I am here, with my Ruth.” He dropped another kiss onto the crown of my head, but I knew it was a distraction this time. He didn’t want me to ask, but I had to.
“And…” I inhaled a deep breath, intent on rolling his button back and forth between my fingers. “Athelas?”
I felt him stiffen. “The old man is upstairs. Alive,” he added, albeit a bit grudgingly.
Figured that was all he wanted to say on the subject right now, so I decided to be content with that. Besides, I heard Zero’s heavy footsteps approaching and turned a little to see him place a steaming mug of coffee and plate of biscuits on the coffee table, very obviously avoiding my eyes.
“Try not to drink too much,” he said, as if he had to give orders to offset the kindness. It was probably a good thing, because my eyes were filling with tears again, and I needed something else to focus on. “You need to sleep so you can heal more quickly.”
“I’ll drink all the coffee I want,” I said defiantly, though more on principle than because I actually disagreed. I tried to reach for the coffee with the arm that wasn’t clinging to JinYeong—only to come to that realization that was already getting old: I couldn't.
I'd already been leaning forward, so the lack of weight on my right side threw me off balance. I don’t think I was actually in any danger of falling over, but in the blink of an eye, JinYeong pulled me back against his chest, and at the same time, Zero had a hand on my right shoulder, touching me with a gentleness that that seemed impossible with his huge form.
“All right, all right,” I said, feeling my cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I’m not about to shatter into pieces.”
Pieces. My hand in pieces, my vision filled with red—
A warm mug was pressed into my hand. “Drink,” JinYeong commanded softly.
I had just enough presence of mind to sniff the rising steam first, eyeing Zero cautiously. “Do I really want to drink it?”
He shifted the tiniest bit, the only betrayal of embarrassment he was capable of. “That’s for you to decide."
I took a sip, and instantly regretted it. I swallowed just to get the taste out of my mouth, and felt JinYeong’s quiet chuckle against my arm.
“Hyeong, you make bad coffee.”
Zero's expression pinched the tiniest bit, and I spoke before he could say anything else. I elbowed JinYeong, too, for good measure.
“It’s fine,” I said. “You can never learn unless you fail first, right?”
JinYeong’s laugh continued, growing louder, and to my surprise, Zero stared at me for a moment longer, then joined in, cracking the first smile I’d seen from him in ages.
I smiled, warm in the comfort that my psychos—two of them, anyway—were still able to laugh after everything we’d been through. I set down the mug and curled further into JinYeong’s chest, not feeling quite hungry or thirsty enough to prioritize food and drink over cuddling a warm and cozy vampire.
“Ruth, you should at least eat something.”
I sat up a little again, meeting Zero’s slightly exasperated eyes. “I will, but—” I stopped as his full sentence caught up with me. “Hang on. Did you just…?”
But he had. There was a wonderful little blossom of warmth in my chest at the sound of Zero calling me by my name.
He looked away again. “Should I have asked first? I thought since JinYeong and the detective were allowed to…”
“I don’t mind,” I said gently, this time just stopping myself from reaching out to touch his arm with a hand that wasn’t there. “Just gonna take some time getting used to.” Feeling sleepy again, I lay my head back against JinYeong’s chest. I could still feel Zero hovering, so I said,
“You'd better stop glowering at me while I’m cuddling my vampire, because I need all the emotional support I can get right now. You’re gonna have to get flamin’ used to it anyway.”
“We still need to have a talk about that,” Zero said flatly.
“Now is not the time,” I grumbled at the same time JinYeong said, “Nothing you say will make any difference.”
Zero huffed, but apparently agreed with me—for now. “I’ll go check on the zom— Morgana.”
I smiled into JinYeong’s shirt as I heard Zero’s footsteps walk back toward the kitchen, then out the front door a moment later. Apparently you could teach an old fae new tricks, like calling humans by their actual names.
“Rest,” murmured JinYeong, wrapping his arms fully around me. “If you have any more nightmares, I will be here.”
I had already known that, but it must have been the night for crying about even the littlest things, because my throat got tight again. “I love you, you know?” I said with an edge of tears, the statement coming out more like a question. I didn’t even mean to say it, really—didn’t even think about it before the words came out of my mouth—but I guess that’s when you know you really mean it.
To my surprise, JinYeong wasn’t smug about it. He gave me a gentle squeeze, and I tilted my head to look up at him. The look in his eyes—so deep and complex that I couldn’t begin to name it—knocked me breathless. Flamin’ mosquito, making me all vulnerable when I was already just about as vulnerable as I could possibly be.
“And I love you,” he said, his very voice like a caress that made me suppress a shiver. How did he do that?
Grabbing his collar and using it as an anchor, I rose up to kiss him, but he subtly backed away, putting a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder.
"It will be harder to sleep with so much vampire spit."
I sat back heavily on the couch, a little surprised at the weight of my disappointment. Or maybe I was more annoyed that this was the first time he'd refused a kiss from me. Whatever it was, it made me pout at him. That was new, too, and JinYeong chuckled in response.
He brushed the hair from my face and kissed my forehead. I already considered that a suitable peace offering, but my vampire never did things by halves. He framed my face with his hands and kissed the tip of my nose, then my cheeks and chin. By then, my toes were already curling a bit, but then he finished with a final, feather-light kiss on my lips, and my body forgot how to breathe for a second. It was hard to concentrate with him looking at me like that, all hooded eyes and smug smile.
"You'd better give me a proper kiss next time I wake up," I grumbled.
JinYeong grinned mischievously. “When you wake up, there will be no bite. I will kiss you instead."
I wondered how long—or how deeply—he’d have to kiss me for my body to experience the same immediate vampire spit effects as his bites, but that was a dangerous thought to follow, if the fluttery warmth in my stomach was anything to go by. JinYeong must have seen the look on my face, because his grin grew, and his eyes glittered. I frowned and slightly headbutted his chin, since my arm wasn’t in a good position to swat him.
“Oi! Don’t think so. Stop lookin’ at me like that.”
“You were the one,” he said, voice low and purring, “who told me to give you a proper kiss.”
Flamin’ heck. “If you don’t stop, I’m gonna make sure Zero has that conversation with you about us dating. Fancy getting chucked into a wall any time soon?”
“I do not mind being thrown into walls. Besides, you are the one who does not want to talk to hyeong about us.”
“It’s not that! I just know he’s gonna get all protective and—” I groaned, letting my head drop to JinYeong's shoulder as a thought occurred to me. “Oh no, d’you reckon he’s gonna try to give me ‘the talk’?”
“‘The talk’? What talk?”
“Never mind,” I muttered, since I didn’t want to have that talk with him, either. Instead, I snuggled further into him and closed my eyes. JinYeong held me close, his cheek to my hair.
“Sleep well, Ruth,” he murmured. “I will be here to chase the nightmares away.”
“Yeah.” I sank deeper into him. There were lots of thoughts crowding at the edges of my mind—wondering about the new king, the awful pain of losing friends, the terrifying unknown of living life missing an arm, and Athelas, just to name a few—but they all seemed to dissolve for a moment as I was surrounded by warm and soft and JinYeong.
“You always are,” I finished before drifting off into a deep and dreamless sleep.