Chapter thirty-six

Taehyung's blood dripped onto the floor, a small, thin puddle of gore was scattering over the marble, pooling under his feet, and soaking into his clothes. The pain in his shoulder ramped up from stiffness all the way to searing, blinding agony faster than he could blink. And just when the ache was at its worst, it dissipated, like fog off some terrible lake.

The agony had faded to a dull throb.

Eventually, his consciousness slipped out of his weak grasp, leaving him deathly pliant and docile in Chinhae's embrace. A mate mark wasn't supposed to bleed or hurt unless it wasn't wanted. And in Taehyung's case, he definitely didn't want to accept someone like Chinhae as a mate. Not after everything he had done to him and to all those wolves who had been left without their families and friends. Not when his heart already belonged to another man, much worthier and honorable than any other alpha or soldier.

Jungkook was forced to watch everything. Pain unlike any other coursed through his heart, shattered it to millions of tiny pieces that were too small to be put back together. And that was when he heard Chinhae's laugh, dull and far away, as if it were coming through a coat of plastic.

He pulled his teeth out, blood smeared across his lips and face. His facial features were contorted into a sickeningly evil grimace, so gloating and repellent that it was hard to believe the person who stood before Jungkook was a real human being. This man was a monster.

Chinhae threw Taehyung to the ground, delight flickering in those red eyes of his. Jungkook saw how the omega hit the floor, he heard the loud thud of his body colliding with the cold marble, and he wished to be both blind and deaf at the same time.

"Do you understand now, kid?" The voice said in that hideous, croaked tone. It was slicing, a little similar to the sound of a knife plunging into one's skin. "No one can kill a true blood. Not him," Chinhae pointed at the unconscious omega that was lying at his feet, then fixed his gaze back to Jungkook, smiling. "Not you, not anyone!" He spread his arms in a gesture of conciliation, like a bird ready to fly out of the nest, laughing at his own victory.

He made Jungkook feel so livid that the skin on his arms began to crack from the heat. He could feel his blood boil, sizzle, and curl until he became a beast. When he closed his eyes, the only color was red, this rubicund color that should be black. He hated him this much. Jungkook would never commit a murder willingly, but he would give Chinhae the most painful death. He would only murder if it meant getting his due revenge.

May God have mercy on my enemies because I won't.

Before the true blood could lift his arm and defend himself, Jungkook had run up to him, swiftly grabbing the same dagger Taehyung had been holding not too long ago and stabbing it into the man's chest. The tip of the weapon dug lightly into the center of his torso, and just as Jungkook pierced the skin he groaned in pain. Yet, even if it was hard, he pressed the weapon down further, and dragged it ever so slowly across his chest.

He made sure, for this important moment, that he was looking at Chinhae dead in the eye.

The blade was sharp enough to cut flesh as if it posed no resistance. At once a fountain of red came from the wound, the ebb and flow in time with a terrified heart, killing the man all the faster. Jungkook stood watching as if he couldn't hear the screams of pain, as if it were a silent theatre production of no importance.

It felt good in a way to get revenge, he thought solely about everything he had done to Taehyung and him, and it made him feel stronger. He was doing it to atone for all those lives they had lost.

Chinhae's lips parted. For the last time, the two men looked at one another, face to face. Then, with a final effort of will, Chinhae's jaded fingers grasped Jungkook's collar, and he whispered back a single, almost inaudible word. A word that meant that he, the notorious true blood alpha, would not let his killer win. That the last laugh, even in death, would be his.

"You're next." He breathed defiantly at Jungkook before his knees gave out under the weight of his body and he collapsed on the ground, lifeless. It was grotesque and brutal, but every bit of the death that he deserved.

Jungkook didn't move or breath for a couple of seconds. He just stared at Chinhae's corpse, observing how the blood gushed out of his wound and created a thick puddle of blood around him, like a halo of pure red.

The young alpha stumbled through his haze of aggression and sadness. Tears filled up his eyes, blurring his vision. He averted his gaze back to Taehyung, seeing the bad state in which his lover was. More blood was leaving his rapidly paling flesh, the pulse growing slower, weaker.

Jungkook staggered blindly forward and fell on his knees next to the omega, scooping him in his arms. He took his hand and held it tightly. The alpha's nail-bitten fingers twinned with his, pale and webbed with purple veins.

"Come on, pup," He whispered, begged for Taehyung to open his ocean eyes, and look at him. "Stay with me, Tae." Jungkook said in that broken tone of his, voice cracking under the pressure of the lump that had been lodged in his throat. Tears welled up in his brown orbs and dropped down on Taehyung's pale face.

The alpha's eyes inspected his body for any signs of trouble. There were some minor scratches and cuts on his face, probably caused by the branches of the trees. What however blew his mind away wasn't the tiny cut on his cheek, nor the bruise on his lip, but the mark on his neck, in that soft corner between collarbone and shoulder. Skin and a fist full of flesh had been torn off his little frame. With the teeth of that bloody bastard.

It was angry and swollen, patched red and yellow, and slick with a wet sheen of infection. And stretching over his skin like spider's legs were the black and purple-green veins that smelled of corpse. The rot of a beast's mark.

"Jungkook –"He heard someone yelling his name from the other side of the hallway, seeing his dearest friend, Jimin, standing by the doorframe. Horror was written all over his face as his eyes travelled up from Chinhae's corpse to them, gasping when he recognized Taehyung's limp figure in his arms.

Jimin's heart stopped in his chest and he didn't dare to breathe as he skidded to his knees in front of Jungkook, hands trembling so violently that his arms tingled.

"Tell me he is not –"

"He isn't!" Jungkook quickly said, straining to hear the weak pulse of Taehyung's barely working heart.

He looked at Jimin with tears in his eyes, a deep gash cutting across his nose and cheek. Jimin's own eyes prickled with tears as he brushed his fingers against Taehyung's pale, gray face, dirty and streaked with dark blood.

"We have to take him to the nursery." The short alpha informed, mind racing up to find a better solution. The more they stayed here and did nothing to help Taehyung, the lower his chances of survival became. "The rogues backed off when they found out their leader has died. Everyone is gathering up at the garden center."

When a pack leader died, his comrades would be immediately alerted by the bond that connected them to their pack. The moment you sealed with another family of wolves and became part of them, you were attached to the head alpha and it was your first duty to protect your pals.

'The garden center' or also known as 'the nursery' was the place where injured warriors and wolves were being nurtured and taken care of. It was mostly preoccupied by omegas because they were good healers and knew how to precisely cure a wound.

Jungkook considered Jimin's words before nodding his head understandingly. "Alright," he hummed, proceeding to get one of his arms underneath Taehyung's legs and the other one around his waist, hoisting him up into a bridal carry. The omega didn't make a sound, his head lolling against Jungkook's chest.

Both alphas broke into a small jog all the way up to the nursery. Every step felt so heavy, and the chilly autumn air was still and suffocating, but Jungkook continued to move determinedly, no matter how loud his ears were ringing from the blood rushing through his head.

When they finally reached the garden center, the alpha started to look around frantically, begging the omegas to help him, to take care of Taehyung's wounds. The first omega to rush up to them was no other than Lee Areum – general Yumi's mate and the main healer of their pack – her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun and beads of sweat were running down her forehead from all the hurry.

"Leave," she said to both Jimin and Jungkook when they had laid Taehyung down on one of the empty beds.

Jungkook was ready to start a fight with her because there was no way on Earth he would leave the omega's side when he needed him the most. "I'm staying with-"

"No, you aren't!" The look Areum gave him was persistent and obstinate, clearly showing that she was the one in charge of this argument. "You're of no use to him now." The finality of her words caught Jungkook off guard.

The young alpha had very weary eyes, his mind a propeller, which whirled obscenely in an attempt to manifest a clear thought. For some reason, her request caused thick spheroids of irritation to trickle down his spine. "I-"

"J-Jungkook..." Jimin's panicked voice cut him off midsentence. Jungkook was about to curse at him for disturbing him, but the second their gazes met, he froze in his place. "Your eyes..." he trailed off, gulping loudly, and through his parched throat it came out raspy, made him choke on his own words. "They are red."

Jungkook swore his heart stopped beating at this moment. His stomach lurched and a shudder of nausea ran through him. For a moment, he feared he might vomit, but thankfully the physical sensations passed. Mentally, however, he was still in shock.

Only true bloods had red irises when they got mad, or when they were in rut, or something altering happened. Intense emotions triggered body changes in every omega, alpha or beta. But they were different for every kind.

True blood alphas had red eyes.

And Jungkook killed Chinhae.

Areum stiffened next to them, her gaze railing languidly up and down the alpha's body in the most disconcerting manner. Robustly, she managed to concoct enough letters to scramble out. "Go," she pushed Jungkook away, fighting back her own omega instincts that urged her to get on her knees in submission.

The alpha stumbled backwards, quickly caught by Jimin who happened to stand behind him. Jungkook sucked in a breath. His chest was full of lead, but his eyes were empty as he focused them on Taehyung's unconscious attire. He had all the answers he needed.

The alpha reminisced the time Taehyung had warned him about the consensuses of killing a true blood. Back then he was so ready to fulfil his duty as the head alpha's son and kill Chinhae. Now it felt like the faux confidence and determination were just there to deceive him into thinking he was capable of protecting them. Protecting his friends, his family, his omega.

Jungkook didn't realize when Jimin had managed to get them out of the nursery. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts, dashing around in his head like ants when you disturbed their nest.

He reflected on the unlikely series of events that had brought him here. How utterly crazy everything had been since meeting Taehyung, and the fateful moment of Chinhae's death. Not death, he reminded himself, gaze fixed on the trees ahead of them. Murder.

I murdered the true blood alpha.

One day, Jungkook imagined, those shocking words would have the effect they were supposed to. They would elixir some profound feeling in him. Not guilt, perhaps, because there was no question that Chinhae deserved to die. But awe would surely be appropriate? Awe for the magnitude and finality of what he had done, of ending another human life. It worried him that right now he felt nothing at all beyond a naffing discomfort that Chinhae's last words on earth – 'you're next' – had been a denial of the admission Jungkook had so desperately craved.

"Hey..." Jimin carefully brought his hand up to pat him on the shoulder in this avuncular way his hyungs often used to do. "It will be all right, okay? We will figure everything out." He said, adopting a more conciliatory tone in the face of Jungkook's sullen silence.

It took a minute for the cogs in Jungkook's brain to operate and even when they started spinning around, he still didn't fully comprehend what was being said to him.

He inhaled a vast of air, allowing the breeze to calm his rampant senses. "I failed, Chim..." Jungkook whispered brokenly, and for a third time today the tears in his eyes threatened to be shed. "I couldn't–" He was gasping for air, all strained with his booming heart and the blood that was flowing a little too quickly through his system. "I don't know what to do anymore."

Guilt was so present within him. It was like an invading species, a worm digging and digging inside his stomach where it didn't belong and there weren't the correct nutrients to sustain it. Yet that didn't keep it from fueling itself on all the nutrients it could find and take up, even if it meant leaving Jungkook's insides hollow.

"Come here," Jimin said, into the darkness, condensation billowing out of his mouth due to the frost. He wrapped his arms tightly around Jungkook's broad frame, patting him on the back and whispering words of assurance in his ear, promising him a better turn of the events.

The alpha nodded weakly, forehead pressing into the warmth of Jimin's neck. It wasn't very often for him to cry out his emotions like this. Shouldn't he be celebrating with the others for taking down the most dangerous man in the world? Shouldn't he be glad that the war was over, and no more innocent lives were going to be wasted on battling against the evil?

Jungkook always wanted to save the world. He wished to be the hero everyone would be proud of. But when he had to sacrifice his own world to salvage those who desperately pleaded for his help, he realized how much it costed him to be the knight on a white charger.