XLVII

A Shift of Power

The scream that leaves my throat seems to wake my family from their frozen state. I'm still latched to the wall, and I can't seem to tap into Kígyó's magic at all, like I am also frozen in time but I know that's not true. I can feel the dagger in my thigh and it's hard to see out of my one good working eye, since my other is starting to swell shut. Minjun has his hands tightly wrapped around Jaejin's throat, I can hear the gurgling and the sound of my poor Mate choking. Jaejin's head slowly turns and he looks at me with those big brown eyes of his. The ones that usually can calm the storm in my mind, and he blinks at me. As if he's talking to me, as if he is saying.. Goodbye.

"I love you." He chokes out, and his head goes limp. A wrecking ball hits me, the loudest sob breaks out of me. Minjun throws him to the floor and with the flick of his wrists, the chains holding me up lets go of my body. I yell as my battered body falls to the ground, I use my palms to lift myself up off the ground but it's no use as my arms shake and I fall back down.

"Don't you dare take a step towards him!" My father yells at him and Minjun stares to look at him. He points a finger to him, a glare on his face, or what I am guessing is a glare. Minjun turns his back, picking me up off the ground and grabs my throat in his hands, then squeezes. I can feel my throat bruising under his touch, the panic in my arms, and the air leaving me. I claw at his hands and he sneers at me.

"Pathetic Pluto Kardos. I should've made Hyunshik get rid of your Mutt self when he came back from Red Blaze," He snaps in my face and I can hear Haeun screaming at him. My father is being held back by my siblings and my mother meets my eyes. "I don't care that my son is gay, but to be Mated to you? When you're dead, Jaejin will understand how much better off he is without you." He barks at me and my vision is starting to go black, going from the outside of my eyes to cover my entire sight. That's when it hits the fan, and I fall to the floor. My mother's eyes change, instead of the usual yellow feline eye that most riders get when they tap into their dragon's magic, my mother's eyes change to all white, there's no color in them at all. As I prop myself up on my side, I watch my mother grab Minjun's shoulder, and she grabs the top of his spine.

"Say hello to your Mutt of a father for me, Minjun Cha." Then she rips his spine out, blood splattering across her neck. She comes rushing to me as his body drops to the ground, and she cradles my face in her hands.

"Mamá," I sob and she kisses my forehead, lingering there. "They aren't going to let you live it down-"

"I don't care if they call me King Killer again, Pluto, I care that my son is alive, I care about my family." She whispers to me fiercely and I watch Orion rush to Jaejin. Jaejin. My mate. I don't care that the dagger is in my thigh, I got on my knees and Orion rests his head against Jaejin's mouth.

"He's not breathing." Orion whispers and pulls back. I'm quick at doing chest compressions, and breathing air into his mouth. I grab that thread that ties us together, and I yank it because I refuse to lose him. I refuse to lose my mate, the love of my life, and the one who keeps my heart beating in my chest. After 100 compressions, and a full minute later, Jaejin sits up quickly and is coughing. He grabs his throat, and I rub his back.

"Breathe baby, I'm here." Jaejin grabs my shoulders and he brings me into his arms, holding tight onto me. He doesn't let up, and he just holds me. His breath is slow and I can hear him wheezing from the abuse his lungs just took.

"Grab a damn doctor!" I can hear Haeun yelling and Jaejin winces. He lets go of my body and I stare at him, but his brown eyes are dead looking. There's no spark, mischief, or even that glaze of love that I've come used to.

"Don't speak," I whisper, "Your throat and vocal cords are most likely bruised. I've got you, maitalea." I run my hand through his hair and don't wince away from him, at all. Jaejin grunts and brings his left arm up. His blackout mark from being Heir changes. It doesn't stop at the elbow anymore, his mark goes down to his wrist, his whole arm black now in the mark, just confirming that Minjun's lifeless body is just a few feet away from us. After coronation, and the blessing from Vuna, Black Soul's Goddess, the mark will stretch down again, but to his knuckles. Minjun never got Vuna's blessing. Guards come flooding in, they put Minjun's body into a bag and take him away. Guards try to approach my family and Jaejin looks at me, nodding. I shake my head because I'm not his King, not yet. So Jaejin looks to his mother who is right by his side as well.

"Leave the Kardos family alone, they are in-laws after all. Your new King's word demands it." She snaps at them and they nod, a doctor finally shuffling in between the guards. The guards take it as their time to leave, and a group of nurses behind the doctor comes in. The nurses take care of my family, making sure my mother is okay but it's not her blood so they don't stay long. The doctor comes to me first but I glare at him.

"Your King first, now." I bark and Jaejin meets my glare, a glare on his face as well. "You will be checked out first, not me. You can't speak." I snap at him and he huffs, rolling his brown eyes. So the doctor opens his black bag, and from the corner of my eye, I can see panic in my brother's eyes. I meet his wild blue eyes and he runs out of the room. Weird.

"This is gonna hurt my King, take this," He grabs a rubber belt and shoves it into his mouth, and Jaejin bites down. The doctor goes to his back, and opens a bottle which I can tell from my nose is definitely cleaning alcohol for wounds. He pours it down Jaejin's back and Jaejin tries to scream into the bit but he has no voice. I watch his eyes close and him slump forward.

"You couldn't give him anything for the pain?" I ask the doctor, worried for my Mate.

"I need to make sure he doesn't get worse, Prince Pluto. I can give him something to take the edge off, but that's it till we can get him hooked up in a bed but this needs to be cleaned before we take him." He explains and I nod slowly, I understand but the protective bastard in me doesn't. Something about my Mate being in pain, passed out, and his blood still in my nostrils has me on edge. The doctor then grabs white gauze from his bag, and he wraps Jaejin's whole back, wrapping it around his torso. Luckily the lashing scars don't go above his shoulders, mostly in the center and his lower back. Once that's done, he takes the bit out of Jaejin's mouth, and gives him a shot in his forearm, his right one since the left arm still is irritated from the mark branding him not that long ago. He gets the guards to come back in with a stretcher, but he first takes the dagger out of his thigh, stopping the bleeding, and wrapping tight gauze on the wound. He does the same thing to the dagger in his shoulder. They place Jaejin on his stomach onto the stretcher, and I position his head to the side so he can breathe properly.

"Nurse, finish up Prince Pluto's injuries. Then come escort him into the infirmary." The doctor says and they take my precious lifeline out of the room. He's safe. Minjun is dead. Jaejin is safe. Haeun sees the worry on my face since I'm sure that I won't be able to have Jaejin out of my sight for a while.

"Pluto, I'll go, and stay, okay? You get wrapped up." She says and hugs me, kissing my cheek. Then I watch her walk out of the room, and the nurse gives me a soft smile. I know she's just being nice. She first cleans the blood and the cut on my busted lip, then feels around on my black eye.

"It will heal. With time. You need to keep a cold compress on it, Prince Pluto. The swelling will go down in a couple of days, but the bruise will go away in a couple of weeks. Here, bite this." She tells me, grabbing a rubber bit out of her bag. I bite into it, and she pours alcohol onto the slices on my torso, they aren't deep but it still makes me yell. She wraps gauze around my torso and around my back. She grabs the bit and puts it back into her little bag. She grabs the dagger in my thigh and pulls it out which makes me grunt. She stops the bleeding and places tight gauze around my thigh as well. She helps me up once we are done but she's so small compared to me which is why my father grabs my arm, pulling it over his shoulder. Once we are out of the room, my brother is in the hallway and still looks plagued by the demons in his head. He grabs my other arm and helps me as well, and I'm afraid to ask what's wrong.

"Orion-" I start but my brother looks at me, that's all it takes. It takes us a while to get up to the infirmary and they sit me in a chair next to Jaejin's bed where he is lying on his stomach still. They have the bed flat so it's comfortable and a pillow under his head. He has a thin blanket over his legs, since they don't want to irritate his wound even if it does have gauze. They have me prop up my leg so the wound doesn't rebleed. Of course it was the same thigh and the same placement where the poison was from a couple of months ago. They have Jaejin hooked up to a monitor, a bunch of numbers on the monitor next to his bed. His heart rate is steady and his oxygen is lower than normal but not too bad.

"Ah, there you are, Prince Pluto. I wanted to give you some information. First, Jaejin has to stay on his back or sit up for the next week, at least. Once his wounds start to close and don't need gauze anymore, which will take two weeks. He'll have scars and bruising will occur, the bruising will take a couple of months to go away, I'm afraid. His shoulder and thigh wound will take a couple of weeks so not too much pressure on them, crutches. Same goes for you but I've been told you know what comes with a thigh injury. For the black eyes, the swelling will take a week for him to go down since I am only going to do a cold compress once he wakes. His body needs rest. Your black eye will most likely go down in a day or two, just make you keep your cold compress on it. We'll have to change his bandage twice a day for the first few days, then once a day everyday for the next two weeks. For his throat, everything is bruised and swollen. He must stay silent for a week, at least. Little talking in the second week, and by the third week or fourth week, he should be fully healed enough to resume talking normally."

"When can he lay in his own bed?" I ask, and watch Jaejin peacefully sleep. His body needs time to heal, but I wasn't sure how long his mental scars were going to take. When he woke, I wasn't sure if I would be getting my Jaejin or if I would be getting a whole different person.

"Two weeks, Prince Pluto. I don't want to risk infection." The doctor then bows and leaves the room. I watch Jaejin and I look at the mark he now bears on his left arm, everybody else is going to see how it's time for him to become King, and that he is the King of Black Soul. All Jaejin and I are going to think about is the torture that Minjun made us go through for Jaejin revolting against him. For Jaejin standing up for what is right. I never meant for him.. To end up like this. One thing is for sure, I'm not going to Red Blaze after this anymore. Jaejin and I are staying, we are staying and we are going to be the new King's of the Black Soul Kingdom. I just hope nothing else can stand in the way of Jaejin and I. I am praying to all of the Gods tonight, and I am begging them.

I just hope the Gods are in a listening mood.