𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4,700 words

𝐘𝐮𝐧𝐡𝐨

The man's hand rested on the handle for a long time before he eventually pressed down onto the cool gold-plated steel. A longing howl for more freedom filled his head with so much blather that he was slowly turning insane from the ringing tones. Shut up, it's only been a few days - besides, who's the actual reason for our imprisonment?

Yunho whipped his head around again and sniffed the air another time out of pure dread of the heavy smells still lingering around his room and clinging to the clean clothes he had just picked out from the wardrobe he had found inside his given chamber. An irritated growl escaped his throat as the many hours of scrubbing the many pheromones off him with the strongest scented soaps he could find in the bathroom had not paid off at all. Anyone with a decent sense of smell would be able to detect the fever still hanging around him like a cloud.

He still smelled like two fucking whole days of pain and sperm. Embarrassing.

The werewolf's pride in being a prince had been lowered completely, and he prayed by the moon's power that none of the other princes had caught a whiff of what he was going through - although that wish was difficult to be fulfilled in a place like this full of sketchy, dark creatures. Somehow, and it was still a mystery to Yunho why his rut kicked in nearly 4 months earlier than it was supposed to. The feverish signs he always used to have before he would be down hadn't been there either as well as the duration of the rut itself had been incredibly short. Normally they lasted about a week.

Yunho was just glad that he at least had his own chamber to handle everything inside, even if his wolf had contemplated the reasons to lock the door instead of finding a potential mate. He cursed himself at that statement and sent a downturning signal to his wolf when it began getting a little too excited about the idea of someone to claim as theirs. Shall I make it even more clear for you? It's a bloody no!

"Stupid wolf," the prince muttered to himself as he wandered down the long empty corridors.

It was a bit of luck his sense of orientation held up even after a couple of days locked up inside a foreign room - but his wolf was simply a master at figuring out labyrinths. Soon his legs kicked him down the enormous main stairs into the segue before the dining room, hunger biting his insides and making instincts emerge the closer he came. Almost as if he already could taste the delicious dishes on his tongue..

But the enormous dining room displayed no food. His eyes wandered down the wooden table, finding every gilded chair empty. Yunho was alone.

Full of disappointment, Yunho pulled out one of the heavy pieces of furniture and slumped down into the seat. That moment exhaustion for real hit him - he pulled his elbows up to rest against the table's stern surface and rubbed the tiredness out of his face, although to no alteration than before. He could survive with this if it could not be otherwise.

The second he felt the pull, the wolf had no chance against the force of his overtired eyelids slowly sliding close, so he let himself shut off the world around him, lightly easing the headache throbbing in his brain as he rested his head on top of his palms. And yet, his wolf had the audacity to even growl at him for not finding any food to satisfy it with. Well, you do something about that then!

"Hmm.. Out of energy?"

Yunho suddenly tensed from the tonations vibrating into his sensitive ear, a shock falling into his features as he raised his head from where he had been resting it. His nose caught up on the heavy smell of darkness floating around his form and making his neck hair raise. His eyes flared gold, filled with signals of 'I see danger coming!', his wolf practically screaming at him to turn around and lunge at the devil standing so awfully close up against him.

But instead, Yunho collected his feral instincts and pushed them far away from his acting - the wolf talking to his head with so much disapproval of his non-violent decision.

"Leave me demon, you provide me nothing good," he told the prince of darkness without glancing a single time over his shoulder.

The silence dragged along his spine until shivers trembled from his skin at the devious chuckles escaping from the demon's sinful mouth. Yunho's eyes trailed the golden candlestick in front of him, his extremely good sight suddenly catching up with the reflection of Hongjoong's broad smicker.

"I simply just wanted to ask, my bad I guess," he said and Yunho could feel the slightest of fingers tracing his shoulder before vanishing again. That might not even have happened at all.

A chair was pulled to the side before the other prince jumped to sit on top of the table, eyes being so dark they nearly felt dead. His manners didn't match his title as a prince, which in fact, calmed Yunho with his own self-blame.

"Perhaps I should make myself more clear? Huh, wolf-boy.. Is it not a bit odd that you decided to disappear for two whole days?"

Black orbs reached for his own, which he knew must be glowing gold by now. His upper lip lifted the slightest when another growl rumbled deep down from his chest, sharp canines on display as his wolf worked every cell in his body into defense mode.

Yunho licked his teeth as he spat out a 'get lost!', bending with his every will the temptation to jump at the other, jaws aching to close around the demon's throat and shutting up his sleek comments one good time for all.

Yunho had seriously no idea where all those violent thoughts came from, but one thing was sure, instincts were slowly kicking in, and he had no control over it at all. Fuck, his head hurt.

And Hongjoong's hand was suddenly about to snap him out of his daze with a single boop of a finger touching the tip of his nose.

The werewolf prince paused in his tracks when his nose scrunched by itself and was now staring into the face of a giggling prince - nothing else but confusion stuck to the wolf whose anger withered as fast as it had come.

"You're nothing but just a little puppy, prince Yunho," the demon chanted, "You're even confused by your own hormones - a bundle of nerves ready to pop," Hongjoong made a popping sound with his cheek to serve his point.

Then he pouted, sticking his bottom lip out in an insanely ridiculous way as he spoke, "I think prince Mingi might be right about me having to keep my fingers from playing with poor little you."

The pout was not innocent at all, in fact, it maliciously mocked him with how the demon's lips slowly stretched into a broad smirk. One that could have appeared as one of a nightmare's many shady delusions - the werewolf prince shuddered at the all too smooth transition between the absurdity of shifting such different demeanors. Then suddenly, he realized that he, after all, had been staring at a hell-raised monster from the beginning of their meet by this accursed table.

And he was talking about Mingi, although only briefly. Yunho tensed at the mention of Mingi being involved in whatever the demon had in mind to do with him; this could only mean the troublest of all troubles within the walls of this castle, and the prince was already so fucking tired.

He didn't move away when Hongjoong's tainting hands grabbed his face and pulled him closer, his stomach now pressing against the edge of the wooden table. He growled lowly.

"Little wolf-prince~ Are we a tiny bit angered now, hm?"

Steadily, Yunho felt how the puff of the other's breath cascaded his sensitive skin and it made him curl his toes inside his dress shoes.

Yunho tensed his jaws, as he forced himself not to do something stupid like his wolf wanted him to do, "Get lost, prince Hongjoong."

But Hongjoong brushed his comment off and continued cooing down at him, his small fingers caressing his tensed jaws sweetly and Yunho's wolf was deeply confused at the gentle touches that far from matched up with the demon's provoking words.

The other prince moved closer, his legs sneaking around Yunho's body and locking on his back. He should have pushed him away at that exact moment, but something didn't let him and it was frustrating, to say the least. It was almost as if hidden chains had fastened around his arms and nailed them down against the table. Yunho didn't only feel powerless, he was powerless.

His small body wrapped around him as a dark mist at night, making Yunho feel so fucking dizzy that he would probably have fallen off the chair if had he not been held by the other. Yunho would have wanted to fall - fallen so hard that he would damage his head and made him realize what darkness the other prince was pulling him into. Moonsake, he should run the fuck away from here!

But his eyes had fallen deep into the darkness already; his pupils were bloated and his body pulled up in strings that Hongjoong held in his hands - he became something like a marionette, motions loose and unpredictable for himself. And the demon was grinning down at him as he cupped his face in his sneaky little hands.

Then he came closer, so close that Yunho was able to count his long eyelashes that slowly came down and touched his skin as the prince drew them close. He inhaled with a hum, "Mhmm so rich and full.."

The wolf's lips parted the slightest when he felt Hongjoong's grace his own for a brief moment before moving his head down to the crook of his neck, seemingly lapping up his smell. Yunho's body twitched at the motion his wolf made toward Hongjoong being so close to his neck, the place where wolves normally would bite their mates. Yunho desperately tried to push the vibrating feelings away, blinded by his post-rut and his wolf's desire to find them a foolish mate. A demon would not even be a potential mate!? Wake up!

His thoughts fought like crazy, causing him to forget how to even move his limbs around of his own free will. Something was pulling at the strings, making his hands reach up around the demon prince's small body, dragging them down to his waist and holding on. He should stop now. Hongjoong smelled of shades and wickedness, something so sour that he nearly couldn't breathe in the increasing dark fog around him. He growled when Hongjoong's lips drew across his hypersensitive skin and he swore he could have killed him right there. He should! The demon's heels pressed into his back before he gathered his fingers into his lush red-brown hair. Anticipation filled his eyes with dread as much as the lack of consent tore his mind into pieces, but he felt okay with it. He could enjoy losing a little control.

Suddenly, he felt how hands were tearing his hair roots from his scalp while his head was pushed down into the demon's crotch. The prince's arms would have withstood the force, if not their control had been out of his reach. Angered, Yunho dug his nails into Hongjoong's sides, growling at the forced submission he was put in, nosed against the demon's erection through only a few layers of clothes. But something had changed.

The demon prince's scent spiked with something new to it. Something very sweet and satisfying, instead of the dull dark smell he had carried on before. Although it seemed utterly grotesque how an alpha wolf submitted to a freaking demonling, the attraction was somewhat there, but still, faint in his guts. And Yunho despised that feeling to the moon and back - he wanted to gut himself and after be strangled with those same organs, which surely would make him come to his own senses again. They had to.

Yunho flinched at his own incoherent acts when he opened his mouth and started licking at the shape of the other prince's erection. He listened to the sinful groans coming out of Hongjoong's mouth as he continued licking the fabric, and made it all wet and damp.
"Fuck, wolf-boy, that's so nice of you, licking me like a cute little puppy," the demon prince praised him and Yunho felt how his fingers softened in his hair too, not pulling as hard anymore.

The wolf in him keened at the praises before Yunho started drifting away. He didn't know what was happening before something very dark was pushing him into the corner of his own body, making his wolf whimper in submission and fear of what unknown might was penetrating his mind and body. It made him go limp, his arms falling helplessly from Hongjoong's waist as he continued sucking on his crotch.

"Such a good boy, doing all the work for me. Are you always this compliant? Making things easy for others as you just follow rules like you were made for them.." Hongjoong's voice gradually drifted further and further away as if it was the cause for his head to slowly empty.

Hongjoong praised him, his wolf whimpered needily, and Yunho just licked his cock as if he was trained only to do so. The devil's darkness was slowly consuming him wholly.

"Has anyone ever mentioned how good you taste? - How well that taste lingers on one's tongue?"

"Really sweet... so sweet.."

_____

𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢

He stormed the door open, having already predicted what was to meet inside even before making his entrance.

"Get off him!" he roared as he skipped to the table, standing before where Hongjoong had trapped Yunho, surrounded by foul dark magic.

His eyes shone red when they collided with Hongjoong's dark ones challenging, ready for a real fight. Excessively, the demon let go of Yunho, pushing him off the chair as he proceeded to roll his eyes dramatically at the vampire.

"And there we have him - the savior of the day! You must have earned the grand prize for heroism in the next few centuries. Cheers!"

The vampire hissed at the motion the demon made with his hand, pretending to be toasting with someone beside him.

"You're a bastard's son," Mingi told him with a heavy glare as he took a step forward.

The godforsaken creature only smirked at his comment, seemingly taking it in as a compliment, "Well yeah, technically my father is the King of the Underworld, so that kind of makes sense."

"Shut up!"

"Oh look! More people are coming in to congratulate your honor and glory! I might as well be stepping down from the podium now."

But the quick-witted demon didn't come as far as planned, only jumping down from the table before the vampire was grabbing his wrist, holding him back with his immeasurable strength, "Why suddenly hurry away? I could end you anyway now that I know your weakness."

Hongjoong widened his eyes for a moment, lips parting in surprise before growing into a sly smile. The demon glanced a little down at the floor as he spoke lowly, "Well, bloody little liar, I would like to know what you think it is then. I see you are pretty good at telling things with your mouth that is unright - also, when it comes to prince Yunh-"

Cutting his sentence off, Mingi's hands had already connected around the demon prince's head, smashing it down against the tabletop.

Hongjoong let out a loud groan as the pain seemed to crash on him, his face erupted into a tense stretched smile as if he actually enjoyed every second of it. Mingi knew he fed from strong emotions.

But he beat him again, his fierce knuckles connecting with Hongjoong's jaw, the blow turning his entire head around and knocking down into the firm surface another time. Mingi saw red, his hands trembling out of an abnormal rage that rarely was shown as intercepted in his character traits. The vampire prince lifted the demon's small body up from the furniture again, holding him there in only the fabric of his shirt for a moment as his teeth felt heavy and threatening in his mouth.

Hongjoong just fucking kept on smiling like a damn psychotic.

"You having fun?" grinning, he sent him a crooked smile before passing his gaze somewhere else.

Mingi didn't even manage to pick up on what was happening outside his massive feelings of wrath before he was forced to let go of Hongjoong. The siren prince's beautiful, angry eyes were looking up at him as he gave him a push away from the table.

"What are you doing!?"

His eyes fluttered a few times, as he slowly came to his senses, yet Jongho was still sending him the foulest glare, "Answer me!"

The siren's voice was strong, not a single tone unwavering when he pushed to get his demanded answers. Mingi furrowed his brows.

"How dare you speak to me like that, when I simply was the one pulling Yunho away from getting killed!"

For a moment, it seemed like Jongho was stunned by his harsh answer, more surprised by the vampire's tone than the actual content of his words. Mingi cooly gathered his own emotions and examined how the muscles in Jongho's face worked to a conclusion of how he should react.

"Why do you even mind," the tall prince said instead, bored with the presence, "How could it not possibly please you getting rid of the demon?"

Attentively, his eyes located the room around him, spotting how a few servants were already attending to Yunho on the floor. The dragon prince sat there too. Yeosang was there too, standing a few meters behind Jongho as his eyes drew across Hongjoong panting on the floor. Then, as if he actually had eyes in the neck, the demon snapped his head around. Black coals were staring right up at him as they seemed more awake than ever. And Mingi scorned everything about it.

"Oh yeah? As if you even know how to actually kill me."

Prince Jongho flicked his hands in between them to stop the quarrel again.

Soon a presence made its entry, having all of the princes turn their heads at him, "You treat this place as if it's a mere playground for you to mess around at. It is not. Do you not know why we all have come here?"

The phoenix stood tall in his articles of clothing, soft silks in a creamed blue draping around his shoulders and hanging loosely, although still close around his chest, making out wide, long sleeves, hiding his hands underneath. The fabric from his waist and down hung loose, and Mingi was not able to see if the fabric was meant as trousers or a long skirt. Prince Seonghwa looked different from the night he had arrived here, yet he was still carrying on that same proud stance and might, given his blustering self underneath his crown. The prince had a hard time keeping his gaze on the dazzling sight.

"What do you mean?" Jongho burst before he was beaten to it by the fuming dragon.

"Why we have come here? Yes, but of course, I know why I am here and it is certainly not to be killing the princes of the other kingdoms!"

A cough came from the floor to intendedly interrupt, "Well, now you ask, bird, then I may share my point of view in this context; if we kill each other then the problem is not ours anymore, and war will be all against all, and-"

Then Hongjoong choked on something emerging in his mouth out of nowhere, stopping him from saying anything else. Mingi couldn't really discern what it was supposed to be before his head was pulled in the direction of Yeosang, sparkling full of magic.

Hongjoong didn't keep the flowers in his mouth very long before he spat them out again, expression filled with pure disgust.

"The faeries have pronounced that if the other species do not comply with the Great Sorceress' rules of not trespassing lands which are not theirs, they will declare war against everyone. The faeries will not spare anyone's lives, brutally honest as they are," the phoenix prince was steering his prompt eyes at everyone, "I have solely come here to protect my people from your kingdoms fuming madness at each other."

The dining hall quietened until the faerie drew in a sharp breath, and Mingi snapped his head at the son of the king who had been steering up those troubles in the very beginning.

"That is not true at all, your words are twisted and turned! My father is not at all interested in waging war against your kinds, we just do wish to be respected, also, as regards our mutual laws made for exactly those fights!" Yeosang clarified with a hand held out in front of him, protectingly, as he turned towards Seonghwa. His eyes were flaring different amounts of red and yellow now, with a hint of purple too.

Hongjoong smiled smugly, lifting a hand to rub his face, amused by everything. "So what, Park," he barked out with a laugh, "What are you going to do about it? Tell your people to flee? 'Cause there's no possible way to come around war - just look at us!"

"I told you I would send you back to hell," he firmly bit back.

Excessively, the demon gasped, black eyes rolling in his skull, but Mingi didn't think it made its aim, "Then I'm afraid that you will declare war against my kingdom too. Be careful of your words, they might fly out of your mouth before you even know of it."

Mingi watched the demon lick the black blood trickling down from the cut on the side of his head, a dark mist subtly forming around him. Time seemed to stop in the short moment of silence.

Then all too suddenly, Jongho was scrambling to kneel in front of the demon, a groan escaping his lips as Hongjoong now crouched in front of him with the same insanity painted on his features.

"What about you, huh? What part are you playing in this game? The investigator, perhaps?" the demon smiled broadly at the sight of Jongho mentally fighting against the force Hongjoong was pushing him under.

Something rattled from behind, flinging Mingi out of his trance.

"Let go of him!"

Wooyoung's yelling echoed throughout the room as he sprinted the room to attack the demon and a pinching sensation spread down Mingi's skin. The dragon's shifting body fell to the ground mid-air, overturning a row of chairs as he crashed into them, painfully. Mingi didn't shift in demeanor because of how Wooyoung howled in agony, it came from a way deeper feeling of distress in his chest. Something related to the loud, terrifying animalistic growls coming closer. The force pressed his fangs out of his mouth, hisses tearing his face apart as the only thing he wanted to do at that moment was protect.

Pheromones attacked his nose, sending powerful waves of orders through his entire body, making his fights against it seem so impossible that he didn't even give it a try. Mingi sprung forward, fingers digging into the overwhelmed demon's throat, fiercely pulling his head back as his foul hissing intended to send him into submission. Seonghwa's flame embed hands grabbed both of Hongjoong's arms, which finally made him break the spell, shifting his thoughts to something else than greediness.

"You're sick, full of venom."

Hongjoong moaned in pain when the phoenix burned a handmark across his ceramic-like cheek, making stumbled words fall out of his mouth, somehow not scared enough to keep his unnecessary utterance for himself, "You're wrong, I am not, but a certain someone in this place may be," he said and squeezed his eyes open to look up at Mingi.

The vampire prince did not give him any reaction, which must have been to the demon's dissatisfaction, considering how fleetly he continued moving on, "That's what I thought, let's have a fancy negotiation tomorrow, at night, and see where your so-called diplomatics will bring us. You might be forgetting how very.. different our minds they are."

_____

𝐉𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐨

The vampire and the phoenix prince let go of the demon very shortly after he had worded another sentence.

Jongho kind of felt sorry for having pulled Mingi off Hongjoong earlier when he had found him beating the fuck out of the demon. As soon as his gaze had landed on the poor wolf sitting on the floor dizzily, looking so sickly pale, he felt the guilt hit him like a storm.

He felt like throwing up too. He could feel how Hongjoong's darkness still loomed in the corners of his mind, and it was disgusting. Jongho got it now why demons were hated so much.

"Are you alright?"

Startled from the depths of his mind, the siren turned his head to look at the phoenix and his - if the prince must admit it - terrifying beauty. Prince Seonghwa was a dangerous being in Jongho's waters.

The prince swallowed the lump in his throat before nodding curtly. He got up from the floor shortly after and glanced to his side where he saw a few servants helping prince Wooyoung with getting prince Yunho to stand at his feet again. The werewolf swayed from side to side, and it ended with them hurriedly placing him down on a chair by the table before he would fall and make the harm even worse. Jongho still wanted to know what exactly had happened; and the mystery of why prince Yunho had been gone for two days. Was it the demon who had hidden him somewhere in this castle? Abusing him as he pleased?

Jongho could be violent too.

The tension around the dinner table was painfully obvious and everyone seemed to at least want to confront one of the others with something - Jongho was no exception. In fact, he could have trapped them all, one at a time, in a corner, and questioned them until his teeth would have torn flesh apart. He was sure.

"Demons feed from emotions and Hongjoong was just doing that, " the vampire voiced when Jongho seemed to be questioning out loud without knowing.

The siren prince furrowed his brows as he wondered, "As in ingesting? I was not aware that demons did that."

"Yeah, normally they don't really tend to say when they do, to make the attack more subtle. Also, I've heard that it's not always something they can control, but I'm not sure if that is true," Wooyoung elaborated, taking a seat beside Yunho, as he looked deeply concerned at his absent self. He made room for the servants coming in with plates full of food they placed in front of the werewolf.

"Have something to eat," he nearly pleaded while he helped sort out Yunho's cutlery for him.

A caring soul, Jongho thought as he watched how Yunho barely reacted to the clinking of ceramic and steel.

Yeosang didn't sit down beside him as he had done the other days, instead, he chose a seat as far away from them all as possible, eyes shooing away every time someone noticed him looking at Yunho. The faeries wanted war, but that didn't make any sense to Jongho. Since he had arrived, prince Yeosang had been the fairest most decent of them all. So pure and innocent - and now this. War?!

The prince heaved his sight away until he noticed how demandingly Seonghwa was looking at him with that same conceited look in his way of leading his presence, "There is a possibility that the demon may be the trickster among us if you still are interested in figuring out who poisoned prince San.."

A fork fell from a hand somewhere, hitting the table right after a rather rude sentence was pulled off, "Ugh, you reek like a bitch in heat."

"Excuse me?"

Mingi pursed his lips when his eyes stared back at Wooyoung, full of apathy, "You probably can't smell it, but Yunho stinks of sex."

♛