Aron Mansion
Ray sat at the dining table, absently twirling his fork through the salad, his mind lost in idle thoughts. The chandelier overhead cast a warm glow over the polished table, the air filled with the soft clinking of silverware. Everything was normal—until it wasn’t.
A sharp, searing pain clawed through his chest, like invisible fingers squeezing his heart with rciless force. The fork in his hand slipped, clattering against the plate, but he barely registered the sound. His breath caught. His eyes widened. This feeling—it was the sa. The sa unbearable agony that had gripped him all those years ago. The day they thought Es had died.
Ray’s head snapped up, his pulse pounding in his ears. Across the table, his brothers sat frozen, their faces mirroring his own horror. Each of them clutched their chests, their breaths ragged. They knew. They all knew.
A terrible, unshakable dread coiled around them, a darkness that seeped into their bones. They were connected—not just by vows, not just by love, but by sothing deeper, sothing primal. So whispered it was the bond of soulmates, others claid it was their beasts, intertwined from years of running together, hunting together, living together.
Whatever it was, it was real. And right now, it scread at them that sothing—sothing—had gone horribly wrong.
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Elsewhere...
Es lay motionless. One hour. Two hours. Three.
The night had stretched endlessly, the moon slipping away, making way for the timid blush of dawn. Birds stirred, their soft chirping blending with the distant rustle of the wind. A golden hue kissed the sky, creeping onto the cold stone of the balcony where she lay.
Then—her fingers twitched.
A shallow breath. A faint, pained groan. Slowly, her lashes fluttered open, her vision blurred by pain and exhaustion.
Everything hurt.
Her chest burned, a raw, stabbing ache spreading from her ribs to her spine. It felt as though invisible daggers had torn through her heart, twisting deep before vanishing, leaving only unbearable soreness in their wake. Her head throbbed, a dull, pounding sensation echoing behind her skull.
When she shifted, agony flared through her face. The sharp sting in her nose made her gasp—was it broken? Blood stained her lips, the tallic tang lingering as she wiped it away with trembling fingers. She must have hit the ground hard. Hard enough to break sothing.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed against the cold stone, trying to lift herself.
Once.
Twice.
Her arms gave out, and she collapsed with a choked breath, her body too weak to obey her will. Frustration burned in her chest, but she swallowed it down, forcing herself to breathe through the pain.
She tried again, this ti grabbing onto the iron railing of the balcony. Her fingers curled around it, desperate for support. Every muscle in her body scread in protest, but she refused to stay down.
With sheer determination, she dragged herself up—inch by inch—until she was sitting against the railing, her breaths shallow, her heart still aching from whatever unseen force had ripped through it hours ago.
She didn’t know what had happened.
But sothing told her—deep in her bones, in the marrow of her very being—that sothing really bad is gonna happen.
Es steadied herself against the railing, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Sweat ford on her forehead, dripping down her temple as she wiped it away with the back of her trembling hand. Her vision was still unfocused, the edges of the world blurred and wavering. The pain in her chest throbbed relentlessly, as if sothing inside her was trying to claw its way out.
This wasn’t new. Ever since she woke from her coma, an undeniable discomfort had settled deep within her body, growing worse with ti. It had started small—a slight blurriness in her vision, a mont of dizziness that she had brushed off. Then ca the nosebleeds, thin rivulets of crimson trickling down her lips without warning. Coughing fits soon followed, each one harsher than the last, until blood splattered her palm. The headaches were unbearable, a pounding drum inside her skull. And now, this. A pain so sharp, so consuming, it felt as though her very existence was being drained.
This wasn’t a common illness. It was happening too quickly, too aggressively.
She couldn’t even go to a doctor—not while she was on this mission. But Es didn’t need one. She had Beom.
With her connection to him, she could sense the smallest faults in her own body. And what she found was terrifying.
Yes, her strength had grown. But it wasn’t a natural growth—it was unnatural, forced. Because sothing else was being taken in exchange. Her life force. Slowly, piece by piece, it was being drained away.
And she knew exactly why.
Because she had done sothing forbidden.
The mory was vivid, burned into her soul. That mont when she was falling—when she truly believed she was going to die—she had made a desperate choice. She had split Beom into two parts. One she had sent to her daughter, the child she had sworn to protect at all costs. The other remained with her.
Even though the fragnt her daughter received was weak compared to the full power of Beom, the act itself was unnatural. It was sothing that should never have been done. A forbidden art.
And now, both halves of Beom were bound to her.
Her daughter was too young, too fragile to handle such a force on her own. So Es had linked both beasts to herself, allowing them to take what they needed from her.
Power was never free. Beasts—no matter how loyal—required energy. A normal beast’s power drained its owner’s life force at a manageable rate, spread over years, causing only minor exhaustion. But Es’s situation was different.
Her power had been divided. Beom had grown.
And now, instead of taking re days or months of her life, it was devouring her lifespan at an alarming rate.
The price she had paid was becoming clearer.
She wasn’t just getting weaker.
She was dying.
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