Bound by Blood

Chapter 121- beginning again

JIN POV:

Everything's changing. Shifting. 

It means that our lives will never be the same, that what we once had will change and adapt into a new normal. But it's a change I've longed my entire existence for.

The only thing I held onto through all the traditional teaching I'd been given from the moment I could talk.

The beautiful mirage that was a completed coven, finding the ones who'd complete you, who'd make your soul burn brighter and could make an unbeating heart skip a beat and painfully clench.

It had been centuries I'd been alive. Where time had turned to sludge and passed infinitely slow and then sometimes sped up and vanished before I could blink.

Time didn't mean much to vampires. Not when we had an infinity of it.

And yet I found myself cherishing every second, eagerly awaiting the next. Time was precious to me because I knew that no matter how much I had it would never be enough, never satisfy the deeply-rooted craving for my mates, for being with them. Time could cease to exits but my longing and want for them wouldn't.

And to realise that at the end of today our coven would finally be complete, would finally be whole was something that made my heart soar with the realisation we had our forever together. But it was also daunting.

That something I'd longed for, chased after for all my existence was finally within reach.

It made my hands tremble as I looked at my reflection, finding fear and vulnerability stare back at me in the mirror, eyes flickering red as my instincts fluctuated- recognising that the final mating was finally approaching and yet warring with the side of me that wanted everything to be perfect for her and was wondering whether I made that cut.

Whether I could be, was everything she wanted in a mate.

Suddenly now that it's all finally happening, I don't feel certain in me anymore.

"Hyung...what's wrong?" Kookie asks, slipping out from behind the shower curtain, body glistening with the distracting way water ran in rivulets down his torso, hand reaching out to snag a towel and appearing with it firmly secured around his hips.

His hand pushes his wet hair away, uncaring about drying it as he moves close to hook his head over my shoulder and hug me from behind, his wet torso making my back damp, my hand dropping to clutch at where his encircle my waist.

I shake my head. His hands tighten. Almost reprimanding and when I focus on his eyes that stare at me in the mirror, they're understanding, soft and knowing.

"What's wrong hyung? You're the one always asking us to share our feelings. You don't think that applies to you?" he says, eyes narrowing but his touch is soft as he leans his head into my neck, smiling softly, encouragingly.

I sigh.

"It's just slightly scary. The search I'd started centuries ago for all of my mates is finally coming to an end today. We'll finally be whole. It feels so unreal..." I say, words pouring out of me and eyes stinging.

I swipe at them quickly, before they have a chance to fall but Kookie has already spotted them, turning to press a kiss to the side of my throat, lips lingering and soft against my skin.

"It is scary. I know I haven't been searching for as long. But some part of me always responded to time in a human way. For me decades were equally as long. Because I thought I'd never find her, that life was too short. But I was proven wrong. In a café shop of all places." He says, smiling wryly and eyes flickering with remembrance of that memory, of the fated incident when the universe had unknowingly brought her onto our path, had begun to make our individual paths merge into one.