𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭

The iron shackles around Fabia's wrists had long since stopped hurting. Three days bound in the village square had numbed her to most physical discomforts—though not to the whispered prayers and tearful goodbyes of the villagers who passed by like she was already dead.

Perhaps she was.

"The moon rises full tonight," Elder Matthias announced to the gathering crowd, his weathered voice carrying the weight of tradition and desperation. "The beast will come for his tribute, as he has for a hundred years. As his hunger demands."

Fabia kept her eyes fixed on the forest's edge, where ancient oaks twisted into shadows that seemed to writhe and beckon. Somewhere in those depths lived the monster that would claim her. The beast that had haunted her nightmares since childhood—half-man, half-creature, wholly damned.

"She goes willingly," her father declared, though his voice cracked on the words. When she finally turned to look at him, tears streamed down his face. "Fabia goes to save us all."

Willingly. The word tasted bitter. She'd had no choice when the lots were drawn, no voice when the elders decided her fate. Twenty-three years of life, reduced to this moment—an offering to appease a monster's appetite.

The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky the color of dried blood. In the distance, a howl echoed through the forest—low, haunting, and decidedly inhuman. The crowd stepped back instinctively, leaving Fabia alone in her circle of chains.

"He comes," someone whispered.

The temperature dropped. Fabia's breath misted in the suddenly frigid air as shadows began to move wrong, stretching and reaching like living things. The forest fell silent—no cricket songs, no rustling leaves, nothing but the thunderous beating of her own heart.

Then she saw him.

He emerged from the treeline like darkness given form, and Fabia's breath caught in her throat. She'd expected a monster, but this... this was something far more dangerous.

He was tall—impossibly tall—with broad shoulders that filled out a tattered black shirt. Dark hair fell in waves around a face that belonged in forbidden dreams, sharp-featured and devastatingly handsome despite the predatory gleam in his eyes. But it was those eyes that made her blood freeze—golden, luminous, and wholly inhuman.

When he smiled, revealing elongated canine teeth, the last of Fabia's composure shattered.

"Jungkook," Elder Matthias breathed, bowing low. "We honor our pact. The tribute awaits."

The beast—Jungkook—said nothing. He moved with fluid grace, each step calculated and predatory. His gaze never left Fabia as he approached, studying her with the intensity of a hunter evaluating prey.

"Pretty," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through her bones. "Very pretty indeed."

He circled her slowly, inhaling deeply. When he paused behind her, she felt the warmth of his breath against her neck.

"You smell like fear," he whispered, so close she could feel the brush of his lips against her ear. "And something else. Something... sweet."

Fabia's chains clinked as she trembled, but she forced herself to speak. "Will it hurt?"

He came around to face her again, tilting his head with mock consideration. "That depends entirely on you, little dove."

With casual strength, he snapped her chains like they were made of paper. Before she could even think to run, his hand closed around her wrist—not painful, but utterly inescapable.

"Say goodbye to your pathetic village," he commanded, his golden eyes gleaming with dark amusement. "You won't be seeing it again."

As he dragged her toward the forest, Fabia heard her father's broken sob behind her. She didn't look back. What would be the point? Her old life was ending with every step into those twisted shadows.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked as branches seemed to part before them, creating a path where none had existed moments before.

"Home," Jungkook replied simply. "My home. Where you'll stay until I decide what to do with you."

"The stories say you devour your tributes."

He glanced down at her, that unsettling smile playing at his lips again. "Do I look like I'm preparing to devour you?"

She studied his profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the way moonlight caught in his dark hair. He looked like sin incarnate, like temptation wrapped in flesh and bone. "No," she admitted quietly. "You look like something far worse."

His laughter was rich and dark, echoing strangely in the oppressive quiet of the forest. "Clever girl. You're beginning to understand."

They walked for what felt like hours through a landscape that defied logic. Trees twisted into impossible shapes, paths appeared and vanished, and the very air hummed with ancient magic. By the time they reached his lair, Fabia's legs were shaking with exhaustion.

The structure that rose before them wasn't the crude cave she'd expected, but something far more unsettling—a manor house that seemed to exist in a state of beautiful decay. Ivy climbed walls of dark stone, and windows glowed with flickering candlelight that cast dancing shadows.

"Welcome to your new home," Jungkook said, his grip on her wrist tightening possessively. "Try not to disappoint me, little dove. I so hate being disappointed."

As he led her through doors that opened without touch, Fabia realized the most terrifying thing of all: she wasn't afraid of dying anymore.

She was afraid of what he planned to do to her while she was still alive.