The penthouse was no longer a palace; it was a cage of cold air and bitter memories.
Han Jeo stood in the center of the living room, his knuckles white as he gripped the back of the sofa where Taeyul had been sleeping just an hour ago. The "noise" in his head—that two-hundred-year-old static—was back, but this time it was different. It wasn't just white noise; it was a rhythmic, agonizing pulse that throbbed in time with his racing heart.
"Sire, please," Manager Kim said, his voice unusually strained. He was nursing a jagged wound on his shoulder where the shadows had bitten through. "We don't know where they went. The Below is a labyrinth. If you go down there without a plan, you're walking into a slaughter."
Jeo turned, and the look in his eyes made Kim stop mid-sentence. The hazel was gone, replaced by a flat, lightless crimson.
"I don't need a plan, Kim. I need him," Jeo rasped. His voice sounded like it was being dragged over gravel. He picked up the navy blue suit jacket Taeyul had left behind. He didn't just look at it; he buried his face in the fabric, inhaling the fading scent of taeyul and his warmth.
"They took him because he's a 'key,' didn't they?" Jeo whispered, his fingers trembling—a human weakness he hadn't shown in centuries. "They saw what he did to me.
They saw the god kneeling for a nobody, and they realized that boy is the only thing on this earth that can make us bow."
"I don't know what he is, Sire," Kim admitted, his head bowed. "But the Council doesn't move for 'nobodies.' Whatever Taeyul is... he's the only thing they fear more than you."
Jeo's grip tightened until the expensive fabric of the jacket began to tear. "Then I'll burn the Below until the ash tells me where he is."
Cold.
That was the first thing I felt. Not the cold of an air conditioner or a winter breeze, but a deep, ancient chill that felt like it was trying to turn my blood into ice.
I was chained to a stone pillar in a room that smelled of damp earth and something sweet—like rotting lilies. My feet barely touched the floor. Every time I moved, the iron shackles bit into my wrists, reminding me that I wasn't in the penthouse anymore.
There was no silk here. No fried chicken. No arrogant vampire with a slutty smirk.
"Is he awake?"
The voice came from the darkness. It was dry, like parchment rubbing together.
A figure stepped into the light. He looked like a man, but his skin was so pale it was almost translucent, and his eyes were a milky, sightless white. He didn't look at me; he looked through me.
"The resonance is strong," the man whispered, reaching out a long, skeletal finger to touch the air near my chest. I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my ribs, and I gasped, my lungs burning. "Han Jeo found a treasure he didn't deserve. A Sanctuary that doesn't belong to the living."
"What... what do you want with me?" I managed to choke out.
The man finally looked at me, a thin, cruel smile stretching his lips. "We want the silence, boy. The world is too loud, and you are the only one who knows how to make it stop. Permanently."
He turned away, leaving me in the dark. I closed my eyes, trying to find that "shield"
Jeo always provided, but there was nothing.
Just the voices. Thousands of them, whispering things I couldn't understand.
Jeo... I thought, my heart aching with a sudden, desperate yearning. If you're coming for me... hurry. I don't think I can hold the shadows back much longer.
The "Below" was a city beneath the city—a network of forgotten subway tunnels and ancient catacombs where the sun never reached.
Han Jeo moved through the tunnels like a vengeful ghost. He didn't hide. He didn't sneak. He tore through the heavy iron gates of the outer perimeter with his bare hands, the screech of metal on metal echoing like a death knell.
"Where is he?" Jeo roared, slamming a guard against the damp stone wall. His claws were buried in the guard's throat, blood slicking his hands.
"I... I don't know! The Elders took him to the Inner Circle!" the guard wheezed, his eyes wide with terror.
Jeo didn't wait for more. He snapped the guard's neck with a sickening crack and tossed him aside like trash. He was panting, his chest heaving. Without Taeyul near him, the "noise" was a physical weight, making his movements jagged and desperate. He was losing his mind, the Pureblood rage threatening to swallow his consciousness entirely.
"Sire, wait!" Kim called out, struggling to keep up. "The path splits here! If we take the wrong turn, we'll be trapped in the weeping chambers!"
Jeo stopped at the fork in the tunnel. He closed his eyes, ignoring the screaming static in his brain. He searched for that one thread of peace—the specific, rain-on-granite scent of Taeyul's soul.
He felt a flicker. A tiny, fading spark of warmth in the endless cold.
"That way," Jeo pointed toward a narrow, dark passage that smelled of rotting lilies.
He bolted into the darkness, but as he reached the end of the tunnel, he didn't find a cage. He found an empty hall lined with a hundred identical stone doors.
"Taeyul!" Jeo screamed, his voice echoing off the walls, Mocking him.
He began kicking the doors in, one by one.
Bang. Empty. Bang. Empty. His movements became more frantic, more unhinged. He was a god losing his grip, a predator who had lost the only thing that made his life worth living.
At the very end of the hall, behind the final door, Jeo heard it.
A soft, broken sob.
He threw himself against the door, his shoulder shattering the wood. He burst into the room, his eyes burning red, ready to kill everything in sight.
But the room was empty.
In the center of the floor, under a single flickering torch, lay a single item: Taeyul's black silk robe. It was torn, soaked in a dark, thick liquid that didn't look like water.
And next to it, scratched into the stone floor in fresh blood, were three words:
"TOO LATE, JEO."
Han Jeo fell to his knees, clutching the robe to his chest, a sound escaping his throat that wasn't a growl or a roar. It was the sound of a heart finally breaking after two hundred years.