Taesan’s POV

The bath is slow.

I’m in no rush to bring my mate back, and he, he doesn’t seem ready to come back to me yet.

We just sit in the warm water with Seoha’s back resting against my chest, and I slowly caress his body while I also wash the blood off my body.

I’m the dirty one.

Fuck, if he thinks he’s dirty, then I am the cause of it.

The blood of my face is washed off slowly and I keep tracing patterns on my omega’s soft body.

He’s still shuddering, still floating even while he’s still pressed against me, and I kiss his nape softly.

"Do you feel better?" I ask and he shakes his head.

"Baby, you’re the cleanest person in the world to me" I whisper and he shudders again.

Goosebumps are starting to erupt on his skin.

"Come here, you’re getting cold" I say and lift us out of the bathtub carefully. Holding him like I don’t want him to break.

I grab a towel with my free hand and put it around him.

He keeps his cheeks pressed to my naked skin as if one small second of distance between us would break him, but he has no idea that it would break me even worse.

"Better?" I ask him gently and he looks up at me with his hair falling into his face.

He’s so beautiful, but so sad, I hate this look on him.

I prefer the living fear in his eyes to this dead sorrow, it fucking makes me sick, and I want to make it go away.

I make sure he is completely dry before getting up to leave the bed.

"Don’t leave me" Seoha says in the most pitiful voice I have ever heard, eyes glossing over with tears as he looks up at me.

"I’m not leaving you, you need to put on something warm" I tell him but his fingers don’t loosen their grip on my arm.

"Please" he whispers.

My Seoha never asks for what he wants, he just stays quiet, but now he is finally showing me something he wants.

He wants me to stay.

He’s forcing himself to be brave with me, and I don’t want him this way. I need him to be confident with me. To trust me.

"You know you can always tell me what you want don’t you?" I ask and he blinks slowly like he’s slowly processing the words.

"I will always do what you want, baby, I told you my world is yours now" I kiss his cheek and he breathes in sharply.

"I want you to stay here with me..." Seoha says, looking up at me with doe eyes and I give him a soft smile.

"Okay, I’ll be right here" I say and he sighs audibly as if he was holding him breath.

He tugs on my arm, pulling me into the bed again so that we are lying down next to each other.

It’s not enough.

I line him with my body, leaving us chest to chest with his face pressed into my scent gland.

I feel a storm of different emotions running through me.

Inside me is anger, bitterness, and the need to kill, but I keep them all under lock so that I can tend to my omega.

Seoha comes first right now, no matter what.

"If- if I stay dirty like this...will you leave me?" he whispers and my brows crease into a frown.

"You’re not dirty, baby, you’re not" I say, wishing there’s a way I can get this to be taken out of his mind.

Do I carve it into his flesh? Do I use a fucking branding iron on him? What can I do?

"Will you leave me?" he asks again.

It’s not about if he’s dirty or not, it’s about if I would leave or stay. It’s like ask ’if I were sick, would the air leave me?’

No. The answer is no.

"I would never leave you, Seoha, I would rather lose my life than lose you" I whisper, leaving a kiss on his neck and he whimpers in response.

My mate feels so broken and I can only kiss away the pain, or only try to kiss away the pain.

"Can you- can you kiss me more?" he asks and without further words, I join our mouths together for a soft kiss.

"There" I say against his lips and I feel him melt against me, whining for more, and who the fuck am I to disobey?

No one commands the captain, but I will make an exception for this man.

I hold his closer to my body and deepen the kiss, I push my tongue into his mouth till it feels like I want steal all the words he just said.

’I’m dirty?’ No baby, the only dirt in your life will be me, and even if you tried, you can never wash me away.

I’ll die on your skin, and the world wouldn’t be able to scrape me off no matter what.

Seoha gasps as I bite down on his bottom lip.

Being lost in thought, I had accidentally bitten down on his lip, drawing blood with my teeth, but instead of pushing me away...Seoha moans a strange word.

"Again..."

Again?

Fuck.

"Don’t want to hurt you" I manage to say through the shock, my alpha is on edge. We are both at alert to hear what our mate will want.

"Want it to hurt...I like it when it’s you" he says, eyes shining a weak shade of blue as his omega affirms his words with me.

"When I hurt you? I want to try not to do it again" I say.

Yes, I’ve hurt him too many times than I can count. I’m no fucking saint but I adore him too much to do it again.

I don’t want to break him, I don’t want to...

"Please" he says, eyes brimming with unshed tears and I swallow the next word with a kiss.

A claiming kiss.

I change our position, placing him under my body, and the omega wraps his arms around my neck in a desperate attempt to keep me there.

Being completely naked with each other is not enough.

Our mouths keep us even closer, going beyond being just a kiss into being an exchange of something divine...and I don’t even believe in the goddess.

Seoha makes me question my beliefs.

All he has to do is exist and everything, every fucking thing about me follows, claiming...owing...giving.

I love him. He and Sooin are the only purity a man like me has in his life.