4

"I now pronounce you husband and husbands. Life partners for better or worse. May love and prosperity guide your journey."

It was over, done.

There was no going back.

Jungkook was shaking inwardly, but he refused to let Taehyung see how upset he was.

Upset?

A small tremor made his body shudder inside the cream Vera Wang suit he had not wanted to wear but the personal shopper had included amongst his purchases, which for some reason he had felt obliged to wear.

It was, after all, his wedding day.

Another tremor broke through his self-control.

What was the matter with him?

What had he expected?

Hearts, rainbows and flowers?

A declaration of undying devotion?

This was Kim Taehyun he was marrying, the same person who had not looked at him once during the brief ceremony in the anonymous register office.

The same person who couldn't have made it plain how little he wanted his as his husband.

Well, no more than he wanted him as his husband.

Taehyung looked down at Jungkook's left hand.

The ring he had just slipped onto his fourth finger was slightly loose, even though it should have fitted.

His omega was far too thin and seemed to be getting thinner by the day but why should his fragility concern him?

It didn't.

To his sons, Jungkook was no doubt a much-loved omega father, a constant and secure presence in their lives.

At their age that had been his feeling about his mother.

Bitterness curbed viciously through him, spreading its poisonous infection.

In the years since the deaths of his parents, he had often wondered if his father had given in so readily to his distasteful mother's financial demands because secretly he had loved him, even though he'd known she'd only despised him, knowing that, had used his love against him.

It was a fate he had sworn would never be his own.

Yet, here he was married, to a man he already knew he could not trust.

A man who had given himself to him with such sensuality and intimacy that even now after so many years Taehyung was unable to strip from his memory the images he had left upon it.

He had been a fool to let Jungkook get close enough to him once, he wasn't going to let it happen again.

Neither of them spoke in the rented luxury car taking them back to the hotel, Jungkook already knew Taehyung had business matters to attend to, which thankfully meant that he would have some time to himself to come to terms with the commitment he had just made.

After Taehyung had escorted them to the suite and left without a word, kissing the boys, he reminded himself that he had not only walked willingly into this marriage, he was the one who had first suggested it.

After removing his suit and pulling on an old loose shirt, he put the twins to bed. When they were asleep he went into his bathroom, fumbling with his handbag for some headache tablets and accidentally removing the strip of birth control pills instead.

The packet reminded him that although Taehyung might have made him take them, he must not let him want him. His hands shook as he replaced them to remove the painkillers.

Just that simple action had started his head pounding but thankfully this time at least he wasn't sick.

He was tired and took a bath to help him relax. He could barely dry himself, never mind bother to put on a nightshirt. He simply crawled beneath the thick duvet and fell asleep almost immediately.

Jungkook woke up reluctantly, dragging himself from sleep by a sense of nagging urgency. It only took him a matter of seconds to realise what had caused it.

The silence.

He couldn't hear the twins.

How long had he been asleep?

His heart jolted anxiously as he looked at his watch and realised that it was over three hours since he had tucked the twins into their beds.

Why were they so quiet?

Trembling with apprehension, Jungkook pushed himself awake, grabbing the towel he had discarded earlier and wrapped it around his naked body as he ran barefoot from his own to the twins.'

It was empty.

His heart lurched as the sickening feeling grew, his heart started to beat frantically with fear.

On shaky legs he ran through the suite, opening doors, calling their names, even checking the security lock on the main door to the suite just in case they had somehow opened it.

All the time the hideous reality of what might have happened was lying in wait for him inside his head.

In the dreadful silence of the suite, only a parent would know and understand how a silence that should have been filled with the sound of children's voices could feel.

He sank onto one of the sofas as dread filled him, the reason the twins weren't here must be because Taehyung had taken them.

There could be no other explanation.

Jungkook must have come back whilst he was asleep and seized his opportunity.

He hadn't wanted to marry him any more than he did.

What Taehyung had wanted was the twins.

His sons.

And now he had them.

Were they already on a plane headed to SK?

His country, where he made the laws and where Jungkook would never be able to reach them.

Taehyung had their passports after all.

A legal necessity, he had said and he had stupidly accepted that.

Shock, grief, fear, dread and anger, he could feel them all, but over and above those feelings was a concern for her sons and fury that Taehyung could have done something so potentially harmful to them.

Then Jungkook could hear a noise, the sound of the main door to the suite unlocking and opening, followed by the excited babble of two familiar voices.

The twins!

Jungkook was on his feet, hardly believing that he wasn't simply imagining hearing them out of his own need, they were there, in the room with him, running towards him, telling him excitedly, "Daddy, Appa took us to a café and we ate ice cream because you were asleep," both of his sons said in unison, they brought the smell of cold air in with them.

Dropping onto his knees, Jungkook hugged them, not trusting himself to speak, holding the small wriggling bodies tightly.

They were his life, his heart, his everything.

He could hardly bear to let them go.

Taehyung was watching him, making Jungkook acutely conscious as he struggled to stand up while trying to cover his nudity with the towel.

Going back to his bedroom, Jungkook discarded the towel and grabbed a clean pair of boxers before reaching for an old and worn white shirt. He was too worked up, too anxious to get back to the twins as quickly as he could to care what he looked like or what Taehyung Thought.

The fact that Taehyung hadn't taken them as he had initially feared paled into insignificance compared with realisation that he could have done so.

Now that Jungkook had had a taste of what it felt like to think he had lost them, he knew more than ever that there was nothing he would not do or sacrifice to keep them with him.

@

Jungkook's hands trembled violently as he tried to calm himself, he went and wore a simple nightshirt over his nakedness and went back to the boys who were sitting together watching a children's TV programme whilst Taehyung was seated at the small desk with his laptop open.

Neither adults spoken but the tension and hostility crackling in the air between them spoke a language both could hear and understand.

Jungkook's headache might have gone but it had been replaced with an equally sickening sense of guilt when he sat down an hour later to read to the boys, now bathed and in bed. He watched his sons as they fell asleep after their bedtime story.

Today, something had happened that he had never experienced before.

Jungkook had slept so deeply that he didn't hear anything when Taehyung returned and took his sons.

How could that be?

How could he have been so careless of their safety?

Jungkook didn't want to leave them, he wanted to stay here all night with them but then the bedroom door opened and immediately Jungkook stiffened, whispering, "What do you want?"

"I've come to say goodnight to my sons."

"They're asleep."

Jungkook got up and walked to the door, intending to go through it and then close it but Taehyung was holding it and he was the one forced to leave and then watch as he went to kiss their sleeping faces.

Turning on his heel and headed for his room but before he stepped inside it his self-control broke and he whirled around, telling Taehyung, "You had no right to take the boys out without asking me first."

"They are my sons. I have every right. And as for telling you-"

Telling him, not asking.

Jungkook noted his correction, consumed by the kind of anger that followed the trauma of terrible shock and fear, which was a form of relief at discovering that the unthinkable hadn't happened after all.

"You were asleep. I-"

"You could have woken me, should have woken me. It's my right as their father to know where they are."

"Your right? What about their rights? What about their right to have a parent who doesn't put his own needs first? I suppose a man who goes out at night picking up men needs to sleep during the day. And knowing you as I do, I imagine that is what you do."

Sickened by what he was implying, Jungkook said fiercely, "Knowing me? You don't know me at all. And the unpleasant little scenario you have just outlined has never taken place. I have never so much as gone out at night and left the twins, never mind gone out picking up men. The reason I was asleep was that I haven't been feeling well, not that I expect you to believe me. You'd much rather make up something you can insult me with than listen to the truth."

"I've had firsthand experience of the truth of what you are."

Jungkook's face burned. "You're basing your judgement of me on one brief meeting when I was-"

"Too drunk to know what you were doing?"

For years he had tortured and tormented himself because of what he had done, he didn't need Taehyung weighing in to add to that self-punishment and pain.

Taehyung's cynical contempt was too much for Jungkook's composure.

Jungkook shook his head in denial.

"Foolish and naive enough to want to create a fairy story out of something and someone belonging in reality to a horror story," he said bitterly, too carried away by the anger bursting past his control, he continued, "You need not have wasted your contempt on me, because it can't possibly match the contempt I feel for myself, for deluding myself that you were someone special."

Jungkook felt sick, dizzy as the memories of what they had once shared were rushing in, roaring over his mental barriers and springing into vivid life inside. He had been such a fool, so willing and eager to go to him, seeking in his arms the security and safety he had lost and thought in naivety that he would find them by binding to him in the most intimate way there was.

"So much drama," Taehyung taunted cynically, "all of it so unnecessary since I know it for the deceit that it is."

"You are the one who is deceiving yourself by believing what you do."

"You dare to accuse me of self-deception?"

Taehyung demanded, stepping towards him as he spoke, forcing Jungkook to step back into his bedroom door. He backed up quickly that he ended up tripping on his hotel slippers, he fell back and exposed his soft, pale curves, his most intimate part, his cock.

Taehyung could see the curves of his exposed naked body, his skin, palely luminous, reminded him of the inside of the shells washed up on the beach.

He saw what had happened before Jungkook was aware of it and his voice dropped to a cynical tone.

"So... that's what you want, is it? Same old routine. Well, why not? You certainly owe me something."

Jungkook's despairing, 'No!' was lost as he was crushed beneath the strength of the alpha's mouth as it fastened on his, the sound of the door slamming as he pushed it closed was a death knell on his chances of escape.

The nightshirt was quickly torn apart and thrown haphazardly by Taehyung's determined hands, ripped away by force as his body whilst the alpha punished him with the kiss.

Against Taehyung's will, old memories stirred, of how beneath his dominating touch, and against it, Jungkook had trembled and then shuddered, calling out his name in open pleasure, so easily aroused by even the slightest caress.

A wanton who had not to attempt to conceal the passion that drove his pleasure and satisfaction, crying out to him to please him more.

The honeyed sensuality of his mouth closed around him, inviting his tongue-tie's exploration of its sweetest hidden places. The naked skin jarred against the raw sexuality of his arousal, he wanted to strip off the lies and deceit with which he was so keen to veil Jungkook's reality.

Taehyhung drove his tongue between Jungkook's lips as fiercely as he wanted to drive out the memory. He would make the omega admit to what he was, showing that he knew the true reality. His big hands gripped and held him down to push aside Jungkook's protective covering.

From Jungkook's shoulders to his torso narrowed down into a handspan waist before curving out into hips and thighs, round cheeks of his ass. His figure was as perfect as a man's figure could be.

Or it would be if Jungkook carried a few more pounds, Taehyung thought.

Jungkook's legs were long and slender, designed to wrap erotically and greedily around the mate he chose to give the pleasure he craved, his chest was firm and soft, he could remember how sensitive his nipples had been, the suckle of his mouth against them making him cry out loudly in ecstasy.

Jungkook was naked and under Taehyung's power.

Why was he tormenting himself with memories when Jungkook was here and his for the taking, his body already shivering in his hold with anticipation of the pleasure to come?

Jungkook should fight him and reject him, he knew, but his traitorous body wanted something else.

It might be Jungkook's wish to fight what possessed him but it was also his destiny to submit to it as Taehyung's sultry mouth moved from its fierce possession to an equally erotic exploration of his throat, lingering on the pulse there that so recklessly gave away his primal need, his arousal.

Jungkook's body wanted Taehyung.

It was not enough for Taehyung to have his omega naked to his gaze, from his touch, he needed to have the feel of Jungkook against his skin. Jungkook was an ache, a need, a compelling compulsion that wouldn't allow him to rest until Taehyung had conquered and had submitted to his mastery of pleasure.

Taehyung's unbidden needed to hear Jungkook cry out his name, a dangerous desire dominating his thoughts before he could allow himself to lose it within the omega's body, taking as he pleased.

In Taehyung's arms, he became a different person, a wildly passionate, elementally sensual man of such intensity. Like some dark power conjured up by his desire swept through, overwhelming his reason and pride, igniting a need so intense that Jungkook felt as though an unknown force were possessing him, dictating actions and reactions that was impossible for him to control.

"Relax, Jungkook. I won't force you but if you're willing... We've done all the legal matters with the official ceremony. Now, the only thing left to do is the mating ritual. Cooperate, hmm?"

Scooping Jungkook up in his arms, Taehyung carried him to the bed, watching Jungkook watch him as he placed him on it and then savagely tore off his clothes, seeing the way the omega's eyes glowing blue, betraying his reaction to the sight of him, naked and ready for him.

Jungkook's eyes turned dark and wide with delight, he reached out to touch the thickness of Taehyung's erection, marvelling at the texture of his flesh beneath his fingers.

Engrossed and entranced, Jungkook stroked his fingertips over the length, the sensitive flesh beneath the head, he didn't know any more, he was possessed by the powerful dark force of their shared desire, his breath quickened, belly tightened in pleasurable longing.

Jungkook looked up at Taehyung and saw in his eyes the same need he knew was his own.

The omega lifted his hand from Taehyung's body, as though it had been a signal, being pushed back on the bed, tracing his curves with his big hands, feeding the need for the erotic pleasure Jungkook knew he could give, the heat of his lips, his tongue on his nipples, arching up against him, whimpering beneath the unbearable intensity of their pleasures.

The feel of Taehyung's hand cupping his twitching cock wasn't just something Jungkook welcomed, it was something he needed. His traitorous body was covered with a thin sheen of sweat, his precum leaking, his ass wet and ready for him, just as it had been before.

Just for a heartbeat, the mistrust that was his mother's legacy surfaced past Taehyung's desire - There must not be another unwanted conception.

"The pill-" Taehyung began and Jungkook nodded too eagerly with his head.

The verbal demand Taehyung was making now was nothing compared with that.

All that Jungkook was every last bit.

A sheen of perspiration gleamed on Taehyung's honey tanned flesh, the scent of his arousal heightening Jungkook's.

It had frightened Jungkook six years ago and it still frightened him now, the need the alpha aroused within his omega self demanded that he gave everything over to him.

It was frightening, this intensity of desire, this sharpening and focusing of the omega's senses so that only alpha Taehyung filled them.

"Yes. I'm taking it."

The savagery of his need for the explosion of fevered sensuality now possessing them both was a form of madness, a fever, a possession he couldn't escape.

Taehyung heard the unsteady note of need trembling in his voice, he was impatient but no more than the alpha was for his omega.

He had fought to hold back the tide of longing for Jungkook from the minute he had seen him again. It mocked his efforts to deny it, now it was overwhelming him, the fire burning within him consuming him.

Right now, in this heartbeat of time, nothing else mattered.

The moon was out and glowing, showing its glory. Taehyung saw it glimmer through the wide windows and a gripping force so powerful that he had to submit to it.

Entering Jungkook's heated body, welcomed him, holding it, sheathing it, moving with it and against it, demanding that he move faster and deeper, driving them both to that place from which they could soar to the heavens and then fall back to earth. They moved together, without the need for words, movement matching movement, every fiery thrust that duelled their shared anger and longing.

It was here their shuddering climax of sensation, gripping his omega, gripping Taehyung, causing the alpha to mark Jungkook's nape. A mating mark sealed upon the omega as the alpha spilt the seeds of new life within.

Taehyung's glowing yellow eyes gazed at his omega's, he told Jungkook emotionlessly, 'From now on I am the only man you will have sex with. Is that understood? I will not have my husband shaming me by offering himself to other men. And to ensure that you don't I shall make it my business to see to it that your eager appetite for sexual pleasure is kept satisfied."

Taehyung knew that his words were merely a mask for the reality that he could neither bear the thought of Jungkook with another alpha or human man nor control his desire for him, no matter how much he despised his weakness.

He tried to explain to himself why the minute he touched Jungkook, he was filled with a compulsion to possess him. His desire for the omega was stronger than his resolve to resist it, he couldn't.

What Jungkook made him feel and want was unique to him, loath as he was to admit that.

Jungkook could feel his face burning with humiliation.

The omega wanted to tell him that he didn't understand what happened to him when he was in his arms, that other men did not have the same effect on him.

He wanted to tell him that he was the only man he had ever had sex with but Jungkook knew that Taehyung wouldn't listen.

Given Taehyung's wealth, Jungkook had half expected that they might fly first-class to SK but what Jungkook had not expected was that they would be travelling in the unimagined luxury of a private jet, with them the only passengers on board.

But that was exactly what had happened and now with the boys taken by the flight steward to sit with the captain, for a few minutes, Jungkook and Taehyung were alone in the cabin.

It was dark when their flight finally put down on SK, the darkness highlighting their surroundings apart from what they see in the blaze of the runway lights as they stepped down from the plane and into the warm velvet embrace of the evening.

A golf cart type of vehicle was their transport for the short distance to the arrivals building, where Taehyung shook hands with the officials waiting to greet him before ushering them outside again to the limousine waiting for them.

A soft breeze ruffled the boys' hair as they clung to Jungkook's sides, suddenly uncertain and unsure of themselves.

It was Taehyung who lifted the sleepy children into it, settling Haru on his lap and then putting his free arm around Haneul, whilst Jungkook was left to sit on his own.

Jungkook's arms felt empty without the twins and felt an urge to reach for them, but he resisted it, not wanting to disturb them now that they were asleep.

His headache and subsequent nausea it had caused him had not returned, still, he didn't feel one hundred percent.

The car moved swiftly down a straight smooth road before eventually turning off onto a more winding road, on one side of which Jungkook could see them glinting in the moonlight.

On the other side of them, they were passing a steep wall of rock, protecting the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which eventually gave way to an old fashioned fortress-like city wall, with a gateway in it through which they drove, past tall modern buildings and then along a narrow street which broadened out into the large formal square Jungkook had seen on the internet.

"This is the main square of the city, with the Gyeongbokgung Royal Palace up ahead of us," Taehyung informed dryly.

"Is that where we'll be living?" Jungkook asked apprehensively.

Taehyung shook his head, "No. The palace is used only for formal occasions and mainly a place that attracts tourists. After my grandfather died I had my private villa built just outside the city. I don't care for pomp and circumstance. My people's quality of life is what is important to me, just as it was to my father. I cannot expect to have their respect if I do not give them mine."

Jungkook looked away from him, his comments showed the kind of attitude he admired, but how could he allow himself to admire Taehyung.

It was bad enough that he could arouse physically without being vulnerable to Taehyung emotionally as well.

"The city must be very old,"' Jungkook said instead.

"Very," Taehyung agreed.

As always when he returned after an absence, Taehyung was torn in opposing directions. He loved the country and its people, but he also had the painful memories of his childhood here to contend with.

To banish such thoughts and concentrate on something else, he told Jungkook, "The Chinese, with other Asian countries, have also traded more heavily here, just as they did with our nearest neighbour. Like Taiwan, we too have fine textiles, silk, large deposits of gold and other metals, various precious metals, and possession of the country was fought over fiercely during the ancient wars. In the end, a marriage alliance between the opposing forces brought the fighting to an end. That has traditionally been how territorial disputes have been settled here-," he broke off to look at Jungkook as he heard the small sound he made.

'The twins would not exhibit the love and trust they did if Jungkook was a bad father. The omega father's children loved him, the inner voice pointed out.'

Taehyung had loved his mother at their age, he cynically pointed out but he had hardly seen his alpha mother or spent much time with her. Jungkook had been an exotic stranger, someone he had longed to see, yet when he had seen him, Jungkook had made him feel anxious to please the omega, wary of sudden petulant outbursts if he accidentally touched his expensive clothes.

Hoseok, who was now in charge of the villa's household, had been more of a true parent, a father in the truest sense of the word.

As Hoseok had been with them, Jungkook was with the twins all the time. Logically he had to admit that it simply wasn't possible for anyone to carry out the pretence of being a caring parent twenty-four seven if it was just an act.

'A man who loved both money and her children? Was that possible? What was the matter with him? He knew exactly what Jungkook was. Why should he now be finding reasons to think better of him?'

The thought disgusted Taehyung that he should even be asking himself that question.

Taehyung looked away and out into the darkness beyond the car window, the boys were soft warm weights against his body.

His sons, Haneul and Hare, he loved them utterly and completely, no matter who or what their omega father was.

It was for their sakes that he wanted to find some good in Jungkook, for their sakes that his inner Lycan voice was trying to insist Jungkook was a good father, for what caring father would not want that for his children, especially when that alpha father knew what it was to have a parent who did not care.

Whilst they had been talking they had left the city behind and were now travelling along another road, with the sea to one side of them. It was far too late and far too selfish of Jungkook to wish that Taehyung had not come back into his life, he admitted as the silence between them grew, filled by the alpha's contempt and entrapping him in his ever-present guilt.

It was that guilt for having conceived the twins so carelessly and thoughtlessly that had in part brought him here, Jungkook recognised.

Guilt and Jungkook's overwhelming desire to give his sons the same kind of happy, unshadowed, secure childhood in a family protected by two loving parents that Jungkook himself had enjoyed until his parents' death.

That security had been ripped from his, as his heart started to thud in a mixture of remembered pain and fierce hope that his beloved sons would never experience what he had.

On his side of the luxurious leather upholstered car, Taehyung stared out into the darkness - a darkness that for him was populated by the ghosts of his past.

In his grandfather's day, the family had lived in the palace, unable to speak to either their parents or their grandfather, the former king, unless those adults chose to seek them out. Yet despite maintaining his distance from their grandfather had somehow managed to know every detail of his grandchild's lives, regularly sending for them so that he could list their flaws and faults and petty childhood crimes.

Taehyung, the only child and ultimately the heir to his grandfather's empire and business, had quickly learned that the best way to deal with his grandparent was to stand up to him. The alpha's pride had been honed on the whetstone of his grandfather's mockery and baiting, as he'd constantly challenged Taehyung to prove himself to him whilst at the same time having no compunction about seeking to destroy his pride in himself to maintain his superiority.

A European boarding school followed by university, had given him a welcome respite from his grandfather's ways, but it had been after Taehyung had left university and started work in the empire and family business that the real clashes between them had begun.

The continuation of the family's legacy and the business had been all that mattered to his grandfather, his son and grandchildren had been mere pawns to be used to further that cause.

Taehyung had grown up hearing his grandfather discussing the various merits of young heiresses whom he might be wise to marry, but what he had learned from his mother, allied to his own natural Lycan alpha instincts and the time he had spent away whilst he was at school and university, had made him determined not to allow his grandfather to bully him into marriage as he had done his father.

There had been many arguments between them on the subject, with his tyrannical grandfather constantly trying to manipulate the young alpha into meeting one or other of the young women he'd deemed suitable to be the mother of the next heir.

At the end, infuriated and sickened by the attempts at manipulation and coercion, Taehyung had announced to his grandfather that he was wasting his time as he never intended to marry, since he already had an heir, assigning his pack brother, Jimin.

His grandfather had then threatened to disinherit him, and Taehyung had challenged him to go ahead, telling him that he would find employment with other companies. The matter had rested for several weeks, giving Taehyung the impression that finally, his grandfather had realised that he was not going to be controlled as his parents had been controlled.

But then, virtually on the eve of a long-planned visit by Taehyung to the US, to meet with some important clients in New York, he had discovered that his grandfather was planning to use his absence to advise the press of an impending engagement between Taehyung and the young widow of another ship-owner and daughter of a lower Kim clan.

Apart from anything else Taehyung knew that the young widow in question had a string of lovers and a serious drug habit, but neither of those potential drawbacks had been of any interest to his grandfather.

Of course, Taehyung had confronted his grandfather, and both of them had been equally angry, both had refused to back down, forcing Taehyung to warn him that if he went ahead with a public announcement then he would refute everything equally publicly.

By the time he had reached New York, Taehyung's anger hadn't cooled and his resolve to live his own life had actively hardened, to the extent that he had decided that on his return to SK. He was going to cut all ties with his grandfather and set up his own IT business from scratch.

And it had been in that frame of mind, filled with a dangerous mix of emotions, that he had met Jungkook.

Taehyung could see the omega now, eyeing him up from the other side of the crowded club, his hair as carefully tousled as his lip glossed mouth had been deliberately pouted, the short skirt he'd worn had revealed slender legs, his tight top had been pulled in to display his tiny waist, and the soft rounded curves of his ass had been openly on display.

In short, Jungkook had looked no different from the dozens of other eager, willing and easily available young men and women who came to the club specifically because it was known to be a haunt for wealthy young men and their entourages.

The only reason Taehyung had been in the club was to meet a contact who knew people he thought might be prepared to give his proposed new venture some business. Whilst he was there Taehyung had received a phone call from a friend, urging him not to act against his own best interests.

Immediately Taehyung had known that somehow his grandfather had got wind of what he was planning and that someone had betrayed him.

Fury and anger, against his grandfather, against all those people in his life he had trusted but who had betrayed him, had overwhelmed him, exploding through his veins, pulsing against all constraints like the molten heat of an erupting volcano exploded inside him until it could not be contained any longer, the force of its eruption spewed its dangerous contents over everything in its path.

And Jungkook had been in that path of that fury, a readymade sacrifice to his anger, all too willing to allow him to use her for whatever purpose he chose.

All it had taken to bring Jungkook to his side had been one cynical and deliberately lingering glance.

Jungkook had leaned close to him in the crush of the club, his breath smelling of vodka, his skin of soap, he remembered how that realisation had momentarily checked him. The others around him had reeked of cheap scent, he had offered to buy a drink and Jungkook had shaken his head, looking at him with such openly hungry eyes that his lack of self-respect had further inflamed his fury.

Taehyung had questioned to himself why young people like this omega preferred to use their bodies to support themselves instead of their brains, giving themselves to men not directly for money but in the hope that they would end up as the partners of a wealthy man.

Well, there had been no place in his life for anything special, but right then there had been a rage, a tension inside him that he knew the use of the omega's body in the most basic way there would do much to alleviate.

Taehyung had reached for his drink and finished it with one swallow, before turning to Jungkook and saying brusquely, "Come on."

A bump in the road woke the twins up, and Haneul's "Are we there yet?" dragged Taehyung's thoughts from the past to the present.

"Nearly," he answered him. "We're turning into the drive to the villa now."

As Taehyung spoke the car swung off the road at such a sharp angle that Jungkook slid along the leather seat, almost bumping his head on the side of the car, though, the twins were safe, protected by Taehyung's arms. He had tightened around them the minute the car had started to turn, the alpha loved the twins, but he did not love him.

The pain that gripped him caught Jungkook off guard, the last thing the omega wanted was Taehyung's arms around him, he told himself angrily as they drove through a pair of ornate wrought-iron gates and then down a long straight drive bordered with old, tall trees and illuminated by lights set into the ground.

At the end of the drive was a gravelled rectangle, beyond that the villa itself, discreetly floodlit to reveal its elegant and modern hanok lines and proportions.

"Hoseok, who is in charge of the household, will have everything ready for you and the twins. He and his husbands, Seokjin and Namjoon, look after the villa and its gardens between them. Namjoon was the one who drove them. They have their private quarters over the garage block, which is separate from the villa itself," Taehyung informed as the car crunched to a halt over the gravel.

Almost immediately the front door to the villa was opened to reveal a tall, well-built man with dark hair streaked with grey and a serene expression.

It gave Jungkook a fierce pang of emotion to see the way the twins automatically put their hands in Taehyung's and not his own as they walked with their father towards him. Hoseok's smile of welcome for Taehyung was one of love and delight, Jungkook watched in amazement as the alpha returned his warm hug with obvious affection.

Somehow it was not what Jungkook had expected, Hoseok was far more than merely the person who was in charge of his household.

Jungkook was bending down to greet the boys and Taehyung was waiting for them to go over, the alpha gave them a little push and told them, "This is Hoseok. He looked after me when I was a boy and now Jungkook will look after you."

Hoseok stepped forward, placing one hand on each of his son's shoulders, and Jungkook was completely disarmed when the caretaker smiled warmly and approvingly at him, as though welcoming what Jungkook had done rather than seeing it as either a challenge or a warning.

When Taehyung introduced the omega to Hoseok as his mate, it was obvious that Hoseok had been expecting them.

'What had Taehyung said to his family and those who knew him about the twins? How had he explained away the fact that he was suddenly producing them?'

Jungkook didn't know but at least was delighted to welcome the twins as Taehyung's sons.

It was plain to Jungkook that Hoseok was ready to adore and spoil them, and was going to end up completely under their thumbs.

"Hoseok will show you around the villa and provide you and the boys with something to eat," Taehyung informed.

Taehyung said something in Korean to Hoseok, who beamed at him and nodded his head vigorously, then he was gone, striding across the white limestone floor of the entrance hall and disappearing through one of the dark wooden doors.

"I'll show you your rooms first," Hoseok told Jungkook, "and then perhaps you would like a cup of tea before you see the rest of the villa?"

There was something genuinely warm and kind and fatherly about Hoseok that had Jungkook's initial wary hostility melting away as they walked together, the twins in between them.

When they reached the spot and saw the long wide landing, grass stretching out ahead of them the twins looked at Jungkook hopefully.

Shaking his head, Jungkook began, "No, no running-"

Only to have Hoseok smile broadly at him, "This is their home now, they may run if you permit it," he told Jungkook.

"Very well," Jungkook told them, relieved by Hoseok's understanding of the need of two young children to let off steam, and both omega men watched as the boys ran down the small stone steps.

"Looking at them is like looking at Taehyung when he was a similar age, except that-," Hoseok stopped, his smile fading.

"Except that what?" Jungkook asked, sensitively defensive of any possible criticism being lodged against his precious sons.

As though Jungkook had guessed, Hoseok patted Jungkook on the arm, "You are a good father. Anyone can see that. Your goodness and your love for them is reflected in your sons' smiles. Taehyung's parents, especially his mother, were not like that. Her child was a duty she resented and Taehyung learned young not to turn to their mother for love and comfort."

Hoseok's quiet words formed an image inside Jungkook's head he didn't want to see.

An image of a young and vulnerable Taehyung, a child with sadness in his eyes, standing alone and hurt by his mother's lack of love for him.

The boys raced back to them, putting an end to any more confidences from Hoseok about Taehyung's childhood, and Jungkook's sympathy for the child that Taehyung had been was swiftly pushed to one side when the omega discovered that the two of them were going to be sharing a bedroom and a bed.

After some time, Hoseok had helped put the twins to bed and Jungkook was in the kitchen, drinking the fresh cup of tea mulling over some thoughts.

'Taehyung had already made it plain that Jungkook must accept that their marriage would include sexual intimacy. They both already knew that Jungkook wanted him, and the omega had already suffered the humiliation, so what was there left for him to fear? There was emotional vulnerability, Jungkook admitted, with his sexual vulnerability to the alpha, Taehyung, he was already in danger as he's sexually dependent on him, that was bad enough. Where had that thought come from? Jungkook was a million miles from feeling anything emotionally for Taehyung, wasn't he?'

"If Jungkook also became emotionally vulnerable to him might Jungkook not then become emotionally dependent on him."

Excusing himself to Hoseok, Jungkook explained that he wanted to go check on the twins sleeping, not wanting them to wake alone in such new surroundings.

The twins' bedroom, like the one Jungkook, was to share with Taehyung, looked out onto a vast courtyard and an infinity pool with the sea beyond it. But whilst Taehyung's bedroom had glass doors that open out onto the stone patio area that surrounded the pool, the boys' room merely had a window, a safety feature for which Jungkook was extremely grateful.

Glass bedroom doors, a swimming pool and two adventurous five-year-olds were a mix that would arouse anxiety in any protective father.

Jungkook needn't have worried about the twins, they were both sleeping soundly, their faces turned toward one another.

Love for them filled him as he bent towards them to kiss them but it wasn't their faces Jungkook could see but that of another young child, a child whose dark eyes, so like those of his sons, were shadowed with pain and angry pride.

Taehyung's eyes.

They still held that angry pride now, as an adult, when he looked at him.

'And the pain?'

His question furrowed Jungkook's brow, the emotional pain was not something the omega had previously equated with Taehyung but the circumstances a child experienced growing up affected it all its life.

Jungkook believed that wholeheartedly.

If Jungkook hadn't done so then he would not feel as strongly as he did about Taehyung being a part of the twins' lives.

'So what had happened to Taehyung's pain? Was it buried somewhere deep inside him? A sad, sore place that could never heal? A wound that was the cruellest wound of all to a child - the lack of its parents, his mother's, love?'

Confused by his thoughts, Jungkook left his sleeping sons, he was tired and ready for bed himself.

'Tired and ready for bed? Ready to share Taehyung's bed?'

His heart started beating unsteadily.

The villa was beautifully decorated, the guest suite Hoseok had shown Jungkook, and in which the omega would have preferred to be sleeping, was elegantly modern, the clean lines of its furniture softened by gauzy drapes, the cool white and taupe of the colour scheme broken up with touches of light blues and greens in the Korean artwork adorning the walls.

From the twins' room, Jungkook made his way to the room he was sharing with Taehyung, not because he wanted to look again at the large bed, letting his imagination taunt him with images of what they would share there, but because Jungkook needed to unpack, he told himself firmly.

Only when Jungkook opened the door to the bedroom the cases that had been there before had vanished, from the en suite bathroom through the open door the omega could smell the sharp vanilla scent of the soap and hear the sound of the shower.

'Had Taehyung had the cases removed? Had he told Hoseok that he didn't want to share a room with him?'

Relief warred with a jolt of protectiveness of his position as Taehyung's mate.

Jungkook liked Hoseok, but the omega didn't want the other man to think that Taehyung was rejecting him, that would be humiliating.

More humiliating than being forced in the silence of the night to cry out in longing for a mate who could arouse in him a hunger the omega could not control.

Jungkook moved restlessly from one foot to the other then froze as the door to the en suite bathroom opened fully, Taehyung walked into the bedroom, he had wrapped a towel around his hips.

The alpha's body was still damp from his shower, the white towel was thrown into the powerful tanned male V shape of his torso and the breadth of his shoulders, tapering down over strong muscles to his chest, to the hard flatness of his belly.

The shadowing of dark hair, his happy trail, slicked wetly against his skin emphasised the maleness that had Jungkook trapped in its sensual spell.

Jungkook wanted to look away, he wanted not to remember, not to feel, not to be so easily and completely overwhelmed by the need that just looking at him brought back to simmering heat but the omega didn't have that kind of self-control.

The omega had lived for six years without ever once wanting to have sex, yet now the omega only had to look at Taehyung to be consumed by this unknown powerful desire that seemed to have taken possession of him.

His intense sensuality bewildered Jungkook.

Possession.

Instead of satiating his desire for the alpha, what they had already shared seemed only to have increased his need for him.

Just thinking the word increased the heat licking at his body, tightening the pulse flickering eagerly deep inside.

It was Jungkook's fault that he wanted Taehyung, he told himself.

It was Taehyung's soft mouth, his hungry gaze, with his eagerness, who was responsible for his own inability to control the savage surging need to possess the alpha.

It was because of the omega within that he felt this ache, this driven, agonising urgency that unleashed within him something he barely recognised as part of himself.

Tears of anger, against himself, against Taehyung, against the aching desire flooding him, filled the omega's eyes as he curled his hands into fists, beat them impotently against his chest.

Taehyung moved forward and seized hold of his wrists.

'I don't want to feel like this," Jungkook cried, agonized.

"But you do. You want this, you want me," Taehyung told Jungkook before he took the denial from his lips with the ruthless pressure of his own.

Just the taste of Jungkook unleashed within a hunger Taehyung couldn't control, a test of his alpha he had to master, that he would always be the only man Jungkook desired, the only one who could satisfy the omega.

Each sound Jungkook made, each shudder of pleasure his body gave, each urgent movement against his touch that begged silently for more became a goal he had to reach.

The softness of his lips, the sound Jungkook makes when he kissed him, the way his whole body shuddered against his with longing, drove Taehyung in what felt like a form of madness, a need, to a place where nothing else existed or mattered, were bringing the omega's desire within the control of his ability to satisfy it felt as though it was what he had been born for.

Something about the pale silkiness of Jungkook's skin as he slid his clothes made him want to touch it over and over again.

Taehyung's hands already knew the shape and texture of his ass but that knowing only made him want to feel their soft weight, even more, the alpha's lips, tongue and teeth might have aroused his nipples to pleasure.

The alpha wanted to slide his hand over the flatness of his belly, feel him suck it in as Jungkook fought to deny the effect of his touch and lost that fight, he wanted to part the slender thighs and feel them quiver, hear the small lustful moan from between his lips, watch as Jungkook tried and failed to stop his thighs from opening eagerly to allow him to see his intimate spot, he loved the way his cock come alive to the slow stroke of his fingers, his wetness eagerly awaiting him.

A shocked cry of protest streaked with primitive longing burst from Jungkook's throat as Taehyung gave in to the demand of his arousal and moved down his body, to kiss the soft flesh on the inside of his thighs and stroke the tip of his tongue the length of his cock head, his skilled fingers had laid bare to his caress.

Waves of pleasure were racing through the omega, dragging back a level of sensuality where Jungkook was as out of his depth as a fledgeling swept by the tide into the deep water of pleasure.

Each stroke of Taehyung's tongue against the most sensitive part of Jungkook took him deeper until his pleasure was eating him, pulling the omega down into its embrace, until the rhythm it imposed on was all that Jungkook knew, his response to it dictated and controlled by the lap of Taehyung's tongue as finally, it overwhelmed Jungkook.

The omega was drowning in it, giving himself over completely to his pleasures.

Later, filling Jungkook with the alpha's aching flesh, feeling the omega's desire catching fire again as bodies moved together, inciting towards their destruction, Taehyung knew with razor-sharp clarity, in the seconds his eyes turned and before he cried out in the exultation of release, biting the omega's shoulder, marking Jungkook again, that what he was doing might be trapping his mate in his desire for him but it was also feeding his need for Jungkook.

~~~

From the shade of the pergola, Jungkook watched the twins as they splashed in the swimming pool under Taehyung's watchful eye.

It was just over a month since they had arrived and the twins were loving their new life in SK, they worshipped Taehyung.

The Lycan alpha was a good father, Jungkook was forced to admit, giving them his time and attention, most important of all his love.

Jungkook glanced towards the house, Hoseok would be bringing their lunch out to them soon, a prickle of despair trickled down his spine as chilling as ice-cold water, this morning Jungkook was finally forcing himself to confront the possibility that he might be pregnant.

Pregnant.

The breakfast Jungkook had been unable to eat in the morning, the tiredness that engulfed him every afternoon, the slight swelling of his nipples, all could have other explanations, but his missed heat was now adding to the body of evidence.

His heart jumped sickeningly inside his chest as he remembered what Taehyung had said, 'There must be no more children, Jungkook must take the contraceptive pill."

'Could he be pregnant?'

Jungkook had taken them faithfully, without missing a single one, but his symptoms were the same as those Jungkook had experienced with the twins.

'Taehyung would be angry, furious, but what could he do?'

Jungkook was his mate, they were married, and the omega was having his child.

A child Jungkook already knew he would not want.

Jungkook could feel anxiety-induced nausea clogging his throat and causing beads of perspiration to break out on his temples.

'Was Jungkook right in thinking that Hoseok already suspected?'

Hoseok was an angel, wonderful with the children, almost a grandfather to them, after all, he had raised Taehyung and somehow he seemed to know when Jungkook was feeling tired and not very well, taking charge of the twins, giving him a kind pat when Jungkook fell back on the lack energy and nausea.

Determinedly, Jungkook pushed his anxiety.

'What do I do now?'

~~~

The alpha, Kim Taehyung, was used to working at home since he had brought him and his sons to SK, he had discovered that he preferred to work at home as he could be with his sons, or so that he could be with Jungkook.

Taehyung tried to concentrate on the laptop screen in front of him, he was finding it hard to concentrate on emails, this afternoon, he should be answering because he was thinking about Jungkook, his omega.

If he was then it was because of the conversation he had had with Hoseok by the pool earlier in the day when he had commented on what a good father the omega was.

"A good father and mate," had been Hoseok's exact words, "You're a lucky alpha."

He frowned, he might have seen the financially grasping side of Jungkook didn't echo the behaviour of his mother since he had also seen him with the twins. The alpha was forced to admit that Jungkook was a loving and protective father - and omega father who gave his love willingly and generously to his sons, just as Jungkook gave himself willingly, generously, even to him.

Hoseok was a shrewd judge of character, he was surprised with the admission, his father figure approved of Jungkook.

He turned back to the computer, but it was no use, once opened, the door to his memories of that fateful night with Jungkook could not be closed.

Memories from their fateful first meeting, the memory of Jungkook had stuck in his mind like a thorn in his flesh, driven in too deeply to be easily removed, the pain activated whenever an unwary movement caused it to make its presence felt.

Taehyung had taken the omega, used as a release for his pent-up fury, telling himself that his behaviour was justified because he had sought him out while inside his head, he could hear his tyrannical grandfather's grating voice, seeing a fist smashed down onto his desk in his rage that his only grandchild should defy him.

'The past was here with him, invading his present and filling it with unwanted memories.'

He moved restlessly in his chair, his hands clenching, it was too late to regret recalling their final argument, the events that had followed it, he was back in that hotel room, watching Jungkook sleep curled up against him, his mobile phone started to ring in the grey light of the dawn.

The call had been from Jimin, his anxiety and shock reaching him across the miles as he informed him that they found his grandfather collapsed in his office from a second major heart attack, as it turned out his only living blood relative had died within minutes of reaching the hospital's emergency room.

Taehyung had moved as quickly as he could, waking Jungkook and telling him brusquely that he wanted the omega out of his bed, his room, the hotel.

Jungkook had looked shocked and uncomprehending, he remembered, no doubt had hoped for rather more from him than a few brief hours in bed then tears had welled up in his eyes and had tried to cling to him.

Irritated that he wasn't playing by the rules, he had waved him off, reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet and removing several crisp dollar notes and left.

When he reached the king's palace, he went into the office and found the document he had been working on before he collapsed, and it was a notice to the newspapers stating the announcement of his engagement.

His guilt had evaporated but not his anger, yet despite everything Taehyung had still mourned him.

After his grandfather's death had renewed the alpha's vow to himself to remain alone.

How fate must have been laughing at him then, knowing that the seeds of his destiny had already been sown and had taken root.

'Now what was he thinking? Wasn't the truth that even though the Lycan alpha had tried to deny it to himself he had not been able to forget his omega, revealing his worst kind of weakness? What had brought all this on? Surely not a simple comment from Hoseok - 'Jungkook is a good father and a good mate.'

Stupid questions which he could not bring himself to answer.

How long had he fought off that admission, denying, pretending to himself that since he had returned his sleep had never once been disturbed by that aching absence.

'A leopard did not change its spots just because someone was foolish enough to want it to do so.'

He moved impatiently towards the window, opening it to breathe in the fresh air in an attempt to clear his head then his mobile had started to ring, frowning when he saw Jimin's name flash, "Taehyung, have you forgotten something? Hmmm? Everyone's been back from new york for weeks now. When are you going to bring your mate, Jungkook and the twins so that I can meet them? Don't tell me you're hiding them from me… Hmmm?"

~~~

Jungkook had better find out for sure that he was pregnant and if so tell Taehyung, somehow.

He couldn't put it off much longer he warned himself, he wasn't the only one to blame after all and he had taken his birth control pills.

The omega had also been unwell, in the anxiety and despair of everything that had been happening he had forgotten that it could undermine the effectiveness of the pills.

"Surely Taehyung would be able to understand that?"

Taehyung would be bound to recognise that there was no logical reason for him to deliberately allow himself to become pregnant.

'But what if he didn't? What if the alpha accused her of deliberately flouting his wishes? But what possible reason could he logically have for doing that? He was a successful, intelligent businessman.'

He might be a successful, intelligent businessman, but he had also been a child whose mother had betrayed him.

'Would that have any bearing on the fact that he was pregnant?'

On the face of it, Jungkook had an instinctive feeling that it might, he would tell him tonight, once the boys were in bed.

Jungkook was just starting to relax when Taehyung himself appeared, striding from the house onto the patio area, quite plainly in search of him.

The omega's heart somersaulted as he spoke, he informed him that his brother, Jimin, had been on the phone and that they would be leaving for Seoul in the morning to stay there for a night, he then realised that the alpha hasn't been informed of his pregnancy, he could have been spared the responsibility of telling him that once again he has conceived.

Since he hadn't guessed, though, it was sensible to wait until they returned to tell him. At least if Taehyung had then his pregnancy would be out in the open and they could discuss it rationally.

He would be angry, Jungkook knew that, but he was clinging to the knowledge that he loved the twins and using that knowledge to reassure that he would no doubt love this new baby as well.

"We'll stay there for a night as the twins will leave them here, safe and well looked after here, with Hoseok

"Leave them behind? They haven't spent a single night without me since they were born."

"Jimin will want to spend time with you and I have business matters to attend to. The boys will be far happier here with Hoseok's care than they would be in a city like Seoul."

When Jungkook bit his lip, his eyes shadowed, the alpha continued, "I can assure you that you can trust Hoseok to look after them properly. If I did not believe that myself, there would be no question of us leaving them."

Immediately Jungkook's gaze cleared, "Oh, I know I can trust your judgement when it comes to their welfare. I know how much you love them."

The omega's immediate and open admission that he accepted not only his judgement for their sons but with it, his right to make such a judgement was having the most extraordinary effect on him.

Like bright light piercing a hitherto dark and impenetrable black haze as a surge of unfamiliar emotion swamped him, he had an alien and overpowering urge to take Jungkook in his arms and hold him tight.

"You will like Jimin, although, as I told my brother often when he was a little boy, he talks all the time and sometimes forgets to let others speak."

~~~

"You will like Jimin," Taehyung said.

Jungkook was clinging to those words several hours later, after their plane had touched down and they were in the arrivals hall, as an extremely stylish dark-haired young man came hurrying towards them, his eyes covered by a pair of designer sunglasses.

"Taehyung! I thought I was going to be late. The traffic is horrendous and the smog! No wonder all our precious ancient buildings are in so much danger. I'm pretty sure that I have secured the Taiwan contract. Oh, I want you both to come to dinner tonight. Nothing too formal…"

"Jimin, you are like a runaway train. Stop and let me introduce you to Jungkook."

Taehyung's tone was firm but wry, causing his brother to laugh and then turn to his omega, catching him off-guard when Jimin immediately enveloped him in a warm hug.

"Hoseok has told me what a fortunate man my stupid brother is to have married you. I can't wait to meet the twins. We'll do that next time. Wasn't I clever, spotting them at LaGuardia Airport? Without me, you and Taehyung might never have made up your quarrel and been reconciled."

They were out of the airport now and Taehyung was saying, "Keys. You'd better let me drive, Jimin. I have some expensive memories of what happens when you drive and talk at the same time."

"Oh, shut it... You and Yppngi say the same things," Jimin mock pouted as he handed over the car keys, and then told Jungkook, "It wasn't my fault. The other driver should never have been parked where he was in the first place."

Taehyung was right, he was going to like Jimin, his brother-in-law kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter and banter whilst Taehyung drove.

Jimin questioned Taehyung about their relationship, from what he had said Jungkook suspected that he had made it seem as though the twins had been conceived during an established relationship between them rather than a one-night stand

That had been kind of him to say.

Kind and thoughtful.

Protecting the twins and protecting him.

~~~To be continued...

#taekook #taekookau #lycanau #taekooktwinsons #taekookabo #abo