5. Chapter 5 #3
“Yeah. The guys were going crazy over them, saying how sweet they smelled, but I either got nothing or this nasty rotting fruit smell that made me want to gag.” I shake my head, still confused by the whole thing.
“One of them touched me and I nearly threw up. Had to leave because I couldn’t stand being around them. ”
Wooil is quiet for a moment, studying me with an expression I can’t quite read. Then he pushes off the doorframe and comes to sit in the chair across from me, his face settling into something serious.
“That alpha gangster guy bit you, right?” he asks.
I blink at the sudden change in topic. “Yeah? Like a lot. Why?”
“And knotted you?”
“Obviously. That was kind of the whole point.” I’m not following where he’s going with this. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Wooil leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. He gives me this look, like he’s trying to figure out how to break bad news to a particularly stupid child.
“Yujeong,” he says slowly. “It sounds like you didn’t just get knotted. You got bonded.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline, but his expression stays deadly serious.
“What? No.” I shake my head. “That’s not... I mean, just because he knotted me doesn’t mean we bonded. That’s not how it works.”
“Usually, no,” Wooil agrees. “But you’re describing textbook bonding symptoms. The inability to detect omega scents properly? Being actively repulsed by them? That’s your body rejecting potential mates because it’s already recognized someone as your bonded partner.”
My stomach drops. I set the cider bottle down on the floor carefully, my hands suddenly unsteady. “That’s... no. You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Wooil tilts his head. “Think about it. Where did he bite you?”
I reach up automatically to touch the worst of the bite marks, the one at the junction of my neck and shoulder.
It’s deep, still tender when I press on it.
The memory comes flooding back in vivid detail.
Suha’s teeth sinking into my skin while his knot swelled inside me, locking us together.
The way my whole body had lit up like a live wire, pleasure crashing through me so intensely I’d nearly blacked out.
Oh fuck.
“He bit you there while knotting you, didn’t he?” Wooil’s voice is gentle now, like he can see the panic starting to creep across my face.
I nod mutely, my throat suddenly tight.
“Multiple times throughout the night?”
Another nod. We’d gone at it for hours. I’d lost count of how many times he’d knotted me, how many times those teeth had found my throat, my shoulders, the sensitive spot where my neck met my collarbone.
I’d been so desperate for it, so caught up in finally finding someone who could dominate me properly, that I hadn’t stopped to consider what it meant.
“Yujeong.” Wooil leans forward, his expression somewhere between sympathetic and exasperated. “You bonded yourself to a fucking mob boss.”
I stand up abruptly, needing to move, to pace, to do something with the sudden surge of energy coursing through me. My mind is racing, trying to process what this means.
Bonding isn’t like some casual hookup. It’s permanent. Psychic. It creates a connection between two people that can’t be broken, not without serious intervention that costs a fortune and leaves both parties damaged. And it’s supposed to be consensual, something both partners choose together.
I bonded myself to Yoon Suha. A man who doesn’t even know my name. A ruthless crime lord who will probably want to kill me when he figures out what happened. Who almost certainly didn’t consent to this, didn’t want this.
“Fuck,” I breathe, running both hands through my hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Wooil says dryly. “That about sums it up.”
I spin to face him. “What do I do? Can I... can I reverse it somehow?”
“Not without a lot of money and a very specialized doctor. And even then, it’s risky. People have died trying to break bonds.” Wooil shakes his head. “Plus, the longer a bond is in place, the harder it is to sever. You’re probably already past the point where it could be done cleanly.”
I sink back down onto the couch, my legs suddenly unsteady. This can’t be happening. I just wanted to get laid, to finally find someone who could scratch that itch I’ve had for months. I didn’t sign up for a permanent psychic connection to a gangster who beats people bloody in back alleys.
Although, a traitorous part of my brain whispers, isn’t that exactly what you wanted? Someone strong enough to dominate you? Someone who wouldn’t crumple the second you released your pheromones?
My mind keeps circling back to Suha, trying to imagine his reaction when he figures out what happened. Will he be angry? Violent? Will he try to have the bond broken regardless of the cost?
Or worse, will he just have me killed to solve the problem?
“What are you going to do?” Wooil asks finally.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Well, you better start thinking, because when he figures out you’re bonded to him, he’s going to come looking for you. And something tells me he’s not the type to just let this slide.”
No, he’s definitely not. I remember the cold look in his eyes as he’d kicked that man in the alley, the complete lack of mercy. Suha isn’t someone who forgives easily, and I’ve just tied myself to him in the most permanent way possible without his knowledge or consent.
I’m in deep shit. Really, really deep shit.