In the Night

by bunnyhearts

Summary:

“When no one was looking, I used to pluck a berry. Take it away, hide somewhere no one could see. Bite. Taste it on my tongue,” she leans closer, bringing their faces together.

When they share a breath, Minhee continues. “You smell like that. Sweet enough to make me greedy, Jisung,” Minhee finishes, her voice unwavering.

OR: The kingdom is at threat. A knight guards Princess Jisung's door. Jisung gets more out of the arrangement than she expects.

Notes:

⚠️ content note: Jisung fantasises about Minhee in a way that leans into some dubious consent elements involving Minhee coming inside her room and doing what she wants (and Minhee's dirty talk later refers to Jisung's fantasies in a similar vein). this is all limited to fantasies of the characters. if you want to know more before reading, I'm happy to elaborate in the comments.

also, fair warning that I threw historical accuracy out the window when I wrote this. take that as you will.

There is soon to be a new guard posted outside of Princess Jisung’s bedroom. 

Jisung doesn’t know much about her, because the King only hired her for the nighttime. She supposes she’ll see her in the shadows, bathed in dark. 

Apparently, the kingdom is at threat. No one told Jisung that, but she can tell anyways. Whispers in the hall. A sense of danger. Armed fighters lining the perimeter of the kingdom, visible specks in the distance. They move in formations that Jisung has heard the details about in passing, during walks spent idling her time away. It’s not like they’d have something against her if she got involved, began strategizing with them, but Jisung’s heart was never in the kingdom. 

Her heart has always been elsewhere, scattered in tiny little places: 

She likes to create, make something out of nothing—reap the reward of sowing what once never was. She likes watching artists from far away come and perform their craft in the royal court. She likes to paint, even if she’s bad at it. She likes singing when no one’s listening—she’s far too shy to do it with an audience. 

And she likes pretty things. 

The last one is a vice as much as a pleasure. Jisung is easily distractible, and her careless attitude when she chases rainbows just because they’re pretty has grown to make her parents concerned about her. 

The kingdom is at risk, but Jisung forgets about all that when she catches sight of a flower blooming on the fields. She gets closer instead of further away, forgetting everything else. 

“Jisung, you need to be careful,” her mother’s echoing voice says from the other side of their dining table. 

Jisung never liked how impersonal this setup was, but she likes her parents even less. That isn’t true, speaks another voice in her mind. She waves it away.

“Your attitude is…too casual, Jisung. There are mercenaries outside the castle walls. A bounty on all our heads, that’s what Changbin tells us. Your father and I have watched you be like this for too long.” 

Jisung opens her mouth, affronted. “I have not done anything unwise, mother.” 

And it rings true. Jisung might be absent-minded at times, forgetting that she could be a target as the princess of the kingdom, but she has never actually done something as reckless as putting herself in danger. 

Jisung prefers being safe. She knows the privilege she holds to have the vast space of the castle grounds to herself. She doesn’t wander past the point of security. And yet, her parents belittle her as if she doesn’t know any better.

She tries to swallow down the bittersweetness of their concern with the wine. 

Her father cuts in. “We can’t predict if you ever will, Jisung,” he says, his voice kinder than hers. “And you are too precious to be kept vulnerable. Starting from tonight, you will have a guard assigned to your door throughout the night. Every night.”

Jisung makes a confused sound, feels the wine sitting on her tongue slide down her throat. Stain everything red. 

A guard outside her door. While she sleeps.

Jisung doesn’t know how to feel about this news. Her bedroom has been her safe haven for so long, and the small parameter of quiet that surrounds it hers alone.

To know someone could be right outside her door while she dreams is a disorienting thought. It’s new. Jisung knows her parents will not reverse this decision, so she exhales and decides to take it as it comes. 

A question rings in her mind. 

“Who is the guard, if I may ask?”

Her father nods sagely, like he knew to expect Jisung’s curiosity. “She has fought for me before. That reminds me—”

Jisung sighs with relief as her father drones on in the background. A part of her had frozen up at the prospect of a man at her door in the night. 

If nothing else, she can be comforted by a woman’s company, which she would prefer any day. 

“...so you will be expected to attend the festivities tomorrow after she is ordained as a knight. I have chosen what I deem to be the best protection possible for you. It will do you good to be on the best of terms with Minhee.” 

Silent surprise takes over Jisung as she registers that her guard—Minhee—is a soon-to-be knight. 

To be a king’s knight is unheard of for most people. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Jisung wonders how formidable Minhee must be to earn the right. Gripped by her inquisitive nature, she wonders what Minhee looks like. Whether they could get along. If, maybe—Jisung could have a friend in the night, when melancholy sometimes grips her by the throat and makes her wish she had a shoulder to lean her weight against. 

Her parents are already slinking out of the room before she can respond. “See you tonight, Jisung,” her mother says, the weight of her hand a passing ghost, a barely there brush against her shoulder. 

She rests it for a moment and presses down, and it’s meant to be the closest thing Jisung can get to a hug. 

The worry in her eyes shines through in that sliver of a moment, speaking what goes unspoken. I want you safe. Jisung sighs. She puts her hand over her mother’s and squeezes back, attempting to convey what they never say out loud, and retreats back into her room. 

Head buried in her pillows, Jisung tries to sleep. Her last night to spend without someone outside her door, guarding. Listening. Overlooking. Jisung sighs, tossing and turning—thinking too much. 

Sleep doesn’t come. 

Jisung gets lost in her thoughts instead. 

She thinks about what tomorrow will be like. She thinks about whether the mystery woman to be posted outside her door will like her. 

She thinks about the things that her guard will probably have to get familiar with, a natural result of her closeness to Jisung. 

The late hours she keeps. The way she likes to sing in the quiet of her room. Jisung’s bouts of talkativeness.

And—Jisung’s scent. 

Minhee will probably have to get very comfortable with Jisung’s scent if she’s going to be standing outside all night, protecting her. 

Jisung’s perception of her own scent is fog-like, slipping through her fingers. Felix tells her it’s sweet. Changbin refuses to comment, insisting that it’s inappropriate for a knight to say. When she was younger, desperate to understand herself through the eyes of another, her parents relented and told her that her scent is a star hung in the sky. Shining, special. 

Sweet, shining, special. But—what does that mean, really? Jisung longs to know. She knows that an omega is meant to have a scent that intoxicates. From the looks she’s received, it’s not hard to tell that she has the desired effect. 

The looks have been just that, though: looks. No one has particularly inspired Jisung to take it further. 

Jisung flips onto her stomach and wonders if Minhee is an omega, too. That would probably make it easier when Jisung’s heat comes. 

It would be so simple, then, for Minhee to keep guarding her. Her heat is due soon. It would be a timely advantage to have that already accounted for. 

Jisung takes a deep breath, ready to fall asleep and to stop her mind from thinking so much about a woman she hasn’t even met yet.

She can’t fall asleep, as usual. Even if she tries.

A tendril grows in Jisung’s mind, and she’s helpless. Her brain is too curious for its own good, and so she wonders. 

What if Minhee is an alpha? What if she isn’t the easy option, and what if Minhee’s scent lingers in the air every time she assumes her station for the night? What if Minhee can tell when Jisung’s scent spikes in a way only an alpha can, in that telling way, in the way that spells out her desire, and what if—

Jisung whimpers into the pillow. Her brain keeps conjuring more. More images. Of a knight outside her room—of a woman who could come in any time. And of Jisung letting her. Letting her enter, and do even more than that. 

The clock tolls outside. An hour past midnight. Jisung should sleep now, before these fantasies get a hold of her and never let go. 

She tries to ignore the images her mind keeps conjuring up, tries to steady her breathing, tries to sleep. All she can do is try. 

The rest is out of her control. 

 

+++

Minhee is nothing like Jisung imagined. 

She expected an emotionless face, covered by layers of armour and weaponry. But this—the woman being presented to her right now—is a sight out of her wildest dreams. 

Confident, yet understated. Sharp-angled. Jisung’s vices come alive. 

Minhee is temptation, personified. 

Looking at Minhee, Jisung recalls her last heat, unable to resist her body’s reaction to the knight and her commanding presence. Jisung thinks back to how she had to be locked up in her room because she was afraid that her desire to be filled might have brought the castle down. 

She thanks whatever forces in existence that her heart is relatively still today, and the influence of heat is still a faraway promise, preventing her from having the very same reaction, visceral to the bone, to Minhee.  

Self-control is a royal duty, reverberates the voice of reason ringing through her head. 

“Your highness. It is my pleasure to serve you,” Minhee bows, adorned in enough sturdy, battle-ready harnesses that Jisung grows concerned about how it’s all held together. Her face is visible, however—and breathtaking. Her hair is down, and beautiful. The knight is trained in the ways of the court, that much is for sure. 

Jisung tries to ignore it. The other fact. The one that’s staring her in the face and making her heart crawl up to her throat. 

The fact that Minhee is an alpha. 

“Please, address me casually. I want us to be familiar,” Jisung says, her voice a little affected by the richness of Minhee’s scent. Jasmine and something else. Reminiscent of the gardens, of places where Jisung seeks comfort. 

“And you’ll have what you want, Princess,” she says, looking up at Jisung through her long eyelashes and stealing her breath with a glance. 

Jisung gulps, but her mouth is dry. 

Minhee stands straight and sends her a secret smile, one that feels like it’s just in between them. 

Time unfreezes. 

The festivities continue. Wine and merrymaking and food overflowing from every corner of the table, people feasting and talking over one another. 

Minhee, amidst it all, a beacon to Jisung’s gaze. 

Jisung can’t stop herself from looking at the knight over and over and over again, picking at the details of her and trying to learn who Minhee is, beneath the armour. 

Minhee is sweet, yet reserved. Sweet because she treats the children with gentleness, hands them the food they can’t reach and crouches so that they can hear her better. Reserved because she doesn’t make conversation with anyone else. She speaks when spoken to, her hands clasped behind her back and eyes sweeping over the hall. 

Already so stoic, like she’s assumed her position as a knight. 

She has assumed it, Jisung thinks. A knight’s ordainment implies a permanent, immediate obligation. To serve the kingdom—to serve Jisung. 

Jisung shakes her head in an attempt to clear it. Minhee is bound. She’s only doing what’s expected of her, standing away from the heart of the noise so that she can protect Jisung. 

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for a knight to be diligent, so Jisung doesn’t know why she finds it so fascinating to catalogue Minhee’s every move. 

Maybe it’s because there are few things more interesting than Minhee in this hall.

Jisung is drained by these social gatherings, constantly. She doesn’t like the formality impressed upon every interaction. The only saving grace, for her, has always been that she gets to wear her finest clothes. 

Often, the tailor would stitch something special, something different—just because a ball was on the horizon. Today, she’s wearing a gown she played a hand in designing. Deep pink, a rich contrast against her golden skin. It flares dramatically every time she spins. The neckline of the dress is deep, dipping from her shoulders and hugging the contours of her chest. It’s flush against her. Custom. Bespoke. She dances for a short while and feels eyes all around catch on the way the light in the hall plays against her dress. 

Usually, it would be enough for Jisung to revel in the quiet satisfaction of dressing to impress. But today—she finds herself wondering what Minhee thinks of her, whether the knight’s eyes catch on Jisung, whether—

The first round of dance comes to an end. 

She bows to Seungmin, and the swell of the music vanishes to give way to chatter all around them, incessant once more. Jisung rolls her shoulders back, feeling the weariness of a long day sneak up on her. 

“It is always pleasant to be your dance partner,” Seungmin says, letting Jisung’s hand go and bowing deeply. “Until next time. Hyunjin told me to let you know that you must come across the country some time and visit us.” 

Jisung laughs warmly. “Tell him I will. When I can,” she says, shifting her gaze to Minhee, who stands next to the archway that leads out of the ballroom. Guarding the space, Minhee stands larger than life. Her clear gaze cuts through everyone that leaves and enters. 

Minhee catches Jisung looking at her and sends her that secret smile again. 

Jisung shivers. Under her skin lies a desire to inch closer to where Minhee is.

The shiver comes and goes in the blink of an eye. It feels like no one sees it happen except Minhee, whose gaze flicks down to the exposed skin of Jisung’s throat, and even lower to her chest, before rising to her face again. 

Jisung looks away first, her cheeks burning.  

Seungmin seems to pick up on the tension in Jisung’s shoulders. He nods understandingly. “We’ll await your visit. Whenever you can.” 

After she bids him goodbye, Jisung decides to listen to temptation and heads for the edge of the ballroom. Away from the centre, because all of it is beginning to encroach on the edge of too much.  

Minhee bows her head when the distance between them shrinks. Jisung bites back a smile, somehow feeling charmed as if Minhee is a suitor awaiting her arrival. 

That isn’t the case, of course. Minhee waits because she is Jisung’s knight. Jisung tries to remind herself of the fact again, quietly admonishing her mind for its tendency to romanticise.  

“I was just going to…” Jisung begins hesitantly, unsure how to navigate this new relationship, especially with its demands of physical closeness. Minhee must go wherever Jisung goes. How is Jisung to know what Minhee wants, then?

“Would you like to leave?” Minhee’s voice speaks from in front of her. 

Minhee’s eyes are devoid of judgement. She stands with her hands clasped behind her back, her dagger tucked into her armour. Her shoulders are set straight. Broad. 

Jisung opens her mouth to speak, but she feels at a loss for words. She’s never held such a close audience with someone so beautiful in her life. 

“Yes,” Jisung says softly, almost a whisper. Minhee’s attention on her is unwavering. Her eyes pierce when they dart towards Jisung’s lips and watch the assent form around her lips. She nods once at Jisung and steps to the side. 

“Come on, princess,” Minhee beckons with a smile, gesturing to the space that’ll lead them away from the noise. 

Jisung gathers her gown in her hands and trails behind Minhee, picking up speed to match the knight’s pace. Every movement from Minhee is fast, focused, and calculated. Minhee occasionally looks over her shoulder to make sure Jisung is behind her. 

“You don’t have to keep calling me princess,” Jisung says from behind Minhee, her voice a little petulant because she expected Minhee to listen after the first time. 

Once they start nearing Jisung’s chambers, Minhee slows down. Soon enough, the path narrows, and they walk side by side. Jisung takes advantage of the closeness and brushes her shoulder against Minhee as she strolls the castle hallway. 

In the shadows cast from the dim candlelight of the corridor, Minhee looks like every pretty thing that Jisung has ever seen, wrapped up in one perfect parcel. 

Minhee hums, looking like she’s deep in thought. 

Jisung wants to know everything that passes through the other woman’s mind. She wants to ask countless questions, begin so many conversations. She doesn’t know where to begin. 

“It feels impolite to call you anything but. You are the princess, are you not?” Minhee says after a brief moment of quiet. 

At first, Jisung doesn’t know how to react. Then, Minhee glances at Jisung with a look that bubbles over, infecting Jisung with a sort of playfulness. It’s light-hearted, and so unlike the way everyone else has always looked at Jisung. 

Excitedly, in the private depths of her mind, Jisung thinks about how maybe, possibly…Minhee wants to know Jisung too. Maybe she feels the same curiosity driving her to venture beyond the boundaries of their roles as the knight and the princess. 

Jisung huffs, exaggerating the movement and turning her head away from Minhee. Both of them come to a stop outside Jisung’s door, the shape of it familiar yet the feeling of it new, as if Minhee’s company is shedding a new light on everything. 

“If you insist on being stubborn, so be it.”

Minhee turns to face Jisung instead of standing beside her, the movement allowing her to push the door to Jisung’s room open. 

Jisung forgets herself for a moment. Her gaze hiccups on the image of Minhee’s hand against wooden oak. The door creaks, heavy with time. Jisung can’t stop looking. They appear so sure, those fingers. Steady. Rough in the right places. Bruised with time and dedication, evidence of a fight hard won. 

Jisung forgets that propriety has been drilled into her since she was a child, and instead imagines those hands splayed out on her body, the same way they lie flush against the surface of the door. She pictures Minhee following her inside, holding the door open just like she is right now, but for another reason. Holding it open just so that Jisung can lead the way inside. 

She crosses the threshold Minhee has opened, and turns around to regard her knight from inside her room. Minhee shifts slightly, and her armour clinks. 

Jisung doesn’t want to stop looking at Minhee’s face. 

Thankfully, Minhee keeps holding the door ajar. 

“Tell me, when I need you, should I just call for the handsome knight outside my door?”

The side of Minhee’s mouth lifts in a half-smile. A smirk, knowing and far too attractive for its own good. Jisung feels a little weak in the knees. It was a blessing in disguise that they walked here side by side. Straight on like this, the vision of Minhee is enough to make even someone as poised as Jisung lose balance.

“So the princess thinks I’m handsome?” Minhee asks, stepping one small step closer to the boundary in between the inside of Jisung’s room and everything else. She leans against the doorframe, tilting her head charmingly.

Jisung feels her cheeks go pink. They speak before her, a telling sign of the butterflies going rampant in her heart. She isn’t one to stutter, but—

“Ah. I—uh.” 

Jisung clears her throat. She gets her thoughts in order, rolls her shoulders back. “I was simply—quoting all the whispers about you. Everyone at the dance was taken by you, telling me how lucky I am to have someone like you outside my door.”

“Someone like me?” 

“Someone so handsome, of course,” Jisung says, deciding to just give it to Minhee. Her own confession, wrapped up in the words of others. 

If Jisung were less observant, she would have assumed that Minhee had no reaction to the compliment. But Minhee’s hand gives her away, twitching where it was once still against the door. Minhee takes her hand off the door as if hiding the effect Jisung’s words had away. 

The door begins to close. 

Jisung holds it open. Just a moment more. 

“Well, I thank everyone for their kind words,” Minhee says, stepping back. “If the princess needs me, I’ll be here. I respond to any name, as long as it’s meant for me,” she says self-assuredly, like she knows what she’s doing to Jisung through their proximity. There is no question. No if.  

She smiles a coy smile at Minhee. “Good night, my knight,” she says, pushing the door closed hastily, spurred by a sudden bout of giddy nervousness. 

The sound of the door closing is distant in Jisung’s ears. Her heart beats like it wants to be heard by the entire kingdom. Her body is a loud thing. Loud unto itself, echoing everything she just felt, magnifying it. 

A trace of jasmine sits in the air. Jisung inhales deeply, settles into her bed.

Dreams come easy with the shape of a handsome knight forming behind her eyelids and thoughts of Minhee—right outside her door. 

 

+++

“Are you going somewhere, princess?” says Minhee’s voice from beside her as Jisung attempts to quieten her footsteps. Her bedroom is suffocating her tonight, and she wants to walk the grounds. The flowers are just on the cusp of blooming. They make for a much better sight than the walls of her bedroom. 

Jisung jumps, startled. It is only the third night that Minhee has been outside her room, and Jisung must be too used to the leisure of roaming around the castle grounds unchaperoned because she forgot, completely, that Minhee was out here.

The night has long since fallen. So far, Minhee is a quiet presence, stealthy as night itself, when she does her duty. Jisung has been too shy to explore that inkling of a feeling, born on the night she met Minhee. 

But now, faced with a sharp-angled, beautiful face, intently fixed on her in the moonlight, Jisung finds it hard to resist the urge to seek Minhee’s company. 

“The gardens,” Jisung says bravely, instead of denying her desire to leave her room and scurrying back inside. “Would my knight do me the honour of accompanying me?” 

Minhee pushes herself off the wall she was leaning against and adjusts the dagger holstered to her waist. Her eyes sweep across Jisung’s figure, and Jisung belatedly remembers the flimsy dress she threw on to get ready for this walk, not expecting to see anyone. 

“The honour would be mine.” 

Minhee’s eyes are dark. They hold meaning, but Jisung can’t parse through the specifics. Unsure if it’s just her mind playing tricks on her or reality itself, Jisung feels stripped bare when Minhee looks at her so intently. 

Almost as if she wishes Jisung didn’t have any clothes on. Surely not. Jisung must be losing her mind to the kind of make-believe that the nighttime encourages. 

Minhee keeps looking at her, her eyes a heavy brand on Jisung’s back after she urges Jisung forward, says after you, princess. The quiet intimacy of the castle at this time is seductive. It’s water to a thirsty kind of want that rises within Jisung. Quenched by Minhee’s nearness, but still insatiable. Running in circles, chasing more, and more. 

As if Minhee weren’t perfect enough, she also makes for ideal company during a late night stroll. 

Jisung would be annoyed at Minhee’s flawlessness if it wasn’t charming her so well. She speaks sometimes, pointing out flowers that have bloomed recently, especially if she thinks Jisung didn’t see them. Quiet is the loudest sound between them, and Minhee has the same respect for silence as Jisung, leaving it undisturbed. 

“Aren't the flowers beautiful?” Jisung asks, 

Minhee hums in assent. “Very. I haven’t seen such bright blooms for years, and...”

“And?”

“They suit you.”

Jisung’s head darts up from where she was nearly kneeling, caught up in an effort to breathe in the familiar, comforting scent of the orchids lining the grounds. The beauty within those castle walls has never held up in front of nature, especially when it unfurls so prettily like this. 

“Suit me?” 

Minhee clears her throat and looks away. Usually, she wears her hair down. And in its own way, it’s another shield of protection between the onlooker and the stone-faced knight. 

Today, though, the late hours of the night must have frustrated Minhee’s commitment to keep that black, opaque wall up. Today, Minhee’s hair is tied up. 

It’s because Minhee’s hair is up that Jisung can see her ears turning red at Jisung’s inquiry. Jisung bites back a smile, endeared by the usually so mysterious knight blushing like a maiden. 

The blush travels to the soft-looking skin under Minhee’s ears. 

“I simply meant…the flowers are breathtaking,” Minhee says steadily, unhesitant with her words despite her red-stained ears. She looks at Jisung when she speaks. 

Jisung knows, at once, that the exchange of words between them means so much more than it does on the surface.

Minhee isn’t talking about the flowers. 

The blush on Jisung’s cheeks matches Minhee’s ears for the rest of their walk. 

They don’t talk much. It’s nice. Better than any meetings with suitors she’s endured. It feels a little illicit to be with someone who makes her feel such intense desire so late at night, but that makes it all the more enticing. 

No one but them glimpses the distance between their bodies reducing, their shoulders brushing as they continue to stroll. 

When Jisung and Minhee are outside Jisung’s room once again—Jisung feels differently as she looks at Minhee. Not the knight, or the amour, but Minhee. It feels imminent—Jisung’s growing fascination with Minhee turning into a genuine affection. Minhee seemed a mirage before, but she’s much more real when she blushes under moonlight. When she shows Jisung that she, too, feels it. 

Jisung wonders if the blush that refuses to leave her face might stain her pillows red. 

 

 +++

Jisung isn’t one to make assumptions, but her intuition tells her that her connection with Minhee has been growing. 

It’s hard for it not to grow, what with the fact that Minhee is here every night. She comes and assumes her station as the sun sets. 

Sometimes, Jisung is with her parents, only finding Minhee when she makes her way back to her quarters after a long day. Other times, she hears Minhee arrive outside her door. Jisung always peeks her head out to greet her, unable to resist the sight of Minhee in her knightly wear. Her armour is not as dramatic as that first night anymore, of course, but she still wears a version of protective gear, made of thick, durable material that could weather a storm and a fight. 

The coat of arms of the kingdom shines bright against her heart. And—always—on her hips, secured and subtly menacing, is a dagger. The hilt is engraved beautifully, and Jisung longs to ask if the markings on the dagger hold any significance to Minhee. If she searches for it, in the deep canals of night, she swears she can hear the sound of Minhee sharpening her blade. 

One morning, sleep overstays its welcome in Jisung’s bed. When she wakes and prepares herself to step outside her door, she finds Minhee sitting on the floor, clutching her arm as if she’s just been struck. 

When Minhee looks up, Jisung gasps at the sight of bloodied lips. 

“Good morning. There were intruders outside the castle last night.”

Jisung’s eyes widen. She scrambles, gets on her knees next to Minhee and lifts her face by the chin, searching for any more cuts or marks left behind. “Are—” 

Jisung gulps the onslaught of her concern, all consuming and mighty, down. She looks into Minhee’s eyes. “Are you alright?” 

Minhee smiles, still so charming when she’s bruised. Jisung flicks her eyes to where Minhee is still holding on to her own arm, pressing down like the hurt hasn’t subsided. 

“They didn’t get further than the castle walls, princess,” Minhee says with a triumphant grin teasing its way onto her lips. “And they had terrible aim. Unsharpened knives. Unmatched,” she says, her other hand hovering over her own dagger, “to mine.” 

Jisung’s mouth closes after a few lapsed seconds spent with it hanging open. “I…thank you.”

Minhee’s downcast eyes return to regard Jisung. “It is my duty to protect you. Keep you safe while you sleep. Make sure no one disturbs you.”

“What if I want to be disturbed?” Jisung asks. 

Minhee raises one eyebrow. Her nonchalance doesn’t hide the way her scent spikes possessively, making Jisung want to submit. 

“Then whoever it is you want would have to get past me.” 

Jisung pauses, mulling her words. “That won’t be very hard.”

Minhee’s scent settles. Jisung preens, and she’s sure she must be infusing the air with notes of her own satisfaction. 

That irritatingly handsome half-smile comes back to Minhee’s face. Jisung wants to kiss it off her lips.

Minhee hides a grimace, and Jisung comes back to her senses.  

“Are you hurt?

“It isn’t anything grave—” 

“Can I have a look?” Jisung asks. “Please.” 

Minhee’s breath hitches, and her shoulders melt with her oncoming assent. She nods, offering Jisung her hand. “Can we—inside? I’d prefer it,” she says. 

Jisung nods, forgetting to hide her eagerness. 

Minhee begins to hoist herself up, stopping when Jisung offers her a hand. 

Hesitating, Minhee looks at Jisung for a few moments before she takes it, making sure not to put too much weight on their clasped hands when she gets off the floor. 

The world doesn’t change when Minhee finally crosses the threshold into Jisung’s room. 

The birds still chirp outside. The sun shines through Jisung’s windows, bathing Minhee in afternoon light. Jisung keeps breathing. 

The world doesn’t change, but it feels like it may never be the same again. Jisung’s heart takes flight in her chest. Her body thrums. 

Jisung guides Minhee to her desk. Minhee must be in some pain, because she doesn’t shy away from leaning against the sturdy table and sighing with relief. 

Jisung quickly rummages through her cupboard, pulling out the bandage she used to keep for when her brother came back from jousts, bruised and humbled. 

Momentarily, Jisung thinks about how Minhee has probably never known what it feels like to lose a fight. 

Sometimes, when it isn't night and Minhee isn’t guarding Jisung, Jisung watches Minhee out in the clearing next to the garden. She fights all the other knights for fun, and she wins. Dressed in simple, unassuming clothes, making everyone else look foolish with their shields and precious-metal swords. Off duty and outshining. 

Jisung dips a piece of cloth into the water she keeps on her bedside, wetting it thoroughly. She inches closer to Minhee. She’ll replace the water later. Jisung’s thirst be damned. Minhee’s wound is much, much more important to attend to.

Touching Minhee now, Jisung is gentle. She pulls the sleeve covering Minhee’s injured hand up to find a small, deep gash. She steadies herself, moving to stand in between Minhee’s legs, and tries to ignore the way that the fabric of Minhee’s pants stretches around her thighs. The same thighs that surround her. 

When the cloth in Jisung’s hand first makes contact with Minhee’s arm, it’s Jisung who hisses. Dutifully, Jisung dabs around the cut until there’s no blood colouring its edges. 

Minhee’s jaw clenches when Jisung begins wrapping the bandage around her cut. “Shhh,” Jisung soothes. “Almost done.” 

Minhee laughs indulgently, her eyes soft when she looks at Jisung. “You’re good at tending to wounds.”

Jisung shakes her head, loses herself to reminiscing. “My brother is no good now, but in the past, he used to be kind. And stupid. Always getting into fights for people who couldn’t fight for themselves.” 

“Admirable,” Minhee says. “I was almost jealous.”

Jisung wraps the final layer of the bandage and looks inquiringly at Minhee. “Jealous?” 

“Hm. Of other knights who might have been tended to by you.”

Jisung must be blushing. She’s not mistaken, is she? This thing between them. It isn’t just a resident of her fantasies. “Nothing to be jealous of. You’re my knight, are you not?” 

Minhee tilts her head. The movement ushers in a realisation of just how close she is to Minhee. Their legs would be entangled if Jisung took half a step forward. Her hand is resting on Minhee’s arm. Her hair, long, brushes against Minhee’s stomach. Jisung’s face is tilted in the opposite direction, almost like—

Jisung steps back with her face feeling as hot as the sun. 

Minhee looks at her with amused, twinkling eyes, setting her bandaged hand down on the table and gripping its edge. “If I’m your knight, then are you…” 

Your princess.  

“Am I?” Jisung urges, eager to hear Minhee say it. 

“Are you okay, princess?” Minhee says, her grin almost mischievous. “You look a little flushed.” Minhee’s feet hit the ground, and she towers over Jisung with the few inches she has over her, only heightened by the boots she wears while on duty. 

Jisung sputters. 

“I am—I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Does…does your arm feel better?” 

Minhee waves the question away. “I’ve healed from worse. I never had such pretty company, though. Maybe it’ll help me heal faster.” 

“You think I’m pretty?” Jisung asks, almost stumbling over her words with how fast they fall out of her mouth. She regrets them as soon as they leave, wishing that she could slam her hand over her own mouth. How embarrassing. She might as well beg for a compliment. 

Minhee looks surprised to be asked the question. “Yes. I do,” Minhee says. “Pretty, among other things.” 

“Other things,” Jisung repeats weakly, somewhere in between a question and a statement. 

Minhee takes a step closer to Jisung with every word. 

“Beautiful. Smart. Kind. And observant, of course. So I’m sure you would be good—at guessing the other things I think about you.” Minhee’s voice has reduced to a whisper now, like the words she’s saying are meant for Jisung alone. 

Good. Jisung’s mouth opens on a silent sound. 

Minhee gives Jisung one long look and sees herself out of the room. 

She doesn’t stop hearing Minhee’s voice in her head for the rest of the day. Pretty. Beautiful. Smart. Kind. And something else. Something that Jisung thinks about Minhee, too. 

 

+++

In the night, when everything is quiet, Jisung swears she can hear Minhee breathe. 

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inha—

Sometimes, Minhee exhales for longer, her breath catching on a sigh. 

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.  

Jisung likes it. The rhythmic repetition. The thought of air filling Minhee’s lungs. Blood rushing through her body. Her chest rising and falling while she’s outside Jisung’s door. Waiting. Watching. 

Mostly, Jisung just likes Minhee. 

Minhee never stays in one place for long. There’s a seat next to Jisung’s door, but she always stands. She walks from one side of the door to another, and then back again. 

Sometimes, Jisung hears the metallic clink of Minhee’s dagger being unsheathed and resheathed. Over and over. 

Her heavy boots hitting the floor. Her quiet, soft voice humming a song. 

And other times, it’s complete silence. A blanket of nothing. 

Under it all: Jisung, restless. Tossing and turning, closing her eyes but barely able to rest. Sleep teases her like this, every so often. Bleeding into the edges of her mind and then reeling itself back, over and over until Jisung is mindless. The line between the imaginations of her asleep mind and the real world vanishes. 

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.  

Jisung likes it for more reasons than the ones she will admit to in the daylight, when every thought that makes her lightheaded puts a blush on her face—visible to everyone. 

She can’t risk being read so easily. Instead, she saves thoughts of this nature for moments like now. When that ache is building, and Jisung can’t ignore it anymore. When she needs to chase relief in a way that leaves her no choice but to hike her nightgown up to her stomach, her body still hidden under her blanket, her head falling back on soft pillows. 

She’s bare, save for the thin cotton of her nightwear, and she can feel goosebumps erupting over the skin of her thighs as she runs her hands over them. She brings it higher, ghosts her fingers over her stomach. Upwards still, and her hand snags on her chest, her palm making contact with the hardened peak of it, sensitive. 

She curls her fingers, grabbing a handful, and bites back a whimper. For some time, Jisung doesn’t do much. She tries to keep her breaths even and rubs her thighs together, feeling herself start to grow warmer. Warm, until the inside of her thigh is coated with her slick. She hears a small shuffle of sound outside, out of the usual, but Jisung doesn’t think much of it as her hips start to rise in search for some friction, something firm. 

Bringing her hand down, Jisung draws a circle with her finger around her bellybutton and hesitates. She can’t sleep. She doesn’t want to think or write or sing, like she usually does. She doesn’t want to get out of bed and walk through the gardens, because that would mean disturbing the perfect stillness of this moment. 

Inhaling in time with the soft intake of air outside her door, Jisung moves her finger further down. Her blood rushes through her ears, drowning out the quiet and replacing it with the sound of her own heart. She tries to listen past it and fails, and her finger twitches where it waits for permission that Jisung grants herself all too easily. 

Melting into her pillows, Jisung dips her first finger in between her wet folds. 

The pressure is so—perfect, so wanted, that her finger speeds up of its own accord, drawing quick circles that make her legs spread wide and kick out. Her slick coats her finger. 

Jisung grows more helpless to the whims of her body by the second. 

She turns one finger into two, drawing a slick line with them down the wetness of her, and stops where she’s aching to be filled. 

Jisung has always been unwise when it comes to what she shouldn’t do. She wants what feels good now. She always does.

And what feels good now is Jisung’s index finger pushing in where she’s pulsing, hungry for it. Her walls clench around the intrusion and she breathes in, out. Shaky, unsteady, loud.  

Jisung is so wet that the entrance of her finger inside her is marked by an undeniable sound, implicating, spurring Jisung on further. 

She brings her other hand to her mouth, closing it in a fist and biting down on her knuckles in an effort to keep herself quiet. 

Contrary to the embarrassment simmering in her lower belly, her body sucks her finger in, asks for more. Jisung drags her finger out slowly, leaving teeth-shaped marks on the knuckles that her teeth rest on, and fucks herself again. 

Slow does not mean subtle, and Jisung burns with it—the possibility that—

A throat clears from outside the door. Jisung’s finger, in the middle of thrusting inside her, freezes. 

She stays stuck like that, her eyes darting to the door, the sliver of light leaking in from the bottom of it, the shadow that forms over there. 

Proof of Minhee’s presence. 

Minhee doesn’t move for a while, and neither does Jisung. She wants, terribly. She wants to speed her finger up, add another. Her cunt keeps leaking. Slick drips down her finger, onto the back of her hand, painting her wrist. 

Jisung exhales with relief when Minhee moves away from the door. She must have been pacing. Nothing abnormal. 

Jisung settles back into the bed, wiping the hand she had been biting on her nightgown to rid herself of the spit on it. She brings that other hand down, holds herself apart. Her eyes flutter, and she imagines another set of fingers working their way inside her. Rougher, meaner. She imagines it, and her finger speeds up, getting her open and wet enough for her second finger to slip in like it’s nothing. 

Again, Minhee’s shadow appears underneath the door. 

Jisung doesn’t hold back her whine this time. She can’t stop. She can’t. She knows it’s wrong, knows that Minhee could hear, but that doesn’t make her want to stop, it makes her want to keep going. She crooks her fingers upwards, angles them as well as she can. It doesn’t feel like enough, but it’ll have to do. Have to, because Jisung wants it, needs it—

“Princess,” Minhee’s voice speaks, soft and faraway and unreal. Jisung gasps, shutting her legs closed and trapping her hand in between them. 

That can’t have been—that wasn’t…

“Are you having fun?” Minhee’s voice asks, its signature mirth only making Jisung leak more. She must be leaving the bed a mess. 

Jisung can’t speak. If she speaks, it’ll be real. And she’ll be so embarrassed, more embarrassed than she is right now. Her chest must be burning red. Her ears are ringing. Minhee’s voice echoes through her head. 

“Hm,” Minhee says. Her voice makes Jisung’s cunt pulse. “I’m sure you’re asleep. I must be hearing things.” 

Jisung makes a small, whiny sound. She wants to beg Minhee to come inside, to—to do something.  

Anything, she thinks desperately. She’ll take anything as long as it’s from Minhee. 

“If I’m hearing things anyways, might as well make the best of it. I’ll pretend you’re awake. Tell you what I want you to do, how I want you to do it. What do you say, princess?”

Jisung’s legs fall open. She sits half-upright, putting her weight on her elbow, and presses the heel of her palm into her clit. She makes a long, broken sound and bucks her hips up, wanting Minhee inside.  

“I’d want you open, squirming. I bet you wouldn’t be able to stay still even if you tried, pretty princess.” 

Jisung speeds her fingers up, and her cunt swallows two inside like it’s greedy for more, more, and more. 

“Slow down,” Minhee says, her voice sounding close even though she’s still so far.  

Jisung’s fingers slip out with a loud noise that makes Jisung squeak in embarrassment. 

“I didn’t say stop, princess. I said slow down. Go on.” 

Jisung listens. She colllects some of her slick on her fingertips and fucks it inside herself, making it even louder. She wants Minhee to hear.

“You smell so—” Minhee’s voice nearly tapers off into something so gravelly that it nears a growl. Jisung hears Minhee gulp. “What does a good little princess like you think about to get so filthy?”  

Minhee mutters something under her breath, and it sounds like a curse that would make Jisung blush with how vulgar it was if this were any other situation. It isn’t, though, and Jisung is already blushing. Red in all the places no one else is allowed to see. 

No one except Minhee. Jisung would take the blanket off for Minhee in a heartbeat. 

“You’re so wet I could open the door and slip right in.”

Her cunt pulses around her fingers, and she widens their span inside her, adds one more. She lets her imagination run wild with the thought of Minhee slipping inside. While she’s asleep, on her stomach, her bare cunt exposed to the door—like it’s waiting for Minhee’s cock. She pictures her face buried in the pillows behind her, imagines how Minhee would defile her over and over 

“That’s it. Get yourself open for me,” Minhee says. Even when it’s so muffled, the praise drips through, sinks into Jisung’s consciousness molasses-slow. She rides its wave, her hips grinding down on her fingers, wishing she could get deeper.

For me. Jisung’s mouth is full of spit, her head full of nothing. She can’t even attempt to muffle her noises anymore because—Minhee is right there. Her shadow is real, and she’s telling Jisung things. Things that have only come to Jisung in dreams. 

She’s still moving slowly. Too slow. Jisung wants to chase her orgasm, but she doesn’t—because that’s what Minhee asked of her. 

There’s a quiet thump against the door, just heavy enough that it could be Minhee’s head hitting the surface. A loud exhale, nothing unlike all these nights that came before. But so different , too, in this context. Jisung has never been so vulnerable while she’s hiding behind the border that separates them. 

Jisung shivers, clenching around her fingers, fighting her body to keep herself slow. Minhee could—she could— 

Her thoughts grow feverish. She remains slow, but even this much is beginning to feel like enough. To have her nearing the peak of her pleasure. She thinks about how her door is never locked, not in the night, when she needs to be protected and might need to be escorted out of bed any time. 

Minhee could come in. Minhee could direct that long exhale in between Jisung’s thighs, she could pry Jisung’s fingers out of her used cunt and replace them with her own, tell her how dirty she is for wanting this. Tell her how she’s making Minhee do this, how Minhee would never even think about coming inside before Jisung seduced her. You left me no choice, the Minhee in her mind says as she unlaces her pants and pulls herself out of them. 

“Good,” Minhee says, jasmine pouring into the room through the wall, paired with something deeper, woodier. 

“Alpha,” Jisung gasps, her body latching on to what little of Minhee it gets shamelessly. 

The quick, sudden onslaught of Minhee’s scent that follows is nothing like Jisung has ever experienced. It makes her body arch up, makes her eyes roll back. She can’t hold herself up anymore. Her elbow collapses, she falls back on the bed. She’s so close, so close. 

Through her haze, Jisung hears the shrill sound of nails scratching at the door, dragging down. She comes to, and Minhee’s voice guides her. “Faster. Go faster for alpha, princess. Make yourself come.” 

It’s a command as much as an instruction. Jisung’s fingers pick up speed, and it doesn’t take much more than a shaky inhale from the bed that matches the one outside the door to have her spilling all over her hands, pulsing around her fingers with the signs of her release. 

Drool falls down the corner of Jisung’s mouth. She doesn’t care, lost to the feeling. Her hips make slow circles over her hand, and she imagines Minhee, here, holding Jisung’s hips down with a grip that she hopes would bruise, splitting Jisung open, leaning down to lick up Jisung’s throat, teasing her teeth over the place she wants to be bitten so bad it makes her dizzy, and fucking everything Jisung pulled out of her back inside. 

“There you go,” Minhee says, so soft she could be a dream. 

As she gently pulls her fingers out of herself, Jisung bites down on her lip. It’s loud, the result of her coming over her fingers. No doubt Minhee can hear it. 

“Clean up your hands,” Minhee says with a raspy voice that pulls another shiver out of Jisung. She goes to wipe them off on her blanket, too tired to do anything else—

“Taste yourself, darling,” comes Minhee’s voice from outside, and Jisung moans. At the sweetness of Minhee’s voice when it calls her darling and the idea of cleaning her fingers up with her mouth.  

How—how crass. To wipe herself off her fingers with her tongue. Jisung would never. 

“Your mouth is too pretty to not have something inside it, princess,” Minhee’s voice lilts, plunged in its typical self-assured cockiness that—unfairly enough—does everything to Jisung. 

Jisung brings her slick-covered fingers up to the seam of her bottom lip. She darts the tip of her tongue out, swipes it over the slick covering her hands, and whines. Minhee should be here putting something else in her mouth. 

“Suck,” Minhee demands, without much fanfare. Jisung’s fingers are in her mouth in the same breath, all her thoughts about how dirty she’s getting for eyes that can’t even see her disappearing, replaced by the pleasant fullness of stretching her lips around her fingers. She swirls her tongue around them, imagining that it’s Minhee in her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. 

Her fingers leave her mouth with a pop. Minhee sighs outside. Jisung’s body feels the most relaxed it has been in weeks. Her eyes are heavy, falling shut. In her last waking moments, Minhee’s voice is like a kiss.

“Sweet dreams, princess.” 

 

+++

Jisung has always taken pride in how extensively she takes care of herself. 

She likes the rituals of beauty. She likes painting her cheeks with rouge made by the vendors in the village. She likes using pigments that make her eyes look shimmery one day and colourful the next. She likes wearing red on her lips.  

And she likes shaving her legs. It’s habit more than a conscious action at this point. She likes feeling the softness of freshly shaven skin against her bed when she slips into it at night. 

It’s just that…she’s never shaved them by herself. Maybe that’s why she likes it—she hasn’t ever had to do any of the work involved in making sure her legs are smooth. 

All of the ladies-in-waiting of the castle responsible for the princess have been the ones who did the actual shaving. Jisung just offered her arm or her leg and waited for the silky, shiny result. 

Today was supposed to be the same. Jisung woke up excited to come out to feel the signature softness of the hours right after the blade was carefully woven across the surfaces of her skin. 

Coincidentally, every lady-in-waiting of the castle is missing. She’s certain they’re doing useful things, but she can’t help but sigh. She had her heart set on getting shaven today. Especially after putting it off for so long.  

Truth be told, she’s scared of handling a blade all by herself. 

Jisung’s confused at the relative stillness of the castle, so she does what she used to when she was younger, bored and left with nothing to do. She goes and bothers her brother. 

“Jinyoung, do you know why—”

“Jisung,” his voice, so deep now after he’s grown several metres taller, booms in the sound desert of the throne room. “I don’t care, whatever it is you’ve come here to ask. Stop bothering me.” 

Jisung presses her mouth into a thin line. 

She hasn’t even two steps inside the room and Jinyong is already being such a—

She takes a deep breath. 

“It would do you good to learn a manner or two, future king,” she says the last words with spite sitting on her tongue. It renders her words sharp. Like the mean streak her brother has been flaunting around these days, shameless and egotistical. She wants to throw something at his head to knock some sense into him, but she decides to take the higher road. 

She’s already the prettier sibling. She might as well be the more sensible one, too. 

She feels the dark cloud of frustration gather over her. Not wanting to bother with him any longer, she storms out. She doesn’t spare a glance backwards, making her way back to her quarters. 

“Is something wrong, princess?” Minhee’s voice says from in front of her. 

Jisung comes to an abrupt stop, letting out a strangled sound as she stops herself from colliding head-first with Minhee’s chest, all because she was walking with her eyes fixed on the floor. 

Minhee’s eyes flick to Jisung’s lips and back to her eyes. 

Jisung becomes aware of the fact that she’s been pouting. “Uh…ah, it’s nothing. Thank you,” she says, trying to sidestep Minhee and rush into her room. 

Minhee’s faster than her, blocking Jisung’s escape with her body. Jisung almost falls with the suddenness of the movement. Minhee’s arms dart out to steady Jisung, wrapping around her waist. 

“Oh god. I’m—sorry. I’m all over you,” Jisung says self-consciously. She should step back and free herself from Minhee’s hold on her. She should, but she isn’t moving. Minhee’s hands don’t move, either. They stay like that, with Minhee’s hands warm around Jisung’s waist. 

“I have nothing against your highness being all over me,” Minhee says. Before Jisung can react, she continues. “What’s wrong?” Minhee’s eyebrows furrow as she squeezes around Jisung’s waist once. She doesn’t look away from Jisung once. 

Jisung feels trapped under Minhee’s gaze. “I…it’s silly.” 

Minhee tuts. She pushes the sharp edge of her dagger away from Jisung, leaning closer. “Nothing you say is silly. Tell me, princess.” 

Jisung exhales. Minhee smells so comforting when she’s this close, like the jasmines that bloom at the edge of the gardens. She’s familiar, everything Jisung associates with the calm and hours spent alone, at peace.

“Well, it’s just that…there’s no one in the castle. I can’t find anyone to help me,” she says, her voice becoming thinner with the disappointment of having her plans for today thwarted. “I wanted to shave, and I’ve never done it myself. It frightens me, a little.”

“Shave…?” Minhee repeats inquiringly. 

“Shave my legs. I’ve never…done it myself,” Jisung says sheepishly, suddenly embarrassed about her dependence. 

Minhee looks Jisung up and down. After a beat of Jisung bearing her embarrassment, Minhee speaks with a soft, arresting voice.

“I'm sorry about that, princess. I think everyone is at the tournament happening in town,” she says. “I can help you, if you wouldn’t mind it.” 

Jisung gapes, her eyes going round at the proposition. “You?”

Minhee huffs. “It’s my duty to serve you when you need something, is it not?” 

“Well, I—I didn’t think you would want—?” 

“None of that. It would be my pleasure. As long as you don’t mind. I’ll be gentle,” she lilts, stepping back as if making way for Jisung to run away to her room, if that’s what she wanted. 

That isn’t what Jisung wants, though. 

Jisung nods. 

“Follow me,” she says, leading Minhee to the area with raised seating in the corner of her room. She already laid out what she needs long before, excited and unaware of the absences in the castle. The blade that the handmaidens always use on Jisung is neatly arranged next to some oil, jasmine-scented and warm. Jisung gathers her dress, the fabric of it lightweight, and sits down on the stool. 

“Where do you want me?” Minhee asks, following every move that Jisung makes with her eyes. 

Jisung feels like she has to fan herself, all of a sudden. She didn’t consider it before this, but she’s very quickly realising that Minhee has to get on her knees in front of Jisung to shave her legs. 

Before she can say so, Minhee inhales sharply. Jisung does the same on instinct, realising that the sweet, flowery depth colouring the air isn’t just from the oil. Minhee has painted herself into Jisung’s room, her scent coating everything with the headiness of jasmine. 

Jisung wonders what she smells like to Minhee. She clears her throat.

“You have to sit here,” she says, gesturing to the space in front of her. “—and use this,” she says, trying very hard to be coherent when Minhee gets on her knees and takes the blade from Jisung’s hand. 

“As you wish,” says Minhee, reaching for the oil. 

Jisung has another belated realisation as Minhee makes herself comfortable at Jisung’s feet. With her cheeks blushing, she fingers the cloth of her dress, hesitating to pull it up so that her legs are revealed for Minhee to see. To touch.  

She really should’ve spared more thought to letting Minhee shave her legs. 

Jisung strengthens her resolve and thinks to herself: what do I have to lose?  

She gathers fabric under her hands. She holds her breath, averts her eyes, keeps feeling her cheeks burn. She pulls it up gradually, continuing until the cloth bunches up above her knee and the gentle breeze in the room kisses her bare legs. 

Minhee’s jaw ticks, and the blade in her hand almost falls out of her hold. She mutters something under her breath, and Jisung is about to break the silence before Minhee reaches out and wraps her hand around Jisung’s ankle. 

Jisung bites down on her bottom lip, barely resisting the urge to let her legs fall open. 

Minhee looks up at Jisung. Her brown eyes catch the light, and Jisung can feel the moment everything else becomes background. Minhee’s hand splays out at Jisung’s foot, inching up slightly. Her thumb sits flush against the underside of Jisung’s calf. Jisung’s toes point outwards, flexed with how good the simple touch feels. 

Minhee’s saying something, but Jisung can’t stop tracing the shapes of her face as it looks up at her. Her nose forms sharp angles against the sunlight. There’s a birthmark at its edge, and Jisung wants to reach out and touch it. A strand of hair falls in Minhee’s eyes, making her squint. Jisung can’t make out a single word Minhee is saying, but she listens to her heart, begging her to touch, and pushes the offending piece of hair behind Minhee’s ear. 

Minhee smiles, and it’s that same knowing, secret smile that roped in Jisung’s heart all those days ago. 

She squeezes around Jisung’s ankle. Jisung startles back into her senses, and mutters a quiet yes?  

Her voice is faint, affected by desire and the cloying thickness of jasmine in the air. Dense like oil, heavy and everywhere.  

“I’ll begin now,” Minhee says, her voice raspy as her nails rake up Jisung’s calf. She widens the span of her hand and forms a careful fist around Jisung’s leg, lifting it and bringing it closer to her. 

The shock of oil being spread over her skin is duller than ever before. Jisung is fighting every instinct within herself to not alert Minhee of how her body is responding to calloused hands rubbing over her. 

Minhee, meanwhile, spreads the oil around, not leaving any part of Jisung’s leg untouched before she treads higher. Higher still, nearing the bend of Jisung’s knees. And higher still, Jisung’s thigh—the portion of it uncovered because of the way Jisung hiked her dress up carelessly. 

Jisung has been dealt with a losing hand, she thinks, as she realises that every press of Minhee’s finger is travelling straight to her lower stomach. She squirms where she’s sitting, wondering how she’s going to hide that she’s already wet in between her thighs. Self control is a thing of the past when Minhee’s hand is here, so, so close to where Jisung wants it to be. 

Jisung bites back a pained whine when Minhee’s hand pulls away. Her leg is shiny with the residue of the oil now, pleasantly sitting on her skin and warming her body up. 

Minhee hums, wiping her hand off on the cloth near her and looking every bit unaffected. Except, as usual, her scent is a hook inside Jisung’s mouth. Overwhelming, yet making her ache for more. 

“Going to shave you now,” Minhee murmurs as her hand wields the blade. It glimmers in the light. Her index finger taps against its flat edge as she handles it effortlessly, bringing it close to Jisung. 

Minhee steadies Jisung’s leg in her hand, holding it by the meat of her calf. Jisung resists the urge to shift in her place. Disrespecting her efforts to stay still, a shiver runs through her body. 

Brown eyes flick up to regard Jisung. 

“Don’t be scared, princess. I handle bigger swords everyday,” she says, the rounded edge of the blade pressing into Jisung’s leg. It doesn’t hurt at all, but Jisung gasps. She can’t resist—her thighs part. Minhee looks down, in between Jisung’s thighs. Jisung is certain that a lot more must be visible now than there was before. 

“Your body is safe with me, Jisung,” she says, looking up for a brief moment to wink at Jisung and flipping the blade over. She turns her focus to Jisung’s leg, swiping it over her skin once, painlessly. A smooth glide, its way paved by the oil. 

Her head tips back for a moment before she forces it upright. Her eyes feel heavy. A delirious sort of emotion possesses her as Minhee keeps working the blade over Jisung’s skin. The repetitive motions of the blade intoxicate, pushing Jisung deep in this sun-soaked space, until her mouth feels empty, until her cunt is dripping. 

Minhee has to be able to tell.  

Minhee hums under her breath when Jisung’s legs give under her touch, turning pliant in response to every nudge, push, pull. Jisung wants to snap her legs shut, cross them so that she can get some relief, but Minhee’s hand has snaked its way into preventing Jisung from moving away. She’s stuck like this, no place to hide under the scrutiny of Minhee’s touch. 

Minhee begins to work on the other leg, massaging the oil with sure, sensual touches. She shaves with focus. Jisung is floored by the intensity of it. 

Time trickles. Jisung doesn’t want this moment to end. It feels like she’s suspended, away from all reason. A fool to her senses. 

Minhee sets the blade down and runs her hands up both of Jisung’s legs. Inspecting. Her hands stop at Jisung’s lower thighs, wrapping around the flesh and squeezing gently. In their journey upwards, Minhee’s hands push Jisung’s dress higher, stopping only a breath away from exposing all of Jisung’s lower half. 

Jisung feels herself grow wetter. She creates more space between her thighs, and Minhee leans closer. 

Her breath ghosts the inside of Jisung’s thigh while her fingernails draw lines up and down Jisung’s legs. Jisung has to extend her arms behind her to hold herself up and not crumble under the intensity of this closeness. 

Minhee makes space for herself in between Jisung’s legs like there has never been anywhere but here. 

It’s then that the shock of her given name falling out from in between Minhee’s lips settles into Jisung’s body. A little belated—the realisation. Minhee called her Jisung. With how syrupy her brain has become, Jisung feels like everything is passing through her mind slower. 

When Minhee’s breath hits Jisung’s inner thigh, it feels like a kiss. 

“Minhee,” Jisung gasps. Her legs spread more, more. Hunger is cavernous inside her body, growing until it is want that rushes through her veins, snatching blood’s place. Her hands can’t stay in one place. 

She brings them forward, to the cloth of her dress, and holds on to it tight—in search of something to ground her. Her slick must be coating her thighs now. She tries to rub them together, but she’s obstructed by Minhee’s shoulders. 

Hungrily, her hands pull her dress higher, exposing the slick-shininess that Jisung knows is visible—even through the last piece of flimsy clothing separating the wet, aching centre of her from Minhee. 

Minhee’s breath has been travelling even higher. Her lips never touch Jisung’s skin, but the caress, the almost, is enough to have Jisung arching her back, pushing herself closer to Minhee’s face. Minhee’s hands leave her legs to wrap around Jisung’s thighs, above the juncture of her knee. It’s a firm hold. Wait, it says.

Minhee holds Jisung open, leaves her no option but to stay like this.

“It’s not wise,” Minhee murmurs, her words hitting Jisung’s skin like they’re being written onto it. So close. Jisung feels the light brush of lips ignite the most sensitive strip of her skin, just a head’s turn away from her cunt, throbbing with desire. 

Jisung makes a confused sound that begins with a question and turns into a moan. Minhee’s fingers dig where they’re holding Jisung’s legs apart. Her pinky is hot against Jisung’s knee. The pad of her thumb is rough. A mean press to the underside of Jisung’s thigh. 

“Wise?” Jisung asks, dazed and drunk on whatever Minhee’s scent is doing to her as it snakes its way into her body, clogs up her throat. 

“Not wise for you to let an alpha in between your legs when you look like that, princess,” Minhee says, her voice hardened at its edges. 

Jisung gasps. “But—you’re good. You’re protecting me.”

Minhee raises her eyebrows. Her fingers curl inwards. Jisung doesn’t get the chance to ask Minhee what she’s doing. Minhee’s nails dig into the tender flesh of Jisung’s thighs, painful.  

“Ah—” Jisung keens. Loud and far too obvious in her helplessness to whatever Minhee wants to do to her now that she has her like this. 

“Is that so,” Minhee murmurs. 

Her eyes were once brown, molten. Now, they’re night itself. Unknown. Inviting. Blown out, all pupil. Minhee brings her hands higher on Jisung’s thighs, enough that Jisung has no option but to lift her legs to open them wider. Minhee doesn’t let them stray far. 

“If I’m good, then why do I want to take advantage of the princess and her…precious trust in me?” Minhee asks a little condescendingly, making Jisung drip. 

Her hands smooth up Jisung’s legs. She hooks them under her thighs, and pulls. 

Jisung’s mouth falls open on a whimper when she realizes Minhee’s mouth is now a breath away from where she’s leaking, her slick leaving no leaf unturned when it comes to telling Minhee how much she wants this. 

Jisung blinks, forgetting what Minhee was saying in the first place. 

“Jisung,” Minhee says, lighting Jisung’s insides on fire. 

Jisung responds with a breathless sound. She feels like she needs to physically restrain her hands to stop herself from burying them in Minhee’s hair, undone and tempting, and pulling her face closer. Until it’s buried in Jisung. 

Jisung flushes at the increasing vulgarity of her thoughts, only growing more vivid as reality and imagination collide. 

“Do you trust me?” Minhee asks, wearing half a smirk on her face. Her eyes are trained on Jisung, looking right into her eyes. 

Minhee looks—different. Like she’s been shed in a light Jisung knew of but did not see. 

Dangerous. Minhee looks dangerous. Like everything she’s capable of, all her strength, could now work towards holding Jisung down. Like she would hold her captive, even when Jisung is shamelessly willing. 

Suddenly, Jisung feels the truth of Minhee’s words sink in. She imagines what anyone else would think if they walked in, saw the picture Jisung and Minhee paint. 

Jisung, unmarried, unprotected from everything—letting an alpha come inside her bedroom. Letting an alpha hold a knife to her skin. Letting an alpha look at her with eyes that spell out something ravenous. 

Jisung always thought Minhee had the sweetest voice. Soft, melodic, lilting through the space in between her door and her bed. Something to fall asleep to, soothing in its embrace. 

Now, Minhee’s voice is a bed of nails. It dares Jisung to tread further and map out its ridges. It doesn’t matter where Jisung would step, because it’ll hurt in that delicious way that Jisung craves either way. 

It shocks Jisung that something that sounds so gentle can command so much out of her. But that’s what Minhee is. A weapon, a charmer. Double edged, in every way. 

“Yes,” Jisung says, despite everything she’s been taught. Self preservation was never meant to apply to someone so beautiful. 

Minhee’s eyes flick down, away from Jisung’s face. She fixes them in between Jisung’s legs, where Jisung is so wet she can feel it begin to drip down the crease of her inner thigh. Seeking relief, she tries to press her legs close again, rub them together. Minhee holds her down. 

“Minhee,” Jisung says. It sounds like a plea. “I want—”

She can feel herself pouting at Minhee, who isn’t even bothering to look at her face anymore. 

To Jisung’s mortification, Minhee just keeps staring at Jisung’s cunt, the thin fabric covering it useless now.  

Minhee should take it off, Jisung thinks.

Minhee ignores the way Jisung’s body is begging her to do something, anything. She steers Jisung’s thighs from where they’ve been grabbed by calloused hands and puts them on each of her shoulders. 

Minhee’s jaw ticks. Her breath ghosts over the molten-hot centre of Jisung. The air is thick with jasmine and Jisung, however she manifests when she’s like this. She nuzzles her face into the softness of Jisung’s thigh with all the leverage she has now to do as she wishes. 

“Please,” Jisung whines, her words coloured with desperation. 

The clock tower chimes once. 

Minhee’s voice is gravelly when she speaks. Her hands lie on Jisung’s waist, stopping Jisung from pushing up and using Minhee’s mouth how she wants to. 

“You smell good, honey,” Minhee says. She licks a small, gone-too-soon stripe up the inside of Jisung’s thigh, stopping when she arrives at the edge of soaked fabric. 

Jisung shivers in Minhee’s hold, tries to jerk upwards only to be held down. She moans, shameless, when Minhee’s arms strain with the force of keeping Jisung still. 

“I want more,” Jisung whispers. 

It’s then that Jisung’s eyes dart to Minhee’s white knuckles, flared nostrils. She hears Minhee’s hitched breath. Breathes in her spiked scent. 

The very recipe for restraint, manifesting all because of Jisung.  

Minhee leans forward, pushing Jisung’s dress up further and exposing a tensed stomach to sun-warmed air. She plants a small kiss on Jisung’s belly button and looks at Jisung through her eyelashes, just like she did all those days ago when they first met. It steals Jisung’s breath just the same.

With her lips against the golden skin of Jisung’s navel, Minhee speaks. “Patience, princess.” 

Jisung’s hips chase Minhee as she pulls away, all at once. She gently pries Jisung’s legs from off her shoulders. 

Jisung takes a shaky breath in. “What…” She watches Minhee try to blink the lust-heavy darkness from her eyes as she sits back on her heels, creating painful distance in between their bodies. 

Jisung is many things, but she is not clueless. She knows Minhee wants this too, but she knows, more than that—Minhee enjoys making Jisung wait.  

Minhee clears her throat, moving like she’s readying to leave. 

The clock chimes a second time.

“What does my scent—” Jisung begins urgently. She rearranges her dress, pulling it down, suddenly remembering that anyone could come knocking at her door if they wanted to. “What do I smell like, to you?”

Minhee furrows her eyebrows. “To me?”

The third chime rings in the room. 

“I have never been told,” Jisung admits quietly. Suddenly, she feels a little ridiculous, asking something that should be apparent. “I can only tell that I’m—”

“Sweet,” Minhee says suddenly, reaching for each of Jisung’s hands and holding them, as if to reassure her. “You smell sweet.” Minhee’s eyes flick to the door of Jisung’s room. 

Jisung feels cornered, like she has countless questions and too little time. 

“Sweet?”

“Like fields of strawberries where I grew up,” she says with a soft smile, hurried but earnest. Her thumb rubs the back of Jisung’s hand. 

There’s a sharp knock at the door. A muffled voice calls for Minhee, asks whether she will be attending the duels taking place on the grounds. 

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Minhee says to the door. 

The clock chimes the fourth time, and Minhee gets on her feet. She looks down at Jisung, takes her chin in her hand. “When no one was looking, I used to pluck a berry. Take it away, hide somewhere no one could see. Bite. Taste it on my tongue,” she leans closer, bringing their faces together. 

When they share a breath, Minhee continues. “You smell like that. Sweet enough to make me greedy, Jisung,” Minhee finishes, her voice unwavering.  

Jisung’s eyes flutter. Minhee’s knuckles brush her cheek like a parting gift, gentle. 

Another knock at the door. One more call of Minhee’s name. 

“I’ll be back,” she promises, taking Jisung’s hand and kissing the back of it. 

With the fifth chime of the clock tower, Minhee leaves. 

 

+++

Jisung hasn’t stopped thinking about Minhee for days now. 

Two nights ago, when she was returning to her room, Minhee caught her by the waist and pulled her into an enclave. Her face golden with the last hues of the sunset, she searched Jisung’s eyes and came close. Jisung followed suit—too hungry to resist. Quiet as ever, Minhee nosed Jisung’s jaw. Jisung bared her neck, asking for more in every way her body knew how. 

“Please,” Jisung had said.

It made Minhee thumb the cloth-covered curve of Jisung’s waist and bring her nose lower. She went down slowly, tracing the column of Jisung’s throat, and burying it at the heart of Jisung’s scent. She inhaled deeply, shaking like she wanted to do everything. She pulled Jisung even closer by the waist, and Jisung felt all the strength in her knees give out at the quickly hardening outline of Minhee, so close to her for the first time. 

When Minhee pulled back, her eyes were as dark as the nights they’ve spent so far, breathing together. 

Then, like she was collecting all the resolve she had in her, Minhee spoke. “I have to leave for a few nights. There is a small skirmish at the village, and—they want me to lead them.” 

Jisung had fussed endlessly. When will you be back and why not someone else and why are you going for so long and—the truth behind it all—I’ll miss you.  

Fussing only delayed Minhee’s departure. Minhee had put a hand on Jisung’s heart and said I’ll be back. She had handed Jisung a flower from the gardens, kissed the hollow of her throat, and uttered a simple, promising wait for me.  

Then, she was gone. 

Jisung misses Minhee, just like she had expected. 

She wastes the days away. Waiting always makes her restless, but she doesn’t feel like working it out of her body with her fingers or something to rub against. It would be no good. It’s Minhee’s touch that she wants, that she craves. 

The replacement guard outside her door is insignificant—Jisung doesn’t even remember her name. 

On the first day, her parents ask her if something is wrong. On the second day, no one dares talk to her for fear that she might direct her frustration at something small. On the third morning, all the fight drains out of her. She hadn’t realised how much she sought out Minhee’s presence. Her heart yearns for jasmine in the air, for a broad-shouldered shadow in the candle-light. 

In an effort to distract herself, Jisung allows her family to drag her to a play. 

The royals sit at a height in the audience, in a box that allows brief mingling with other members of high society, but not much else. Jisung doesn’t like how suffocating it feels in this space, cut-off from everyone in the seats below. They laugh and enjoy themselves before the show starts, while Jisung makes stilted conversation with a princess from a nearby court. 

At the very least, it gives her something to think about that isn’t Minhee. 

Jisung tugs at the collar of her corset, which rises high to her neck. She plays with the front laces on it, careful not to undo them. She smooths her skirt down, gathering it because her hands are restless, itching for something to do. Her chest heaves, and an abrupt wave of dizziness washes over her. 

“Is it warm for you?” Jisung asks the woman she’s been speaking to. 

She shakes her head, turning her attention to the stage. Jisung tugs at her collar again, putting a hand over her chest and feeling the steady thrum of her heart quicken. In the relative darkness of the theatre, she tries to focus. 

Two actors stand on either side of the stage. They speak, but Jisung feels sweat collect at the back of her neck, and their words escape her.  

She shifts in her seat, crossing one leg over the together. The actors move closer. Lovers, clearly. Their bodies speak the language of people who want to be close to each other but cannot, for one reason or another. The distance in between them increases once again. 

More actors join the stage. One of the lovers leaves, and the other stretches a hand out toward her, reaching out for something and finding nothing. 

Jisung uncrosses her legs. Crosses them again. Her mouth feels dry. The gulp she takes rings in her head, feeling louder than it really was. She looks around, restless. Searching for—nothing, really. She doesn't know what she needs. 

“Please excuse me,” she whispers to the seats next to her. She doesn’t wait to see if she’s heard. She gathers her skirt, careful not to trip over the staircase leading out of the box as the black fabric of her skirt falls past her feet. Her eyes adjust to the darkness, but she doesn’t know where she’s going. Nearing the door that leads out of the box, Jisung looks back one time, eyeing the stage. The lovers from before are sharing a breath now. 

Reunited, they share an embrace. The music swells. A member of the audience claps with wild abandon, another whistles. 

Jisung sucks in a sharp breath, recognising the sharp note of jasmine that colours her inhale before she sees the woman it belongs to. 

Dragging her eyes away from the stage, she leaves the box, following the flowery trail, lined with the woodiness that makes Jisung’s body run even hotter. 

She doesn’t have to look that far. As soon as she steps outside the box, there she is. The voice she’s been aching for speaks out. “Jisung.”

Minhee is dressed in all her knightly glory, her shoulders covered in an ornate collar, buckled at the centre with a golden clasp. 

It accentuates her shoulders, makes her silhouette wide enough to cover Jisung with no effort. Her thighs are strong under her pants, skin-tight and leathery. Her hands are covered in gloves that reach her forearms. Her hair is tied back, exposing the hard lines of her face. A tempting stretch of skin is visible under her ear. Jisung’s mouth waters. 

She rests her weight on the wall behind her, overwhelmed by the sight, running hotter. When did this place get so warm? 

Minhee looks around, assessing her environment. Jisung keeps looking at Minhee, drinking in every new detail of her. Her tongue feels heavy. She can’t get a word out from in between her lips. 

Minhee must find what she wants to see, because she closes the gap in between their bodies in the next step she takes. 

Jisung gasps when their chests touch, the contact searing even through all the layers they have on. 

“I—” Jisung begins, but she loses her words. Minhee buries her nose in Jisung’s neck, breathing in and skirting her hands down Jisung’s body, touching everywhere she sees fit. Jisung wants to say hello. Or I missed you. Or people will see. Or kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me— 

Minhee inhales deeply. Jisung is drunk on Minhee, so close, smelling like an alpha, capable of taking care of her, and Jisung’s wet—why is she wet— 

“Jisung,” Minhee says again, her voice sounding wrecked. “Why did you come outside this close to your heat?” 

Minhee doesn’t let Jisung digest the words. She doesn’t let her even think of answering, what with the hot tongue that suddenly rests on her pulse, painting a line of spit around where Jisung needs to be bitten. Minhee scents Jisung, breathing her in deeply. 

Jisung is about to moan as teeth tease her scent gland, but Minhee brings a gloved hand to Jisung’s bottom lip. Her mouth falls open and Minhee’s finger pushes inside. 

Jisung’s responding sound is muffled, just for the both of them. On her tongue blooms the taste of leather. Her senses become overtaken with the scent of Minhee. Jisung relaxes her jaw, bares her neck, pushes her chest towards Minhee—encourages her to take.  

“Quiet, baby,” Minhee shushes. 

Jisung makes another muffled sound around Minhee’s finger, and Minhee adds another to her mouth. She starts pumping them in and out of Jisung’s mouth, and Jisung shivers as she thinks about how puffy her mouth will look in the aftermath. 

“Quiet,” Minhee repeats, her voice meaner this time. Her sheathed dagger digs into Jisung’s hip where Minhee is pressing Jisung into the wall. “Desperate thing. You were waiting for alpha, weren’t you?” She starts moving her fingers faster, until Jisung’s voice is snuffed away and replaced by tears collecting in her waterline. 

She slowly pulls her fingers out and draws a wet line with them down the slopes of Jisung’s face, throat, body. 

She stops at the exposed skin of Jisung’s chest. “Your body was waiting for me.” 

Jisung’s chest quakes under Minhee’s touch. “Minhee.” Her voice is hoarse, her throat already feeling used. 

Minhee’s hard. Even through the layers of her skirt, Jisung feels Minhee twitch when she talks. It gets her mouth even wetter, makes her want to drop to her knees. 

Minhee rests her hand at the bottom of Jisung’s throat in a soft, possessive hold. Her other hand traces small circles on Jisung’s waist, ventures behind, presses into her lower back. 

“I know,” Minhee says, her voice nearly a purr. She plants an open-mouthed kiss where Jisung’s body begs for a bite, ignoring the way Jisung spasms.

Minhee’s eyes are dark as she draws her face back and takes in how obscene Jisung probably looks, lips wet with her own spit and tears collecting in her eyes. A flush rising from her chest. 

“I know what you need,” Minhee says, sneaking a hand in between them and applying pressure where Jisung needs it the most, where she’s afraid she might soak through the layers of fabric that make up her skirt. 

“Please,” Jisung says, her voice broken. She looks down and hisses at the sight—the heel of Minhee’s gloved palm pressing down in between her legs. “I want—” 

She tries to speak, but her tongue is heavy in her mouth. 

Guided by her instincts, Jisung surges forward and nuzzles her face under Minhee’s ear. She breathes in, scents her alpha. The inhale makes her grow wetter in between her legs. Her hand hooks around the buckle holding Minhee’s gilded collar, trying to get it off, trying to get her nose lower, over the place her teeth are aching to bite. 

Minhee grabs Jisung by the back of her throat and pulls her away, and Jisung whines in complaint, her eyebrows slanting upwards in the way she knows they get when she’s denied something she wants. 

“Eager,” Minhee says, tightening her hold around Jisung’s throat. Jisung gets lightheaded, just enough for the resistance in her body to settle down. Jisung’s eyes fall shut, something inside her satisfied at feeling Minhee’s hand on her, holding her in place.

“Jisung,” Minhee says. “Jisung, sweetheart. Look at me.” 

Jisung tries. Her brain is so hazy. 

“You’re going into heat,” Minhee says, her voice level, but her fingers mean. They press down, nearly rendering Jisung unable to breathe. 

Jisung’s inner stream of thoughts is loud—untamed. She can barely make sense of anything. She grabs onto Minhee’s shoulders. 

Jisung makes a confused sound that gets trapped in her throat. “Ah, look at you. You need rest,” Minhee says. Her fingers loosen their hold. Jisung is still so hot. She’s burning up, inside out. Heat has always been ruthless to her body.

Minhee’s scent gets Jisung even more drunk. There’s not a single rational thought within her. Somewhere, at the back of her mind, fear runs amok—heightened by her vulnerability. Minhee could do anything, and Jisung would let her. 

Jisung has always wanted to let Minhee do whatever she wants. 

All of a sudden, Jisung is reminded of all the times she’s been reprimanded for her curiosity about what lies beyond the castle walls. All those warnings about what was waiting for her, if she lost her way and found herself stranded in the city. 

It might look pretty, but it will eat you up.  

The words were always offered as a warning. 

Sounds like a dream, Jisung’s mind supplies.  

“Go to sleep, princess,” Minhee whispers, bringing Jisung’s face so close that their noses brush. 

That’s the last thing Jisung hears before night falls, and her mind goes quiet. 

 

+++

When Jisung comes to, she’s much more level-headed than she was when…

She shakes her head, looking around at the four posters of her bed and the familiar shape of the window in her room. The curtains are drawn close. Everything is still. Although the fog in her mind has lifted, there is still a heaviness to her limbs.  

Minhee, her mind thinks. Where is Minhee?  

Jisung grows more aware of her body by the second. 

The slick wetness in between her legs comes hand in hand with an ache.

A familiar ache, Jisung realises. One that she has dreaded for years, every time it comes. Heat. 

Jisung is in heat. Which means that those events were either a highly immersive dream, a product of the fantasies of a heat-addled mind, or they were—

Jisung stops her train of thought. Surely they can’t have been—it would be so unlike Jisung to give in to such desires where anyone could see her—

“You seem like you’re thinking too much,” Minhee says from the foot of Jisung’s bed. Jisung jumps, turning her eyes to Minhee. Her figure is looming. It casts a shadow that makes her wonder how she didn’t notice that she wasn’t alone. Maybe she isn’t as clear-headed as she thought she was. 

She realises, quickly, that she’s still in the clothes she went to the play in. 

Minhee, however, has dressed down. Her collar is gone, the dagger abandoned somewhere. Only a soft-looking, linen shirt and those same insanity-inducing pants cover Minhee. Jisung wonders if she can direct the blame for her sudden heat on them—exposing the line of muscle in Minhee’s thighs like she isn’t wearing anything.  

Minhee cocks her head as she regards Jisung. 

“Is the princess done looking?” 

Jisung flushes, but doesn’t look away. There’s no reason to—she knows Minhee wants her back just the same. “No,” Jisung says, letting her eyes sweep over Minhee’s frame again. 

Minhee leaves the foot of Jisung’s bed and rounds its parameter, walking closer to Jisung. Her boots hit the floor with heavy sounds. Thump. Thump. Thump.  

Jisung’s heart beats in her ears. 

Listening to her instincts, Jisung scrambles to move backwards, further up the bed. 

“Trying to run away?” Minhee asks playfully. 

“No,” Jisung says, forcing her body to be still. Her shoulders are pulled tight, her back straight like it’s being held up. Maybe it is. Maybe Jisung is Minhee’s marionette. 

Jisung gulps. 

Minhee’s scent takes on that dark, woody edge, mixing jasmine with so much desire that she has to grip onto the bedsheets to keep herself steady. 

Minhee bends at the waist, bringing her face in line with Jisung’s. “No?” 

“Hng—” Jisung’s voice breaks off into a whimper. 

“No need to run away, baby. I’m here to protect you.” 

Jisung’s eyes widen. Slick gushes out of her, getting her thighs sticky. Jisung’s hips cant upwards. 

By the way her nostrils flare, Minhee can tell. 

Jisung picks at the skin of her bottom lip. “—protect?” she asks breathlessly. 

She wishes she could grab the nearest pillow and put it in between her legs. Her body is hungry, and every desperate call it lets out only makes Minhee’s eyes darker with want. 

Minhee toes off her shoes, and the movement draws Jisung’s eyes to those thick, powerful legs. 

Despite her embarrassment, she can’t help it when her eyes don’t look away from the distinct imprint of Minhee’s length tenting the fabric of her pants. 

Jisung’s mouth is full of spit. Some of it escapes, falls onto her heaving chest. 

When she looks up at Minhee, she meets knowing eyes. “I know what’s best for you, my princess,” she says sweetly. “Don’t make me have to hold you down.” 

Jisung would agree to just about anything Minhee says to her right now, so she nods eagerly and shivers at the subtle warning lacing Minhee’s words. 

“Mm, good,” Minhee says, her voice reverberating like it did that day, through the door. She plants her knees on the bed and moves closer to Jisung. 

Jisung holds her breath, but her legs fall apart, knees bending to make space for Minhee.

Minhee settles in between Jisung’s open legs. 

Jisung watches Minhee take her gloves off and throw them behind her. 

The unveiling of a hand has never felt so obscene before. The sight of Minhee’s knuckles make Jisung’s cunt pulse like she’s buried inside her, deep as she can go. The bruises on her hand drown Jisung in the fantasy of how they’d look when they’re pressed up against sensitive skin. 

Jisung whines. She needs Minhee’s fingers inside her, now.  

Minhee’s hand reaches for Jisung’s ankle, wrapping her fingers around it in a vice grip that makes Jisung shake with the knowledge of how easily Minhee would hold her down if she wanted to. She wants the imprint of Minhee’s fingers around every part of her. Her wrists, her ankles, her waist. 

Jisung’s instincts call for more, for teeth on her throat. Subconsciously, she bares her neck, begging for the bite, for anything. 

“No use running away, either. I won’t let you,” Minhee says, squeezing around Jisung’s ankle. 

That—should scare Jisung. All it does is make her moan. The image of Minhee keeping her still as she struggles underneath her makes Jisung’s body convulse enough that Minhee’s other hand has to dart out to keep Jisung still. 

From where her hand is holding Jisung’s ankle, Minhee brings Jisung’s leg higher, places it on her shoulder. She plants a kiss on Jisung’s foot. The movement makes Jisung’s skirt fall around her, and Minhee hums, content. 

“Look at you, poor little omega. Your heat must be making you so desperate,” she coos, rubbing the skin of Jisung’s ankle with soothing motions. Jisung trembles.  

“Already taking it all off for me,” Minhee says, her voice dripping with praise. Jisung squirms in her hold

“Mngh, Minhee—”

Minhee takes Jisung’s legs and wraps them firmly around her hips. Minhee surges forward. The movement makes the clothed hardness of Minhee press down in between Jisung’s folds, where she’s wet enough that Minhee could slip in any time. 

Minhee’s hand moves to the front laces of Jisung’s corset, undoing them with quick fingers. Jisung arches up into the heat of Minhee’s gaze, into the warmth building inside her. The pressure around her chest loosens. 

Jisung’s relieved exhale at finally having another layer off turns into a surprised hiccup when Minhee’s finger flicks one of Jisung’s nipples and her hip grinds down onto her pussy, the dual sensation making Jisung’s eyes white out.

“More,” Jisung says. “Please, Minhee, mmah—” her voice tapers off as Minhee leans down, latching her mouth onto the nipple her fingers were just playing with, shifting the attention of her fingers to the other side, already hard under Minhee’s attention. 

Minhee pinches and pulls and sucks, gets Jisung puffy with use, and only stops when Jisung starts grinding up on Minhee’s cock, her hips driven by a primal urge to be full. 

“Alpha, Minhee, please, please—” Jisung says, her voice wet. 

When did she start crying? She doesn’t know. It must be from how sore her chest feels. 

Minhee plays with Jisung’s nipples a final time before dragging her tongue up. Jisung whines, trying to use her hands to push Minhee’s head down instead. 

She almost thrashes in her place, but Minhee presses her down into the bed, brings her tongue to Jisung’s scent gland, licking over it until Jisung is docile, frozen because of how mind-numbingly good it feels to have her alpha right there.  

Jisung is saying something, her own voice unknown to her ears. She makes out words of empty-headed gratitude like thank you, thank you, alpha is so good to me, need more, please—  

She pushes her neck into Minhee’s mouth, and Minhee’s tongue becomes her teeth, sucking the skin until there’s a mark that almost makes it feel like Jisung is being mated by Minhee. 

“Minhee,” Jisung begs again, “I want—hnnng—” her speech is cut off by Minhee’s lips slotting over her own. 

Jisung whines into the kiss, burying her hands in Minhee’s hair and pulling the strands they aren’t neatly held back, until they fall into Jisung’s face. 

Minhee’s hips press down, her cock hot and warm and—to Jisung’s frustration—clothed—against Jisung’s pussy, grinding down as Minhee uses her tongue to push Jisung’s mouth open and dip into the hot wetness of it. 

Jisung feels drool slip down her chin as their teeth clack together, and she pulls at Minhee’s hair hard enough for it to hurt. She gets a rumbling, low growl in response, one that makes Jisung’s thoughts narrow down a bone-deep hunger for Minhee’s knot. 

“So pretty,” Minhee rasps, breaking the kiss. She looks down to where their hips are still joined. Jisung follows, and her mouth falls open at the way Minhee is rocking forward into Jisung’s cunt like she can’t control herself. Jisung’s leg isn’t fixed around Minhee’s hips anymore, but she’s still spread as wide as possible, making space for Minhee. 

“Take it off,” Jisung whines, pawing at the waistband of Minhee’s pants and eyeing the bulge that should already be inside her hungrily.

For once, Minhee doesn’t drag it out. She must be just as wound up as Jisung, after how long they’ve kept each other waiting. She pulls her pants down to her thighs, taking the last layer off with it. 

Minhee is—big. So big Jisung can’t believe she’s going to be inside her. Jisung covers her face with her hands, moaning loudly, pushing her hips up. “Alpha,” she says, all her other words lost to desire.  

Minhee brings a finger to Jisung’s clothed pussy, thumbing the soaked fabric and pressing down where Jisung’s clit is. Jisung jerks. 

“Alpha will give it to you, darling,” Minhee murmurs, hooking her fingers into the edge of Jisung’s underwear and pulling it to the side. 

Heat makes Jisung wet the way a good omega should be. Ready to be fucked, to be bred. Jisung shivers as Minhee’s bare fingers ghost over her, realising that her slick is loud enough to make it known when her pussy clenches down on itself. 

Minhee holds her cock in her hand, bringing it to Jisung’s cunt and dipping the head into her soaked folds. She coats herself in Jisung’s slick, staring intently and teasing Jisung’s hole with the head of her cock before dragging upwards, using it to play with Jisung’s clit. 

“I,” Jisung clears her throat. “I—haven’t done this before,” she says shyly, feeling the reality of it all dawn upon her. 

Minhee moans, her eyes fluttering rapidly. Her cock twitches where she’s sliding against Jisung, teasing her head around her entrance without pushing in again. 

She brings her other hand to hold Jisung down, and Jisung is grateful for it, because she’s certain she would have squirmed her way into being full of cock already if Minhee keeps making her wait. 

“You’ve never been full, baby?” Minhee asks, all her restraint at its limits. Her cock pushes into Jisung, so slightly, so slowly.  

“Nngh—Minhee.”  

She’s so big, Jisung thinks in a daze. “I haven’t—alpha is my—ah— first—”

Jisung’s body locks up. She arches her back, rounds out her mouth. Her pussy tries desperately to suck more of Minhee inside it, but Minhee remains slow. 

Minhee curses under her breath. Her hair falls into her eyes. 

“Can you take your shirt off?” Jisung breathes. All her shame has already left her body. 

Minhee looks away from Jisung’s pussy and at her face. She pulls her lips up in that cocky smirk, and the effect that it has on Jisung is made obvious by the way she pulses around the tip of Minhee’s cock. 

“Want to see,” she whines. 

Minhee pulls her shirt off with the hand that was holding Jisung down. 

Jisung uses the brief window without Minhee keeping her still to her advantage and pushes her hips down on Minhee’s cock, taking in a little more of her length before a shirtless Minhee is pushing her down again. 

“Who knew the princess was such a cockwhore,” Minhee says casually. 

Jisung’s slick leaks out around Minhee’s cock, getting everything wetter. Without the both of them having to do anything, Minhee’s cock slips even deeper inside. 

“You’ll be good and take what I give you,” she continues, her voice hardening so much that it awakens the part of Jisung that wants to listen, wants to submit, wants to please her alpha. 

Good. Jisung’s hearing narrows down to one word. 

“Yes, yes—I’m good, so good, alpha makes me feel so good.” The words tumble out of Jisung's mouth, unrestrained and abundant. 

Minhee’s scent flares, and Jisung’s eyes roll to the back of her head. 

“So good. Never taken it before but you’re dripping for me, baby,” Minhee says. 

“Thought about it,” Jisung gasps. “Thought about it every night.”

“Ah. Of course you did,” Minhee says, feeding Jisung more of her cock. “Wanted alpha to come fuck you while you didn’t know any better? While you were half-asleep and wet for it?” 

Minhee pushes inside, just a little more. Jisung moans, saying yesyesyesyes like she doesn’t know another word. 

“You’d spread your legs for me any time, wouldn’t you,” Minhee says, bringing a hand to Jisung’s mouth and playing with her bottom lip. 

Jisung’s tongue darts out to taste the salt of Minhee. She hums, her mouth as wet as her pussy. “Hng, yes—Minhee—ah—” 

“Or find you while were asleep and ruin you for anyone else. Tell you dirty things so you’d wake up thinking you dreamed it all. Did the princess think that?” 

Jisung tries to say something—tries. Yes, she wants to say. Yes, I want you in every way. Wanted it for so long.  

But then, Minhee fucks her cock all the way inside Jisung, and the only thing that leaves Jisung’s mouth is a loud, unashamed keen.  

“That’s it,” Minhee says, her hips picking up speed as she begins to pump her cock in and out of Jisung, the sound of slick taking over. Jisung claws at the bed, the pillow, and lets herself be used. 

The heat in her belly rises. Simmer to flame, growing and pulling Minhee deeper. Minhee shifts, hitting a place that has Jisung redefining what it means to see stars. 

Jisung reaches out for Minhee. Minhee comes closer, and Jisung digs her nails into the shoulders she’s been enraptured with for what feels like forever. 

“Please, please—want your knot, alpha,” Jisung gasps, her cunt squeezing around Minhee. Minhee’s hips pick up speed, driving into her in a way that should break Jisung, but only makes her mindless with the need to stay like this forever. 

Minhee grabs both of Jisung’s thighs and hoists them up, folding Jisung in half and driving into her relentlessly. Jisung looks down at herself, watches the way her puffy nipples follow the movement of every single one of Minhee’s thrusts, moaning when she looks up to find Minhee looking at the same place. 

The new angle makes toe-curling pleasure course through Jisung, so constant that it feels like a second heartbeat. Minhee brings a thumb and presses it against Jisung’s clit, rubbing it fast. 

“I’m—I—” Jisung tries to speak, but Minhee only gets faster, like she’s trying to make sure Jisung is incoherent. 

“Let go, baby,” Minhee says. Jisung listens. 

Jisung has never felt an orgasm arrive with this force before. It wrecks through her. It coats Minhee’s stomach and her pelvis and gets all over, leaving Minhee drenched with how she pulled out of Jisung. 

It feels like stars tingle on her skin. Every surface of her is ablaze. She claws at Minhee, bringing their faces together to kiss Minhee through the waves of it, coming and going and making Jisung shake like she never has. 

“Inside me, stay—more, more,” Jisung moans, pressing her hips down on Minhee despite how sensitive she feels. 

Minhee doesn’t slow. The muscles in her arms bulge with her strength, and Jisung detaches their lips to trace every shape of her with her eyes. Looking lower, Jisung watches how Minhee’s cock pulls out of her, coated in Jisung’s slick, only to drive back in with controlled, focused bursts of power.

When Minhee’s thrusts start growing stuttery, Jisung feels her cunt tighten in its attempt to pull. She wants to pull everything out of Minhee, pour it into herself. Jisung wants to be subsumed. 

“You want my knot?” Minhee asks, slowing her hips down, ignoring Jisung’s complain at the change of pace. 

Minhee grabs Jisung’s face by the chin. Jisung’s eyes flutter. “Tell me,” she says. 

“Yes—please. Need alpha to breed me,” Jisung mumbles mindlessly, gasping every time Minhee fucks into her. 

One more thrust, and Minhee moans loudly. She falls forward, planting an arm on the bed on either side of Jisung. 

And then, Jisung feels impossibly fuller. Minhee’s cock swells inside her.

A final thrust, and Minhee is so big that she couldn’t pull out if she tried. Jisung loses her senses, her ears ringing with the intensity of the feeling. 

“So big,” Jisung murmurs. She’s sure she’s saying something else, but Jisung isn’t even conscious of her own thoughts. 

Jisung’s pussy stretches around Minhee, making space for her knot. Minhee grinds in slow circles. Although the movement isn’t fast, it makes Jisung breathless. 

“So good,” Minhee’s voice, lowered several octaves, says into her ear. 

A hot, open-mouthed kiss is pressed onto Jisung’s pulse, rabbiting under Minhee’s lips. Minhee buries herself inside, deep. Something warm touches Jisung’s face, and she blinks out of her haze to realise that it’s Minhee’s tongue licking up her cheek, tasting the tears that must have fallen while Minhee’s knot was growing inside her. 

Minhee groans like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. Her hips freeze, and Jisung feels Minhee come inside her, her release coating her walls. Minhee doesn’t move for a few long moments, breathing in deeply. 

“Look at you,” Minhee says, biting Jisung’s bottom lip and pulling it. “Perfect omega. Taking my knot so well,” she coos, punctuating every word with a slow grind into Jisung that feels even wetter. 

Jisung whines, pulling Minhee into a kiss that lasts for long. Their tongues lazily swirl around each other, leaving spit-stained and swollen lips in their wake. 

Once her head is clearer, Jisung speaks. “Minhee.” Her voice is scratchy, but she needs to say this. 

“Mm.”

“All of this—it means you’re mine.” 

Minhee laughs where her face is tucked into Jisung’s throat. “I’ve always been yours.” 

Jisung’s heart, unsettled at any other prospect than their togetherness, settles. Minhee bites Jisung’s neck lightly, making Jisung’s head cloudy. “And you are mine,” Minhee says. 

They stay like that, breathing together and kissing, the room full of Jisung’s soft whines and Minhee’s pleased sounds as they wait for the knot holding them together to slip out. 

Soon after the knot goes down, Jisung’s heat keeps her desperate, keeps her body open and loose. Minhee’s hands encircle Jisung’s waist, one of them sneaking in between their bodies and pulling Jisung’s pussy apart. Minhee slowly fucks a finger inside Jisung’s knot-swollen cunt, and it swallows it inside eagerly. 

Minhee works her up to another orgasm like that. With simple words that speak of possession and love and desire, and an expert hand that cups, plays, teases, pinches, and crooks its fingers inside Jisung. 

Time passes without stopping for Minhee and Jisung to acknowledge its presence. 

Jisung’s heat keeps them inside, keeps everyone in the castle away from Jisung’s quarters, giving them plenty of time to learn the shapes of each other’s bodies when they’re folded up in pleasure. 

Minhee spends half a day with her face in between Jisung’s legs. She bites the skin of her inner thigh, leaves marks that Jisung will press on for days to come. She licks up Jisung’s cunt, flicking her tongue and tasting her like it’s her last meal. She pushes her tongue inside Jisung, making Jisung writhe and moan and shake with her mouth. 

When Jisung comes down, her head clearer, she smiles into the kiss she shares with Minhee, and opens her mouth every time Minhee feeds her some fruit, relenting after her alpha insists that she needs to eat something. 

Minhee had snuck away to fetch it after sweet-talking Jisung with promises of how good she’ll feel—only if she waits for Minhee to come back. Jisung didn’t give up Minhee’s warm body next to her easily, but Minhee knew how to bargain with Jisung, and she did it well. 

A few more hours pass. 

“You can go one more time, baby,” coaxes Minhee. Jisung pants, trying to recover. Her mouth feels bruised from how Minhee fucked it mere moments ago. 

Jisung furrows her eyebrows, but doesn’t protest when Minhee pulls her up and tells Jisung to sit on her cock. Jisung shakes and makes it through three rolls of her hips before her legs give out. Minhee chuckles, moving Jisung’s hips for her, thrusting upwards. 

Once Jisung is satiated, Minhee settles Jisung back onto the bed and climbs on top of her. 

The late afternoon sun paints a golden picture above Jisung. 

Jisung looks up at Minhee’s face and sighs. “So handsome,” she says, tucking a piece of Minhee’s hair behind her ear and cupping her cheek. 

Minhee leans into Jisung’s touch and smiles. “Hm. So beautiful,” she says, turning her head slightly to kiss Jisung’s wrist. 

Jisung basks in the quiet that follows.

 

+++

Years on out, and the kingdom is at threat no longer. Jisung has grown distant from the court, although she still lives in the palace. She makes it her duty to venture beyond the castle walls, speak with the subjects who lie past it, learn what the people feel. 

All this peace means there are no guards posted outside Princess Jisung’s door. No shadow in the nighttime, no quiet breaths. 

Jisung jumps lightly at a knock on her door. 

Jeongin peaks his head inside. Jisung smiles at him, endeared by the boy’s simple presence. 

He’s dressed in his knight-in-training attire, ready to spar with an attitude that fills up the room and swordsmanship that resembles the best knight the kingdom has seen in years. The similarity makes sense—the very same knight is responsible for his training, after all. 

“Have you seen your wife?” Jeongin grumbles from the door. 

Jisung puts the paper in her hand down. “Come in, Jeongin,” she ushers. “I haven’t seen her this morning, no.” 

Jeongin groans quietly. 

Jisung tuts at him. “A knight doesn’t grumble,” she says playfully, watching Jeongin slump his shoulders. 

“I’m sure she’s somewhere—” she begins. She’s interrupted by the door flinging open, revealing Minhee. She looks winded, like she’s trying to catch her breath. 

“There she is,” Jisung says. “Go on. Prepare yourself. She’ll be out to train you soon.” 

Jeongin bows his head, stopping to throw an amused look at Minhee as he leaves the room. He stops near Minhee and pats her on the shoulder. 

“You really got your hands dirty, huh,” he snickers. 

Minhee hums. “Did you practise your swordwork?” 

The light leaves Jeongin’s face. “Uh—”

“You have an hour.” 

He scurries away. Minhee closes the door behind her.

“An hour? You usually train him now, don’t you?” Jisung says, looking at Minhee and trying to understand what’s different. There’s dirt smeared on her cheek, barely there. It looks like it’s been wiped off. 

Minhee sighs, bringing the hand that was hidden behind her to the front. “For you,” she says, presenting Jisung with a basket of berries. 

Jisung raises her eyebrows, looking at the berries, up at Minhee, and back at the berries. 

Minhee blinks patiently, and Jisung remembers that Minhee had gone to her hometown. Realisation comes slowly, spreading through Jisung with the warmth of Minhee’s love for her. 

“The berries?” Jisung asks.

Minhee sets the basket down and takes one in her hand. Jisung opens her mouth, unasked, and Minhee places it on her tongue. 

Flavour bursts. 

“Mm,” Minhee says. “My beautiful wife wanted to know what her scent was like.” 

The strawberry slides down Jisung’s throat, perfect and sweet and ripe and—good. Really good.

Minhee nods. “Now you know what I go through trying to drag myself away from you every morning.” 

Jisung laughs with surprise, the taste of strawberry still lingering in her mouth. 

“It’s good,” Jisung says, unused to berries so rich with flavour. 

“I know,” Minhee murmurs, her eyes fixing themselves on Jisung’s lips as she wraps them around another strawberry. She pushes it into her mouth, bites down on it. 

“Don’t be greedy,” Minhee says, taking Jisung by the chin and kissing her like she’s trying to lick the taste of Jisung out of her mouth and into her own. 

“You’re greedy,” Jisung whispers in between a kiss. “Wanting the taste all to yourself.” 

Minhee smiles into the kiss that follows. “I can’t be blamed. You taste so good, princess.” 

Jisung finds herself on Minhee’s tongue and smells the sweet freshness of strawberry in the air. 

Minhee breaks the kiss. “Do I get to taste the real thing?” 

Jisung steps towards their bed. It’s an answer in itself. 

Notes:

thank you for reading! I hold my lesbians minsung so close to my heart and I appreciate every little piece of encouragement I get, especially for them. for minhee's armour, I used mulan from once upon a time (the tv show) as a reference, if you were curious about how the specific elements of it would look.

if you liked this, let me know through a comment, I'd love to hear what you thought :)

this is probably the last instalment of the bunnyween series (season 1) unless I'm struck by a bolt of lightning-inspiration. thank you for accompanying me through spooky season, I've had so much fun with all the concepts!

my twitter <3