The sun rudely peeked through a break in the curtains and found my face. It didn't take me long to start waking up and trying to move out of the morning sun. Turning my head, I felt the bunny snuggled into the curve of my neck. I felt warm fur on my side and sure enough, there was a wolf snuggled next to me.

I tried to move to get away from the annoying beam of light but a certain tiger in human form was draped all over my legs. Clearly, V and his cat are very much alike. I look around me and I see each one of them sleeping soundly. Some human, some animal. This bed really has a lot of room. I don't want to wake them up, but now that I'm awake, I really need to go to the bathroom. I gently move until I free myself and climb out of the center of the bed. How I didn't wake up anyone is beyond me.

But then again, we had a really hard day yesterday.

I'm washing my hands afterward and I look at myself in the mirror. I can see the stress of the last 24 hours is still in my face. I slept fitfully all night. My brain didn't want to stop reviewing the day's events and all its gory detail. I may have had my boyfriends surrounding me, but I did watch those same men brutally eviscerate an entire pack of wolves.....by hand.

How does one forget that?

The answer is, of course, you don't.

I leave the bathroom and look into the room with everyone asleep. Jungkook, Jin, and Jimin are all in their animal forms, everyone else is humanoid. They look utterly exhausted. I don't want to know how difficult yesterday was. I have enough of it haunting me at the moment. Watching them sleep, I realize I can't lay down again.

My brain is too active with all the horror of the day before. I didn't reject them, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna forget that I have seen them at their most dangerous. I have been seriously reckless in dealing with this situation. I was so infatuated with being in love, that I didn't care about the reality of their supernatural existence. So taken with the idea of seven soulmates that are just for me, that I was being blase about the problems of the damn thing.

I turn from the room and head downstairs to the kitchen. I might as well make breakfast for everyone. Nothing extravagant, but something to fill bellies and replenish energy. I figure a breakfast bowl would be easiest. I grab eggs, sausage, and some potatoes. The effort to brown and cook everything gave me something to focus on instead of the never-ending memories of gore that filled my mind. As I thought over the day I could focus on what I remembered of each man's actions. It wasn't just Jungkook ripping the wolf in two that bothered me. It was seeing V disembowel another with his claws. It was watching Yoongi snap the neck of another wolf-like it was nothing. Jimin smashed another wolf in the head and took it down. Namjoon bit into the neck of another and tore it out with his teeth. I closed my eyes against the images that were ravaging my brain and creating a deep fear of what these men were capable of.

"Good morning," a soft husky voice says gently from the stairs. I open my eyes and look up into V's eyes. I can see the sorrow in them. "You're suffering is transmitting over the strands. The guys upstairs are crying over what they've put you through." V enters the kitchen and keeps to the other side of the island, allowing me to have a barrier between us. I appreciate the sense of safety he's affording me. I concentrate on the strands and sure enough, there is fear and remorse thrumming through them.

"Yesterday was hard for everyone," I murmur as I focus back on breakfast.

"Yes, but we're used to what we are. You are not." V counters.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask him. My eyes plead for the truth, but my heart is afraid of it.

"We didn't want to scare you. We've spent a long time hiding who we are. Why would we expect you to understand just how monstrous we really are?" V settles on a stool, watching me cook.

"I never believed you were monsters," I reply.

"That was clear in how you kept pushing for more intimacy between us. We knew the dangers, though." V points to himself.

"You should have made it more clear," I say pointedly looking him in the eyes.

"You saw the chains in that cave, Y/N." V says in a heated voice, but his eyes look haunted like horror had claimed his soul, "You saw the restraints she has built to hold us. That should have clued you in that we were more than what you saw." He growls as he brandishes his hand before me. I half expected him to show off his 3-inch claws but he just kept his hand in its current form.

"I'm not just a tiger, my love." I suck in a breath at his endearment but stay quiet as he was upset while trying to explain things to me, "I'm a walking nightmare that stalks these woods. When we first changed, we were what you saw yesterday. My wife was terrified of me. She wouldn't even come near me. She couldn't even say my name." He says in disgust but I see tears filling his eyes.

"Is that why you go by V instead of Taehyung?" I ask.

"Taehyung is dead." He says with finality. "He died with his wife." A tear escapes and falls down his cheek. The bitterness in that statement makes me want to cry. As scared as I am, what they deal with is so much worse.

"I don't believe that," I say gently. I finish up preparing breakfast. I dish him up a bowl and spread a little cheese on top of it and then hand it to him. Comfort food always helps when facing hard moments.

"What? That I'm a monster?" he scoffs, the self-hatred becoming evident along with his tears that he just lets fall. "I was covered in blood from slaughtering a pack of wolves yesterday, did you forget?" He stabs his fork into his food harshly. He would break the bowl if he kept it up

"No, I didn't forget," I walk around the island and take the fork out of his hand and load the fork for him. I take a napkin and wipe his cheek and then I offer the food to him. He reaches up to take the fork from me and I pull it away. When he drops his hand, I offer it to his lips again. He looks at me, his eyes brimming with more unshed tears as he opens his mouth and I slip the fork between his lips. He closes his mouth as I remove it, keeping the food. He then chews slowly, watching me with intense emotion shining in his ruby eyes.

I dish up more food on the fork and offered it to his lips again. This time he didn't try to take it from me and let me feed him. We don't say anything for a while. I just dish up food for him and he eats it from me. As he lets me feed him, our bond starts to heal. He might have a monster form that is terrifying, but the monster is sitting here quietly, letting me feed him. I'm not eating from the same bowl, of course, but I am getting to feed him and it settles me in a way. The big scary monster is gentle in my hands. There is something soothing about the act of feeding another. Something that soothes both of us, helping us to trust each other again.

When the bowl is empty, V takes my hand and lays it over his heart. "In my culture," he starts, "Feeding another person is a sign of caring and love for that person. It means that you are concerned for their wellbeing and happiness. It's a sign of how close you are."

I smile, "I think most cultures feel that way." Standing this close to him, I notice that he has a mole on the side of his lip and one on the tip of his nose. I want to run my fingers over them but I know better now. Instead, I run my fingers through his hair, pushing back errant strands that have fallen into his face. I smile again at him, offering a little comfort for all he's suffered. He offers me a sad smile in return for mine.

He keeps ahold of my hand over his heart. "500 years ago, my world was destroyed." He takes a deep breath, his husky voice, deepens. "We were naive to how dangerous we'd become to the people we loved. My wife hated what I'd become. She was terrified of me and in the end, I ended up poisoning her to death. I cannot forgive myself for that."

The aching sorrow of centuries shows in V's eyes. I can feel his strand, aching with misery that I don't know if I could ever make better. V is broken in so many ways, how could I possibly make things better for this man? As his soulmate, I know I want to try. I choke back a sob that threatens to escape my own lips as I feel his pain.

I wrap my arms around him, "I can't replace what you've lost, but I can build something new. Will you let me?" I look deep into his crimson eyes, trying to find answers that haunt us both.

"I already love you," He said. "If you stay, I will work to be everything I can for you." He promises.

"I just need you to be you, V" I whisper to him. I lay my forehead against his. "I don't need you to be anything more or less than who you are." I feel his heartbeat thumping against my hand. He leans his head on my shoulder and silently lets the tears fall as he cries quietly against me. I let him cry, soon his sobs get louder as whatever he's holding onto let's go."

"I hated killing those wolves. I hate killing anything, but they wouldn't stop. I had to destroy them....I'm a monster" He whispers against my shoulder. At that moment I realize that V is very soft. He may be a big cat, a scary monster in another form, but inside, he's soft. I realize that yesterday wasn't just emotionally hard on me, but was hard on them too. They protect this forest, to destroy something so integral to it, would not be easy.

I feel a shift inside me as I contemplate how truly gentle my soulmate is. My love for him grows just a little bit more with this revelation.

"You are not a monster." I lift his face with my hands so that he can look into my eyes and see my sincerity. "You are a good man who is in a bad situation. You have suffered countless torments living a curse you never asked for." I pull him to me and hug him close leaving my lips near his ear.

"I love you, Taehyung."  

A/N:  Whoo, Taehyung did not make this one easy to write.  He kept crying in my head so loudly that I had a hard time putting the words down.  See what happens when your characters take on their own story.  phew.   This chapter is supposed to be heartbreaking and emotional because V doesn't like himself much for what he feels he did.  Did I hit that note? 

Next few days will be busy.  The next update will most likely be Saturday.   Saranghae to all my readers.  You've made this NaNoWriMo challenge so much fun with all your votes and reads.  Even though I feel like I'm rushing through my story and I'm afraid I'm gonna miss an important point... Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for loving my story.