Mark stared intensely at Kyuhyun.

Kyuhyun, who was a picture of poise and pureblood aristocracy, stared back.

“A member of my family,” Mark said excruciatingly slow. He felt Zhou Mi lean closer to him, his body giving off the slightest bit of heat, but Mark barely registered it. “What do you mean, a member of my family?”

Did Kyuhyun mean a power hungry cousin? A bloodthirsty aunt or uncle? Mark knew his family wasn’t nearly as extensive as some of the other families, but it has its own kind of crazy, and there were quite a few black sheep.

Kyuhyun gave a deep nod. “I would like you to understand that I did not reach this conclusion without being extremely extensive and careful in my investigation.”

Thankful he was already seated, Mark felt his knees go weak. “This is going to be bad,” he said more to himself, fearful of the look on Kyuhyun’s face. “This is going to be really bad.”

“I’m sorry, Mark,” Kyuhyun said, and it didn’t matter in the least that he truly did look it. “All evidence points to your uncle.”

“Have you lost your mind completely!” Mark yelled, on his feet in less than a second, towering over Kyuhyun. “My uncle? What in the hell is wrong with you!”

Next to Mark, still sitting perfectly still with a polite look in his face, Zhou Mi asked, “You realize what line your are treading?”

Kyuhyun ignored Mark’s outburst and said, “I understand full well the line I am stepping fully over. And the implications, let alone the consequences.”

“If you are wrong,” Zhou Mi warned, “It’ll mean a punishment you will not recover from, and shame forever attached to your family.”

Kyuhyun nodded. “But I’m not wrong, and I’m willing to stake my life on my claim. Literally.”

Before Zhou Mi could say anything in return, Mark exploded, shooting them equally poisonous glares, “Can you two stop talking to each other like we’re discussing the weather!” Mark felt like tearing his hair out as he shouted to Kyuhyun, “My uncle is not a traitor!”

Kyuhyun gestured to the sofa Mark had once been sitting on. “I’ll explain if you sit back down and breathe more calmly.”

“No! You won’t! I am not going to listen to your bull conspiracy theory!”

Zhou Mi stood in one graceful moment, put a hand on Mark’s shoulder, and said, “You need to sit down. Prince Kyuhyun would never make a claim of this magnitude unless he was absolutely certain. Should you choose not to believe him after he’s explained himself, that is your choice, but you must listen to him now.”

There was something commanding about the way Zhou Mi spoke, and it made Mark want to comply almost immediately, no matter how ludicrous the idea of his uncle being a traitor was.

Mark said evenly, sitting, “My uncle has been serving the council for two decades now. Many of the members are his personal friends. And maybe it’s just because you don’t know the kind of man my uncle is, but he’s not one to lower himself to a station he feels is beneath him. Something like this would be beneath him.”

Kyuhyun steeped his fingers, brought the tips to his lips, mused for a second, and then said, “Do you know that your uncle is banned from inheriting the position of heir in your family? Banned from ever being considered in any possible instance?”

Mark shot him an odd look. “Yes. I do.”

“Do you know why?”

Mark was forced to shake his head. “I take it you know?” It was quickly becoming evident that Kyuhyun was privy to a lot of information that Mark wasn’t, and probably some information that most vampires weren’t. Kyuhyun was exceptionally sly.

Kyuhyun’s head tilted towards Zhou Mi. “Do you?”

In a rumbling voice, Zhou Mi said, “He attempted to bribe certain council members over a delicate issue involving the humans nearly forty years ago. Those he couldn’t bribe, he blackmailed. Those he couldn’t blackmail ….”

Mark paled.

Zhou Mi finished, “Charges were officially filed several years later, and judgment from the council came shortly afterwards.”

Kyuhyun interjected, “Grace was a child at the time, Mark. A baby when the matter was fully done. And no proof was actually presented against your uncle, but there were some disappearances and questionable instances that resulted in your uncle being barred from ever having a say over human matters. Because he couldn’t have a say, which means he couldn’t have a vote should inheritance ever come to him, he was disqualified.”

Mark chocked out a laugh. “So you think because my uncle hates the humans enough to try and bribe or extort some vampires over their issue, that he single handedly staged the attack on the council and …”

“And,” Kyuhyun said deliberately, “the deaths of your family. And mine. And others.”

Mark felt his body trembling, and the way he was pulled to Zhou Mi’s side helped anchor him a little, but everything was going numb.

He could barely manage to say, “My uncle loved my mother so much. And the whole family. He would never. So I have to tell you, I’m really, really upset and disappointed with your witch hunt. I think you’re so desperate to have someone to blame for losing Grace, that you’ll target anyone who you think could possibly be at fault. I think you’re crazy and impulsive and wrong, and you’re insulting my family right now. You’re insulting Grace.”

“Breathe,” Zhou Mi said, running fingers up the back of Mark’s neck in a soothing way. “Deep breaths.”

“How can you say something like that?” Mark asked, voice hitching as his eyes started to burn. The tears were moments away. “How can you even think that my uncle could do something so deplorable to his own family?”

Kyuhyun tried to speak, but Mark cut him off, snapping, “You didn’t see him after the attack. You didn’t see him struggle to live with a throat that had been cut open and the survivor’s guilt that came with it. He hasn’t been the same since he lost the people he loves!” And all Mark could think about was stumbling upon his uncle in his dorm room, so delicately handling their family’s disturbed ashes, weeping silently with shaking shoulders. It was not the picture of a guilty man.

“Let him explain himself,” Zhou Mi urged once more.

Mark cut Zhou Mi a dirty look, but asked, “What kind of motivation would my uncle have for being a part of something that killed the person he considered to be the other half of his soul?”

“Because,” Kyuhyun said slowly and definitively, “there is something your uncle cares about more than the love he felt for his sister. And you know that, Mark. You know there is no room in your uncle for anything but the urge and want to destroy the humans. He wants to kill them all. And he’ll do anything to accomplish that--make any sacrifice.”

“You’re not winning me over here,” Mark grit out. “You don’t know my uncle. You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know it would have been to his best benefit,” Kyuhyun said. “to instigate the deaths of the rest of your family. Because your uncle wasn’t just stripped of his rights in the fourth family to inherit anything due to his actions against certain vampires, it happened because he attempted to force the council’s hand on the matter of the treaty. Many believe he attempted to invalidate it and start a new conflict. He was only stopped because the sentiment for peace was stronger than his hatred, and because he wasn’t nearly as careful as he thought he was. But removing him from the line of succession didn’t curb his hatred for the humans. In fact it may have made that hatred stronger, and he’s nothing if not resourceful. He’s cunning and intelligent, and your uncle will take carefully planned risks if he sees an opportunity. I believe, Mark, he saw one in you.”

“In me,” Mark scoffed.

Kyuhyun nodded. “The treaty is weak and unfairly balanced in some instances, but it works. And enough members of the council still believed in it before recent events. They never would have voted to touch it. Your mother wouldn’t have, and she must have imparted on Grace never to risk war. But you? Your mother probably taught you things like music, and not politics. Compared to Grace, you’re a naïve child in terms of the human and vampire conflict. With Grace as heir, and then eventually the head of your family, I can almost say without a shadow of a doubt that the treaty would have remained untouched. And for someone like your uncle, who hates humans more than he loves his family, it must have seemed unbearable to him. So he fixed that. He worked the situation to his advantage. He removed your mother and Grace who would never vote how he wanted if he could somehow bring the council to that point.”

“He wouldn’t,” Mark said again, thinking of all the shared Christmases, the birthday parties, family vacations, and all the moments of his life when his uncle was there, showering him with love and praise.

“Would he?” Zhou Mi asked instead, curiously. “Would he do something like this? For a chance to change the treaty? To spark a conflict that would give him an excuse to kill hundreds, if not thousands of humans?”

“Not for a chance,” Kyuhyun said with a shake of his head. “For a sure bet.”

“How?”

Kyuhyun looked a little weary as he told Mark and Zhou Mi, “Everything comes down to the numbers. Thirteen families means thirteen votes. The vote itself does not have to unanimous, but it must have the majority. The families that were attacked or threatened, before the council was hit, and then afterwards, were all families that would have, without a doubt, voted to keep the treaty as is. It’s my belief that they were hit as a way for your uncle, Mark, to motivate them to his way of thinking--that humans are foul creatures who must be stomped from existence before they do more harm.”

Mark clenched his fingers into fists.

“Siwon’s father,” Kyuhyun said, “fought in the human and vampire war. He is one of the eldest members of the council. He lost too much, including children that were born decades before Siwon, to risk anything like that again. He would have voted no. My sister, Ahra, was a pacifist. And the third family, which was attacked recently, was headed by a vampire who has always preached tolerance with the humans.”

Zhou Mi mused, “The thirteenth family would vote would vote the same as the fourth.”

Kyuhyun agreed, “As would the eighth and second, certainly. But now those votes are removed and reshuffled. In the place of older, more experienced vampires who know the horrors of war, there are teenagers and young vampires who are emotionally volatile. These are representatives who have been personally hurt by humans, and are therefore more inclined to want revenge. It’s quite smart in terms of strategy to make these changes, if not completely evil.”

“But,” Zhou Mi said calmly, “the attacks were most certainly carried out by humans. No vampire can fake a human scent. There is more than enough evidence to support the attack against the council, and the other families, to be the work of humans. Likely the HF.”

Kyuhyun said, “You’re forgetting that Humans First, our greatest adversaries, have time and time again denied that they’re behind the attacks. They’ve never been ones to shy away from previous claims. Because of this, I believe them when they say they didn’t attack our children and unprotected families. I believe them when they claim they didn’t burn Mark’s siblings alive in their house. They likely wanted to, but didn’t.”

“This is crazy,” Mark moaned out.

“Humans are,” Zhou Mi offered, “easily swayed with money. It wouldn’t have been difficult for anyone to offer a significant sum of money to a group of humans, ask them to masquerade as the Human’s First liberation group, and then carry out these tasks.”

Mark felt himself collapse fully on Zhou Mi, tension and anxiety eating him up. “So now my uncle is guilty because he’s wealthy?”

Kyuhyun shook his head. “When the attacks first began, long before your family was targeted and before the first casualty, they were primarily incidents of property damage and threats of worse. They were meant to incite fear of how they would escalate, and Mark, your uncle was the first to push for a consideration on the matter of the treaty. He began advocating for it heavily, despite being banned from such a thing. The council was lenient with him because of the loss of his wife in a human conflict, but make no mistake they would have put the matter to rest soon enough if things hadn’t gotten worse.”

“Do you have any real proof?” Mark demanded, trying to light the fire back in him. He wanted to get up and shout and scream and run and do something--anything. He didn’t want to slump over and listen to these accusations. He felt offended on his uncle’s behalf.

“Mark?” Kyuhyun asked, “You must have considered why certain vampires were casualties during that attack, and not others. Eye witness reports claim there were more than enough humans to cause a much more significant number of deaths. But the official report from the council states that once Siwon’s father, my sister, and your parents and Grace were dead, the humans broke formation and retreated. I’ve also read the report from the fatal attack against the head of the third family. There were several prominent and powerful vampires there at the time of the attack, but they were untouched. Why?”

Mark was silent. And he absolutely refused to meet Kyuhyun’s intense gaze.

“Because,” Kyuhyun continued, “it’s exactly how I said. It’s all about the numbers. It’s about knowing, or at least anticipating, how someone will vote, and then manipulating the situation to serve that knowledge. Those who have perished were the least likely to move from their intended decisions of peace. Now that opposition is gone, and those members of the council who were undecided, may yet decide to act on a course of war. And of course, we’re then left with you. Because like your uncle, I think I’ve done the math properly. I think I can anticipate how the others will vote, and that is why your vote, more than anyone else’s, is the most important. You’re going to be the tie breaker, Mark. It’s you. And your uncle knows it.”

“I can’t listen to this.” Mark dragged his fingers through his hair.

Kyuhyun said, “This couldn’t have worked out any better to his advantage, either. Your uncle couldn’t have asked for a better person for it to come down to. Because you’re young and naïve and you can be easily swayed with the right words or actions. He’s been playing you from the start knowing it would be you, and that is the true explanation for all of this.”

“Then why the fire!”

“Ah, yes. The fire. That’s precisely what I mean.”

Mark found his anger, shoved the sorrow down, and raged back, “Why the damn fire?”

It was Zhou Mi who said, startling Mark, “If we’re going by Prince Kyuhyun’s theory, the only reason for the fire would be to eliminate the line of succession before you, Mark. If your family was going to end up being the tie breaker in a best case scenario, this would be a wise move.”

“But I lived,” Mark said, hastily wiping away his tears. “I’m alive. The line isn’t gone.”

“Do you see now why I asked you what happened the night of the first?” Kyuhyun inquired. “Why weren’t you there?”

“I already told you,” Mark shot back. “My uncle surprised me with bringing Henry and we--”

“Conveniently removed you from the situation,” Kyhyun finished for him. “Because of all your uncle’s nieces and nephews, you are the closest to him. I doubt that is an accident. You have his ear, and he has yours. Now, with your mother and Grace gone as not to vote against what he wanted, and Tammy gone for the same reason, not to mention your father gone to protect you from your uncle’s manipulations, he could mold your vote into exactly what he wanted it to be. I assume your brother to merely be a casualty.”

Mark felt himself go light headed.

“I believe this plan of his has been in the making for a very long time, your uncle is patient enough to wait it out. I believe he befriended you, kept you close to him, orchestrated the deaths of everyone in his way, placed you into a position of power, and then has been steadily pushing you towards voting how he wishes by threatening you with perceived dangers and a human threat that is not really there.”

“No, no, no, no.” Mark dashed across the room, slammed into the bathroom and locked it behind him. “No,” he sobbed out, mashing his hand desperately against his mouth to stop any future words, tears streaking down his face.

“Mark!” Zhou Mi called through the door. “Are you okay?”

Shaking, Mark slid down to the floor, his back braced against the door, shoulders catching as he sobbed even louder.

He could hear Kyuhyun from the other side of the door say, “The council is surprisingly easy to manipulate. Do not feel as if you’re the only one who fell prey to your uncle. They were played like a finely tuned instrument, all of your uncle’s opposition being easily picked off, replaced with more favorable heirs, or the inexperienced, like you. All the while building the fear of humans day by day. When it comes to people who know how to manipulate others, these things are not impossible to do without drawing notice.”

Zhou Mi asked, “You think that slur which was written on Mark’s door wasn’t the work of the humans after all, do you?”

“No,” Kyuhyun agreed. “Neither do I think the destruction of his room was, or the attack in town. Instead I believe those to be chess pieces slowly being placed into the perfect positions, meant to scare Mark into hating and fearing the humans until a checkmate became playable. His uncle must have thought to fright Mark into believing he must take action, if only to prevent the deaths of loved ones.”

It sounded like Zhou Mi was agreeing as he said, “Vampires can be bought as well, especially those without title or money. It was never believable that a human could make it onto campus and act in such a way without being caught. The human scent lingering around Mark’s rooms were … odd. It would make sense if they were fake.”

“You’re so full of bull!” Mark heard himself scream. He was starting to feel detached, like a visitor in his own body. “My uncle was at the council meeting! He nearly died!”

When Kyuhyun spoke his voice was so close that he had to be standing right outside the bathroom door, next to Zhou Mi. Even the reinforced door could have been broken down in mere moments if Kyuhyun really wanted in, but Mark remained safe in the bathroom as he heard the elder vampire say, “After the fire at your house, and the attack on the council, your uncle would have been the first suspect on a very short list. In truth, they must have already suspected him in the events leading up to the attack. In order to draw suspicion form himself, it is my belief that your uncle arranged for himself to be injured. When he made himself into a victim, it turned many eyes from him, and gave him the room necessary to work on you.”

“Mark?” Zhou Mi asked once more, more gently than Mark had ever heard before. “Can you open the door?”

Legs pulled to his chest, Mark continued to cry, burring his face in his knobby knees.

It wasn’t true. It absolutely wasn’t true. Mark would never believe that his uncle was capable of something so disgusting and horrible, especially to his own family. His uncle wasn’t that kind of man. He wouldn’t. And no matter Kyuhyun said, Mark wouldn’t believe him.

“You have been thorough,” Zhou Mi commented.

Kyuhyun made a unhappy sound. “I still have several pieces of the puzzle that remain a mystery. Mark’s uncle would not have known about the location of the council meeting. Only the heads and heirs knew, and not until the last moment. Not to mention Marcus might have the intelligence to concoct something like this, but not the resources and manpower. The council keeps a very close eye on the finances and actions of the thirteen families. Any irregular activity would have been noticed. I need to understand how these things fit in properly. These are pieces that cannot be ignored. But regardless of those mysteries, I’m quite certain that there is more than one traitor at work here--perhaps several, all working together and leaving phantom footprints that are getting more and more difficult to decipher. Now more than ever we must ally with each other, and trust each other.”

Zhou Mi knocked again on the door. “Mark? Can you please--”

“No!” Mark snapped, feeling the anger bubble up in side him once more. “Not until you get the real traitor out of my rooms right now!”

“Listen to me,” Kyuhyun said, actually sounding a little desperate. “Your uncle succeeded in getting the vote moved up, along with your introduction. You’re in danger, more than before, if you give the slightest hint that you won’t vote the way he wants. He hasn’t put all this time and effort into you for nothing. If he thinks you may not vote his way, he won’t spare you. He didn’t spare anyone else.”

“Get out!” Mark hit the door viciously behind him. “Get the out!”

He was crying again after that, trying to control himself but failing wildly.

“Watch him,” Mark heard Kyuhyun say to Zhou Mi quietly. “Watch him as if your life depended on it. His uncle will kill him if it’s the kind of power move he needs to make. There’s a chance Henry could be up for temporary heir if Mark is taken out, and I don’t think I need to tell you how the vote would go then.”

“Nothing,” Zhou Mi whispered back, “will happen to him while I’m here.”

Just before Mark was about the shout at Kyuhyun to leave once more, he heard the vampire say, “I made a promise to Grace, Zhou Mi, that when I married her and her family became mine, I would never let anything happen to them. The only one I can save now is Mark. I won’t let Grace down. I won’t disrespect her memory by breaking my word. Don’t make me a liar, Zhou Mi. Do not let his uncle hurt him.”

Mark squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as they would go, pressed his fingers to his ears and blocked everything out.

He must have sat there for hours. Every once in a while he’d feel the vibrations of someone knocking on the door rippling up his back, but eventually they would fade and he’d be left alone in peace. He could only mark the passage of time by the fact that his blood hunger was growing,

So finally, when Zhou Mi knocked once more on the door, Mark got to his feet, turned the brass handle, and peeked out.

“He’s gone,” Zhou Mi said immediately. “He left quite a while ago.”

Mark said bluntly, “I’m hungry. I want blood and food.”

“Come here,” Zhou Mi said, guiding him to the kitchenette. “I’ll cook you something. And I’ll call down to the main building for fresh blood for you.”

He had the blood first, fifteen minutes later, seated up on a countertop with his feet hanging down in a way that made him feel young. Zhou Mi cooked efficiently next to him, using what few ingredients Mark had in his kitchen, which did turn out to be more than he expected.

“Here.” Zhou Mi put a bowl of warm soup, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a glass of orange juice in front of Mark, saying, “If you’d prefer to head to the dinning hall, I’m sure they could offer you a much wider selection of food.”

Mark started at the sandwich, then picked it up gingerly. “My mom used to make me ham and cheese sandwiches when I was younger. Grace always had the turkey, Joey wouldn’t eat anything but peanut butter and jelly, and Tammy had the tuna. We made mom do so much extra work. Just for sandwiches.”

Zhou Mi’s hand ghosted over the top of Mark’s head. “I doubt your mother saw it as a chore. Mothers rarely do.”

“Thanks.” He took a bite from the sandwich and watched Zhou Mi sit across from him in the other chair.

“Do you wish to speak about what Prince Kyuhyun had to say? Or not? The choice is yours.”

Suddenly the sandwich tasted like ash.

“Zhou Mi?” Mark asked. “Do you believe him?”

Cautiously, Zhou Mi said, “He presented a strong argument for accusation.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Mark was half convinced that he wouldn’t get a straight answer from Zhou Mi before the man said, “I believe that your uncle is capable of doing such a thing. However, you were right to point out earlier that Prince Kyuhyun had no actual proof to implicate your uncle. He believed what he was telling you, but an accusation without proof is worthless.”

“You believe him,” Mark surmised. “You think my uncle butchered our family to get me under his thumb, so I’d be the tipping point in an eventual vote. You think he’d do it. You think he did.”

Zhou Mi pursed his lips for a second. “Your uncle has a reputation.”

“What kind?” Mark deadpanned.

“The kind that says he’s volatile,” Zhou Mi replied. “Short on patience, especially on human matters. Cutthroat. And morally questionable. I don’t want to hurt your image of him, Mark, but he doesn’t have the trust of many elder vampires, and for a reason.”

Mark stirred his spoon through his French onion soup. “I’m his namesake,” Mark said, watching the murky liquid slosh around. “My mom loved him so much she named me after him, no matter what my dad wanted. I don’t even think she consulted him before I had the name Mark. And he means so much to me, Zhou Mi. We used to do all the things together that my dad didn’t always have time for, and he’d buy me an extra birthday present every year and give it to me after my party, when the two of us went out for our traditional trip to the nearby arcade. He never raised a hand to me, or his voice for that matter. He spoiled me, favored me, and told me he loved me more than my parents combined. Those are not the actions of a man that would murder his family. For a vote.”

Had it just been for a vote? Had all the attention and love been with a condition attached to it?

“If you don’t believe Prince Kyuhyun, and you trust your gut more than his words, then don’t question your uncle,” Zhou Mi said as he prepared to leave, citing a need to attend to his school work. It was something that reminded Mark how attentive Zhou Mi had been, and made Mark feel guilty. “Trust your instincts, Mark, no matter how heavy they might make your heart feel. But as always, never forget, if you need me I’m here.”

Mark stood less than a foot’s distance away from Zhou Mi, and he had to tip his head back to look up at the tall vampire. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it more than he could properly express. “For being here for me. For helping me. For … for everything, basically.”

Zhou Mi’s hand was large as it came up to cup the side of Mark’s face, his thumb gently over his jaw. “I will be here for you for as long as you need me. Never question that.”

“That might be a while,” Mark said, voice going low. Because god forbid Kyuhyun had been even the slightest bit right …

No, that wasn’t something Mark could entertain even for a second.

He’d already endured so much. He was at his limit. He was going to break soon if he let himself think there was a chance that the only thing he had left in his life was nothing but a lie.

“I,” Zhou Mi reminded, bending slightly to his eye level, “am your match-- your counterbalance. Feel free to dispute this at a later date, but in this moment, I am your other half. I am your most loyal ally and your biggest advocate. I will never betray you and I will always help you. That’s what having a match means. This is what you should expect from me. And it isn’t anything you should ever feel the need to thank me for. I am here for you in every way possible.”

“Zhou Mi.”

Anything else was completely cut off as Zhou Mi’s mouth covered Mark’s.

It was absolutely as chaste as kisses came, with the barest hint of pressure and all the gentleness in the world, but Mark felt it down to his toes. He felt the love and the dedication and the meaning behind everything Zhou Mi had ever said to him. And it was a very nice kiss. So nice that he lost himself for a minute.

Then he remembered Jackson. Goofy, sometimes annoying, but often endearing Jackson. The boy who’d captured Mark’s attention from the very start, and been everything Mark had needed during the worst period of his life. Jackson kissed him too, but very much not chastely, and that was how Mark preferred his kisses.

“I can’t,” Mark said, leaning back from Zhou Mi. “I have someone, Zhou Mi. I won’t be unfaithful.” Especially not since Jackson had taken him on a fantastic date, made him feel truly special, and then saved his life at the end of it. Not when Mark looked at Jackson and knew he was something special--that what they had was something special. Something worth fighting for and protecting.

“Someone,” Zhou Mi repeated.

Technically, he supposed, he had two someones. Jackson was his boyfriend as much as Zhou Mi was his match. Neither invalidated the other.

“The half breed,” Zhou Mi said.

“Jackson,” Mark corrected. “And I really like him.”

After a minute more, and Zhou Mi’s somewhat uncomfortable gaze that flickered continuously from Mark’s eyes down to his lips and back up, Zhou mi headed to the door.

“Zhou Mi,” Mark called after him, trailing a little like a puppy. “Don’t be angry.”

“Don’t be angry that the person I’ve been matched to, the person I care for a great deal, and that I have been preparing to marry for several years, has someone else?”

Mark groaned. “Don’t make it sound like that! You know I’m dissolving the match!” He trailed after the taller man.

Zhou Mi stilled suddenly, Mark almost running into him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

No. Obviously not. It just made Mark feel like dirt.

The guilt continued to mount as Zhou Mi pulled open the door, but peered back at Mark to say, “I will always respect your choice, even if that choice isn’t me. But I fell in love with the idea of having you as my match a long time ago. And then when I got to meet you here, for the first time, that love was more than just an idea. It was real.”

Mark winced. “I’m sorry.”

Zhou Mi took a deep breath, chest heaving. “I have never asked you to love me in return. I hesitated to ask you to attempt to give us time enough for you to feel simple affection for me. But you have hurt me by dismissing the idea of our match before giving it any real thought. You’ve hurt me by dismissing me.”

Zhou Mi was down the hall and gone before Mark could react, his stomach sinking into his lower bowels.

Mark was attracted to Jackson. That much he was certain of. And they weren’t complimentary in the least bit, but Mark liked that part the best. He liked that he and Jackson fit together in a messy way that didn’t make sense and was fun and entertaining. The things Mark felt for him were real and a little scary in their intensity, but still very, very real.

But the more he thought about it now, with how amazing Zhou Mi had been, and patient and strong and loyal, it was possible the feelings he had for Zhou Mi were more than he’d ever allowed himself to admit before. They were more than he’d let himself consider.

They had to be, because what he was feeling now, as Zhou Mi walked away from him hurt and angry and devastated, made Mark’s heart hurt in only one way possible.

His feelings for Zhou Mi felt much different from the ones he had for Jackson, but not less intense. Not any more. And it was startling to realize it all at once, right after having hurt a person who never did anything to deserve it.

It was all completely confusing mostly.

That kiss hadn’t helped things either, because it had been … amazing. The more Mark replayed it in his mind, the more comfort and intimacy he’d found in it. There’d been no pressure, no standards, no expectations. There’d only been pure and careful desire. And a softness.

“Oh, no,” Mark ground out slowly as he shut the door behind Zhou Mi.

What the hell was he going to do?

The next few days were some of the worst.

Thankfully he was spared from having to look his uncle in the eyes and wonder if he was the kind of man that Mark had sworn up and down that he wasn’t, but he still had to speak to him on the telephone. He felt like his uncle’s responses kept coming off clipped and suspicious every time he had to answer a question Mark had for him as they discussed the council, and by the end of the phone call he was so anxious and jittered that he had to lay down afterwards and coach himself to breath easy.

Henry continued to be MIA, Amber in tow, and part of Mark was actually thankful. Kyuhyun was accusing Mark’s uncle of multiple murders, and if that held true, there was something equally suspicious about Henry’s behavior. Henry had been the one to take him away from his house the night of the fire and keep him out until dawn. Henry had practically become his shadow at school, following him everywhere, likely reporting back to his father, keeping watch. Henry had been unaccounted for when the slur had been written on Mark’s door, when his dorm had been broken into, and when the latest attack had happened. Henry kept secrets. Henry didn’t give full answers. Henry ….

No.

He couldn’t start down that path. He couldn’t. Not with Henry.

Henry was his cousin. He was Mark’s best friend. He was an unmovable pillar of strength and Mark trusted Henry with his life. Mark knew Henry had made mistakes, and he hadn’t told Mark about what Zhou Mi was to him. But Henry hadn’t done it maliciously. He’d done it to protect Mark, no matter how foolish that intended protection had been. There was no way Henry needed to be implicated in any way in Kyuhyun’s crazy conspiracy theories. Emphasis on the crazy.

And naturally, because life was clearly punishing Mark for something, his week was made exceptionally uncomfortable by Zhou Mi.

It wasn’t Zhou Mi’s fault. That wasn’t lost on Mark. But it was uncomfortable all the same.

Zhou Mi, the kind of match that anyone would be salivating over, went on after their hasty parting to treat Mark as if it had never happened. He was cordial as always, walked Mark to and from class, talked to him about all the things they usually did, and not once brought up the fact that he’d kissed Mark or been brushed off like unwanted sweater lint.

Mark spent those moments stumbling over himself, half caught between apologizing for being dismissive, or worse, admitting that maybe the kiss had sort of … at least a little … meant something. Maybe meant something. Maybe.

The only highlight Mark could pinpoint, as Kyuhyun’s ceremony grew ever closer, which would certainly prove to be yet another uncomfortable event for most parties attending, was that Jackson was released from the hospital. And from his parent’s watchful gazes. He came back to school on a Thursday, and was waiting for Mark at his dorm before their first class.

“Don’t mind me,” Jackson said, ducking in for a sweet kiss that Mark felt his body tingle in response to. “But I need to make up for all that time you spent denying me in the hospital.”

Mark passed his bag strap over his head and started with Jackson towards class. “You wanted me to feel you up with your mom less than a hundred feet away,” Mark teased back. “You’re a ert, Jackson. Not everyone shares your kinks.”

Jackson’s fingers slipped through to Mark’s and a feeling of the content bliss he was feeling reflected on his face in the form of a smile.

“I knew you missed me,” Jackson said, swinging their hands, “but you knew something like that wouldn’t keep me down, either. I’m a beast.”

“Really,” Mark asked skeptically.

“A y beast!” Jackson corrected.

“Hey!” a voice called out sharply, and in less than five seconds Mark felt absolutely normal. Jackson’s hand never let up from the grip it had on Mark’s, and around them their newly arrived friends joked loudly, hopped around, complained about school work, pretended that the hadn’t all missed Jackson’s presence, and helped Mark forget his worries.

“This is all it took?” Jr. questioned, bumping into Mark deliberately as they left the rest of their group on the first floor for class and headed up to the second for theirs.

“All what took?”

Jr. gave him a sly look. “You’ve been moping around here for days, dragging your feet and acting like you want to run out into the sunlight. But that all changed the second Jackson was back here.”

Mark wondered how much they knew about the night Jackson had been injured. Maybe they didn’t know anything, only that he and Jackson had been jumped on their way back. Mark certainly hoped that was all they knew.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Mark said, grinning all teeth. “Considering I’m nearly a sixteen year old boy, that’s all you should expect me to need.”

Jr. whacked him on the arm. “So you’re having then? With Jackson back you’re finally getting to relieve that that’s been building up?”

Immediately Mark shook his head, almost appalled at the thought. “We’ve only been dating a few months!”

“Oral then?” Jr. shrugged.

Mark gave him a bleak look. “You’re just as much a ert as Jackson is.”

“Maybe you’re not enough,” Jr. laughed. “Because he’s pretty cute. Anyone will tell you that. And you two seem like you’re all over each other now. Give it time. I’m giving it about a week.”

Mark hit him again for good measure.

After only a few more days, days that Mark spent lounging around his dorm with his friends, making out with Jackson, and acting like he didn’t have a care in the world, Mark found himself seated next to Zhou Mi in the back of a spacious SUV, Kyuhyun and his two ever faithful companions across from them, all of them headed to the airport.

It was the first time Mark had been in Kyuhyun’s presence since Kyuhyun had accused Mark’s uncle of having his family killed, and Mark was certainly feeling the anxiety level in the car.

Of course Kyuhyun, who had the best poker face in the world, sat prim as ever, and said, “The ceremony itself will be a relatively short one. This is a two day trip away from campus. Nothing more.”

Before Kyuhyun could say anything else, Zhou Mi leaned towards Mark’s ear and said, “Your cousin Henry will be there. I spoke with him earlier and he will meet us there.”

More than a little relieved to see Henry again after such an absence, Mark tentatively asked Kyuhyun, “Will a lot of people be there?”

“Not many our age,” Kyuhyun replied promptly. “But a good amount of our elders will be present. My father’s friends and acquaintances, mainly. Your cousin, Mark, will be present because I invited him. He’ll be there for the same reason Zhou Mi will. I thought you’d be more comfortable if you had them with you.”

Mark frowned. That seemed a little thinly veiled.

Kyuhyun was the type to invite Henry merely to a keep an eye on him, and Zhou Mi so he could keep an eye on Mark.

“And I’m coming because?”

“Because you’re representing your family,” Kyuhyun said pointedly. Then he added softly, “And you’re as close to Grace being present to see this as I can ever have.”

Zhou Mi’s hand settled on Mark’s knee. “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “All the eyes will be on Prince Kyuhyun. You can fade into the background if you want, or just stand behind me. You know I’m very tall. I’ll block you from their line of sight.”

Mark wanted to crack a smile so badly. Because here was Zhou Mi, who Mark had said didn’t matter in the least romantically to him, which could possibly be a lie, and he was still working to do whatever he could for Mark.

“Give me a signal if it should come to that,” Zhou Mi added, and he gave Mark’s knee a soft squeeze.

Mark looked down to where Zhou Mi was touching him, and then up to the heavy gaze being sent his way.

Mark severely disagreed that all eyes would be on Kyuhyun.