The grass beneath her knees was still cool from the night dew, but her skin was warm, burning with humiliation. The moon cast its judgmental glow over her bare shoulders, and Andrea couldn't meet Eunwoo's gaze. Not fully. Not like this.
The black panther had vanished. In its place, a twenty-two-year-old girl sat trembling, stripped of her mask and everything else.
Her transformation had ripped through her like a fever—violent, painful, and inevitable. She hadn't shifted in five years, not since the last time she lost control. But tonight, her body had betrayed her again.
And she hadn't even realized it was him beneath her paws.
The scent of him—Eunwoo—still lingered on her tongue, sharp and electric. Her instincts had screamed "danger" and "protect," and in that blur, she'd attacked the very person trying to find her.
Now she couldn't look at him without wanting to disappear.
Eunwoo stood a few feet away, jacket already off, holding it out like a lifeline. She took it slowly, wrapping it around her shoulders, grateful for the cover even if it did little for her legs. His scent clung to the lining, grounding and terrifying all at once.
"I think I should... probably leave before someone sees me like this..." she mumbled, voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes stayed low, focused on the stone tiles at the edge of the garden path.
Eunwoo blinked, flustered. "Yeah... uh, yeah. You should."
His voice cracked slightly, like he was trying to play it cool but failed. His eyes flicked to the side, desperate to not be that guy, the one who stared. He wasn't. Not really. But the awkwardness between them now stretched so thick it could be cut with a knife.
Andrea started to turn, her bare feet silent on the grass. But then she paused.
She turned back toward him slowly, still clutching the jacket tight.
"You're not... gonna tell anyone about this, are you?"
Her voice had an edge. Not threatening—but protective. There was something fierce in her now, even without the panther's claws.
Eunwoo looked at her, lips twitching into a half-smile. "No," he said, shaking his head. "But... you did fall on me. And you were, you know..." he gestured vaguely, "naked."
His tone shifted from awkward to teasing, just barely—testing the waters.
Andrea's cheeks flushed, but the look in her eyes narrowed.
"It's not funny," she snapped, her voice low and teeth gritted. "This isn't just some... random power. It's a weakness. It ruins everything. Every time I lose control, I—"
She stopped, swallowing the rest.
Her father's voice echoed in her mind.
"Never let anyone see you that way, Andrea. Never."
Eunwoo's teasing expression faded quickly into something softer. He didn't joke again. He stepped closer, not touching her, just close enough for his voice to drop into a gentler register.
"You can't go alone like that," he said.
"I have to," she replied instantly, the reflex automatic.
"No," he said firmly. "You can't. I'll walk with you. At least to your door."
Andrea stared at him, conflicted. She wanted to argue. She was used to arguing, to keeping people at a distance. But tonight, after what he'd seen... the fight in her had cracked.
She nodded once.
Wordless.
Together, they began to walk back toward the mansion. The night air was still and silent except for the distant chirping of crickets and the faint creak of the garden gate swaying behind them. Her bare feet made no sound on the stone path, but Eunwoo's did—steady, reassuring, present.
They reached the back door. Eunwoo cracked it open slowly, peering inside.
Voices. Movement.
Staff.
Two maids were descending the grand staircase inside, chatting softly in Korean as they carried cleaning cloths and trays. They were headed toward the dining room.
Eunwoo turned quickly and glanced at Andrea.
"Hide. Now," he whispered.
Andrea's instincts kicked in. She rushed behind one of the large stone pillars near the door, hiding in shadow.
The maids entered the room just as Eunwoo stepped in.
He cleared his throat. "Hey. 저기요."
They looked up.
"Sikdang jom jeong-ri-hae juseyo. Jeonyeok meok-da-ga iri jom saeng-gyeoseoyo... Geunyang, Andrea-ssi-neun jom swi-ge haejuseyo. Bang-hae-haji maseyo."
("Please clean up the dining room. Something came up during dinner... Just let Andrea rest. Don't disturb her.")
The maids looked surprised but nodded quickly.
Ne, al-get-seum-ni-da. Geum-bang chi-u-get-seum-ni-da."
("Yes, of course. We'll take care of it right away.")
Eunwoo nodded and gave them a quick, polite smile. Then he turned back toward the door and signaled to Andrea.
She slipped inside, fast and silent.
No one saw her.
He led her carefully through the hall, up the first flight of stairs, keeping close to the wall and watching for movement. She stayed behind him, the hem of the borrowed jacket barely reaching her upper thighs.
The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable now. It was charged with a kind of breathless tension—awkward, yes, but also fragile.
She was letting him see a side of her no one else ever had.
And that side was still shivering.
By the time they reached the second floor, Andrea exhaled sharply.
Her room was just around the corner.
Eunwoo paused outside her door.
She turned toward him, her hand already on the knob.
"I'll give this back... after I wash it," she said quietly, tugging the jacket tighter. She glanced down, then back at him, her voice gentler now. "Thank you."
Eunwoo nodded, but his smile was crooked. "You don't have to say it like that. Like it's a burden."
"It's not. I just... I haven't had to say it to anyone in a long time."
He tilted his head. "You mean 'thank you'?"
"I mean it like that," she whispered. Her lips curved into something faint, something real. Not a smile—just relief.
She started to turn again.
Then stopped.
"There's something I should tell you," she said, not facing him yet. "About... me. My father. The medicine he makes you give me."
Eunwoo stiffened. "What is it?"
She turned slowly, her back still pressed against the door.
"I've been taking it since I was two. Every week. Every month. Different forms, different dosages. It's not just for pain or stability. It's to keep... this inside me. The panther. The thing you saw tonight."
Eunwoo's brows furrowed. "So it suppresses your powers?"
"It chains them. Sedates them. Like sleeping pills for my instincts." She exhaled, eyes clouding. "My dad—Dimitry—he's been hiding what I really am from everyone. Even me. For a long time, I thought I was just... broken."
"And now?"
"Now I know I'm not. I'm not broken." She met his eyes again, and something fierce flickered there. "I'm something else entirely. Something he didn't want me to become."
He didn't answer right away. The silence pressed in again, thick as fog.
Then, finally, Eunwoo said, "Why me? Why trust me with this now?"
Andrea hesitated.
"You shouted for me," she said quietly. "Even when you thought you were in danger. You were yelling at me earlier. But when it came down to it... you thought I was the one who needed saving."
Eunwoo didn't say anything.
He didn't have to.
The look on his face said enough.
Andrea opened the door slowly, stepping backward into the shadows of her room. Just before it closed, she whispered, "Good night."
Eunwoo stood there for a long time, staring at the space where she'd been.
He didn't understand everything.
Not yet.
But he understood her a little more now.
And somehow, that was more terrifying than any monster in the dark.
.______..______.💕💕💕.______..______..______..______.
The room was quiet, but Andrea couldn't sleep.
Moonlight cut through the lace curtains, casting trembling shadows across her bed and the worn rug beneath it. Her room smelled faintly of cedarwood and night air—Eunwoo's scent still clinging to the jacket folded at the edge of her sheets.
She sat on the floor, knees drawn to her chest, bare feet cold against the polished wood. A thin robe wrapped around her now, but she still felt exposed. The shift—the transformation—had drained her, but it wasn't just her body that felt weak. It was the past crawling back to her. Memories she'd buried, secrets she'd swallowed.
She hadn't meant to tell Eunwoo. Not tonight. Not like that.
But when he looked at her—genuinely worried, even after she'd pinned him to the ground like prey—something inside her cracked.
And now, the rest was unraveling too fast to stop.
Eunwoo, meanwhile, stood outside her door longer than he should have. He leaned against the wall, staring into the dim corridor, mind racing.
Medicine since she was two.
A father who controls every part of her life.
A creature living inside her that she didn't ask for.
None of it made sense. But it felt real. And raw.
And maybe worse, it felt orchestrated—like someone had planned every step of Andrea's life to keep her exactly where she was: contained, isolated, unaware.
He didn't know Dimitry personally. Only by name, by reputation. A quiet man. Cold. Always away on business. Always calling someone, arranging something, watching from afar.
The kind of man who didn't make mistakes.
The kind of man who definitely didn't let a panther daughter walk around freely without a reason.
And now Eunwoo was in the middle of it.
Back in her room, Andrea stood.
She walked to the mirror across from her bed, looking at herself like she didn't quite recognize the girl staring back.
Her skin was flushed from heat and shifting, but her eyes had cooled. No red now. Just the dark brown she hated. The color she thought made her look ordinary.
But she wasn't ordinary.
And now, someone else knew that.
Her fingers reached out and traced the curve of her collarbone, still remembering the panther's weight, the tension in her back, the growl stuck in her throat. She had lost control—and yet, something felt different this time.
Like the transformation hadn't been a failure.
Like maybe, finally, the real part of her was trying to surface.
.______..______..______.💕.______..______..______.
Andrea stood in front of the tall mirror in her room, the robe slipping from one shoulder as she pulled a loose black shirt over her still-warm skin. The light from the hallway spilled in faintly from the slightly cracked door, golden and silent. Her fingers trembled—not from the cold, but from the pressure building behind her ribs like a storm refusing to break.
Her mind wouldn't settle.
Her mother was not gone the way she'd believed. Not simply dead and buried. Not lost to accident or illness. Her mother had been erased—a woman from a forgotten bloodline hunted into legend. A Duskblood. A creature of myth.
And Andrea…
She was the one who inherited it.
She wasn't the daughter of Dimitry, like the world thought. She wasn't Korean-born, like her records said. She was Turkish, born in Izmir, smuggled out after her mother's death and placed into Dimitry's care—hidden in plain sight behind fences, medicine, and lies.
Her parents were still alive.
And they had let her go.
Or maybe they had no choice.
She didn't know what was worse.
Across the hall, Eunwoo hadn't slept either. His mind still burned with the symbols carved in stone, the way the hidden room felt alive when he stepped into it. Like it was waiting. Watching.
And then there was her.
Andrea.
Everything about her had changed. And nothing had.
He still saw her the same way: complicated, dangerous, stubborn as hell—but now there was something breaking behind her eyes. The weight of secrets she never asked to carry was sinking into her bones. And the more he saw, the more he couldn't look away.
He wanted to give her space.
But something pulled at him. A gut feeling. That now wasn't the time to back off.
He stepped into the hallway. Her door was cracked open. Light flickering.
He knocked gently.
"Hey. You up?"
No answer.
He pushed the door slowly, expecting her to be asleep.
What he saw instead made his throat lock.
Andrea stood by the mirror, back to the door, pulling her shirt down over bare skin, robe half off, black shorts barely pulled up one hip. The overhead light caught the smooth lines of her shoulder blades, the shadowed curve of her lower back, the deep red scratch marks trailing across her ribs—still fresh from the shift.
For a split second, he forgot how to breathe.
Andrea turned at the sound of the door creaking open.
Their eyes locked.
She froze. Completely. Her face went blank, then flushed a deep, burning red that climbed from her neck to her cheeks like fire under skin.
"What the—!" she gasped, arms scrambling to cover herself, pulling the shirt down and stumbling back a step. "Eunwoo?! What the hell?!"
He slammed the door shut faster than his brain could react.
"Shit—I didn't mean to—!" he shouted from the other side, voice cracking. "The door was open! I knocked!"
Andrea threw on the robe again, tripping over the corner of her rug, muttering every curse word she could in two languages. Her heart pounded so loud it was dizzying.
Outside, Eunwoo leaned against the wall, face flushed.
God. She's going to kill me.
The door creaked open again.
Andrea stood in the gap, robe tied tight, face still red.
He didn't look at her.
"Just… stop," she said, voice low and sharp, but not furious. More flustered than angry. "You saw nothing. We're never speaking of it again."
Eunwoo raised both hands like a man facing a shotgun.
"Agreed. 100 percent. I already deleted the memory."
Andrea narrowed her eyes. "You didn't see… anything?"
He smirked, couldn't help it. "A shoulder. And maybe a rib."
"Liar."
"Okay. Maybe one… very pale spine."
Andrea rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched like she might've almost smiled—then she caught herself and shut the door hard.
She exhaled behind it.
Her whole face was burning.
But somehow, beneath the embarrassment, was something else too. A strange warmth curled in her chest. Not desire. Not yet. But something closer to comfort. Or trust. Maybe just the simple, terrifying fact that someone saw her, and didn't flinch.
Not from her nakedness.
Not from her shift.
Not from the monster inside her.
Just her.
Later, she lay in bed, the jacket finally folded and set near her pillow again. But she didn't sleep.
Not because of the shift.
Not because of the secrets.
Because for the first time in her life, she didn't feel entirely alone with them.
Meanwhile, in the basement, Dimitry stood alone in the old laboratory. The new dose sat in a steel case beside him—stronger, colder, with more bite than before.
But he hesitated.
He watched the vial glow faintly blue, the same color her mother's eyes had turned before the end.
He clenched his jaw and whispered under his breath:
"She's not ready."
Then:"But I might not be able to protect her much longer."