He Lost His Family in the Snow, He Returned to Save Them novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Tenth Night
Min-jun dies begging the moon for another chance and wakes beside his living husband; at the morning meal he vows to ride south with them, and the gate announces Ren Ito.
On the tenth night of his kneeling, Seo Min-jun died on the stone floor of the Moon Temple.
He had not eaten or drunk in ten days.
The priestesses had stopped asking him to leave on the fourth day, and the snow on the temple road had closed behind them.
He had asked for one thing the whole time: his husband and his son, alive.
His heart stopped, and the cold went out of him.
He was standing in a white hall with no walls, and a tall figure in white and silver stood in front of him.
"I am Gracias," the god said. "I keep the cradles. I heard you."
"Then give them back," Min-jun said.
"I can give you one month back. Not more."
"Done."
"Five children, born of your body and your husband's. You will carry the first one."
Min-jun stared at him.
"Your husband will wear your strength and you will wear his softness," Gracias said. "After each birth you trade back, and the one who carried last rests."
"I am the Prime Alpha of the Grandwolf pack."
"Then you know what it costs to kneel."
Min-jun lowered his head.
"No one in the world may know," the god said. "And you may not tell a soul what you were or what you are. Not him either."
"Why not him?"
"After your second child he remembers everything. Then he decides for himself whether you were worth it."
"I accept."
"You have not asked what it will do to your pride."
"I have none left," Min-jun said.
The white hall went dark.
He woke in the big bed at Wolfhold in gray light, with a warm hand on his forehead.
"You were shouting in your sleep," Seo-jun said.
Min-jun caught the wrist.
His husband was alive, with his chestnut hair flat on one side from the pillow and his dark eyes full of worry.
"Min-jun? You're hurting me a little."
He let go, and then he took the hand back and pressed it against his own cheek.
Seo-jun went still.
His palm was warm and smelled of cedar smoke, a scent that had never been his.
Min-jun's own scent had changed too. It was sweet and close, a scent no alpha had.
Heat rolled low in his belly, and he felt himself go slick between his legs under the blankets from nothing but a hand on his face.
He let go and sat up fast.
"I'm fine," he said. "A dream."
"A bad one." Seo-jun watched him. "You said my name nine times."
The door banged open.
"Papa!"
Yul came across the room in his nightshirt and climbed onto the bed, five years old and loud and whole.
Min-jun caught him and held on.
"Papa, you're squeezing."
"I know."
"Papa's crying," Yul told his other father.
"Papa has a headache," Seo-jun said, and pushed the hair from Min-jun's forehead with two careful fingers.
Min-jun let him.
Later, while Yul hunted for his boots, Seo-jun crossed to the small moon shrine by the window.
He set a rice cake on the stone dish and bowed his head for a moment.
Min-jun had watched him do it every morning for six years and never once asked.
"Why do you leave it?" he said.
Seo-jun looked back, surprised.
"I don't know. I thank her for something. I couldn't tell you what."
He smiled, a little embarrassed. "It feels like a debt I should keep paying."
In the great hall the elders of the pack sat down to the morning meal.
Seo-jun waited until the bread had gone round.
"I've written to my father," he said. "Yul and I will ride south at the new moon, to see my mother and the palace in the snow."
Last time, Min-jun had said: go, I have the border talks.
He put his cup down.
"I'm coming with you."
The eldest of the elders frowned at him down the table.
"Prince, the border council meets at that moon. The Prime Alpha does not leave the pack for sixteen days."
"The border will keep," Min-jun said. "My family will not."
The hall was quiet.
Seo-jun's eyes had gone wide, and then warm, and then he looked down at his plate to hide it.
A herald hurried in from the courtyard and went down on one knee.
"My prince. A man waits at the north gate and asks to see you. He gives his name as Ren Ito."
Min-jun's hand closed on the cup until the clay cracked.
Seo-jun looked at him and said nothing at all.
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