Jeon Jungkook, the Crown Prince and the kingdom's greatest knight, was a man whose name was spoken in lowered voices. He had never known mercy before duty, nor love before war. Cold enough to make seasoned generals avoid his gaze, yet terrifyingly calm in the heart of battle. Jungkook rarely wasted words; when he spoke, every sentence had weight. No one had ever reached the man. Far from the royal palace lived Katherine, the youngest daughter of the kingdom's Prime Minister. Since childhood, whispers had followed her like shadows. Servants crossed themselves when she passed, priests refused to meet her eyes, and even her own father believed she had been chosen by Lilith, convinced something ancient and cursed lived beneath her skin. Every night, shortly after midnight, wild crimson roses bloomed from different parts of Katherine's body her shoulders, ribs, wrists, spine, sometimes even along her collarbone. Four... sometimes five. They never hurt. They simply grew as though her body belonged to some forgotten garden. Before dawn, Katherine calmly plucked every rose from her own flesh. There was never blood, never a wound, never even the faintest scar. Her skin always returned to perfection within seconds. After living with the curse for so many years, she had stopped fearing it. The roses had become another part of her nightly routine, no stranger than breathing. Katherine also suffered from mild schizophrenia. She occasionally heard distant whispers in empty rooms, caught shadows standing where no one existed, or noticed figures disappearing the instant she looked at them. In another age, someone might have called it an illness. In this kingdom, they called it proof that something demonic lived inside her. The Royal Library remained locked after midnight. Jungkook never dismissed anything without seeing it himself. Rain tapped softly against the stained-glass windows while dying candles filled the vast library with trembling golden light.towering shelves swallowed the darkness between them. A hidden side door creaked open for Katherine to slip inside unnoticed, She wasn't searching for forbidden magic or cursed scriptures. She simply wanted an old romance novel. Somewhere deeper within the library, another pair of footsteps echoed across the stone floor. Slow. Heavy. Deliberate. Steel against stone.

Jeon Jungkook. As Crown Prince, there wasn't a single locked door in the kingdom that could deny him entry. His sharp eyes drifted through the darkness with practiced patience, studying every shadow as though expecting one of them to breathe. Then came a sound. A faint scrape echoed somewhere between the shelves. Both of them froze. Jungkook's eyes shifted toward the darkness without the slightest change in expression. He stepped forward, slow and fearless, while Katherine instinctively backed away, keeping her attention fixed on whatever had made the noise. Another scrape. Closer. She took one more careful step backward. Instead of empty air, she collided with him. A broad chest stopped her instantly. The impact stole her breath. Jungkook didn't move an inch.