Chapter 6 

 

Donghae was completely dreading what he had to do next but he knew he had no choice. The young mortal woman had been left in his care and she had escaped. It didn't matter that it was allowed by the order of the Lycan princess, Yuri had been his responsibility and he would offer no excuses when the time came for him to face his prince's wrath. 

 

The moment his alpha's mortal mate had jump the wall, Donghae had order Changwook to follow Yuri while he had asked his own mate Jessica to bring him a cell phone before he had followed Changwook in the pursuit himself. Unlike mortal movies, in which clothing morphed with the shapeshifter, it wasn't so in real life. Clothing wasn't a part of them which was why Lycan females rarely wore tight or irreplaceable jewellery and accessories and why the pack maintain several apartments and houses throughout the city where any member of the pack could go for clothing, cash or even just a place to spend the day until the safety of darkness came again. 

 

Donghae had considered asking Jessica to call and inform her brother of Yuri's escape from the manor but the duty and consequences were his to bear. He was the one who should and would deliver the news to his alpha. 

 

They had to keep Yuri safe, even from herself, even if they couldn't stop her themselves. They couldn't lay a hand on her but they could still follow her beyond her sight and keep an eye on her. As they had continued to do so even after she had reached the road and flag down a car that was at this very moment taking her into the city. They had effortlessly kept pace with the car until they could follow no further and the car disappear from sight amongst the towering structures of the mortal city. 

 

Donghae stood on the very border of the city in the last line of trees before the city began with Changwook at his side. Not only was the ground they stood upon the borderline between the city and the surrounding woods but it was also where the Lycan territory ended and the neutral territory that was the city began. Even though territory borders weren't as important as they had been during the Lycan and vampire war when the Lycan and vampire kind kept to their own territory and there hadn't been such a thing as neutral territory before the end of the war, there were still Lycan's and vampires territories, only these days the lines of the borders could be cross without fear, although a little wariness did naturally arise from leaving one's own territory. 

 

Donghae was torn between continuing the pursuit and keeping the secret of his kind by not venturing into a mortal city in his wolf form. The possibility of being seen was extremely high. The cities belong solely to the mortals; the mortal kind was easily frightened and they were dangerous with all their weapons of mass destruction that they had invented and perfect over the last century. 

 

They either had to wait until a later hour in the night when most mortals retire for the night or they could proceed on foot in human form. They were faster than mortal humans in their human forms but they weren't nearly as fast in human form as they were in their wolf forms. The only problem that presented itself was finding adequate clothing. 

 

A man running through the mortal city was just as noticeable as a wolf larger than most of their motor vehicles. 

 

Within a minute of the car leaving his sight, Donghae sense and heard Jessica approach from behind, knowing she carried a cell phone in her muzzle. He could smell the plastic and electronics of the device. 

 

All at once, in the safety of the darkness of the trees, Donghae shifted back into his human form, indifferent to his state or the cool chill of the coming night and held out his hand for the cell phone. 

 

Yunho was going to kill them all and Donghae's head was going to be the first on the chopping block. 

 

Rage blaze through Yunho like liquid fire as it never had before, fuelling him onward that much faster, making his senses that much sharper but as scorching as his rage was there was no ignoring the icy sickening dread that weighed heavily in his gut. 

 

Yuri had been threatened before. Hell, she had been in peril the night he had found her, the night he had first saved her life; the night his entire life had changed forever when one mortal woman had become the center of his entire world but that night had been different as had the night he had brought her to the manor because he had known where she was at the time and had been there in time to save her. 

 

Now, Yunho didn't know where his mate was and as potent as his rage was, at both his mate for running from him and those who had let her leave the pack's protection, it was nothing compare to his need to find his mate and his fear of what could happen to her between now and then. 

 

That he needed everyone he could spare searching for his mate was all that kept him from killing his two betas for failing to protect his mate that he had stupidly left in their charge. 

 

There was no doubt that they would pay and pay dearly but right now all that matter was finding Yuri. Once Yuri was safely inside the manor once again, Yunho fully intended to beat them bloody. 

 

Upon learning of his mate's escape and once his vision had calm from a blazing fiery blood red to orange and he had regained some control of himself again, Yunho had order his beta's and any warrior who could be spared from the protection of the manor to search the city through until she was found. They had to find her and everyone under his command should have been in on the search but with all the damned activity lately, he couldn't leave the manor or his pack unprotected. As much as he was now or very soon would be, a bonded mate, he was the alpha and protector of his pack. 

 

Yunho had left his company business matters to the mortals in his company the moment Donghae had called him with the news that his mate had left the grounds of the estate and had disappeared into the city. He had then, with Changmin and eighteen other members of his pack who had accompany him into the city, a dozen bodyguards were merely for the sake of mortal public appearance, blended into the deserted shadows in a city side street. 

 

After shifting to his wolf form that would make it easier and faster to find her, the mortals who saw him be damned, Yunho had reached out to Jessica and had ordered her to dispatch almost every member of his pack who wasn't vital to the protection of the manor to join the search and since more and more of his kind had been arriving in his territory since word had spread that the Lycan prince had found his mate, his mortal mate, there were near double the number to search. 

 

All that matter was finding Yuri but the search was taking too long for Yunho's liking and in wolf form, they were a force to keep to the shadows which often meant taking the long way around but in wolf form taking the long way around he was still faster than if he was in human form. As a Lycan, in human form, they were ten times stronger, faster and their senses were just as acute than the mortal humans but as a wolf, their abilities were a thousand times greater. 

 

Yunho skidded to an abrupt halt, digging his claw into the cool grass and damp earth and lower his muzzle to the ground. He breathed in deep through his wolf nose, the scent of his mate rich and unmistakable; he would know his mate's scent even long after he forgot his own name. She had passed by here not thirteen minutes before. 

 

Raising his head, Yunho looks around with every sense and instinct he had focus and probing. 

 

Donghae had followed the vehicle that had pick Yuri up and had followed it to the city limits as he had been in his wolf form. He could have changed back and followed but even though Yunho didn't like it that he hadn't, they all knew that a man running through the city was something that would stand out amongst the mortals and draw the attention of local law enforcement. 

 

Since Yunho had been in the city when he had gotten the news that Yuri had taken off, he had taken a chance in heading for the campus. Like all immortal kind, mortals tended to feel the safest on their own territory and even though Yuri didn't think of the area as her territory, it was the place with which she was most familiar with and his gamble had paid off. Yunho stood in the thick brush of the same park on the university campus in which he had first laid eyes on his mate the night he had save her from the brutal murderous hands of the three damned. The sun had well and truly disappeared from the horizon as true night had fallen but there was a full moon above that lit up the night like a silver sun. There was no color and the shadows were black but it was a bright and clear night in which even mortal eyes could see. He hadn't dare venture too far from the shadows; it was extremely fortunate that he was pure black in his wolf form that blended smoothly with the shadows. 

 

In the distance, Yunho could hear cheerful carnival music, laughter and loud excited screams that indicated there was a large mortal gathering, a celebration or a festival maybe. 

 

Of all the nights. 

 

Yunho sent a silent mental command back to his pack to send some of his warriors to take up the task of hunting the damned in the park tonight. When mortals gather at night in one place, the damned descended to hunt like a swarm of locusts on a ripe cornfield. 

 

Then, Yunho turns his full focus back to his task at hand. With Yuri's fresh scent teasing his senses, Yunho no longer needed every available Lycan he had searching for her; he would find her very soon. 

 

She couldn't have gone far. 

 

Yuri must have been dropped off nearby and had cut through the park to get back to her dorm room. She had been running or at least moving briskly; the scent was thinner than it would have been had she been walking as she spent less time in one place. The longer one remains in one place, the thicker the scent left behind was. 

 

Yunho wonders how she had reacted when she had gotten to the building only to learn that she really wasn't enrolled there anymore and that her stuff had been taken away, just as he had arranged right in front of her. Maybe Yuri had thought he had been bluffing or hope that he hadn't gotten around to finishing his arrangements with her belongings but whatever was going on in that beautiful little head of hers, she was heading for the campus dorms. Chuckling silently to himself, Yunho left the bush and took off following the scent of his mate who would more than likely be more than a little tick off that he really had left her with no place to go except his manor. 

 

If Yuri ever saw that arrogant jerk ever again, she was going to kill him. She would be damn if she let the fact that he was a werewolf with superhuman strength and speed stop her from taking her revenge on him. 

 

She had finally taken her chance and had gotten away from the jerk and his mansion of prison guards only to get to the dorm to find that her bed had already been given to someone else, her personal possessions had really been taken away and that she was no longer enroll in the semester which was hard to believe since the semester would be coming to a close in a few weeks. 

 

Yuri had been hoping that Yunho had been bluffing when he had offered the university eight million wons, she still hadn't managed to wrap her head around that, to defer her for a year or that Yunho would drag his feet in arranging her deferment but the jerk, in the space of twelve hours, had managed it. 

 

Yuri wanted to scream. 

 

The jerk was far more cunning, ruthless and arrogant than she would have ever thought. He had not only ended the search for her as a missing person, she wasn't an idiot, she knew that the girls would have filed a missing person's report after a day of her sudden disappearance but had also given her no immediate place to go. She had no clothes but what she wore, no personal items and almost no money. She had a few dollars in her pocket that had been in her purse the night she had been kidnap from the nightclub. She didn't even have her cell phone as it had been taken from her purse before it had been given back to her the day after she had trashed the jerk's bedroom. 

 

Now Yuri found herself beneath the bright lights in a thick crowd of the carnival that had been organized to raise money for the student committees, club and other student activities of the university. It was their last chance before midterms began and everyone seems to need a night of relaxation and rest from their studies. The carnival was on the far side of the park, the very park she had been attacked, as because of the noise it needed to be kept away from the dorms and other suburban areas. It was noisy with laughter, excited gossiping and chatter, the sounds of the rides, the occasional girlish squeal and the customary carnival music that was uplifting but before too long would drive most people insane. 

 

Yuri wasn't there looking to have fun; she had figured that a large crowd of people was the safest place for her at night, from both the bad vampires, werewolves and one pain in the , arrogant werewolf, no Lycan, in particular. She wasn't an idiot; she knew he had been looking for her the moment Donghae was able to get in touch with him which in the age of communications wouldn't take too long. 

 

So she had to stay hidden until she figures out what to do. She was walking silently, uninterested in any of the fun and excitement around her, back and forth through the crowd of people, not paying attention to anything around her as she wasn't too worried as long as she was in the crowd. 

 

She had to get away, that was crystal clear and not just to the other side of the city. She had to get well and truly away from the city. She had to hide until Yunho gave up looking for her, she ignores the small voice in her head that kept insisting that he had never stopped looking for her just as Jessica had forewarned and it had to be somewhere safe. 

 

Maybe Yoona's mom's place upstate. 

 

Yuri groans as she took a seat on an empty bench at the edge of the carnival area. Would upstate be far enough away from Yunho and his insane obsessive territorial domineering attitude? 

 

Yuri scoff at herself. The moon wouldn't be far enough away. 

 

Maybe she should just give up now and go back. It would save a lot of effort and stress; it wasn't easy being on the run. She hadn't even been on the run for a full hour and already she felt mentally exhausted and more than a little paranoid; she couldn't stop looking over her shoulder. She didn't like the feeling at all. 

 

Yuri winces at the idea but couldn't dismiss it. She hadn't been hurt or mistreated by anyone at the mansion other than being bored to tears lock in a room the entire time. She had been taken care of; she had been well fed and all of her needs had been seen too. 

 

Hell, she had trash an entire room without anyone saying anything about it and Yuri had to admit it to herself that even if one of those she loved most had trash one of her rooms, she would have had something to say about it. Even if it had been Jaehyuk, even though there had been a time when Yuri would have let Jaehyuk get away with murder. 

 

They just didn't care what she did as long as she stays inside their protective walls. 

 

It was strange but Yuri found that she almost felt safe inside those walls. The fact that the mansion's inhabitants were werewolves, Lycans damn it, she had to remember that, had stop frightening her; exactly when that had happened she didn't have a clue but she knew it was the truth. 

 

She wasn't afraid of the overbearing pack of immortal superhuman Lycans and the big jerk did seem insistent about protecting her. He had saved her life twice now, that she knew of, so how could she think that he was lying about anything? 

 

Well, anything important anyway. Yunho hadn't exactly lie to her but he hadn't ask her permission when he had pull her from her classes and had move her out of her dorm, effectively putting a temporary end of her life as she knew it but the truth Yuri knew she didn't want to face was that her life had ended as she had known it the moment she had been target by three damned that night. Her life would have ended in all meanings had Yunho not save her life. 

 

Twice. In one week. 

 

Yuri groan, well and truly frustrated, as she drops her head into her hands, closing her eyes. She felt so confused, so conflicted. She didn't know what to do. It was such an impossible situation. 

 

She felt stuck. Oh hell, she was stuck. Stuck in the middle of something she could neither understand nor control. Why did this have to happen to her? Why couldn't she just go back to her ordinary everyday life and forget about all of this? Yeah, she got it. There were Lycans and vampires in the night, not all of whom were good and that there was some kind of supernatural war going on but why did she have to be a part of it? She was nothing special; she wasn't super strong or fast nor could she turn into a wolf the size of an SUV. 

 

She didn't even know how to defend herself against an ordinary wolf and then there was Yunho insisting that she was his soulmate. She didn't even like him and he expected her to just roll over for him? 

 

Yuri huff; she just wasn't that easy, damn it. 

 

Yuri's entire body tingle with familiar awareness a split moment before her head snapped up, her eyes growing wide. She sat frozen like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train. 

 

She knew it; she felt it as surely as she could feel the cool breeze of the night against her bare skin. 

 

She felt him. He was close, watching her. 

 

Very slowly and reluctantly, Yuri turns in her seat and focus on the shadows behind her. The light from the carnival stretch beyond her, for five to six feet before the orange light, was swallowed by the dark of night, only a few feet from a line of bushes and shrubbery that in the springtime sprouted small white and pink flowers. 

 

There was no sign of movement or a single sound to alert her but she knew it was him without a doubt. She had felt the exact same sensation of being watched by him from the moment he had saved her life the first time; she just hadn't known what the feeling was at the time. Her entire body was tingling with her awareness of him; she could feel him watching her, feel his presence as if he were a missing part of her. 

 

A flash of movement drew Yuri's eye slightly to the right of where she had been focusing and then she saw it. Beneath the silvery moon, Yuri could see the distinct silhouette of a large midnight black wolf and the eerie glow of those brown eyes that were filled with his blazing temper. 

 

Yunho had come for her in his wolf form. She was in trouble now. He was hard enough to escape when he was a man, how was she going to escape the wolf she knew was the perfect predator? 

 

Yuri involuntarily gulps and slowly rose to her feet, not even blinking for fear that she would lose sight of him and right now her survival instincts were screaming at her to keep her eyes fix on him. She didn't trust him for a moment not to do something that would make her even more furious with him. 

 

Something that would no doubt involve dragging her back to his mansion. 

 

His eyes burn with fury. She felt his intense heated gaze far more than she was able to see it. He was pissed off and determine in the way only the most dangerous and cunning of predators were and it was in that moment that she knew that Yunho would never stop chasing her, never let her go, no matter how far she ran. 

 

What more proof did she need? Here he was, less than two hours since she had fled his mansion, in his towering wolf form glaring at her from the dark shadows with cleared intent in his penetrating eyes. 

 

Yuri knew it was only that he was in his wolf form that kept him from leaping from the cloaking shadows of the night into the crowded area to get her as he would draw the kind of terrified mortal attention that would get him on the news. 

 

Yunho would never stop chasing her and now that he had found her it would be near impossible to lose him but that didn't mean she still wouldn't try. Yunho was a force greater than nature itself and he believes that she was his for life. Nothing she could say would sway his belief. She had seen well enough that he was a man who was confident and steadfast in his beliefs and he refuses to give as much as an inch when it came to getting what he wanted. 

 

If she submitted to him now then she would always be submitting to him. He was a man, a force, that listen to no one and did as he pleases; there would never be any negotiating with him, no compromise or middle ground. He expected nothing less of her than for her to bow to his mighty will and she couldn't let that happen. Not only did she fear the consequences if she did, the feminist within her that was embedded in most women these days, refuse to let it happen. 

 

Long gone were the days when women were expected to submit without question to the will of men; just because Yunho and his kin hadn't gotten with the modern program didn't change anything in her book. 

 

She may not be able to run far for long but Yuri had to try. Her chances of actually escaping were pretty slim but that wasn't going to stop her. 

 

Yunho had to learn that she wasn't his to do with as he pleased. 

 

Right now, Yuri was safe amongst the large crowd. In his wolf form Yunho would risk too much in coming for her while she was surrounded by mortal eyes; so, for now, he couldn't get to her but now that he had found her Yuri knew he wasn't about to take his eyes off of her for a single moment. 

 

She was the prey, his prize and he was the cunning perfect predator that never fail to catch his quarry but if he thought that catching her was going to be a cakewalk then he was in for one huge letdown. 

 

Yunho's relief that Yuri was alright and had been found before she put herself in any more danger than she already had was beyond any description in any of the languages he knew and he knew them all. He was furious with her that she had run in the first place but it held nothing when compare to his relief but she was going to run again but Yunho wouldn't let her run from him a third time. The first time she had managed to get out of his guarded bedroom and the second time she had managed to escape his guarded manor but there wouldn't be a third time. 

 

Slowly so not to draw attention, Yunho in his sleek black wolf form step out from the cover of the bushes and fully into the silvery moonlight, stalking towards her and only stopping at the edge of the circle of light Yuri stood within. 

 

As she stood beneath the orange light surrounded by darkness, Yunho was reminded of the first time he had really seen her. Not the glimpse he had caught when the three damned had been playing with their food, deep within Yunho's beast growl furiously at how close they had come to losing her before even finding her but the first time he had really look at her after the three damned had been slain. 

 

That moment would forever be burned into his memory even if he outlived time itself; the sight had stolen his breath and had come close to stopping his heart. Time had stopped as he had stared spellbound by her standing beneath the golden glow of the artificial light. Her eyes had been wide and her skin pale from the terror the three slain damned had caused her and her hair had been glowing like sunlight as she had stood frozen before his eyes. In that moment, the moment he had recognized her as his true wolf mate, everything had changed, in his world and even within him. His beast and the man he was had united and become one by the shared goal of protecting and claiming their mate. Yuri had become the most important thing in his life and for the first time in his life he would have gladly fallen to bended knees before her at her slightest whim, the pride and ego in him of a crown prince forever damn to the wind. 

 

In that one moment Yunho had truly come to understand why so many strong proud warriors had been brought to their knees at the very sight of their mates, she whom was everything to them and fate it seem wasn't without a sense of irony; for fate had given him a mate who didn't yet understand what it was to be mated, to be such a significant part of each other that one couldn't survive the death of the other. 

 

The day Yuri had destroyed his chambers had made Yunho smile because he had found a mate who was just as stubborn and willful as he was; Yuri would please his mom to no end. Even as a child Yunho had been strong-minded and stubborn and many times his mom had told him that it would serve him right to have a mate or a child of his own who was just as difficult as he had been as a child. 

 

It seems the moon goddess had heard his mom's forewarning. 

 

Yuri didn't dare take her eyes off of him even for the brief instant it would take her to blink. She was still in the light; still able to be seen by those at the carnival only a matter of feet behind her, even though she was alone in the immediate area except for him. 

 

The midnight black wolf with piercing watchful brown eyes stood only a single step back from the golden circle of light she stood within beneath the overhead light. If he took one more step he would no longer be protected by the blackness of night and he would be noticed, possibly within seconds. 

 

No one misses a car-size monster of a wolf but if he took that one last step, he would have her and he knew it. The smug triumph in his glowing eyes was unmistakable. While she stood in the light and him in the darkness of night, all she could see was his silhouette and his penetrating burning brown eyes that were so intense that they look black but what was worse than those piercing eyes was that the closer he got to her the more she could feel him. She could feel his gaze upon her and she could feel him. 

 

'Damn it!' Yuri silently curses every god and goddess in heaven for this. She normally wasn't a violent person, the complete and utter trashing of a certain bedroom aside but now she wanted so badly to hurt something, most preferably him. Although, Yuri strongly suspected that if she tried, she would only end up hurting herself. 

 

Yuri gritted her teeth in sheer outrage frustration and for the moment forgot that he was an immortal being so much stronger and faster than she was. She just didn't care that he was a wolf bigger than a damn bear. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? 

 

"You can't do this, you stupid overstuffed mutt! This is kidnapping! I don't want to go back!" 

 

Yunho very carefully shifted his body forward without lifting a single paw, just enough for the light to illuminate his features in half-light so she could read more than his eyes. Unless anyone was standing within a few feet, they still wouldn't be able to see him while they were standing in the light. He was black after all. The night was his camouflage. 

 

Yuri stood frozen as his slight movement brought him closer. 

 

A low warning growl reaches her ear, even over the carnival music from behind her. Yuri saw him lift his lips a little, revealing the rows of sharp pointed teeth. His growl had a gentle edge to it; the intention was obviously not to frighten her anymore than she already was but at the same time he had clearly communicated his strong disproval to her words. 

 

It was like banging her head against a brick wall and Yuri had the overpowering urge to do just that; it would be easier than dealing with him, "You have no right to do this to me!" 

 

Yunho raise his head a fraction, look straight into her eyes and narrow his own eyes, clearly communicating, without words, something along the lines of, 'Oh really?' 

 

Yuri got the message loud and clear as if he had actually spoken the words and in the far corner of her mind, she was disturbed that she could understand him, in wolf form so well, maybe even better than when he was in human form. At least in this form, he was forced to keep his distance. 

 

Just what was it going to take? How could she make him understand that she couldn't stay with him? They were too different; she was human for crying out loud. He was immortal. Her life would be but a blink of an eye to him. 

 

Yuri slumped in fatigue, mental rather than physical. He was an unmovable immortal force who couldn't take no for an answer. What did she have to do to make him understand? She just wanted a normal happy life with normal things, husband, kids, a house in the suburbs paid for by a good job. Why was normal so beyond her reach? 

 

"I never ask for any of this. I just want to go home and have my life be like it was before." 

 

Yunho's stance and wolfish expression visibly soften with sympathy. It broke his heart to see her like this, so distress and confuse and as much as he wanted to grant her every heart's desire, this one he couldn't give. There was too much at stake to let her go, her life, his life and the continuation of not just his people but both of the immortal races. They would both just have to endure until she came to realize that her place was with him, that she belongs to him. For always. 

 

Yuri saw his demeanor soften but the resolved look in his eyes remain that told her that even though he was sorry, for what exactly Yuri wasn't sure, it didn't change anything. He was never going to let her go. 

 

Damn him. He was relentless. He was a spoil bratty prince who refuses to have it any other way than his. The spoil self-indulged prince and alpha needed to be brought down to size and she really wanted to be the one to kick his pedestal out from under him. 

 

Yunho didn't like the look on his mate's cute face one bit. In fact, it almost made him draw back in wary fear. A tiny hint of a grin lifted the corner of her light pink color lips but the grin wasn't one of joy. No, her grin was one the devil's own mistress would have while plotting the devil's demise. No matter how strong or fast a male was then a woman, when that look cross a woman's face, it brought about the same response in all males, total and all-consuming terror that made a man's draw up so tightly that surgery was needed to get them back. Whenever that grin appears on Jessica's thin lips, every male of his pack instinctively bolted with their tails between their legs. Jessica was cunning and diabolical in a way that only a woman could be and it seems that his own mate was just as frightening as his sister was. 

 

The moon goddess helps them if Yuri was even half as cunning as Jessica. 

 

Yuri notices Yunho tense in the darkness, his eyes now far more wary and watchful than they were before. Something must have alerted him to her line of thought and he was justifiably apprehensive. It might be worth a broken toe or two just to see his face when she kicks him but kicking him meant that she would have to be much closer to him than she was and she knew if she took so much as a step towards him, he had had her back at the mansion in a blink of her mortal eye. 

 

If Yunho thought for a moment that she would go back quietly then he was in for a nasty awakening. 

 

All Yuri needed was one moment of distraction so she could lose herself amongst the crowd; what she was betting on was that Yunho would flee from the mortal attention rather than chose to follow her through a crowd. Without warning, Yuri whirl to run back to the crowd, she didn't like turning her back to him but she didn't have a choice in the matter if she was going to take this chance to run but immediately came to a halt so abruptly that she lost her balance. She threw out her arms in an attempt to steady herself but there was too much momentum and she found herself falling back through the air. 

 

Yuri landed hard on the concrete path on her backside. A grunted escape her parted lips. 

 

It only took her a moment to regain her bearings before Yuri furiously narrow her eyes at him, glaring daggers at the huge black wolf and silently willing him to burst into flames but of course, he didn't; since when had Yunho done one thing she had wanted him to do? 

 

Unwilling to give in, to submit to him just as he wanted her too, Yuri scowl at him and demanded irately, "So what now cave wolf?! Are you going to drag me back kicking and screaming by my hair?!" 

 

Yunho lower his enormous head to make himself seem non-threatening while at the same time narrowing his eyes again. 

 

Yuri wanted to scream in sheer infuriation at the clear translation, 'I'm not going to drag you back by your hair but you are going back.' 

 

It wasn't until that moment that Yuri realizes that something had changed. She was sitting on the icy path, still in the circle of golden light from the overhead light but he had move. He stood outside of the protective circle of light but now he stood between her and the crowd on the footpath with the orange light of the carnival on his back. 

 

A broad devilish grin spread across her beautiful face and Yunho felt every strand of fur on his back stand on end in alarm and he knew that his demise was at hand in that smile. 

 

The little troublemaker was up to something that wouldn't end well for him, of that he had no doubt. 

 

Yuri knew she had given him a warning but that didn't matter. Her plan had hit her like the clicking of a light bulb and she wasn't going to waste this chance. 

 

Drawing in a deep breath, Yuri summons up everything she had within her and scream with every decibel she possesses. Her squeals and screams had been call deafening, often the phrase wakes the dead had been used to describe the volume of her scream as she had been born with the ability to be able to scream loudly at a high pitch, deafening level; a gift she fully intended to now utilize. 

 

"Ahhh! A wolf! Help!" 

 

Yuri knew wasn't going to easily forgive her for this but it was worth it when, even over the noisy sounds of the carnival, dozens pair of eyes immediately whirl in her direction. 

 

In the darkness of night but caught between the pool of light from the carnival and the light of the path light above, the shape of the humongous wolf was able to be distinguished from the shadows around him. 

 

There was a moment of still silence and then all hell broke loose. Screams and panic cries fill the air and people began to scramble frantically in every direction but hers and as Yunho swung his head around to witness the chaos behind him, Yuri was already on her feet and, taking a wide arc around him, bolted for the crowd like the devil was on her heel, a black one in the form of a wolf. 

 

Within moments Yuri was lost in the frantically dispersing crowd, heading in the opposite direction of the campus. 

 

Yunho snarls furiously but didn't go after her. She mingled in with the crowd of terrified screaming mortals who were fleeing frantically in all directions. It would only be a matter of minutes before armed mortals were swarming the area looking for the dangerous enormous black wolf. The chances of them actually hurting him were practically nonexistent but he was honor-bound to protect his people and their secret. 

 

Instead of following his mate as his beast demanded, Yunho bolted from the immediate area, his fury making his blood boil. Even though he would never harm his mate she was going to pay for this and pay dearly when he found her and he would find her. Tonight. Before she did something even more asinine than what she had just done in fleeing from him again. What was it going to take to get it through her stubborn head that she was in grave danger? 

 

Yuri carried his scent on her skin, even the newest simplest damned would know that she was in close contact with him and they would certainly kill her. 

 

Without faltering in his swift stride, Yunho sent a mental command to his first beta's to bring him clothes. Immediately. He didn't care if they had to duck into a store to buy or steal them. He had to resume the pursuit of his mate, in human form and when he found her he was going to teach her what happens when she continues to defy him. 

 

Half an hour had passed since Yuri had hastily duck into the crowded nightclub, a full hour since she had escaped a certain jerk at the university carnival but for every single one of those slow passing thirty minutes, the same questions had kept repeating themselves in her mind over and over, hounding her relentlessly. 

 

Was he still out there looking for her? Would he eventually give up and leave her alone or would he reach the end of this tether and do something caveman-like? If he found her here at the club would he come in after her or would he wait for her to come out? 

 

Surely with all these people crowding the nightclub, she was safe from him, at least for the time being. He couldn't do anything while she was surrounded by people; he hadn't chase her into the violently hysterical crowds at the carnival after all. However, the downside of her plan was that the club would have to close at some point and she had to go out there. This wasn't her usual club and she had no idea what time it closes for the night. 

 

Yuri sighs dejectedly and took another sip of her drink, the alcohol going down with a bittersweet burn. She was still on her first drink, she was being hunted, letting go of her inhibitions right now wasn't a good idea however she had been unable to resist the temptation to have at least one drink to calm her fray nerves. 

 

She felt as cagey and paranoid as a rabbit on the run for its life from a relentless starving wolf. 

 

Now Yuri knew how little red riding hood felt; the fear of being eaten by the big bad wolf wasn't pleasant. 

 

Around her people were dancing, flirting and having a good old time; just like her usual club, if you could call the once-in-a-while visit to the university's nightclub usual, most of the bodies around her were in her age group. The club was dark with colorful techno lights, loud popular music blare from the speaker strategically places around the club, the bar was crowded and supplying overprice fancy drinks and cocktails and the atmosphere was cheerful and loose. 

 

Yuri, however, felt detached from the contagious atmosphere. The last time she had been in a nightclub it had started with having some fun with her friends and had ended with her smack dab in the middle of a war between immortal supernatural beings. She had been kidnap and taken into the world of werewolves, Lycans, and vampires and now all Yuri wanted to do was turn back time and make things as they were. She wanted to hang out with her friends, study for exams, work towards her dream of having a normal life and have the only weight on her mind be the taking care of her brother but now that seems so impossible. 

 

Yunho would never stop hunting for her. She would have to find a place to hide, someplace far away and she would have to stay there. 

 

Was a normal life really too much to ask of fate or destiny or whatever supreme force was out there that made the world go round? 

 

Yuri took another sip of her drink and close her eyes, relishing in the taste of the sweet drink and the effect it was having on her. With each sip, worries faded further and further into the background. Logic told her that she should still be running but right now all she wanted was this one brief moment of normalcy. The alcoholic drink was shimmering delightful magic on her tongue and belly, the music of the nightclub fill her ear and vibrated through her, the pounding beat almost pumping her heart for her and the air around her was intoxicatingly care-free. 

 

Unlike the mansion where the air was thick with grave tension and everything reminded her of him. 

 

It was bad enough that the man himself was a force of nature but to have everything in the mansion carry his scent or his essence was damn near unbearable. It was like the mansion was a part of him. She couldn't escape him even when he wasn't there. Hell, he even invaded her dreams. Although that wasn't surprising since the bed she slept in was so obviously his. Until now she had even refused to think about, denial was such a sweet thing, how she dreamed of him and had in one form or another since he had saved her life that night, the first time. She had dreamed of him saving her life, both times and she had dreamed of being held in his arms. 

 

She had even dream that he had joined her in his bed. 

 

Yuri squashes the thought right there. There was no way in hell was she was going to let herself be seduced by him into going back to the manor by her own free will. As much as it pains her to admit it to herself they had some serious ual chemistry going on between them. If he hadn't kept away from her, Yuri had no doubt that she would have invited him back into his bed before now. 

 

Yunho frustrated and irritated her to no end and she wanted to hate him but she just couldn't. She owed him her life, twice over and even though he had kept her prisoner in his dreary mansion, she couldn't forget how much she owed him. He hadn't hurt her, hadn't mistreated her; in fact, he seems adamant in providing her with everything she needed or ask for. Even his staff had gone out of their way to give her the food she had requested while at the same time assuring that she had a healthy and balanced diet. 

 

Which was either really disturbingly creepy or really sweet, she hadn't figure out which yet. 

 

The pack was attentive and protective of her in such a way that over time Yuri knew it would weaken her resolve to escape from them to live her dream of an ordinary everyday life. 

 

Was a normal life really asking too much? And then without warning or reason, her skin started to tingle with that familiar awareness and Yuri instinctively knew. 

 

Slowly and grudgingly, Yuri opens her eyes, raise her knowing wary gaze and instantly found him in the dark overcrowded club, her gaze drawn to him like a magnetic force. 

 

He wasn't a wolf anymore, not physically anyway but he was on the hunt nonetheless. The pain in the hunter she knew as Yunho, alpha, and prince of the Lycan kind, stood at the corner of the bar closest to the door, glaring darkly at her with a gaze so intense in his furious eyes that it felt as if they were burning a hole right through her skin. He was dress completely in black, from the buffalo flannel shirt to his Levi's slim fit performance stretch jeans and Nautica breakwater lace-up sneakers and the Kenneth Cole Reaction Raburn wool-blend overcoat. 

 

She was in trouble now. 

 

Unable to stand his heated gaze a moment longer, Yuri leaped off her stool and did what any creature would do in the face of a dark dangerous, not to mention royally piss off predator; she fled even though a loud voice in her head told her that her efforts to escape him again were futile. The man was a wolf in so many more ways than the physical one who had taken the hunt to an art form and the look in his eyes told her that he was taking this hunt very personally. 

 

Yuri knew without any doubt in her body that the wolf hunting her was the perfect powerful predator. He was superhumanly powerful and ruthless. Escaping him was like trying to escape the sun in the middle of the Sahara desert, sooner or later, no matter how hard or far you ran it was going to find you and make you regret even the thought of running. 

 

Before Yuri could move as much as eight feet, Yuri felt powerful hard arms catch hold of her and she was lifted off her feet and the next thing Yuri knew her back was press up against the cold hard wall of the nightclub while her entire front was press into hard warmth that was harder than the solid wall at her back. 

 

Yuri struggles to draw breath, not because she was pin too tightly between him and the wall but because her entire front was press into his unyielding form from her ankle to her s, making her very aware of him as a man. Helplessly, Yuri looks up into the brown eyes she had ever known that burn with brown fire. To put it lightly, he was piss and then some but despite the fury in his eyes and his inhuman strength, Yuri felt no fear that he would hurt her. Yes, she was afraid, an infuriated immortal crown prince was awe-inspiring but in this moment she fears his overshadowing presence and the consequences of running from him. Even after all that had happened over the past week Yuri instinctively knew that Yunho would never cause her any physical harm. 

 

He would never hurt her. She had never been more certain of anything in her life. 

 

In fact she had felt nothing but a slight jerk when he had picked her up and pin her against the wall; the act had been swift and jerky but at the same time it had been deliberate and careful but still there was much to fear about this man, this force of nature who held her captive between him and the wall in a crowded nightclub. What he could do with his physical strength was just the beginning of what there was to fear and respect about him. Needing space between them more than ever, Yuri raises her arms to his shoulders and push against him, willing him to step away from her but she might as well have tried to move the wall at her back; he was hard and strong and he wasn't moving an inch unless he chose too. 

 

In response to her futile attempts to push him back, Yunho took a gentle but firm hold of her wrist and pin them against the wall at her shoulder and then he inserted his leg in-between hers; in doing so he forces her legs apart until she was helplessly push up onto the tips of her toes and as a result was forced to ride his thigh. All Yuri could do was gasp and writhe as her most sensitive of places rub back and forth against his thick hard thigh. 

 

Yunho was very aware of two things. The first was the burning powerful drive within him to protect her, to stop her from trying to run from him and the second was her delicate softness that was press against him from her s to her kneecap. Yunho had to take a fierce sturdy hold on his beast that was all-consumed by lustful hunger fuel by their fierce urge to protect their mate and their anger at her for running from them. 

 

It wasn't easy to calm his beast, even after all Yunho's long centuries of practice mastering his control over his temper. His beast wanted its freedom to claim his mate in the way of the wolf, to mark her as his over and over again until even Yuri couldn't doubt their claim over her. 

 

Where he was hard, Yuri was warm softness. Yunho could feel the heat of her radiating into him like heat from the sun, burning through the fabric of their clothing to scorch his cool tone flesh but she burns hottest against his invading thigh press between her thighs, his greater height and bulk force her to ride his thigh like a rider would ride a prize stallion for the first time. His hard and aching arousal was nestled against her soft flat belly that with each breath and vain struggle rub against him in a manner that was both delicious and agonizing torment. 

 

It wasn't a surprise to him that he hardens so promptly for her; she was his mate and his body knew it as sure as it knew to draw breath. 

 

The blatant ual attraction between them was strong and undeniable, no matter how much his mate continue to try to delude herself to the contrary. 

 

Yuri's entire body was on fire and sensitive to the point of pain. She could almost feel every stitch of the two pieces of fabric that were her underwear and his pants that was rubbing against her most sensitive of places. With each and every little bit of friction, electric heat flare through her; the torturous sweet ecstasy building inside her body, threatening to explode and blow her into tiny pieces. 

 

Her s felt heavy even though they were squished up against his temper steel chest and her rebellious s had hardened of their own accord to the point that they ached and throbbed with the need to be touch. 

 

Heat and desire exploded through her like a tsunami of liquid heat and sensation; it was a struggle just to remember how to breathe. Yuri couldn't focus on anything but the pleasure his hard unyielding body was giving her. She had never felt anything like this before; the urge to mate was so intense, so powerful, her desire so potent, she didn't think her body could contain it much longer. Her body felt prime to explode. She prays for more and she pray for it to end all at the same time. 

 

Her body screams at her to beg him for more, to beg him to take her with all the animalistic carnal ferocity she senses inside of him but as much as her body wanted him the rest of her still fear him. She didn't fear him harming her, no what she fears more than her own death was what she knew was the price of becoming his. It would be all too easy for her to submit to him, to allow herself to become lost in everything she knew he could and would give her but the price of the easy road was just too high. In this dark powerful prince, she would lose her freedom and worse she stood to lose her sense of self. 

 

Yuri couldn't let that happen. She values her freedom and her sense of self way too much. She values her dreams and ambitions that she continues to work so hard towards. In Yunho's world, she would cease to be Yuri and she would become Yunho's mate, a princess and future queen who sat in that golden throne beside Yunho's, nothing more than a breathing decoration and accessory for the king-to-be. 

 

She couldn't let that happen, she couldn't let herself become what he wanted her to be. She had to get control of herself before her traitorous body took her down a path that would be of no return, a path that ended with her sitting on that beautiful daunting throne. 

 

Yunho had never smelt anything as sweet as his mate's arousal. Her rich intoxicating musky scent was an aphrodisiac in itself, one created for him and him alone. It made his beast purr and growl at the same time, purr in delight and growl with frustrated urgent need to claim his mate in the flesh. 

 

It took one whiff of her scent for Yunho to know that his mate was just as aroused as he was, he, however, was far more practice at controlling himself. He could smell the sweet arousing evidence of her desire and feel her beaded s press into his chest and the heat of her against him as she continues to helplessly ride his thigh. He was so tempted to wedge his thigh even further between her thigh, that would force her to fully grind herself against his thick invading thigh like one would a stallion at full gallop but Yunho grit his teeth and forced himself to remain still. He could smell her fear as acutely, as potently, as her desire. 

 

His mate was afraid, of what exactly he didn't know and he and his beast alike didn't like that one bit. That his mate possibly fears him was unacceptable. He had to do everything he was able to assure her that he would never harm her, not for any reason. No matter how far she pushes him, no matter how infuriated she made him, he would never mean her harm in any way, shape or form. It was his duty, his life's purpose to protect her from harm, to keep her safe and provide for her. She wasn't of his world but still, he had to make her understand, to comprehend, how absolute his devotion was to her. 

 

Yuri squeezes her eyes closed and gritted her teeth tightly as she fought against her rebellious over-heated overstimulated body that was blazing with furious desire. While her body wanted nothing more than to rock against his hard invading thigh, to seek out the pleasure and release she knew was a few hard grinds away, her mind and will refuse to submit to him. Submitting to him, even once, would give him all the power over her he needed to consume her whole and she would undoubtedly lose herself in him. 

 

So, even though it was one of the hardest things she had ever done, Yuri force herself to become still, instead using her burning ual frustration and emotional conflict to fuel her anger and strengthen her will against him. Once certain she had enough control over herself, Yuri opens her eyes and glare furiously up at him, hissing wrathfully through her clench teeth, "Get off me, you !" 

 

Despite the fact that Yuri currently reminded him of a furious spitting kitten that he found so completely adorable, Yunho growls a furious, unwavering no in response to her demand. 

 

Enrage fire flare in her dark brown eyes at his answer but no matter how hard Yuri tried to make it different, her frantically beating heart wasn't beating so frantically in her chest because of her fury. Lust was fire in her veins and it had wrapped a hand around her heart that was making it hard to breathe. Her body was hot and flush with want while electric waves of pleasure were building like a supernova low in her belly and she didn't know how much longer she could keep it from taking her over, from consuming her like a possessing demon. Her heart was beating so fast, so hard that she knew he would have been able to hear it even if he had the hearing of a normal mortal man and she was panting so shallowly that she feared she was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen. Her skin felt tight and heated like she was on fire and where he was touching her, her skin burns and tingle so hotly that it almost hurt. She felt light-headed and her chest was tight while her s ached from the absence of his touch. She was burning so fervently that the wall at her back felt like it was made of solid ice. 

 

Deep inside Yuri felt the icy touch of fear rise up, her survival instincts trying to give her the strength of will to resist him but the inner icy touch was swiftly and completely drown by the raging heat of her lustful desire. This was what she fears, how easily his touch overcame her, consume her, made her want nothing but to feel more of his maddening addictive touch but if she gave in she would lose herself to him, he was so...he was too much. So much so that it felt as if he had snuffed her out like the single flame of a candle trap defenselessly in the middle of a hurricane. She wasn't strong enough to keep hold of herself against this tidal wave of him. 

 

Yuri was so torn between the fear of him she carried within and the lustful burning of her body that she felt as if she were being torn in half from the inside. 

 

In her desperation, Yuri frantically, desperately, struggle against Yunho's unbreakable but pain-free hold on her. Fighting with the desperation of an animal trap facing certain death. She was fighting for her very existence. She fought even knowing that it was futile, he was all strength and ruthless will and she hated it that she would never be free of him unless he chose to let her go. 

 

Unfortunately, as if fate itself will her submission to the Lycan prince, with each and every defiant desperate struggle, Yuri was grinding her heated moist center into and along his thick muscle thigh sending hot electric bolts through her overheated body straight to her throbbing womb. 

 

Oh, dear god. She wanted him. She was burning for him. She wanted to beg him to take her; it didn't matter that they were in a crowded nightclub. She wanted everything his strong hard body could give her, no matter the cost. She wanted him. She wanted him inside of her. Oh god, she wanted him deep inside of her where her womb throbbed, pulse and vibrated with white-hot pleasure that was driving her into madness and there was nothing she could do about it, nothing she could do to resist him, to put some distance between them. She was his captive, in more ways than one and cruelly that knowledge only seems to arouse her even more. His every touch and stimulated something very primitive, something very female deep down inside of her that she had never known existed and all she wanted was more and she wasn't the only one who was arouse; Yuri could feel the hot hard length of him pressing into her thigh as yielding as a long thick iron rod. 

 

Yuri bit down hard on her lips to keep from crying out or worse, begging Yunho to do everything to her that his hard was promising her. She was so close, so very close to surrendering to him, to surrendering to what their bodies so urgently wanted. It would be so much easier to just give herself to him, to become whatever he wanted her to be in exchange for the end of this burning raging desire inside of her than to keep trying in vain to fight it. She was so sick and tired of fighting against him and herself; the temptation to just give in was so seductive. 

 

It had been like this, bubbling beneath the surface since the first time they had met. She had been overcome with his blatant power and uality, his strength and strength of will that first time he had come close to her and her neck. To say that Yunho was dominant would be the greatest understatement of the century. He was dominant, as stubborn as a jackass, obsessively possessive, overprotective, spoil and accustomed to getting his way; if she wasn't careful he had completely overpowered her and she didn't just mean physically. She could so easily lose herself to him, in him and even worse, she would lose her heart to him. 

 

For the sake of her own survival, she had to resist him but her survival instincts falter against her flaring desire and it only made her panic all the more. Her struggles become more desperately frantic and wild while at the same time she was helplessly withering against him, lost in carnal desire. 

 

Yunho inwardly curses and gritted his teeth so tightly it hurt, unable to prevent himself from becoming even harder with arousal as she increases her wild struggles and withering; already he was so close to coming in his pants like some inexperience puberty curse pup. 

 

'Damn it!' Yunho silently curses himself and the fate. He was near a millennium old. He had mastered his control centuries ago; he wasn't some inexperienced pup in heat at the mercy of his raging hormones but oh, by the goddess. He wanted, he burns, to press his into her, clothing or no, the mortals around them be damn and just himself into her hot wet softness but for her sake, Yunho fought the raging compulsion but he wouldn't remain so gentlemanly if she didn't stop her incessant struggle. His beast was hammering and thrashing against the bounds of Yunho's control to mate with her, to mark her as his own and cement the bond between them. She was his wolf mate and there were traditions to appease, not to mention his own internal driving urge to mate. He had yet to brand her flesh with the mating mark and until he did, in the immortal world she wasn't yet officially his mate. 

 

However, Yunho was reluctant to mark her until she was ready. Besides, there weren't any in his pack who would dare dispute his right to her. 

 

It was damn near killing him to wait, to force himself to keep away from her, at least in part but if she didn't cease her futile struggles, she was going to receive his mating mark right here, right now, whether she like it or not and since the mating mark require the physical act of mating, now just wasn't the time or place, regardless of how his beast insisted otherwise. 

 

Needing to still her for her own sake as well as his sanity, Yunho leans further into her until her struggles still beneath him as he pins her between him and the wall at her back with enough of his weight to completely still her wild writhing movements. 

 

Yuri froze, realizing that she couldn't move other than to flex her ankle or wriggle her fingers. He was press into her so firmly that Yuri couldn't even turn her head as his chin was now resting against the side of her head; she could feel his hot ragged breath against her ear and neck and she wanted to scream in sheer ual and mental frustration. 

 

Yunho felt Yuri's body go limp beneath him and felt relief that she had finally submitted or at least for the time being accepted that she was caught and there was nothing she could do. ually and mentally frustrated and more than a little piss off at her constantly fighting against him, Yunho found himself growling into her ear that was press against his lips; the sound rough with arousal and fury, "Now you listen to me very carefully, Yuri! You are coming home with me! You are going to stop this foolishness! You aren't going to try to escape again and you are going to obey every order I give you, do you understand me?!" 

 

Yuri cried out in frustration and fury, sounding more the wild furious cry of a feral animal. Unfortunately, the sound was swallowed up by the music before it could carry and alert anyone to her distress. She wanted to get away from him but she couldn't move, trapped between the hard wall and his even harder body. His full body holds on her unbreakable but painless. 

 

Physically, Yuri had no choice, for the time being, to submit to him, to still her struggles but her tongue was still free. 

 

"Go to hell!" 

 

Yunho found himself both admiring her unrelenting will and cursing it. She was his mate, she was supposed to submit to him, damn it. What was it going to take for her to learn that? "We can do this the easy way or the hard way Yuri, but either way you are going to do as I tell you when I tell you." 

 

Yuri felt powerless and frustrated trap against him as she was. He was like a brick wall in more ways than the physical. There was no middle ground with him, no room for compromise; it was no wonder that she so greatly fear losing herself to him. He was so accustomed to getting his way without question, to being the alpha, that there was no room for anyone else's opinions or ideas. 

 

As Yunho pull back enough to look into her eyes while making sure that he didn't release his hold on the rest of her, Yuri could only stare helplessly into the dark timeless depths. It would be so easy to fall in love him, he was the epitome of everything male; he was iron-willed, masculine, dominant, possessive, protective, dark, handsome and he was raw on legs. He calls out to and every feminine part of her and he arouses her like crazy but if she allows herself to fall in love with him there would be no choice for her but to submit to him. 

 

Just as he wanted. Falling in love with him was his win because if she did, Yuri would lose herself in him in every way and she couldn't let that happen. No flower could bloom when overshadowed so completely by something so much greater, stronger. Her only chance to survive with all of herself intact, including her heart, was to get away from him now before it was too late. 

 

Yuri ignores the voice in the back of her mind that whisper to her that it was already too late for her. 

 

"Just let me go." Yuri pleaded with him, her words so soft and frail that it was a wonder he heard her over the music, even with his superhumanly heighten senses. 

 

Yunho's heart nearly froze in his chest at her whimper plead, the expression on her face and her tone of voice were so pitifully feeble that it was all he could do not to crush her close to him and hold and protect her against all the evil of the world, both her world and his. No matter how much he wanted to give her everything she desires, he couldn't give her this. She was his and he had to protect her, there just wasn't any other choice. 

 

"I can't. You need to be protected." He would always be the one standing protectively between her and the danger of his and every other world. 

 

"Why?" Yuri asks, completely and utterly wretched, "Why do I need to be protected from anyone but you?" 

 

Yunho chose to ignore her last question; she would learn in time that she would never need any form of protection from him. Well, maybe birth control but that was something they would need to discuss later. 

 

"Because you are mine," Yunho whisper softly, tenderly. 

 

Yuri felt like banging her head against something hard until she knocks herself out then maybe she would get some peace from him. 

 

At Yuri's aggravated expression, Yunho's patience was at an end. Without warning, he smoothly step away from her and with a startled cry, Yuri suddenly unsupported by his hard body, slid down the wall to land with a thud on the hard floor but before Yuri could blast him with her spitfire's tongue for practically dropping her and with a flash of a smug grin that she didn't see, Yunho grasp hold of her arm and pull her to her feet. 

 

Keeping hold of her arm in a careful but firm grip, Yunho then turns and headed for the exit, half dragging, half carrying her with him. 

 

Yuri gave another startled yelp but could do nothing to break his hold on her as he practically drags her out of the club, she was fortunate that it was by her arm and not her hair and out into the cold of the night. 

 

Without breaking his stride or even slowing down, Yunho turns to the right and Yuri immediately realize where he was taking her. 

 

A long shiny black stretch limousine was parked just off to the side of the club's main entrance to which Changwook already had the back door open for them as if he had known they were coming at that exact moment. 

 

Yuri mentally shrug. Changwook probably had known that they were on their way out of the door before they had even gotten to it. Yunho and his pack were good at doing creepy unnerving things like that. 

 

At least Changwook's expression was grim, his eyes apologetic. 

 

Yuri wonders if his repentance was for his alpha or her. 

 

They reach the long vehicle in less than thirteen seconds from exiting the club and all Yuri could manage before Yunho all but threw her onto the softback leather seat was an objecting, "Hey!" 

 

Thinking quickly, more desperate to get away from him than ever now that the reality that she was being taken back to the mansion had hit her at the sight of Yunho's limousine, Yuri quickly scrambles across the long backseat to the other side as Yunho climb in behind her. 

 

Before Yunho realize what she was doing, Yuri had the opposite door open and was out and running, knowing that Changwook would do nothing to stop her as he wouldn't dare to touch her at the risk of his alpha's fury. That had been confirmed for her tonight on the mansion's cliff; unless they really had too, they wouldn't lay a hand on her. 

 

"Yuri!" Yunho call after her, but Yuri only hasten her pace, running with everything she had even though logic told her that she wouldn't get far before he caught up with her and made her pay dearly for running from him again; he was already as irritable as a tormented bull but she still had to at least try, no matter how futile her efforts to escape were. 

 

In the limousine, Yunho growls incredulously in the back of his throat and threw his head back against the back of the seat in complete and utter disbelief and exasperation while resisting the strong urge to slap his hand over his eyes. He couldn't believe this woman. Just what was it going to take to get it through her impossibly thick head that she was in grave danger outside of his protection? 

 

Yunho, exhaustedly and calmly, steps gracefully back out of the limousine and turn to stare at her, her long brownish black hair flailing behind her. He was growing weary of chasing her but he knew that unless he did she was bound to find herself in trouble up to her pretty little neck in no time and the ironic thing was that they call him stubborn and difficult. 

 

Yuri once again found herself back up against an icy wall, only this time it was at the mouth of the alley rather than in a crowded nightclub. 

 

Yuri had to wonder if it was just coincidence or if it was fate that had brought her back to this familiar situation. On the other hand, it could just be really bad luck. She was after all, alone in the middle of the night in the middle of a less than respectable neighborhood. 

 

At least this time her attackers were human. 

 

Yuri refuse to acknowledge that little voice of reason in the back of her mind that was right now telling her that she was an idiot for running from Yunho again because A, there was no doubt that Yunho would find her again and when he did he will be even more piss off at her than he had been in the club and B, serious trouble always seem to be on her heel just as persistently as Yunho was but Yuri knew perfectly well why she kept running from him, why she had to run from him. It was that one reason that made it possible for her to ignore the little voice inside her head that kept insisting that the only way to stay safe was to stay with him. Yunho was determined to protect her and right now it seems that she did need protecting, although she had rather rip out her own tongue than admit it to him but just who was going to protect her from him? Yunho was way too overconfident that she was his for the taking; he didn't seem to have a doubt about the fact and her pride detested it. Not only did she fear him overshadowing her, consuming her, she also fears how easily she could lose her heart to him. To say that he everything feminine inside of her would be the greatest understatement of the century. He was the kind of man that was fantasized about from a very young age; the prince charming in the stories all little girls listen to with such enraptured awe. 

 

From the cradle, prince charming was the man girls were told they should want to be with but what sounded good in fiction wasn't always sensible in real life. In real life prince charming was a fallacy, too good to be true, too perfect to stand the imperfection of the harsh real world. In fairytales prince charming save the princess, swept her off her feet and took her back to his palace, that was the story told over and over in various version and on first appearances all was good and well but take a second look and what have you got? 

 

An arrogant ist jerk and a brainless useless barbie doll who fainted on a whim and always manage to get herself kidnap without a thought of doing something to save herself other than waiting around for said arrogant jerk to rescue her and never once had any of those prince charming fairytales mention an intense ual attraction that burns the princess up until there was nothing left of her free will or senses. 

 

None of that was for her. Yuri didn't consider herself brainless, her lifetime of bad grades aside and she didn't want a domineering obsessive prince to carry her off to his palace and look after her for the rest of her life like a porcelain doll. She wanted her freedom, she wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet and not rely on anyone else and one day after she had lived her life, she wanted to find someone whom she was on even ground with, someone who listens to her and respected her. 

 

Yunho couldn't be further from that. Yunho was a dominant, arrogant, self-righteous jerk who constantly show off and use his supernatural abilities to so effortlessly overpower her. He ignores her and everything she values. She values her freedom; he kept her a prisoner. She wanted a mortal life and he was an immortal Lycan warrior prince who could and would swallow her up, heart and all until there wasn't anything left of her. 

 

Yuri looks around at the ugly scorning faces of the five men of some kind of gang that had surrounded her, trapping her with no effective means of escape. They were mortal and four of them were armed with knives or pipes. 

 

Strangely though, Yuri wasn't afraid of them. Maybe because she had faced far worse monsters recently or maybe it was because she knew that Yunho was at this very moment coming after her. She had only made it five city blocks though not in a straight line before she had to stop to catch her breath. 

 

That was when the gang of black leather-dress thugs had stepped out of the darkness of the alley like sewer rats and her apologies to the rats. 

 

What was it about her that seems to attract trouble like honey attracted bears? 

 

The biggest, ugliest one took a cocky swaggering step towards her, "Oh, we got a beautiful one. I wonder if you taste as good as you smell." 

 

Speaking of smell, the five of them reek of alcohol so badly that it was all Yuri could do not to gag. On top of that, she actually had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. That line had sounded so much more intimidating coming from the lips of a vampire that could actually taste her and kill her. Or use her against Yunho. 

 

"You don't know who you are dealing with," Yuri told them boldly, feeling the need to warn them even though they deserve what was coming to them; Yuri could tell what they intended to do to her by the way they were leering at her. 

 

"Oh, yeah?" The ugly one chuckle with mocking amusement, taking yet another step towards her, "And just who are we dealing with?" 

 

Yuri raises her chin in a clear sign that she wasn't the least bit afraid of him. She didn't need to be; there was no way Yunho hadn't come after her, "I'm protected." 

 

Most of them look around, most with condescending amusement but one, the youngest was small, skinny, pale and had to be no older than eighteen, did look around with a hint of wariness as if he expected her protector to suddenly jump out at them from the shadow. 

 

'The kid had good instincts.' Yuri mused. 

 

"Really?! I don't see anyone!" The ugliest smelliest one ridiculed loudly, "Just who protects you?!" 

 

Yuri guesses that he had to ask for the sake of his own self-preservation; wasn't there a hierarchy or something in gangs? There was always someone else, someone bigger and worse than the other bad guys fear. 

 

"I do." 

 

'Yunho Oppa couldn't have made a more theatrical entrance if it had been scripted by Hollywood's finest.' Yuri thought, with resign amusement as Yunho step out of the deep black shadows behind the ugly one who was the closest of them to her. Pure lethal malice consumed his sinfully handsome face. 

 

Before Yunho deliver the first blow, he deliberately reminded himself that this time those threatening his mate were mortal and as much as he wanted too, he couldn't kill them. He would beat them within an inch of their lives but they would live. These five mortals were fortunate that he wasn't young and without control, for a younger immortal would have killed them without thought or hesitation for the crime of threatening his mate. 

 

The five turn on him, raising their various crude weapons high. 

 

"Get him!" Bellowed the most pungent of the group. 

 

Yunho could only grin in anticipation as the first, who just happens to be the one who had been the greatest threat to his mate, came at him with a long pocket knife raise and pointed at his midsection. The others were a step behind him, ready to take him down in the true cowardly gang style, cheating with greater numbers and crude weapons. 

 

Of all his centuries of war and battle, not once had a mortal even come close to causing him any form of harm; tonight wasn't going to be the first. He had fought armies of damned and powerful vampires and still, he had yet to be bested. 

 

Normally, Yunho would have delighted in taking his time with them, maybe even toying with them but not tonight. Tonight he would handle them with efficient swiftness. He was exasperated and at the limits of his patience. His mate had caused him enough aggravation for one night; all he wanted now was to get her back to the manor and take steps to assure that she would never run from him again. 

 

Three times in one night wasn't just irritating, it was downright humiliating that such a small mortal woman could run from him thrice in one night. He was the fear warrior Lycan prince and she was a young mortal woman who was making a mockery of him. 

 

Yuri watches, wide-eyed, knowing that all that intense fierce fury that was rolling off of Yunho in waves would all be focused on her soon. He was beyond piss; he was crackling like a thundercloud and she knew without a doubt that he wouldn't let her run from him a fourth time ever but while Yuri was all too aware of Yunho's dangerous mood, her attackers were either too stupid, too stoned or too cocky to recognize Yunho as the threat he was. 

 

One moment Yunho was standing still and silent, the next Yunho disappear into thin air and out of sight. Yuri almost felt sorry for the morons who were about to have their butts handed to them before they even knew what was happening. 

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Yuri caught a glimpse of a blur of black before the ugly loudmouth one was sent flying back through the air until he was slam into the wall three feet to her left. He fell to the ground without so much as a grunt, most likely knock out cold before he had even hit the wall. 

 

Yuri wince. He will be feeling that for the next month. 

 

Turning her focus back to the others, Yuri notices that one of the remaining four was already lying face down and motionless on the ground exactly where he had just been standing the moment before. Yunho had taken him down before the attacker had even taken a step. 

 

"What the hell is going on?!" The tallest of the remaining three demanded frantically, sounding bewildered while his expression show fearful panic as he whirls around and around. 

 

"Who gives a crap?!" The second of her attacker snap, obviously just as panic and scare as the other two. The third of the remaining attacker, the youngest was deadly pale and stood motionless, frozen in terror. 

 

"Let's get outta here!" 

 

The second one didn't even get the chance to finish his sentence as he was picked up by an unseen force and sent falling with greater speed than gravity was capable of into the concrete beneath their feet. 

 

The attacker groans painfully and then was still as he lay on the cold hard surface. 

 

The youngest turns his impossibly wide terrified eyes to her and let out a pathetic whimpering sob. 

 

Yuri gave him a sympathetic look and shrug her shoulders. She couldn't say that they didn't deserve what they were getting, they had tried to jump her after all but this one was even younger than Jaehyuk was, maybe only thirteen. Years of protecting and caring for her brother made her feel sympathetic towards this boy who didn't seem to know any better, "I warn you. Run now and he might let you go." 

 

Not waiting to be told twice, the youngest whirl on his heel and took off in the other direction, running for all he was worth. 

 

With four of the five mortals unconscious on the ground at his feet, despite the snarling murderous demands of his beast, Yunho took a moment to tighten his control over himself and his beast. 

 

Both of them had been push far by their mate this night. 

 

Yunho had shown the fifth, who he could still hear running hurriedly away, mercy because it had been his mate's own suggestion for him to flee. If she had seen it within herself to show the fifth mercy then he would allow it to be so. The fifth had been barely more than a child and he wasn't one to harm children, so long as their paths didn't cross again, the child would know his mercy. 

 

With the threat dealt with, Yunho turns his narrow blazing eyes on his mate who still stood in the same spot she had been standing when he had arrived to save her once again. 

 

It was nothing short of a miracle that this time those who had threatened her had been mere mortals; with his mate's talent for finding danger, Yunho had half expected to find her being attacked by a swarm of dragons which had long since been extinct. That his mate's attackers had been mortals was the only reason he had hesitated before interfering when he had first caught up with her. 

 

It had taken Yunho a great deal of restraint to keep himself hidden in the shadows out of sight to watch. He had hoped to teach her a lesson so that she wouldn't so readily run from him again. He wanted to scare her a little with the truth of how easily she could get herself into trouble but never had there been the slightest risk of any of them touching her. He would never allow harm to come to her, even for her own good. He had been in the act of revealing himself to the mortals when Yuri had loudly proclaimed that she was protected. He was still furious at her beyond measure for her behavior this night but regardless he felt a swell of male satisfaction that she knew that he would come for her, that he would protect her. 

 

It was progressed. 

 

Yunho knew that not one of them had laid a single touch upon his mate but still that knowledge didn't keep his eyes from sweeping her from head to toe for any sign of harm. A single mark upon her delicate soft skin would mean death for all five of the mortals who had threatened his mate. 

 

Now that his mate was safe, Yunho somewhat relaxes his hold on his anger. Enough was enough. Yuri had put herself in grave danger by leaving the manor and continuing to run from him as if he were her enemy. He would have to take even more drastic steps to protect her, even from herself. 

 

Especially from herself but first things first; his highest priority was getting her back to the safety of the manor. Yuri's eyes widen in alarm and she actually gulps at the incensed look in his blazing eyes. Black fire flares violently within the brown depths and she felt like a kitten facing off against a furious predatory alpha wolf. 

 

A description that wasn't far from the truth of the situation. 

 

A pair of warm steel hard arms wraps around her slim waist. That was all the warning Yuri had before the ground disappear from beneath her and the world suddenly span and blurred around her. The next thing Yuri knew she once again found herself in the limo, Yunho sliding onto the backseat beside her. 

 

Fearful, despite the fact that she knew he wouldn't harm her no matter how pissed off she made him, Yuri scramble back across the seat, away from him. 

 

A low, furious hiss from low in his throat fill the dimly lit space and he growls without looking at her, "Go for that door again and I will bind you so tightly you won't be able to so much as twitch a finger!" And he would too, Yuri realize, he wasn't bluffing. His tone portray that louder than his threat had. He was pissed off beyond measure but still, he hadn't threatened her harm. He had threatened to tie her up, to make her uncomfortable but he could have just as easily threatened to break her hand but he hadn't. Such a threat would be hollow and they both knew it. He wouldn't harm her, no matter how far she pushes him and just like that Yuri had had enough for one night. She was exhausted and couldn't stand it all anymore. She wanted to be done with Lycans and damned vampires and she wanted so much to be done with Yunho. She just wanted to go home, back to her normal life where she was no one special. 

 

"Just let me go. Please? I want to go home." It was a helpless plead which was all she could manage. It had been such a long exhausting night. She didn't have the strength to run anymore, not tonight at least. 

 

Yunho gritted his teeth and close his eyes against the helplessness in her plea. He was furious at her for running from him, three times over but he no more wishes her discontentment or misery than he had before she had run. She was his, his to make happy, to grant her every wish but he was just as honor and duty-bound to keep her safe and protected. She was his, she belongs to him and one day he would help her to come to terms with that, "You can't!" Yunho hiss, through his clench teeth, "Not ever! You will learn it one way or another that your home is with me now!" His eyes remain closed, his mate was hurting and so was he. His mate's misery was torture to him but there was nothing he could do if he was going to keep her safe, "Run as many times as you like but each and every time I will drag you back. You are mine and sooner or later you will have to accept it. If I have to keep you tie up to keep you safe then so be it." 

 

Yuri balked at the serious threat of tying her up; she wasn't a willful pet damn it, "You don't have the right! You can't just keep me prisoner for the rest of my life!" 

 

Yunho had to admire her strength and spirit; even now when she was so undoubtedly defeated and capture, she remains defiant. A greater queen the immortal world would never know if only he could keep her alive long enough. 

 

Yunho slowly opens his eyes and gave her a hard resolved look that spoke of nearly a millennium of practice resolve, "I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Yuri." 

 

Yuri was left speechless before the unyielding eyes of a force greater than she could ever be. Despite her frustration and anger at him, all Yuri could think about was how stunningly handsome he was vowing to keep her safe. 

 

True to her nature, the moment they had arrived back at the manor, his mate had resumed her defiant rebellion against him. When his mate had tried to run from him the moment the car had stopped, for the fourth time in one night, Yunho had finally found himself push too far. He had picked up his mate, thrown her over his shoulder and carried her, kicking and screaming like a banshee despite how exhausted she obviously was after such a long night, up to his bedroom. 

 

Yunho had shoulder open the door with so much force that they bounce off the wall with a loud bang that left them shuddering and then stalked over to the bed where he had dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed. After which he had just as swiftly left the room, closing and locking the door behind him. 

 

Yuri had tested him tonight, in many forms but regardless progress with her had been made. His mate may not yet see it but something between them had change tonight. 

 

Yunho turns his back to the now lock double doors to see Jessica standing only a few feet away from him shaking her head disapprovingly. 

 

Jessica looks up into her brother's eyes, incredulously, unable to believe just how clueless he was. He was over five hundred years old but apparently, he still had no idea at all how to deal with a woman outside of his own kind, "I can't believe you. Why don't you just tell her the truth instead of carrying on with this stupidity?" 

 

Yunho growl low in his throat, a warning to his sister. He was still angry with her for what she had done tonight; he knew very well who was responsible for Yuri leaving the manor grounds, "Mind your tongue, Jessica! My mate is no concern of yours!" 

 

Jessica clenches her jaw to hold back a growl of her own. The time had just ended in which Jessica believe that her brother wasn't only far more control than her but any immortal on the continent. 

 

"The more you keep doing this, the harder she will fight you." Jessica drew in a deep breath to calm herself before going on. She loves and respected her brother but he was so proud at times and so clueless at others, "She's the perfect mate for you; her will is just as strong and as immovable as yours. She may just have the strength and will to survive in our world but I fear you are destined to heads for the rest of eternity." She looks deeper into her brother's eyes, imploring him to see reason in her words, "In order for that to even be, you must stop commanding her like she's one of your warriors on the battlefield." 

 

This time Yunho's growl was louder, warning her that he was close to losing his control on his temper. 

 

Jessica was wary but she had been born into this world and she knew her brother and her own kind. The Lycan kind was so alike to their counterparts, the mortal wolf of nature. Their behavior was just as competitive, aggressive and protective. They were a pack, a family; they protected each other and share what they had and Yunho was the alpha of the family. 

 

It brought great joy to Jessica's heart to know that her brother had finally found his mate, his peace but because his mate was mortal it also made her anxious, dreading what lay ahead for her brother. That tiny little mortal had the power to save or destroy her brother. 

 

Jessica understood why her brother was so fiercely overprotective and possessive of his mate, it was their natural way. All mates were the same, loyal and protective of each other to no end but never before had Jessica seen a male so relentlessly watchful of his mate; it wasn't without reason but at the same time there was no reasoning with him. 

 

"I will do whatever I must to keep her safe!" Yunho growl at her, his tone ice cold and hard with fierced warning. Any other, except their parents, of course, would have stopped there at the dangerous warning and fiercely aggressive behavior Yunho was displaying for fear of having their throats ripped out but Jessica refuses to fear her brother. Logically she knew he would never harm her, no male Lycan would ever harm a female, their own or otherwise but right now he wasn't as rational or as control as he had always been. 

 

Jessica had been born a princess and yes she knew that she was a little spoil and accustomed to getting her way but Yunho had been born a future king; he expected to get his way each and every time but Jessica couldn't let him this time, for his own good. She loves her brother and respected his right of leadership but he was wrong in this and he had to see that. 

 

It was for his own sake. He couldn't see it but he was unintendedly driving his mate away and scaring her at the same time with his domineering possessive and overprotective behavior that she wasn't accustomed too. In the mortal world, in modern times, women were taught to be strong and independent and that they didn't need a man to complete them. In the immortal world though women were taught to be strong and their own person, they also knew that in order to be complete they needed their mate. Immortal women grew up knowing that one day they would be expected to submit to that mate. A mate who would love and protect them no matter the cost and in doing so gave the woman every power and sway over her mate. 

 

"How safe is she like this?!" Jessica challenges her overbearing brother, "You keep her lock up and she will never stop trying to escape! She will keep trying until she escapes again and I fear that you won't be there to save her the next time! The more you keep her at a distance, the more danger she's in!" 

 

Jessica stares into her brother's intense eyes, imploring him to listen to her but as the moments pass silently between them Jessica realizes that she could scream at her brother all day trying to get him to listen but it would do her no good. Yunho had been raised to be a king; when he believes his way was the right way there was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. 

 

That was what Jessica found to be so sad about her brother. He was the perfect king with an iron will that could withstand anything a hard royal life could bring but a consequence of such will was that he might just lose the mate who was destined to save him. 

 

Jessica sighs deeply as she pulls her gaze from her brother's and gentle her tone, "You don't see it Yunho Oppa, but you have given her so every reason to flee from you but what reason have you really given her to stay?" 

 

In some part of his mind where logic still dwells Yunho knew his sister had a point but his wolf instincts to protect, possess and dominant were too deeply embedded him as they were with all his kind. He had to protect his mate, to make her see that she was his and have her bend to his will in order to keep her safe. His mate would never want for anything and she would never again be in the danger she had placed herself in this night. 

 

He had been stupid in leaving the manor, to leave her here without his protection. He had been a fool to trust the safety of his mate in any hands but his own. His most trusted had failed him this night and he had failed his mate in allowing her to put herself in such grave danger. 

 

Yunho refuse to make that mistake again. Never again would she be without his protection, no matter what length he had to go to, she would be with him or close to him at all times. Yuri would learn her place soon enough; she would learn that she belongs to him and that her place was at his side, whether that be for a matter of decades or eternity. 

 

Right now, however, Yunho needed to do three things. First, he needed to tear his beta's a new hide for their failure, whereas normally he would have let it go as he would have been rational enough to accept the fact that it hadn't really been their fault, second, he had to tighten security in the manor for his mate and pack and lastly, he had to contact his parents and have them look into the histories for anything that may help him in regards to his mortal mate. 

 

The moon goddess wouldn't have granted him a mortal mate without some way to keep her safe. There was but a dying ember of hope within him that there might just be a way to somehow turn Yuri into one of his kind, an immortal Lycan. 

 

All his life and for the entire recorded history of his kind, it had been believed that such a thing was completely impossible but before he had found Yuri, the same thing had been believed of having a mortal wolf mate. There had to be some way, not everything that was impossible could forever remain so. 

 

With an aggressive, frustrated growl, Yunho spun on his heel and stalked off down the dark corridor, leaving his sister staring after him with sad eyes. 

 

Jessica gently close the door behind her, not making a single sound. Stealth and grace were as natural to her kind as breathing was to mortals. She had waited a few minutes before she had entered her brother's chamber in which his mortal mate was once again imprisoned. 

 

For a long minute, Jessica said nothing, only watch the mortal woman with amusement and a sense of growing fondness. 

 

The mortal, Yuri, her brother's mate, was still fuming it seems. The young woman Yuri was stalking back and forth in front of her brother's bed like a piss off cage wild animal, glaring daggers at the floor and mumbling obscenities under her breath that mortal ears wouldn't have heard unless they were standing right beside her. 

 

However, Jessica wasn't a mortal, her ears were better than those of nature's wolf even while in her human form, "That blasted mutt! That bloody idiotic, spoil, arrogant mongrel! When I get my hands on that flea-ridden I'm going to!" 

 

Jessica raises a straight eyebrow in gleeful amusement as a tiny grin spread across her pale pink color lips. She felt oddly proud of the mortal woman before her. She had a stubborn streak that seems relentless and a temper that gave shame to all others. It was also apparent that this tiny fragile creature who could so easily be accidentally harmed among the superhumanly strong immortals, although most wouldn't even dare to get near her for fear of their alpha's rage, refuse to give in for anything but her own way, her own mind. 

 

It amused Jessica greatly that her strong dominant brother had met his match in a woman so tiny. 

 

Jessica steps forward into the light of the chandelier above that didn't quite reach the outer edge of the room and said with a friendly voice, "Forgive my brother. Believe it or not, he does this for your own good." 

 

Yuri gasp, startled and whirl around, her racing heart in , she had thought she had been alone, to see the woman her age or at least she looks her age, she recognizes as Jessica, Yunho's sister. 

 

Yuri presses her hand to her chest over her heart and fought to calm her frantically beating heart but did nothing to calm her anger that had been reignited by the last few minutes. She had heard the wolf princess's words clearly through the door, Yuri had her ear press up against it at the time, remorselessly eavesdropping as she had argued with her brother on Yuri's behalf. 

 

"Well, no one ever asks him to do anything for my own good!" Yuri felt a little guilty as she knew that the princess wasn't the one holding her here against her will but on the other side of that coin, she wasn't helping her to escape either, Jessica had told the others to let her go knowing that she will be caught and brought back sooner or later so earlier didn't count, "He hasn't got the right to keep me prisoner like this!" 

 

Jessica had a feeling, an intuition, that she was really going to genially like this mortal woman. Any woman who could bring her brother so close to losing control was one Jessica wanted to know well. Sometimes, her brother had the control worthy of a saint and more often than not it drove Jessica up the wall but on the other side of that coin, Yunho's strength and control had become an inspiration to so many. 

 

Her grin fell from her lips and Jessica became serious. Yunho's mate needed to understand some things but that wasn't going to happen if she left it up to her brother. Not when he was acting so male. If she had been in Yuri's shoes she too would have thought her brother was nothing but an obsessive controlling jerk. 

 

With a heavy sigh, Jessica walks over to Yunho's couches in the corner and took a seat in one of the black leather armchairs. Once she was settled and comfortable, Jessica raises a hand towards the couch to her left, wordlessly inviting the young mortal woman to join her. 

 

Yuri hesitated at the Lycan princess's unspoken invitation. Yuri felt no fear of the princess and even though she couldn't bring herself to trust anyone in the manor, she suspected the princess had come close to gaining her trust. It seems that the princess had things to tell her and the regal calm look on her heart-shaped face told Yuri that she was going to hear them one way or another. 

 

With a yielding sigh, Yuri took a seat on the couch the princess had indicated and settled in to listen, just as she had for Donghae. 

 

It wasn't as if Yuri had anything else to do or any place else to go. 

 

"Believe it or not, my brother does have the right." Jessica began, addressing her accusation first, "I know you don't understand our ways or our world but even though you were born worlds apart from him, you were born to be his as he was born to be yours. You can't know it but he is the best of our kind." 

 

The princess's voice was so soft and genuine that Yuri found it soothing, so much so that she found herself relaxing enough that a great deal of her anger and frustration ease. With the polite princess, it was easier to hold back her sarcastic comment that she wouldn't have hesitated to throw at Yunho. 

 

The princess obviously loves her brother. It reminded Yuri of the great amount of respect Yunho's pack had for him. Yuri sense that such reverence wasn't given lightly. 

 

Such reverence was earned. 

 

"Yunho Oppa's strength, courage and leadership have kept us all safe, kept us all going for centuries longer than we would have without him." 

 

The glazed look in the princess's eyes told Yuri that Jessica was miles away. 

 

"Oppa believes that there is a way to save our race against extinction and his resilient beliefs have kept many on the brink continuing on. He is good, kind and generous. He is loyal to you." Jessica looks into the dark brown eyes of her brother's mortal mate, again imploring her to understand what she was trying to convey about her brother, "Devoted to you to no end in ways so cemented that you can't yet comprehend. He would do anything for you; he would give his life for you as simply as that. He is protective of his family and especially of his mate. He will never hurt you, never betray you. He will dedicate the rest of his life to doting upon you. Your need will be his air, your wants and desire his water. Your smile his wine and your touch his heaven." 

 

Yuri knew that the princess believes every word she was saying with all her being but the concept of such promise obsessive life or death devotion was terrifying to her. While it was part of the world Jessica had been raised in, it wasn't part of her world, her reality. 

 

"You don't know it but you are the most important and precious thing in the world to him now and on top of it all, believe it or not, you have renewed hope for us all. Before now not one of us has been mated to a mortal; mortals don't survive the change from mortal to immortal but you are different. You represent a new hope, a future for us all. If we can be mated to mortals then maybe we can save our race. Maybe we can give our race a future." A dreamy optimistic smile came to Jessica's lips, "Maybe even one day we will be able to step out of the darkness that has been our safe haven for far too long." 

 

As silence fell between them and Jessica remain wherever she was, Yuri studied the princess. Yuri had witnessed the princess in her own mate's, Donghae's, presence and had seen how precious she was to not only her mate but all the males around her and it awed her. Yuri instinctively knew that the princess had spoken the truth about everything she had told her and that included just how devoted her brother would be to her and how important she was to those here just because she was female. 

 

It wasn't in Yuri's nature to be selfish, to not think of others but it seems that she was the only one thinking of herself now. She wasn't blind, she knew for she had seen it for herself that everyone here, Yunho especially, was protective of her to the point that they would sooner die than see harm fall upon her. 

 

Hell, she had only been able to escape from the manor because of that fact. Well, that and the fact that every male here seem to be terrified of what Yunho would do if any of them so much as laid a finger on her but while Yuri knew she was physically safe, no harm would ever befall her here in the manor, what about the fear, the peril, she felt for herself? 

 

Yunho was a force of nature, he was in charge, dominant and he knew it and no one disputed that fact. He was accustomed to being obeyed without question, without hesitation. His word was law and that was that, the end. He was domineering, as stubborn as a mule and as arrogant as a prince. 

 

He had told her that she was his mate, that she was his and that was it. No arguments, no negations, no care for what she wanted or thought. He just expected her to say 'alright, you are the boss' and stand silently and docile beside him for the rest of her life. 

 

That wasn't her and it was in no way what she wanted. Yes, Yuri had come to understand that that was the way it was in this world of immortals but she wasn't a part of this world and she didn't want to be. 

 

She wanted to be with someone who loves her because of who she was, not because someone or something had decided that she belong to him. She knew nothing about him other than he was some kind of immortal prince who could turn into a wolf and that he was an arrogant jerk to rival all others and she knew even less about the world he had dragged her into. 

 

Yunho had saved her life, three times. Yuri wasn't ungrateful for that but was she just supposed to give herself to him to repay him that debt? 

 

How was she suppose to love a man she didn't know? How could she decide whether or not she should stay, even if she had a say in the matter when she didn't even know what it was like in the mansion outside of Yunho's room? And what about her true fear? Yunho was just too much. Yes, she was attracted to him in a major way, yes he was handsome, dark and mysterious but if she stays with him what would be left for her in the end? He was so overbearing and dominant, so powerful in so many ways. She could so easily get lost in him, in his world and she fears that in the end there would be nothing left of her sense of self. 

 

Was it so unreasonable for her to have a little sense of self-preservation? The strength, will, and self-preservation that was needed for a woman to deal with Yunho on a daily basis were immense; she just wasn't that woman. She wasn't that strong. 

 

Yuri fear and knew that if she gave into him if she submitted to him then she would lose herself in his shadow so utterly that there would be no hope of ever getting her true self back. 

 

So, the question was, could she sacrifice herself to him to save his dying immortal race, even knowing that the end result might not be a happy ending? If she submitted, she forfeited herself and there was a part of her that wanted to submit, to feel the pleasure, security and safety Yuri knew Yunho would give her but could she stand to pay the price, could she risk losing her identity? 

 

Yunho had known soul-deep mental fatigue and wariness many times before. He had fought in countless battles in his lifetime and after the adrenaline and rage of the war had faded, there had always been a wariness left behind in not just his body but his mind and soul as well. 

 

That was how he felt now, completely and utterly drained, physically and mentally as if there was a heavy burden on his soul that he had carried for far too long. How was it possible that one so small could be so much trouble? Trouble seems to flock to her like bees were drawn to honey. 

 

In the solitude and quiet of his office, Yunho sat at his desk staring out of the window as the morning sun rose over his territory, the golden light washing away the last of the shadow of night. 

 

If only the sunrise could so easily wash away his exhaustion and frustration. 

 

From the cradle, Yunho had been raised to be strong, to be the one person everyone else could look to for strength and leadership. His parents had raised him knowing that they were raising a future king and because they had loved him they had done everything they could to make him strong and because his parents had loved him, Yunho had strived to become everything his parents had wanted him to be. He was a strong and firm but always fair alpha who bore the burdens of leadership proudly. His loyalty to his people, his pack, his family and his mate knew no fault and he took his many responsibilities and burdens on his shoulders without even a single complaint. He protected his pack and the pack's income, he dealt with the day to day issues that arose and he protected the city by hunting the damned that dwell in the shadows of the night. 

 

So many, Yunho knew, saw him as infallible but whatever else he was, prince, alpha, leader, he was still a man. He felt hunger and pain, love and loss and yes, he felt fatigue. 

 

He was strong. By the goddess, he had trained both mentally and physically since his adolescence so he knew the depths to which his strength ran but his strength wasn't limitless. 

 

For so long Yunho had forced himself to remain strong through the bleak lonely centuries, waiting for the day his mate found him, holding onto the ever fleeting hope that she would enter his life before his beast consumed him and now that he had found her, the one he had been waiting for for eight centuries, his one true mate, that she was mortal matter so little to him, he would treasure every moment he had with her, couldn't stand the sight of him and it hurt him more deeply than he would ever let show but what really tested him was that he didn't need to stand for this, for a mate who so heedlessly fled from him, for he knew mortals well; he had watched over them since he had come of age so long ago. He knew how to break her, how to get her to stay and submit to him; he had seen and felt it tonight. 

 

While Yuri's spirit and mind fought against what was fated, her body knew him for what he was. 

 

Her one true mate. 

 

It would be all too easy to overwhelm her senses with his touch, to make her beg him to take her, to mark her as his own for the rest of their lives. He could have done so tonight, press up against the wall of the mortal nightclub. She had been on the verge of losing herself in the heat that boils between them but Yunho had stopped himself, had forced himself to step away from her before he too had lost control. He didn't want to force her, either intimately or in her decision to be with him. He wanted Yuri to choose him of her own free will, to choose to be his, to choose to love him but he was so tired of being alone in the darkness, of having to fight to keep everything he had. Why was a loving mate so much to ask of the goddess? Had he not serve his people and the goddess herself with everything he was and did? He had long ago devoted his entire immortal life to the protection and well-being of the innocent. Was a willing mate really asking too much? He didn't want submissive or meek qualities in his mate; he loves Yuri's stubborn pride, strength, and fire. She was stronger than even she knew as she would need to be his mate and survive in his world. 

 

Hell, who was he kidding? Yuri had already had more than enough strength to not only survive in his world but to be the strong imposing queen his people so desperately needed. She was small but her will and temper would one day have all bowing to her. 

 

Yunho closes his eyes and basks in the warm sunlight that shone down on him from the sun rising on the horizon. He would love and protect Yuri until the day she dies and he follows; was it so much to ask for her love in return? 

 

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N/A: Chapter 7 and 8 will be posted next week so see you guys until then. 

- butt3rflyl0v3r ♡