"Where are you going?" Seungyoon asked when Mino came down the stairs while slipping his jacket on.

"Out." He mumbled distractedly.

Jinwoo straightened up, "Are you going to her school? You're not allowed to go near her on your own. And we need to lay low."

"If I want to go see her, I should be able to. You can't tell me what to do." He muttered angrily.

He hated how his pack wouldn't let him near her after figuring out that she was his link. They had no right to tell him to stay away.

She was his.

Seunghoon's eye twitched. "Watch yourself." He warned.

Mino turned and glared at his pack. He didn't notice his eyes bleeding red as his thoughts echoed loudly in his head.

I'm going to see her and you can't stop me.

"Okay." Taehyun said soullessly as his, along with the rest of the pack's pupils dilated. They all looked like they were zoned out.

Mino gave him one last look, taking in the way they all sat perfectly still, before walking out of the house, heading off in the direction of Areum's school.

This mind control thing was a lot more useful than he thought.

-----

Jackson was in the office of the elders of the Japanese district for 5 hours as all of they tried to find a solution to the prophecy, but they were coming up with nothing.

"And you're sure that Ara is really his mate?" Akasuki, the oldest of council asked from her desk.

Jackson rubbed his eyes, "100% sure."

"Then I've got nothing. This prophecy is iron clad. Wolf-royalty with a human-wolf mate-ship will be the only way to defeat the prince of the panthers. With two human-wolf couples, it throws everything out of order." She grunted while falling into her chair.

Jackson winced as the worst case scenario played out. It almost seemed futile to try and fix the prophecy.

"This prophecy made sure to have all its bases covered. There's no way around it." Kiko said while rubbing her eyes. She froze and shot the prince a sheepish look, "Sorry."

Jackson sighed. "Don't apologize. We can't really waste time sugar coating everything."

Akasuki tilted her head at the prince, "So…how's our princess like?"

"She's all I ever needed." Jackson muttered while covering his face with his palm.

He hadn't even tried to contact Areum since yesterday and it was driving him insane. All he was doing was research, eating and sleeping.

It was a draining routine.

He missed rolling around with Areum with her laughter filling the room. He missed talking to her, kissing her, sleeping with her, doing everything with her.

It was still beyond him, how he managed to spend over 2 decades of his life without her.

"That should've been sweet, but it's just depressing." Kiki mumbled.   

"Here." Haruki, the healer, said when she walked into the room, handing him a glass vial.

"What is this?" Jackson asked while taking it from her.

She slipped her hands into her pockets, "It's a drug. If you take it, your scent will be masked so that the panthers or any other creature won't be able to detect you, right now you need any advantage you can get. Hopefully it'll be helpful."

"It's not like I can just go and kill them, no matter how much I want to." He said with a wry smile.

Haruki's lips were taunt, "Do not be silly. You need any edge you can have. The prophecy is always correct, but there must be a way to keep you alive. You are the prince and you should not die."

"I wish you wrote the prophecy." He said with a weak smile.

"Just because we cannot find a solution, does not mean that there isn't one. You mustn't give up hope." One of the other elders, Akira, said from her spot behind a large wooden table.

Jackson couldn't help but laugh, "If you met Areum you'd know that she isn't a girl that you give up hope for."

-----

Two weeks had passed and Areum was slowly falling back into her usual routine. School was getting a lot more bearable and she managed to pull herself up by the bootstraps and get back to her good ol' self.

However there were times when she'd find herself thinking about Jackson in the most ordinary moments. She's think of him when she was zoning out in class, or eating lunch or when she'd see Yoomi and Yang walking towards her holding hands.

Yes, she missed him.

She missed him like crazy.

Ever since that other night, she couldn't find in herself to try and call him again.  She felt selfish and she knew that Jackson needed to be focused on whatever Mason sent him to do.

She came to school with Jaebum and Yugyeom but when a flood of students separated them, Areum decided to just head to the library and hope that they all regrouped there.

Everything was getting better and she was able to find things to distract herself, all she had to do was make it through this month until he came back.

"Why are you zoning out again?" Yang whined when he fell in step with Areum.

She glanced at him before continuing to look down the hallway. "What's your problem?"

"I don't know where Yoomi is, so now I'm bored as hell."

She snorted, "So you've come to bug me?"

"Hey! We're friends now! I don't 'bug' you, I entertain you!" He complained while shaking his body in a mini tantrum.

She snickered as they walked down the stairs. "Whatever you say YingYang."

"That's not funny. Stop using that nickname, it's embarassing." He deadpanned.

Areum let out a louder laugh when she pushed the door open but frowned while turning her head when something caught the side of her eye.

It was almost like someone was standing there but the hallway was empty. She shivered when she felt eyes on her but she quickly shook her head.

"Yo, Yang, Professor Hong is looking for you, he wants to hand back your paper." A passing student said when he saw Yang.

Yang gasped and started bouncing on his heel, "Yes! Okay, I really need to see my mark, I'm prreeeeettttyyy sure I aced the out of that. Wait here, I'm going to go pick it up and then we can go to lunch together."

Areum made a face, "I'm not hungry."

"Well I am, so wait here, I'll be back in a second." He said while running off to his class.

Areum sighed in defeat and leaned against the wall. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes while trying to think about anything other than Jackson.

There were times when she didn't like to be alone with her thoughts because she would start thinking scary thoughts about where Jackson was.

She couldn't tell why her gut would always go to something horrible and dangerous when she thought about him.

Her eyebrows creased when she heard footsteps patter towards her and then stop. She cracked her eyes open and saw Yoomi standing in front of 10 other girls while staring her down.

They all looked so out of it that Areum almost thought that they were high.  

Areum pushed herself off the wall and gave her a confused smile, "Hey…what are you doing? Yang's been looking for you and I haven't seen you all day."

Yoomi said nothing and continued to stare at her with a blank, faraway look in her eyes. She almost looked zoned out and on closer inspection, all the other girls had the same exact look in their eyes.

Were their eyes dilated?

"Y-Yoomi? You okay?" Areum asked cautiously as she took a step closer to the girl.

It should've raised red flags when Areum saw a few girls that had openly talked about Yoomi, standing behind the said girl in solidarity, but Areum still approached her.

Yoomi's eyes stayed vacant but a cruel smirk quirked up her lips, "I don't know why I ever thought you were good enough to be my friend."

"Excuse me?" Areum balked at the cold, robotic tone.

 "You're nothing but a little , aren't you? You ed the teaching assistant and now you're chasing after Yang too? What pathetic trash. You're a joke, Jo Areum. Who would ever want to waste their time with you? No wonder you have like, 3 friends."

Areum's eyes widened and her lips quivered, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You think you're some top just because you were a prissy little that one day, but everyone knows the that you really are. You act all defensive but all the rumours are true, aren't they?"

Areum didn't know why tears welled in her eyes at Yoomi's harsh words but she felt her fingers start to chill and her body start to tremble.

"Why are you doing this?" Areum asked warily, "What happened to you?"

"To me? I saw the light. You? You should finally smell like the trash that you really are."

Suddenly her and the girls behind her held up rotten eggs. It was funny how the first thought that crossed Areum's mind was where the hell these girls got rotten eggs.

The smell from 100 meters away was already making her gag.

She only thought girls did this in dramas.

Areum gasped and took a step back, "W-Wait…"

Yoomi ignored her and raised her arm back and as if on cue, the other girls followed suit. "Once a , always a , am I right?"

Areum closed her eyes and tilted her body away from the impact and seconds later, she heard the telltale sound of eggs cracking.

But she felt nothing on herself.  

She slowly blinked her eyes open and glanced at her shirt only to see that it was spotless. She lifted her head and bit down a gasp when something blocked her view of Yoomi and the other girls.

No.

Someone.

She stared at the tall, broad back but she couldn't see the person's face. She heard a rush of footsteps running away just as she stepped out from behind the mysterious savoir.

All the other girls were gone except for Yoomi who was standing soullessly in her spot, as if her failed attack didn't just happen.

She almost looked like she was sle