"ASHINA!"

She dropped her phone suddenly into her lap and sat up straight on the couch. She hissed and held her shoulder briefly before the angry woman waddled into the room.

"I told you to clean this place up! It still looks like a tornado ripped through." The woman scolded.

"Aish, mom. You're back early I just haven't started yet." Ashina replied calmly as she moved to stretch her arms over her head before once again realizing her shoulder was burning. She quickly pulled her arm back down to her side and winced.

"Ash?" Her mother asked immediately noticing her daughters pain.

"It's nothing. Some guy ran into me at the airport and my arm is just sore."

Please don't ask questions, please....

"Did you check for a temporary mark? You're 23, you're long overdue to find your mate." Her mother asked coming closer and looking concerned.

"No. Mom, it's not that. I'm just sore." Ash said trying desperately to brush her mother off. That thought had crossed her mind, but she refused to believe she even had a mate.

"Well, keep an eye on it. You know what happens if it is and you're not near them." Her mother warned.

Of course she knew. Searing pain, intense pulling, a fever so high it would kill a human. But finding a mate outside the community was heavily frowned upon. Secrecy was the entire foundation of their continued existence. Some of them would rather die from the fever than accept a mate from the outside.

Ashina had always wanted to be a part of the outside world. She wanted to experience life as a human. What it would be like to not have a wolf deep inside you that was always scratching beneath the surface.

Instead she lived like a shadow, you only got the option to leave if you found a mate on the outside. However, doing that meant you immediately would lose all further contact with your family. They write you off and pretend you're dead.

She'd spent the last 3 years traveling against her pack's wishes. She'd seen the sunrise at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, she had eaten a luxury dinner in the middle of the desert in Dubai, and she'd been shopping in the markets of Marrakech. All in hopes of her mate being someone she'd run into.

She had even travelled back to her hometown of Sydney, Australia. Where she had lived for many years with her father before he passed. Still being a minor at the time she was forced to move to South Korea to be with her mother.

She'd flown back to Korea for the first time since she left three years ago, and what happens? She bumps into some random guy who very well might be her mate. Fate has the worst possible timing.

****

Chan sat up straight and straightened his back in his desk chair. He'd been locked up in his studio for hours. The dull ache in his shoulder refused to go away and was only getting worse.

"Chan-ah!!" He heard from outside the door as he stood and unlocked it to see Minho standing there. "Let's gooo"

"Yeah yeah, I'm almost done." Chan said as he shut his laptop and grabbed his bag. "Ah" Chan hissed as he threw his bag onto the wrong shoulder.

"You're still sore?" Minho asked, "you should get that looked at."

"Yeah, I know. I'm fine."

"Uh huh, a vampire with shoulder pain. Sure." Minho said giving Chan a sideways glance.

Later that night, he couldn't sleep. The pain in his shoulder was only getting worse. He felt uneasy, like there was something he was supposed to be doing but doesn't know what. The anxiety he was feeling was unlike anything he'd ever felt.

****

Ashina threw her legs over the side of her bed as the anxiety in her chest began to build.

"Fuck" she said under her breath. "No, no, no" she whispered quietly in her room as she searched through her desk for a black light. "This isn't happening. Not now."

She grabbed the small black light and went to her bathroom putting both hands down on the sink as she felt the pain in her shoulder intensifying.

She took a deep breath and shone the light onto her skin, clearly revealing a bite mark.

"Fuck!" She said as her hands shook and she dropped the light in the sink. It was a temporary mark, she had a week to find him before the fever set in.

She had a week to convince a vampire kpop idol that not only did wolves exist, but he was her mate.