Absolutely not."

Yoongi stands before Lailah with his arms crossed, and his deadly sharp canines peeking out from behind his stubborn scowl.

"I don't remember asking for your permission Yoongi," Lailah retorts blithely. "If you're to take my father down, we need to know what the current situation is at the manor."

The panther hybrid's tail swishes about, displaying his agitation clearly for the pale blonde before him.

"If you go back there it'll be impossible for you to escape again," he growls. "Not happening."

He can't tell her exactly why he's so against it, hell, he has trouble admitting it even to himself. The truth is that he doesn't want Lailah out of his sight, let alone so far out of his reach. It's an embarrassing situation, he feels, but he's found himself to be attached to this human woman. Beyond all reason, she has become important to him. And in a way he doesn't dare admit, even within the safety of his own mind.

The idea of her trapped within that manor with her vile father makes him want to strangle someone, and the itch to put his fist through something, anything, has him clenching his fists so hard that his fingers begin to grow numb.

"Then what do you propose we do?" Lailah snorts derisively. "Or are you planning to give up on killing him?"

It's chilling, he thinks, the sudden ferocity that masks her normally kind and gentle features.

"Of course not," he snaps, "but I'll do it on my own terms. By myself. I don't need your help."

He hopes that his statement comes across as harsh, and rude. Better that she think nothing has changed. Better that she doesn't know the true reasoning behind his adamant refusal of her plan. It's enough to irritate him, and set his already rankled nerves into overdrive.

"Let me help you."

Lailah turns around, eyes drilling openly into his own. She's braided her hair back, and donned travel gear. He doesn't think he's ever actually seen very many women wear pants, but on Lailah, they look positively distracting. Enough so, in fact, that he zones out. He knows she's yapping at him, but he can't help it. The animal in him has taken the bait, and is willing to accept the challenge she'd initiated by looking him straight in the eyes.

"You want to help me?" He growls. "Keep your hands to yourself!"

Lailah looks down, a slight blush upon her cheeks as she realizes that she has placed her palm upon his chest. Once such familiarity wasn't uncommon for them, they'd held hands often enough. Embarrassed, she pulls away. Lailah tries not to feel terribly rejected as she turns once more to her packing.

Yoongi doesn't understand why his body is reacting this way. Some hidden part of him all but preened at the feel of her fingertips, and the weight of her hopeful smile. Instinctually, it seems, his body wants to reach out for her touch. And as embarrassing as it is, all he wants to do rub himself upon her. Her scent is maddening, and leaves him longing to mark her with his own scent.

How delicious would she smell then?

"Damnit, will you stop packing? I already told you that you aren't going!"

Yoongi yanks the small travel bag that she'd been filling right from Lailah's hands.

"Yoongi!" She shouts. "Give it back right now and stop being so maddening!"

The panther hybrid recoils as if struck. He drops the bag at his feet, and his eyes adopt an angry glare.

"I'm being maddening?" He growls. "You're driving me crazy. I never asked for your help, though I am grateful for what you've done. Jeremiah is mine; my prey. I don't need your help!"

"Your shoulder begs to differ!" Lailah cries in frustration. "Can you even comprehend what might have happened to you if I hadn't been there?"

"I can, " Yoongi snarls, pushing his face into hers with a ferocious scowl upon his lips. "What I can't comprehend is why that matters so much to you."

Lailah pulls her hand back, and swings angrily. But Yoongi is ready. He catches her wrist with a sudden grin, and the fire in his eyes shifts into something else entirely.

"I don't think so, " he murmurs. "You got away with it once, but don't get cocky. Nobody hits me. Not even you."

Not even you?

Lailah hates how desperately she wants to make that mean something.

Yoongi desperately fights the urge to pull her close, and bury his face within her hair. Her wounds have begun healing in earnest and the lingering smell of sickness is clearing away. Her natural scent shines through once more, and Yoongi curses internally. She smells so good.

That scent makes him feel crazy, makes him want to do crazy things.

He watches her face, studying her features as she stares at him in shock. Though his face might seem calm, detached even, Yoongi's tail says otherwise. It flings itself about in irritation. And this woman seems to be the primary cause of his agitation. He's half tempted to shove her down somewhere quiet and rut into her with abandon. Alarmed, he wonders if his heat is approaching. Since when has a female affected him like this otherwise?

Belatedly, he realizes that perhaps this is the worst time for him to be around her. Yoongi can't shake it, no matter how adamantly he desires to refuse it. He is curious about her. This woman that would abandon her own father for the sake of justice. Real justice. He's watched her long enough by now to be confident in his assessment of her. And the truth is that she cares.

Yoongi is not stupid enough to continue denying the truth. This fierce little human interests him, and if his heat truly is coming on, then he needs to be as far away from her as possible. She absolutely refuses to stay put, however, and the idea of her anywhere near her father has him wanting to rip someone's head straight off of their neck. Why can't this woman just listen to reason?

"I forbid you from going to that place, " Yoongi growls, voice low in warning and ears pinned to his head.

She can see his unnaturally sharp canines thanks to the scowl upon his face, but Lailah isn't afraid. And she isn't backing down either.

"You don't get to forbid anything, " she retorts. "I'm going, whether you like it or-mmph!"

Yoongi lips crash down upon hers as his fingers tangle themselves within her platinum curls. He'd been holding it back so well, but she just had to be stubborn and difficult. Disobedient. That's how the animal within viewed it. None of this makes any sense to him, as Yoongi's never had much care for women before. He'd fucked, sure. When his heat became too much and the need for release had him desperate and dizzy. But this? He's dizzy on a whole other level. Desperate, even just for the touch of her lips.

He'd meant to shut her up. His beastly side demanded obedience, that she turn around and abandon this fool idea. Now, as his skilled tongue parts the seam of her lips, he wants anything but quiet. Instead he revels in every hitched breath, every suppressed moan. Her neck is particularly delicious, he decides. Sensitive too; every time he nips at it her back arches and she unconsciously presses her pelvis to his.

"When I mark her, " he thinks to himself, "I'll mark her right here..."

Yoongi drags his teeth against the skin there, on the most sensitive spot he can find. The idea of clamping his teeth down around the delicate flesh of her neck and marking her as forever his is a tempting one. Especially when she bucks up against his twitching, eager cock. For the life of him, he can't remember the last time that he was so hard.

"You're gonna want to stop that, " Yoongi warns, "or you're going to start something you're not ready for for."

Somehow, Yoongi comes to his senses. Lailah stills within his embrace, heart pounding and hormones all but seeping into the air. He can smell her excitement, can tell that she enjoyed the kiss. She is temptation made flesh, and for a moment Yoongi almost throws all caution to the wind. He leans down, even, to connect his lips with hers once more. But he is interrupted, by the arrival of someone that he only now realizes he saw as a rival.

"What the hell?" Seokjin exclaims, startled.

Never in a million years would he have anticipated walking in on the scene now before his eyes. The grumpy panther hybrid has clearly been busy, if Lailah's bruised and kiss swollen lips are any indication. Her collar and neck are absolutely ridden with love-bites too. Yoongi looks like a beast possessed, eyes half lidded and burning with the kind of fire that Seokjin knows only too well. Especially when Yoongi's gaze snaps up, and fills with a violent sort of fury at the sight of another male.

Yoongi is going into heat.

"You need to back way the fuck off, " Seokjin warns, voice low and ears pinned to his head.

Much the same as Yoongi, whose possessive grasp of Lailah's waist only intensifies as the fox hybrid approaches.

"You need to not tell me what to do, " Yoongi retorts childishly. "You should know that's a bad idea."

"Under normal circumstances, yeah. But you're not even staking a claim. You're just eager to rut because it's that time. No way in hell I'm gonna let you do that to Lailah."

And if he doesn't take her away right now, he might not be able to stop the panther hybrid.

"Can we not fight over the head of the person who is right here?" Lailah snaps, annoyed.

She attempts to pry Yoongi's fingers from her body, leaning away as she attempts to free herself. Yoongi happens to notice her squirming, however, and he clamps a hand down upon the back of her neck.

"Be still, " he warns, voice wavering between his normal register and something deeper.

Lailah immediately goes slack.

"You're not going, " Yoongi repeats.

It is his final argument. He throws a pointed look to Seokjin, who eyes the panther hybrid warily through the fringe of his shaggy dual-colored bangs. Seokjin seems to grasp Yoongi's intentions, and the question that he is supplying the fox hybrid with as well. The panther hybrid hisses as he releases the woman in his arms. Right now, he has this indescribable urge to do anything but walk away.

And yet that's exactly why he should walk away.

"What was the brooder going on about?" Seokjin queries, voice gentle, but concerned.

"I'm going home, " Lailah reveals.

Now that Yoongi has left she feels as if she can breathe once more. It's such a relief, God only knows how it is that she didn't combust on the spot earlier. Yoongi doesn't kiss like an awkward teenager anymore. Right now, Lailah honestly wishes that the ground could just swallow her whole. And to think, that she'd be found by Jin of all people...

"Like hell you are, " the fox hybrid exclaims.

"I am, " Lailah returns, assertive. "And I won't be convinced otherwise. You know how I am. Yoongi must be chomping at the bit stuck in here like this and we need to know-"

"No."

"Rude."

Lailah's reply forces Seokjin to crack an awkward smile; the kind that you try to hold back no matter how miserably you fail.

"I am serious. You're not going. You've done enough for the guy, if he's going stir-crazy then why not just set him loose?"

"You know why I can't do that Jin, " Lailah's voice grows somber.

"I know, " he replies. "But don't you think maybe you should try? He doesn't remember you, doesn't even trust you. He's not that kid anymore."

"Jin, what you're asking for can't be done."

"Lailah..."

"I'm fine Jin, really. I'm not unhappy. I want to help him kill that vile man. I feel like, if I do that, maybe I can finally let everything go."

For a long time, she's been so enamored with Yoongi, that she's remained blind to so much else. Lailah knows that. But Yoongi, well... he was her first love. She'll never forget the day she gave him a name, nor the day he gave her that first hesitant kiss. The fields, just behind the coliseum, and the first time she'd bandaged his wounds.

But he doesn't remember any of it. And that's okay. Really. Lailah had known the possibility was there that day, and she'd still chosen this. She'd relived so many painful memories, again and again. Stolen her future for crumbling looks at the past. It's time. Time to let go.

But to do that, she feels like she needs closure. And to attain that, Jeremiah Vale must die.