Chaeyoung Pov
"What's the matter pup?"
The half-blind old man's voice drifted through the bars, soft and kind. Jay held out a weathered hand for me to sniff.
I whimpered, the sound scraping raw against my throat. My head throbbed like someone had taken a hammer to the inside of my skull and every breath made the world tilt sideways.
I nudged his fingers anyway only a half-blind dog-catcher wouldn't recognize a wolf when it was staring him in the face. Thank the ancestors he still hadn't gotten those cataracts fixed.
His scent hit me next bacon grease, thick and greasy from breakfast. Normally I wouldn't have minded.
Who doesn't like bacon? But this morning it turned my stomach inside out. Serves me right, last night's drunken rampage had landed me here, locked in a metal crate like some stray mutt.
I pulled my head back too fast and the world spun again.
Jay leaned closer, cloudy eyes trying to focus. "You're such a pretty dog and a big one, you know that? Now I wonder... are you a husky? Maybe some kind of sled dog? You're a complicated one, aren't you? A"
'Complicated' yeah that was one word for it.
I rested my chin on my paws and closed my eyes. I'm a shapeshifting wolf or werewolves as the society named, though humans just called us wolves, our kind had lived in the woods around Korea for centuries.
We walked among people in human skin almost as long. No one blinked at a wolf drifting across the outlying fields or a small group lingering at the edge of farmland. But a wolf tearing through the middle of town on a Friday night? That got the officials involved.
None of this would have happened if I hadn't cracked open the stash of neugdae alcohol or wolf's-bane liquor with Junghoon earlier. The only thing that could actually get one of us totally wasted.
I'd been so gone I hadn't even realized I'd shifted until I was already snarling at Bambam outside the theater.
Junghoon had better spring me soon. I could shred this cage if I had to but shifting in front of humans was forbidden. Pack law. No exceptions so I was stuck.
Jay unlocked the door a moment later and slid a bowl of kibble inside. "Are you hungry Goldie?"
I turned my face away and whined. Even if my stomach hadn't been staging a full rebellion, I drew the line at dog food. I'd tasted the stuff once, never again.
And Goldie what a nickname too generic just because my fur was silvery-blond and my eyes were yellow.
"Maybe you got into something nasty while you were out" he murmured. "Did you eat dead animal? Tummy ache?"
I coughed to cover the gag that rose at the thought of roadkill. Ordinary wolves might eat that. My kind did not.
He pushed a second dish through the bars. Water. I couldn't help it I yipped and shoved my muzzle in, taking long, undignified slurps.
I hated eating and drinking like a dog it's uncivilized but the hangover left me no choice.
What I really wanted was aspirin or whatever human medicine would stop my brain from trying to escape through my ears.
