Kim Yujin paced the room, her feline half barely under control. She was pissed. Uee, as that was the name of her feline half, was content to let Yujin stay in control, but if the situation got any worse, Uee would be forced to come out, and no one wanted to see the angry shifter change into her feline form. Yujin commanded respect as the second leader in her Clan, but this….this was, as Uee put it, utterly nonsensical and maddening and Yujin felt her fingernails lengthen the longer she seethed at the whole mess of the situation.

The four shifters on their knees cowered in front of her. She’d arrived in Hanyang just that day, expecting Zhou Mi to be preoccupied, but not with these idiots. The echoing sound of her feline was barely concealed in her voice as she spoke. “I hope your Clan leader cuts your balls off for dinner.” She growled at the four, feeling her feline half take pleasure at the sight of the four shifters shaking in fear at her. Their scents proved they were scared out of their wits, one had already wet himself in fear, the smell only now starting to fade.

“YA!” Ji Yong exclaimed, walking into the room with Zhou Mi in tow, the latter’s head down. “You’ve scared the piss out of them!” He said while looking at Yujin, his feline showing through the almost feral grin plastered on his face.

Yujin pierced Ji Yong with an icy stare. Zhou Mi felt Ji Young shiver. He knew that when Yujin got pissed it was a bad affair. Sooner or later her feline would decide enough is enough and forcefully shift into her even more beautifully frightening feline form.

Ji Yong, on the other hand, while feeling cold shivers down his spine at Yujin’s icy stare, also felt a sudden flair of appreciation for her. ‘She’s beautiful.’ His feline, Gaho purred in the back of his mind.

Ji Yong could feel the attraction Gaho had to Yujin. He cleared his throat, pretending that the female shifter’s icy stare didn’t affect him. He stared down at the four shifters cowering on the floor. From what he heard of the situation, the moment Yujin had walked into the Clan’s guest house, one of them had immediately declared her to be the iest shifter he’d ever seen, and that she would look even ier in his bed, . The second shifter had tried to get a good sniff of her scent, the third had been egging on the second one and begging for details of her scent, and the fourth shifter had practically begged her to kiss him.

Zhou Mi had been sitting in the living area of the guest house when it had all happened, going to get Ji Yong the moment Yujin growled against the sudden invasion of her private space. He felt his lips curving into a grin as he watched his second staring down Ji Yong. He’d bet his finest piece of pottery that by the end of this whole thing, Ji Yong would be totally smitten with the young shifter.

By the time Ji Yong was done yelling at the shifters for their indiscretion at being polite to an esteemed member of Zhou Mi’s clan, Yujin had calmed down considerably. She hated to admit it to her shifter, but she was impressed with how Ji Yong handled his clan members. ‘His body’s not bad either.’ Uee murmured in the back of her head. Yujin heard the slight tremor of desire in her feline’s voice.

‘We have a job to do first, then we can play.’ Yujin reminded Uee, smirking internally as she felt her feline shudder in anticipation of the game they would undoubtedly be playing once this whole rogue shifter attacker was taken care of.

“So, where are you in the investigation?” Yujin asked Zhou Mi after she’d properly greeted him and the house had been cleared of the other shifters.

Ji Yong had excused himself as well, claiming he had some new protocols to iron out with Daesung. The medical shifter had been happy to have a reprieve from the carnage of the last 3 shifter attacks that had happened in a village not far from Hanyang. They hadn’t gone well, forcing the quiet doctor to euthanize the 3 youths who’d gone loup.

Zhou Mi told Yujin where he was in the investigation and how frustrating it was to not know where or when the next attack would be. He had one of the Pack’s messengers report to him any time there was a canine shifter attack, and he would report back to the Pack if there was a feline shifter attack. The groups needed to band together even more now that the threat of the Japanese was becoming a reality as Yujin was telling him.

Yujin recounted with sadness in her melodic voice that the ships that had been distant off the coast of Joseon had been close to making landfall when Zhou Mi had summoned her. “I’m sure that they’ve landed by now.”

“This is something that the leaders should know.” Zhou Mi said. “We don’t even know what’s going on inside the palace right now because of the last envoy the Japanese had sent.”

So they sent out the missives informing the Packs to prepare to go deep into hiding to prevent the Japanese from find them. If needed, they could escape into one of the more mountainous regions of Joseon in an old hideout that one of their scouts had found for such a purpose. It would be a tight fit to get all three Packs and the various factions of the Clan in the hideout, but they’d have to manage.

The threat of being exposed to the whole world to be persecuted and then executed was enough to keep most of the newly shifted people from squealing they were able to transform into animals. Sometimes they’d have one or two kids who’d gone insane slowly over time who’d say something to someone, but usually it was while they were in the gisaeng house and under the careful eye of Jung Krystal. It made for nasty business sometimes to clean up, but it wasn’t like they could predict if someone slowly went insane.

Yujin skirted around Ji Yong whenever they were in the same house on business, not wanting to tempt her feline with the growing attraction between them. She was sure the alpha feline was avoiding her as well, his visits were timed so that he would arrive as she was leaving to check out a lead that usually ended up being a bust. Uee kept unusually quiet about their attraction to the lean Clan leader. Yujin was so focused on the investigation that when she and Ji Yong were in the same room together for a meeting of the leaders, Yujin suddenly had a hard time controlling Uee and preventing herself from touching the alpha.