Shifter (3 page)

With no one to stop me, I bedded her with promises that she would not be a one-night stand, that I would call her the next morning, that I would do a lot of things that even then I knew I would never do. The sex had been great—what I could remember of it, anyway.

Yet, I barely paid any attention to her the next morning when my brother snuck into my room to wake me. Once I paid my bill at the front desk and was on my way back home, she became no more than a fleeting memory.

Apparently, I had made an impression on her. Last night she had shown up at my doorstep—pissed. How she had known where I lived, is beyond me. I had only moved into the cabin that week. The cabin had been one of the many homes we had inherited when we had bought back the rest of our land. The family that had previously owned the land had built the small log cabin as a vacation home.

My name isn’t even on the deed to the house, my older brother, Darius’, name is. I know I hadn’t given her his name. She had to have used magic to find me. If she did, her powers are greater than mine are. I can find my family and pack mates because of our blood and our bond, but some random woman I had slept with once was lost to me. I can’t even transport myself to a place I’m unfamiliar with, unless someone I am blood or bonded to is there or has been there, and even then, I have to be careful of how and where I land.

“Answer the door you worthless piece of shit,” she had screamed as she pounded on my door.

“Can I help you?” I asked, opening the door and not immediately recognizing her. After all, it had been nearly a month since the buyout.

“What do you mean, can you help me, you son of a bitch,” she screamed at me, her face turning as red as her hair.

“Look lady… I don’t… Oh shit.” The second she stepped to the doorframe, I recognized her.

“You’re damn right, ‘oh shit.’ What the fuck is wrong with you?” She was nearly nose-to-nose with me.

“Please, come in, Mave.” I said her name as a question while opening the door wider and stepping aside to get out of her line of sight and give her full access to my home, thinking that would at least help to calm her down. The look she gave me burned my soul. Literally. I felt my insides flame for a second, right before she walked passed me, and I inhaled her magical aroma. Strawberries and fire. I knew instantly I had really messed up. That smell was the sign of a very powerful witch.

“So,” she said, walking to the middle of the room and turning to face me.

“So what?” I knew I had messed up by sleeping with a witch. Most of them hated our kind. Surely, she had known what I was. I’m positive she hadn’t been drunk or even drinking. Was she going to accuse me of raping her or slipping her some sort of drug or magical concoction that compelled her to sleep with me?

“Well, you’re obviously not dead, which had been my first thought when I didn’t hear from you by the third day.”

“Excuse me?”

“You promised to call. I waited. Some of my friends said that it was customary to wait three days after getting a number to call. I figured since we had slept together you might forgo that rule, but then, when you didn’t call, I waited the three days. When I didn’t hear from you, I got worried. My friends told me to blow you off. They said you were just some asshole who had used me. I couldn’t believe it. You had promised. I went to the bar where we met and the hotel we stayed at that night. They both said you and your brothers were from out of town. That was when I began to fear your death. I searched and searched the internet for automobile accidents and plane crashes…”

That was the moment that I knew she was crazy. I should have known that night because of the things she did and was willing to do in bed. My uncle used to say that the crazy ones were always freaky in bed. I listened to her rant for a few more minutes before I cut her off.

“Look, I am real sorry about that night. My brothers and I were celebrating. Hard. I had a little too much to drink. If I said anything inappropriate, I am sorry. And I probably would have called had I had your number…” I started to lie.

“But you did have my number. I programmed it into your phone.”

“You…what…” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and scrolled through the numbers. “It’s not in here.”

“What.” She snatched the phone from me and scrolled through the names. “You erased it.”

“No, I didn’t.” My brother must have when he realized what I had done, the bastard. I wasn’t about to tell the crazy woman in front of me this. What if I had gotten her pregnant? Thinking that caused me to blurt out, “Are you pregnant?” My heart raced at the thought of her carrying my child. On one hand, it was a great thing to bring a new member into the pack. On the other hand, for this woman to be its mother was going to cause some serious turmoil.

“No,” she said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

I fell into the seat next to me with obvious relief.

“Asshole,” she spat at my action.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

“Shut up. I don’t care. You had no intentions toward me whatsoever, did you?”

“Honestly, no.”

“Then why do it?”

“Why sleep with you?”

She nods.

I wanted to tell her because she was easy, but that wouldn’t be very modern of me. She was no easier than I was. We had both bedded people we didn’t know. Whereas I had intended mine to be a one-night stand, she obviously had not.

“I was drunk and you were there.” Damn it, I hadn’t meant to say that either.

“You know what, fuck you.”

And that had been the moment I became a cat. One minute I was sitting sprawled out on a chair in obvious relief of not fathering a child with this loopy fucking cunt, the next I was an itty-bitty ball of fur in the middle of the chair cushion.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she snarled down at me. “You are still cute in that form. Every woman who lays eyes on you will want you, but not in the way you will want them to want you.”

That was not what I was thinking. I was thinking that when I shifted back into a man I was killing the bitch. As I thought this, I tried shifting, but nothing happened. I screamed at her in anger. What came out of my mouth was a hiss, and she had the nerve to laugh at me.

“Don’t hiss at me.” She cooed and tried to rub me between the ears with one of her fingers. I took a swipe at her with one of my paws and scratched her good with a long, sharp nail.

“Why you little shit,” she spat, sucking on the wound. “You made me bleed.” Shrugging, she said, “I’ll have the last laugh anyway. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, your condition is permanent. I’m a
very
powerful witch if you haven’t noticed, and you have thoroughly pissed me off. I was going to keep you for myself, but for this,” she held up her bleeding finger, “I’m sending you to the pound. They kill animals there if no one comes in to adopt them. And the ones that are adopted are neutered.”

With a flick of her hand, I was in a cage on the front steps of the Smith County Animal Clinic and Shelter in a small town across the Tennessee/Alabama state line called Austin.

I spent the first five minutes I was there cursing Mave. When I gave up on her, I began to contemplate my situation. I couldn’t think of any way of getting out of it.

Once I resigned myself to the fact that I was destined to go into the shelter the moment the doors opened, I had to think of ways of getting out of the cage. I could still feel my magic, which was a good thing. The first thing I tried do was shift out of the cage. Not far, just on the other side of the mesh door. It didn’t work. The next thing I tried was popping the lock. Nothing happened.

Escape wasn’t an option. I had to think of ways of ensuring that the shelter wouldn’t put me to sleep. After forcing myself to calm down and think through things, I decided that they wouldn’t kill a healthy cat. I tested my magic again by making sure I didn’t have any physical abnormalities or medical conditions. I felt my magic this time and let it heal any diseases she might have given me.

She was just crazy enough to do something like give me feline leukemia or AIDs.

Then I had to decide what to do to make sure someone adopted me. What did people want in a cat? Cuteness. Pedigree. I spent the next hour focusing on changing my color and my breed, before finally settling on a smoky gray Maine Coon, the biggest housecat I could imagine. Surely, someone would adopt such an expensive animal.

My powers seemed to only work on me and, even then, they were limited, which meant there wasn’t much else I could do. I had circled the cage, flung myself at the bars and latches, hoping something would give, but I was too small and weak to do anything.

After that, I slept. I woke a few hours later to someone jostling and lifting my carrier. A pimply-faced teenage boy looked through the bars of the cage at me. Mentally I cursed and lay back down, resigned to my fate.

They poked, prodded, and bathed me, then they put me in this cage with pebbled food, room temperature water, and, thankfully, a clean litter box—that thing was going to be the bane of my new existence. Hissing at it, I crawled into the opposite corner and lay down. I hated being this lazy, but there was nothing left for me to do. I hadn’t been here long before these two women walked up.

Chapter 3

~~~Dimitri~~~

“He’s beautiful,” the woman not dressed like a nurse says, as the one in scrubs opens the cage door wider and motions for her to pick me up.

Beautiful, yeah right. “Mave,” I yell again as the woman who I’m sure isn’t an employee of the shelter reaches for me.

I hiss at her when she sticks her hand into my cage. Surprisingly, that doesn’t offend her, though she does withdrawal slightly. When she reaches for me again, I let her pick me up. I actually enjoy it when she curls me against her chest and pets me. For a fleeting moment, I think about how soft and full her breasts are before I remember what I am and begin to curse Mave again, forgetting all about the two women talking over me.

“Did we find something we like?” another female voice asks from behind us, interrupting my mental rant. When the woman holding me turns, the doctor who is a little too familiar with my cat form says, “Hi, I’m Doctor Smith.”

“I know. I’m Abby. My cat, Sebastian, comes here,” she returns, shaking the doctor’s hand, not at all offended that, apparently, she knows the doctor, but the doctor doesn’t know her.

At the doctor’s questioning look, Abby says, “Sebastian is never sick, so I only bring him in when he needs his shots. We aren’t here enough for you to remember me, but when we come, you are the doctor that takes care of him. He is beautiful and calm to be so young.” She holds up me slightly, indicating to the doctor that she is talking about me now and not her own cat.

“He is. I can take it from here, Jody. Thank you,” Dr. Smith says to the woman who escorted the large-breasted lady to my cell.

“Okay. I’ll see you when you get ready to leave,” Jody says to Abby before going back to her desk.

“Do you know anything about him?” Abby asks, jostling me slightly.

“He is very healthy,” the doctor says, petting my head. “I’m assuming he had an owner and is not a stray, judging by the condition we found him, and by the fact that he’s a Maine Coon. A purebred Maine Coon from the looks of him. I’ve had Jody calling around to all the breeders and owners we have on file to see if someone is missing an animal. Why someone would steal him, then drop him off here, I don’t know. Considering he was in a carrier, I doubt he wondered away on his own. So far nothing has come up.”

“Does that mean he isn’t up for adoption?” There was actually a hint of disappointment in her tone. The woman has held me for all of a minute and already she’s ready to take me home. I must be pulling the cute, cuddly cat act off pretty well. I’d be proud of myself if I was able to change out of this cute, cuddly cat form.

When the doctor hesitates, I get worried. Damn it. Please don’t tell me they are going to keep me here. There is no way I can escape my situation as long as I’m in this cage. I eye the doctor hard as she reaches down to stroke my head again. Mentally I try to compel her to let me go home with the woman holding me. I feel my thoughts leave my body, but not touch the woman even with her hands on me. Damn it to hell
.

“Yes and no,” Dr. Smith says, looking intently at the woman. “This is a little unorthodox, and not at all part of our normal procedure, so I’d appreciate it if you not tell anyone what I’m about to do.”

“Um…okay,” Abby says, shifts me in her arms, and begins to scratch me under my chin. Something the cat part of me really loves, and I almost catch myself wanting to purr.

“Our research has brought up nothing,” the doctor continues, smiling at the woman’s reluctant tone. “None of our known breeders have any missing animals or have sold any that look like him in the last few months. So, I’m willing to work out something if you really want him.”

“Oh, I really do,” Abby says with a bit too much excitement in her voice, something she notices quickly and tries to cover up.

“Good. Understand, I don’t feel comfortable letting him officially go this soon in case his owners do show up, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. We’ll set up a foster situation with an option for adoption if no one steps forward. We don’t normally do it, as I said, but just this once, I think I’ll make an exception. You can take him for now. We’ll do a half payment on the adoption fee, along with our normal discount on shots, vaccinations, flea treatment, and after six months, if no one claims him, we will do the official adoption paperwork. Until then, we can’t neuter him. Because of his breed, we don’t want to do anything too permanent until the six months are up.”