Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Like she wanted a Wolf breathing down her neck while she was driving—or doing anything else.
— ANNE BISHOP
OMG I was a freaking CAT.
Thoughts pelted through my brain faster than a firefly signaling for sex.
I could shift.
I’d shifted in front of Ford.
I’d shifted in front of Lucky Jansen and his goons. Sanye. Various Boone brothers.
I mean, they were werewolves, so they likely wouldn’t spill my big secret, but this was the kind of news that had government agencies knocking on your door in the movies.
Was there an Area 51 for shapeshifters?
Would I disappear into some weird, illegal, and highly subterranean government laboratory?
Or a pet farm?
An illegal breeding operation like I’d read about in a paranormal romance that now seemed less sexy and more ominous?
After what felt like an eternity of running past giant-sized humans, out the barn (which smelled strongly of cow poop despite Lucky’s man-cave redecorating), and then over the gravel to the truck, I’d spotted the trucks. Could Sanye drive as a wolf? How fast could she shift?
These were questions for later. Right now, there was an ever-growing commotion, the ground vibrating beneath booted feet behind us. I zoomed toward Sanye’s truck. The gravel was rough and uncomfortable beneath my paws, but fear was an awesome motivator. I sprinted even faster than Emperor Meowpatine toward a bowl of tuna fish water. Ranger bolted past me, popped the truck door, and climbed in. Sanye leaped over him and into the front seat.
Ranger turned the key and looked down at me. “Come on, kitty.”
The engine roared, the humans behind me were yelling, and for a second I considered bolting underneath the truck. It looked dark and safe, a spot where I could peer out at this whacked-out world and plot world domination. NO. I was still me, wasn’t I? My perception of the world was simply shifted.
Literally.
Ranger reached down, patting the side of the seat. “Here, kitty, kitty. We got to get going.”
I turned my head. He wasn’t wrong. Ford and Atticus spilled out into the driveway, running hard. It was too bad I was mad at Ford because he looked spectacular, all grim and focused, his muscles bunching as he ran. Really, he should have shifted into a lion and not a wolf. God had missed an opportunity there. Behind him was a crowd of people, all hooting and hollering, with a generous amount of cursing thrown in. A gun might have been brandished.
I hissed; Sanye growled; Ranger cursed.
Convinced, I leapt for the truck and had to scramble, digging my claws into whatever I could grab. I landed on Ranger’s thigh and he did some cursing of his own as I bolted across his lap to sit beside Sanye.
Ranger shut the truck door quickly, snapped his seat belt on, and then accelerated like a rocket headed for the moon.
I could not sit still.
I bounced around the truck cab, poking my nose under the seat, beneath Ranger’s legs, into the deliciously dark and pungent space between the seats and the back wall of the cab. Sanye had tossed her trash here! I batted a wadded-up receipt, gave an old paper cup a quick lick. Not bad!
“I believe we may have a scientific conundrum on our hands,” Ranger said, as if Sanye was in any condition to be answering him back. “And I imagine that since Alice hasn’t shifted before—she hasn’t, has she?—she might need more guidance than I can provide.”
Sanye yipped and poked her nose over the seat to look at me. I had no idea what she was trying to communicate.
“Perhaps you could convince your friend to come out here and buckle up,” Ranger suggested.
Another yip from Sanye, higher pitched as the truck took a switchback at high speed. I knew it was time for me to come out.
Possibly, to assume the crash position.
The truck rocked ominously, as Ranger picked up speed.
I popped out, only semi-voluntarily, and dug in next to Sanye. Ranger leveled a glare at me. “Do not scratch my upholstery.”
As if that mattered. I narrowed my eyes at him.
He muttered something and then gave the road his full attention. Good boy. My nose twitched. Ranger’s soap was stinky.
To distract myself, I worked my way around Sanye—solid, a silvery gray, and fluffy—until I could set my paws on the windowsill and look out.
I’d thought cats were color-blind, but that turned out to be untrue. Sure, there was a whole lot of grey, but I saw blues and greens, as well. Up close, I might have been looking through a microscope, so clear were the details of the fuzz caught in the window track, the small fly hanging on for dear life to the side mirror, the leaf stuck to the glass. The rest of the world, however, was unexpectedly fuzzy. Trees whipped by in a blur, the road spooling away in a soft, dark river.
The next ten minutes were a blur as I tried to anchor myself—Ranger would have to get over himself and his precious upholstery—as we flew down the mountain roads at a speed that violated several traffic safety laws. We flew through Moonlight Valley at record speed only to brake hard.
When I’d untangled myself from Sanye, I spotted my house through the window. I was home.
Ranger killed the engine and looked at us. “Shift.”
As if I took orders from him.
I sniffed.
Apparently wolves were fools. They were related to dogs after all.
Maybe. I’d have to Google that later when I had opposable thumbs and a computer.
Sanye shifted. One minute a wolf rode shotgun next to me, and the next minute Ranger had slapped his hands over his face because Sanye was human, naked, and pissed off in the front seat of her truck.
“Ranger Boone,” she snapped.
“Yes?” he mumbled.
“You fix this.”
There was an awkward pause, while Ranger gave serious thought to his options. He had a naked woman in the front seat of the motor vehicle he was operating; it was not as if he could just drive to Walmart.
“I will be removing my hands,” he announced. “But my eyes will remain closed. I give you my word.”
Sanye growled something. She still sounded distinctly wolfy.
Still, Ranger was a gentleman. I’d give him that. He dropped his hands, got his flannel off, and handed it to Sanye. She sniffed, but took it.
I curled up on the seat beside her. Two equally unpleasant thoughts had just suggested themselves to me.
Firstly, I was apparently going to be naked as a jaybird when I shifted. It was typical that I’d been plunged into a situation where I would not look good. This was a bad situation, made worse because Alessandro’s truck was parked outside my house. He would not take kindly to my being naked in a motor vehicle belonging to a Boone.
I suspected Ranger had come to the same conclusion.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“Your eyeballs are safe,” Sanye said dryly. “No boobs, no ass, and nothing you wouldn’t see at the beach.”
“Well, now. Let’s just say that one can see quite a lot at the beach. There are topless beaches. Brazilian thongs. White swimsuits with insufficient linings. Perhaps you could be more specific about the sanctity of my eyeballs?”
“Open your eyes,” Sanye snapped. “We have a bigger problem.”
Ranger cautiously unscrewed his eyes. Really, he was overreacting. Mostly. It would have helped if Ranger had been the sort of man who went in for oversized, lumberjack wear. Instead, his flannel was size-appropriate for him, neatly pressed, and barely skimmed the tops of Sanye’s thighs. Barely summed the situation up rather nicely.
I moved on to my second unpleasant thought. Which was that there was only one of Ranger, it was not particularly cold out, and he had not been wearing much in terms of layers.
I eyed his T-shirt. It was a white Hanes made of sturdy cotton and smelling of starch.
It would have to do. I laid a paw on his abdomen and poked.
Ranger looked down at me. “Ford is going to have words with me.”
“He’ll have to take a number.” Sanye clapped her hands. “Shift, Alice. Make it quick because Alessandro will be out any minute now.”
This brought us to a third, unexpected, and extremely unpleasant thought.
No one had given me a copy of the secret shifter training manual.
I had no idea how to shift back.
Ranger wrapped one big hand around my middle and lifted me to eye level. I flailed. What on earth was he thinking? This was NOT acceptable. I was not on board with the manhandling. I expressed my displeasure as best I could. I might, in fact, have left some lovely, parallel red lines on Ranger’s forearm, but what else could he expect?
“Shift,” he ordered.
I wanted to tell him that shifting wasn’t like unlocking a car. You couldn’t just push the magic button on your key fob. There was no happy beep, no automatic opening in my brain. Or my biology.
I was stuck as a cat.
Sanye peered down at me. “Oh boy.”
That was not helpful.
Neither were her subsequent suggestions about opening myself to the universe and inviting it in. She followed this with a nugget about thanking my cat for its service and now would be really great.
I agreed, but how did I shift? But it wasn’t like I’d taken notes or practiced. Nothing in Aunt Sally’s brief letter had prepared me for this. My shift had just kind of happened back there in Lucky’s barn. Perhaps it took mortal peril and fear to make me transform?
“Let’s think about this logically.” Ranger indicated my furry self. “You can figure it out. And we’ll help.”
Said the man who wasn’t stuck inside a cat body.
“Let’s go back to the beginning. You remember what you did at Lucky’s. What you were thinking about right before you shifted. I always hold an image of my wolf in my head. Maybe you did something real similar.”
I let his words roll over me, smooth and calm. He wasn’t wrong, either. I had been thinking about what my cat might look like. I’d built a picture in my head—as much as you could in a handful of seconds when you were being threatened with death and other violent acts—and then somehow I’d become that cat I saw.
“So now you remember your human self,” Ranger said. “You hold that picture in your head and you walk toward it.”
“She might need to run,” Sanye volunteered. “We don’t have all night, Ranger.”
I hissed at her.
Ranger ignored her. “Take a breath. Hold it.”
Sanye groaned. “This is not the time for yoga. We need to move it.”
“And let it out,” Ranger continued. “See your human side. Embrace it. Love it.”
“SHIFT,” Sanye bellowed. “RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW.”
I startled. The images in my brain got all mixed up, flying every which way like popcorn kernels in my popcorn maker. One moment I was my cat me, and then the next I was falling forward, sliding into my human form. It felt horribly like pulling off that latex bodysuit Sanye had talked me into last Halloween. The bodysuit had been comfortable until I’d tried to remove it and then it had clung and clung until…
POP. I expanded, shooting out of my cat skin. The change didn’t hurt but it sure felt weird. And then it got weirder still because I was sprawled on top of Ranger Boone.
And I was naked.
I scrambled off him. “Sorry, sorry!”
Eyes screwed shut, he whipped his T-shirt over his head and held it out. I yanked it on.
The front door banged.
Alessandro stood on my front porch, hands braced on his hips, legs apart. He did not look happy.
“Maybe we should keep driving?” Sanye suggested.
It wasn’t the worst suggestion.
“I promised my brothers that I would see you ladies home,” Ranger argued.
“Do we tell Alessandro about the shifting?” I whispered frantically. “Does he know?”
Ranger shook his head slowly. “He catches dogs for a living. He is not Team Wolf.”
I was pretty sure Alessandro had trapped more than a few feral cats, too. Oh, God. I was not prepared to end up in a cage in the back of a truck belonging to my third cousin twice removed.
It was time to face the music.
And to lie like I’d never lied before.
“Get out,” I told Sanye. “I’ll be right behind you. Ranger, you might want to head on back to your place.”
“I will see you to your door,” he said stubbornly.
Ugh. Whatever. Sanye got out and I dismounted from the truck as gracefully as I could. Being pantsless was a challenge I was not prepared to face.
Alessandro looked at us. His mouth worked.
“So,” I said. “Funny story.”
“Where are your pants?” he roared. “And why is there a half-naked Boone with you?”
I decided right then that he did not need to know that this was not my first naked Boone, not by a long shot.