Chapter 2
Tabitha
Ismooth down the lavender-scented towel I’ve just folded and add it to the neat stack on the kitchen table.
Bea’s been complaining about her arthritis acting up recently, so I’ve been doing little things around the house when she’s out.
Nothing too obvious—I don’t want her thinking she’s losing her memory—but enough to make her life easier.
Things like finishing tasks she got distracted while doing, or cleaning the small things she has trouble seeing as her eyesight worsens.
The vacuum is already put away after I ran it through the living room.
The dishes are done. I even dusted the mantle, though I had to shift back and forth between forms three times because my human hands couldn’t reach the high corners and my cat paws kept knocking over the picture frames—that instinct is difficult to control even on the best of days.
I glance at the clock on the microwave. Bea should be at her book club for at least another hour, which gives me time to finish the laundry and maybe take a shower. I mean, cats are constantly cleaning and grooming, but even I know that just means I’m covered in cat spit.
I can’t help but smile as I recall the day I first met Bea two years ago.
I was stuck in a chaotic shelter after getting scooped up by animal control in my shifted form, terrified and barely clinging to hope that someone would adopt me before I got sent to the big cat run in the sky. Or worse—spayed.
When Bea walked in with her kind eyes and gentle manner, I knew she was my ticket out. The plan was simple: get adopted, shift back to human, and bolt the moment I was left alone.
Except somewhere along the way, it stopped being an act.
Being a shifter sounds cool in theory—the freedom to be human or animal whenever you want—but the reality is that most of us are just broke and desperate.
Before Bea, I was bouncing between shelters, sleeping in alleys, stealing food from dumpsters.
So yeah, I took advantage of a kindhearted old woman who wanted to save a stray cat. Sue me.
Except I do love her. Not just the comfortable house or the gourmet cat food, but the way she hums while she gardens.
The way she leaves the TV on the nature channel because she thinks I enjoy it (I do.
Nature documentaries are my jam). The way she tells me about her day even though she thinks I can’t understand.
“Whiskers,” she’ll say, settling into her reading chair with her mystery novel, “you won’t believe what Marjorie said at the store today.”
And I’ll curl up in her lap and listen, purring, because it turns out that’s all she really wants. Someone to listen. Someone to talk to.
She never had children. Her husband died five years ago.
She lives alone in this big, beautiful house—I have no idea how she maintained it before I started doing things to help—and it’s breathtaking, really.
Every corner is filled with memories, framed photographs of her past, and bits of history I’ve learned just from curling up in the sunniest spots and eavesdropping on her phone calls.
Sometimes, I wish I could ask her more about it all, but my voice is confined to a soft meow, a sweet purr.
So that’s how it’s been all this time. Just us. Me and Bea.
Life is damn near perfect.
I’m carrying the folded laundry upstairs, getting ready to take my shower when I hear the sound of Bea’s car in the driveway.
What?
I freeze halfway up the stairs, my arms full of towels, very much in my human form.
She’s not supposed to be home yet.
Panic flares through me. I race upstairs and practically shove the towels into the linen cupboard. Then I take the robe off that I normally wear around the house and hide it back on the highest shelf where Bea can never reach and close the door.
Shift, shift, shift!
The familiar tingle races through me as I hit the hardwood floor. Bones compressing, reshaping. The world grows larger as I shrink down to four paws.
Racing downstairs, I leap and land on the sofa cushion just as I hear her key in the lock, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The front door opens.
“Whiskers? I’m home early!” Bea’s voice calls out, warm and familiar. “Dotty wasn’t feeling well, so we postponed. I brought you a treat, sweetheart!”
I settle into my best I’ve-been-napping-here-all-afternoon pose, tail curled around my paws, eyes half-closed. Just a normal cat. Nothing to see here. Definitely didn’t just sprint through the house after shifting from my human form.
Bea bustles in with shopping bags, humming that song she always hums. She spots me and her face lights up.
“There’s my girl! Did you miss me?”
I meow—the universal cat greeting that means everything from “yes” to “feed me” to “I’m secretly a person and I almost got caught.”
She sets her bags on the kitchen counter, and I hear the rustle of cans being unpacked. My ears perk. Please be that fancy salmon paté she bought last week.
“I got you the turkey this time,” she says, and I decide that’s fine because I do enjoy variety. “And a new collar. The old one is looking a bit worn.”
I don’t need a new collar, but I purr anyway because it makes her happy.
I’m just starting to relax—crisis averted, secret identity intact—when something prickles my senses and I hear something at the back door.
A scratch.
Then a whimper.
My ears swivel toward the sound, every hair on my body standing on end.
What the hell?
“Oh my,” Bea says, moving toward the back door. “What’s that sound?”
Don’t open it. Don’t you dare open that door.
She opens the door.
And there, on the back porch, is a fox.
A russet-red, fluffy-tailed, amber-eyed fox, doing his best impression of a sad, injured animal.
But I know better.
Because underneath the wild scent, underneath the performance of poor lost creature, I smell human. Male.
Shifter.
My claws extend involuntarily, digging into the sofa cushion.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
Bea is already cooing at him. “Oh my goodness, you poor thing! What are you doing here, sweetheart?”
The rodent—because I’m going to call him that until I figure out his game—whimpers pathetically and takes a limping step forward.
Oh, he’s good. That’s a solid limp. Really selling it.
Fury rises in me, hot and sharp. This is my house. My Bea. My comfortable life that I’ve built over two years of trust and companionship.
And this asshole thinks he can just show up and—
“You look so thin. Are you hungry?”
Don’t you dare.
But she’s already heading inside, already pulling out the fresh chicken from the fridge, already falling for his act.
I want to yowl. I want to hiss. I want to shift right now and march out there and tell him to get his mangy fox ass off my property.
But I can’t. Because Bea doesn’t know. And if she finds out, I lose everything.
So I stay on the sofa, vibrating with rage, as I watch through the window while Bea feeds this interloper my chicken.
That was supposed to be my dinner, you furry bastard.
And he’s eating it. Looking up at her with big, grateful eyes. Sitting pretty like he’s auditioning for a role in ‘World’s Saddest Fox.’
“Would you like to come inside?” Bea asks him. “It’s getting cold out here.”
NO. No, no, no—
But he’s already limping toward the door. Already crossing the threshold into my house.
I get up from my spot on the sofa and position myself on the armrest, tail lashing, every muscle tense.
The fox steps inside, and for a moment, his ears swivel and his nose twitches.
Yeah, that’s right. Smell that? That’s another shifter. That’s me, you asshole. And you just walked into my territory.
He turns his head, and our eyes meet.
Gold to my green.
I see the exact moment he realizes. The way his ears flatten. The way his tail drops.
Good. Be scared.
My tail swishes. Once. Twice.
I stare him down, putting every ounce of territorial fury into my gaze.
You just made the biggest mistake of your life, fox boy.
His eyes widen slightly.
That’s right. I know what you are. I know what you’re trying to do. And I’m going to make you regret ever stepping paw in this house.
“Oh, look!” Bea says, oblivious to the silent war happening in her living room. “Whiskers, we have a guest! Isn’t he sweet?”
Sweet? Sweet?!
I hiss—just once, just enough to make my point—and the fox has the audacity to look worried.
He should be.
Because he might have fooled Bea, but he hasn’t fooled me.
And this? This is war.