Shifter

by Jennifer Reynolds

  “You’re trying to shift, aren’t you?” she asks. I don’t know how she knows what is happening to me. It must be an angel thing. “I can’t give you anything for it except some pain meds and some muscle relaxers, but I guess you know that.”

  I don’t meow in acknowledgment.

  Hours pass. Or what feels like hours. I keep expecting my body to shift but it never does. I managed to break into Dr. Smith’s mind a time or two to try to tell her what is going on but my body hurts so bad that I lose focus and slip right out again.

  The medicine helps to dull the pain but not alleviate it. All I can do is lie on the hard metal bed and convulse.

  -----

  “Dr. Smith, is he all right,” Abby asks, jumping up from her seat when she sees the doctor wheeling me back into the hall sometime later.

  “He’s fine. The seizures have stopped, but we can’t find a reason for them. I’ve run a number of different tests and explored a few theories, but none of them seem to be his problem. I’ve drawn some blood and other samples to run more tests, but I have a feeling nothing is going to come from those either. Whatever it is that caused the seizure seems to be gone now.”

  “What do I do?”

  “There is nothing you can do besides watch him. If he does it again, bring him back.

  “Does that mean I can take him home now?”

  “You can. Jody is going to him a sedative to help him rest. We gave him some pain meds, so he might be a little out of it for a while. If he sleeps through the night and most of tomorrow don’t worry about it. Also, I noticed he isn’t wearing a collar.”

  “No, he and Sebastian are house cats. Neither one has been out of the house except to come here. I didn’t think they needed one.”

  “Just in case, I’m going to give you two to put on them. I’ll have Jody go ahead and put one on Dimitri while he is out. I advise you to leave them on them permanently or at the very least put them on them whenever you leave the house with them or are going to have a lot of company coming in out of the house, as a precaution.”

  “Thank you,” Abby replies. The confused look on her face says she gives this reply because she doesn’t know what else to say. The collar is a precaution, the doctor says. A precaution for what? In case we get out, I guess. With Mave roaming the neighborhood, I guess it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have collars on us, especially if Dr. Smith has put some kind of Angel magic on them that will let her trace the collar.

  When we get home, Abby puts my half-conscious body in her bed. I have never slept in her bed for any real length of time. It isn’t that I don’t want to sleep in her bed, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it. Her bed is the most comfortable place in the house for me to sleep this off. Apparently she is too scared to leave me while I am like this, so she pops in the first season of Pretty Little Liars (I have never seen that show), and crawls into bed with me.

  ------

  My head is killing me. Despite this, I am ecstatic. Granted, I hadn’t actually shifted the day before, but my body had tried. I am anticipating Devan’s next arrival as much as Abby is. If my powers are coming back with such force, then I might be able to tell Devan who I am. I have tried to communicate with Abby, but it hasn’t worked. That isn’t saying anything. She is human. We aren’t able to penetrate human minds as easily as we are the minds of other supernatural beings.

  Abby’s house has never been as full of people as it has been today. Her sister and at least three of her friends have been here all day. They have taken Abby out to get nearly her entire body waxed and to get her hair cut and styled. They have even taken her out to get a new outfit. At this moment, all of the women are in her bedroom putting makeup on her and accessorizing her outfit. Her sister is even taking pictures.

  I am watching the entire thing from the bed. The process is baffling. I bet that all Devan is doing is bathing and putting on a nice pair of dress pants and a shirt. There is no way in hell that he would be spending the entire day preparing for the night.

  Chapter 11

  ~~~Abby~~~

  I know I’m acting a bit too hesitant about doing all of this, considering it is just one date with a man I know is only being kind to me. I do want to be beautiful for him, but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t have gone this far with the makeover. My sister and friends are more excited about the date than I am.

  “Why are you being so reluctant?” my sister demands as she tries to convince me to wear a thong under my dress.

  “I’m not being reluctant. I have done everything you people have wanted me to do all day. I’m not wearing the thong because I don’t plan on sleeping with him.”

  “Oh, why not?” Carrie asks.

  “I don’t know, maybe because I don’t know him. This is our first date. I’m not a whore. Should I go on?”

  “Please don’t, and no one’s calling you a whore,” Carrie says.

  “Not right now. But if I start sleeping with men on the first date, I’m going to look like one.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve gotten laid?” Kaylee, my friend Sarah’s girlfriend, asks.

  “That is none of anyone’s business.” I don’t mean to be rude to the girl, but I don’t know her well enough for her to ask such a question. My remark doesn’t seem to offend the woman. She has been with Sarah long enough to know me.

  “Two years,” my sister adds.

  “Damn it, Carrie.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to tell my business.”

  “Get over yourself Abby, we all know how long it has been since you’ve had an orgasm,” Sarah says.

  My face flaming, I say, “That shows how much you guys know. I had a nice orgasm yesterday, thank you very much.”

  “We aren’t talking about orgasms that you have given yourself. We talking about those mind-blowing ones you get from having a man licking, flicking, and ravaging your body.”

  “You don’t have to have a man for that. Kaylee does that to me every night, and she doesn’t have a penis,” Sarah offers.

  “That may be true, Sarah, but the last time I asked, Abby isn’t into women,” Carrie says.

  “If I gave her Kaylee for a night, she might be persuaded in my direction,” Sarah insisted. Kaylee beamed at her girlfriend.

  “That’s enough. No more talk about my sexual orientation. No, I haven’t had one of those orgasms in a long time. That doesn’t mean I’m going to jump the man as soon as dinner is over.”

  “You have a stronger will-power than I do. I’ve seen that man’s picture on his family’s website. I would pounce on him the moment he knocked on my door,” Crystal says.

  “I’m sure your husband would appreciate that,” I say.

  “He doesn’t have to know,” Crystal counters.

  “You guys aren’t right. Look, you are making a big deal out of nothing. He only asked me out because I’ve helped him a little in his search for his brother.”

  “Now, you want to talk about a lickable piece of ass. That brother of his is beyond fine. It’s too bad he’s most likely dead,” Allison, Carries closest friend adds.

  “Allison.” Every woman in the room bellows the speaker’s name at the same time with equal amounts of shock and horror.

  “Well, he probably is,” Allison says, defensively.

  “That may be so, but that isn’t a very tactful thing to say,” Carrie chides.

  “Fine. It is sad though. I would sell my soul to be under that.”

  “He is pretty fine. I mean Devan is hot. And sweet, but his little brother, let’s just say I kind of wish their roles were reversed,” I say a bit dreamily. As I say this, Dimitri steps toward the end of the bed where he has been lying while watching and listening to all of us. He doesn’t meow or make any other movement. He just stares at me. Thinking this is his way of asking for attention, I walk over to him and scratch behind his ear.

  “Abby, that’s horrible,” Crystal chides.

  “I know. I know. And don’
t you ever tell Devan I said that if you ever meet him.”

  “So does that mean you are planning on future dates? Ones where we are included,” Crystal asks.

  “Hoping, yes. Planning, no. This will most likely be our one and only. As I said, I’m sure it’s a ‘thank you’ for helping him. With that said, I think I should wear a different outfit. I don’t want to appear too desperate.”

  “You take that outfit off and I will beat you with it,” Carrie nearly shouts.

  “Whatever. What do you think, Dimitri?” I ask, bending down to nuzzle his head. He licks my face in appreciation. “Looks like I have his seal of approval.”

  “I find it very odd that you named your cat after his missing brother,” Allison says.

  “I know, right? No one tell him. I just wish I knew what to call him in front of Devan.”

  “How about Miss Kitty Fantastico,” Sarah suggests.

  “No, and for that, all the Buffy fans in the room are no longer allowed to speak.”

  “That means you too, you know that, right? I mean you are a bigger fan than we are,” Allison says.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving them off. “He’ll be here shortly. I think it is time for you all to go.”

  “Ladies, it looks like we are getting the brush off,” Sarah says, pretending to pout.

  “No, no I didn’t mean…”

  “Calm down, Abby, we’re only messing with you. If that man shows up to a house full of women, he would go running in the other direction. We would never do such a thing to you,” Carrie says, pulling the other women out of the room with her.

  I find myself nervous as hell now that my house is empty. I pace back and forth across the living room floor as Dimitri and Sebastian watch me with deep interest.

  “I can’t do this. I’ll make a fool of myself,” I say to the partially empty room. “There is only one thing a man like that wants with a woman like me. What will he do to me when I refuse to sleep with him? I should cancel.”

  The second I place my hand on my phone to call him, I realize that the only number I have for him is the one on the flyer. The number is only a hotline number. I look down at my watch to see it is two minutes past seven.

  “He’s not coming,” I say with a sigh and sink into a chair. At five minutes past seven, I start taking off my shoes. I’m placing my bracelet and rings into an empty candleholder in the center of the end table beside the chair when I hear a knock on the door. I have already resigned myself to him not showing, so I’m truly surprised to see him through the peephole.

  I open the door slowly to see him standing there holding a single, white rose.

  “Hi,” he says and holds the flower out to me.

  I can’t speak or move. No one has ever brought me a flower. Surprising, I know, but true.

  “Something wrong?” he asks.

  “No. I um…”

  “You look confused.”

  “Sorry. I just uh…come in,” I say, taking the flower from him and smelling it like a silly schoolgirl. I know it is a cliché act, but I can’t stop myself.

  “You’ve never been given a flower on a first date before?” The observation comes out more as a question.

  “No, I’ve actually never been given a flower period.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I can’t see why not. Unless they thought that your beauty would dwarf that of the flower.”

  I can’t help but burst out laughing at this.

  “Okay, that is corny,” he admits, blushing nearly as bad as I am.

  “Yeah.”

  “I promise not to do it again tonight.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  I take the flower to the kitchen, find a long stemmed vase, fill it with water, and carry it into the living room as I place the flower in it.

  “Did you think I wasn’t coming?” he asks when I reenter the living room. I look up from my flower to see him holding my jewelry and looking down at my shoes.

  “Actually, yes.”

  “Am I that late?” he asks, looking at his watch then around the room for a clock to compare times.

  “No. I hadn’t thought you would come. As soon as the clock passed seven, I started getting undressed.”

  “Does that mean that if I had waited much longer, I would have found you naked?”

  “Nope, you would have found me in a ratty night shirt and sweat pants.”

  “Ready for bed. I think I could have handled that as well.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have been joining me.”

  He laughs at my words, then walks over to me, takes the vase from my hand, and places it on my coffee table. “Hold out your arm.”

  I give him a puzzled look but do as he says. He opens my hand, places all of my jewelry in it, and begins to latch my bracelet around my wrist.

  Chapter 12

  ~~~Dimitri~~~

  The last four hours have been the longest of my life. A part of me hoped that the night would be bad for them. If not for the fact that Abby hasn’t been on a date in such a long time and for the fact that her last boyfriend had turned out to be a psychopath, I would have wished it. The other part of me swore that if Devan screwed this night up for her I was going to kick his ass until he bled.

  I run to the front door the second I hear her laughter coming up the walk. I want to be angry at the laughter, but it is such a beautiful sound coming from her. If I ever become human again, I will have to make sure that Devan knows how special she is. I’ll also make it a point to be there for her when he screws things up.

  My heart clinches when they stop on her front porch. “Please don’t let her invite him in. Please don’t let her invite him in,” I chant as I listen to the conversation.

  “I’m going to invite you in, but you should know before you enter that we won’t be having sex.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “No, seriously. No sex.”

  “I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but if you say no sex, then I won’t do anything more than this.”

  I can’t stop myself. When I hear her intake of breath, I pull a Sebastian and begin scratching at the door to distract them. At the noise, I hear a growl escape Devan’s lips and a soft chuckle come from Abby. With a satisfied meow, I step away from the door.

  I should feel bad for disturbing them, then the image of his lips on hers, his arms around her causes a wave of jealousy to sweep through me. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be human for a second to give Devan a smug look as he walks through the door.

  “Did you miss me, baby?” she asks, entering the living room and sweeping me up into her arms.

  Devan looks slightly disappointed as he follows her. His expression changes as he sees how much she loves her pets. As people who can shift into animals, we have a soft spot for animal lovers.

  “It looks as if someone is jealous,” Devan says, walking up and petting my head. I swat at his hand.

  “Nah, he just went through an ordeal yesterday. He’s been a little out of sorts today. It probably wasn’t a good idea for me to leave him alone for so long.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I’m not sure. I was in the shower shortly after you left yesterday. When I got out, he was lying on my bathroom floor shaking from head to toe. I took him to the vet, and they said he was having some sort of seizure. They ran a bunch of test, but they haven’t figured out what caused it.”

  “Poor guy,” Devan says, scratching the top of my head.

  Taking advantage of his close proximity, I try to talk to him. I get into his head as easily as if I had closed my eyes and slid into my own mind. He is thinking of her, remembering the kiss I had only seconds ago interrupted, imaging other things he would like to do to her.

  I try to command him to stop thinking such thoughts. I try to yell and scream at him. Try everything I can think of to get his attention. Nothing works. His thoughts go on and on about how beautiful Abby is and how much he wants her. />
  A low growl escapes me, and I hiss at him as I pull out of his mind.

  “It’s all right boy, I’m a friend. I’m not here to hurt you or Abby.”

  No, you want to make love to her, which granted isn’t a bad thing; I just don’t want you to do it. I want it to my name she cries out in pleasure.

  “I’ll put him in my bedroom,” Abby says.

  “I wish you wouldn’t. I want him to get to know me,” Devan says is a soothing tone, petting the top of my head.

  Sly bastard.

  “Okay. Would you like something to drink?” she asks, setting me down on the love seat.

  “What do you have?”

  “Water, raspberry green tea, milk, a bottle of black berry merlot.”

  “If I were staying, I would suggest we have the wine, but since I’m not, water will be fine.”

  While she is in the kitchen, I watch as he looks around the living room. He picks two pieces of paper up off her desk. I hop onto the desk to see what he is reading. One is the new flyer she had gotten from him yesterday. The other is a printed version of his profile page from the Sullivan website.

  “Here you go,” Abby says, returning with their drinks. He sits the papers down and takes the bottle from her. “Have a seat anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

  He opens the bottle and, holding it in one hand, takes a drink while he moves over to her computer. A calendar hangs on the wall to the right. He looks over the black and white picture. The background is solid black. In the center of the black, a large white Q-tip sticks out. Written above the Q-tip are the words: Shut up voices. Below it are the words: or I’ll poke you again.

  Devan smiles at her bit of humor, then he looks down at the days of the week. There are three sticky note notes that hold notes and appointments taped to the calendar. He glances through them quickly and finally stops on a sticky that only has two things written on it. My name and a date. The note isn’t anything major. The date is the date of each month she gives me freaking Frontline. Man, I’m beginning to fall too far into the role of house cat.