2. Mia

Chapter two

Mia

T he nerves set in when I woke up the following day, and I almost didn’t go. I could have just rejected the invitation and acted like nothing had happened. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I let fear throw me off my game when I was so close.

So I did what any girl does. I made my ponytail high, put an extra heavy wing on my eyelid, pounded back a Red Bull, and left my house with a determined pep in my step. It was time to make this life my bitch.

I drove to the address Dr. Parote had given me, with Taylor Swift blasting to keep me hyped. The parking lot I pulled into only had a few cars, and the building itself was plain. There weren’t any signs anywhere to indicate what the building was for or what happened there. That wasn’t suspicious at all.

“Oh, get it together and stop being a baby, Mia!” I said to myself in the rearview mirror. I tossed my phone into my bag and left the car. When I reached the door, the cute man standing guard opened it for me with a charming smile.

“Good morning,” he greeted.

“Morning,” I chirped as I passed through the door into an empty lobby. It had a few chairs against the wall, but that was it. There wasn’t even a receptionist. I turned back to the cute guard. “Umm?”

He chuckled. “Weird, right? I thought the same thing when I started working here.” He approached me and gently turned me so that my back was against his chest. His body radiated heat and felt so good against my back that I had to hold back a purr. The guard reached over my shoulder and pointed toward the corner of the ceiling. “See the camera? They already know you’re here and will have someone out here shortly.

You can sit if you’d like, or you can keep rubbing against me like a little kitty cat. I don’t mind.”

I froze as my entire body flooded with embarrassment. God, I had been catting out all over him! Please let the floor open and swallow me whole. When it didn’t, I quickly stepped away from him and stumbled to a chair. “Sorry,” I mumbled, unable to look at him.

“There’s no need to apologize to me. Anytime a gorgeous girl wants to rub against me, she is more than welcome. Hell,” he laughed good-naturedly, “I encourage it!”

I giggled with him and peeked back up at him from beneath my eyelashes. Ok, maybe I didn’t make a complete fool of myself. Before I could respond, the only interior door in the lobby opened.

“Ahh, Mia. You came,” Dr. Parote said as he stood holding the door open. I’m delighted to see you. Come with me.” He gestured toward the open door and then shifted a disapproving eye to the guard. You can go right down the hall, and we’ll be in the last door on the left,” Dr. Parote said. I heard the door close behind me as my steps echoed on the hallway tile, soon followed by the echoes of the doctor’s steps.

The room I entered looked like the typical examination room at a doctor’s office. I sat on the exam table, the paper crinkling beneath me as the doctor closed the door behind us.

“As I said, Mia, I’m pleased to see you. I wasn’t sure if you would take me up on my offer,” he conversed as he sat on the rolling stool and looked over what I assumed must be my file. How on earth does he already have a whole file on me?

“I’ll admit, I’ve almost chickened out a couple of times, but I’m here now,” I told

him.

“Which means you have far more courage than you give yourself credit for,” Dr.

Parote praised. “Before we start, I need you to sign this consent form.” He handed me a clipboard with a single sheet of paper and a pen. “It states that you are willingly giving us permission to administer this drug to you and to have an implant injected to monitor the results.”

I read the form a few times before signing. I may be doing something stupid, but Mama didn’t raise a fool, and I never signed anything without reading what I was agreeing to.

When I handed the clipboard back to him, the doctor smiled. “Excellent! Now, we can continue. The entire procedure shouldn’t take long.” He stood and grabbed what looked like a gun of some kind. The implant will go in the back of your neck. It monitors your body’s reaction to the drug, feeding the data back to our system. You won’t even know that it is there.”

“Ok,” I said nervously as he moved behind me.

“Put your chin to your chest for me,” he instructed. “Good.” He brushed my ponytail over my shoulder, and I felt the tip of the instrument press against the back of my neck. “You might feel a slight pinch, but it will be over quickly.”

I winced as he pulled the trigger, and the implant shot into my neck. “That was more than a slight pinch, Doc,” I replied.

“Sorry. It’s worse if you tense up expecting the pain,” he apologized. “Lucky for you, the worst is over.”

I felt the back of my neck but didn’t feel anything. My skin had already healed over the implant without leaving behind any indication that it was there. The only proof I had that anything had happened was the small amount of blood on my fingertips.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now you take this pill, and then we wait for the implant to show that it is working.

Once it does, you’ll be free to go,“ he replied, handing me a small medicine cup and a glass of water. I looked at the light green pill. No turning back now. I dumped it into my mouth and chugged the glass of water.

It seemed so anticlimactic that I was forever altered by something so simple. “How long until it starts to work?”

“That varies from person to person, which is why we have you stay until the implant begins to send us updates. Why don’t you lay back and relax? I’ll come check on you soon,” he suggested.

The doctor left, and I shrugged. I leaned back and dug my phone out of my purse. I scrolled through social media for a while and then moved on to the time suck that was TikTok.

It took so long for him to come back that I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, Dr. Parote was shaking me awake.

“Mia,” he called gently.

My eyes blinked open, and I looked around. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings and remember where I was.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I replied. “Did it work?”

“You will gradually see improvements as the drug works through your system, but according to the monitor, yes, it is working,” he replied with a smile. “Why don’t you try something simple, like bringing out your claws?”

I stared at him dumbly. I knew some shifters were able to attain a partial shift. I had never been one of them.

“Go on,” he encouraged. Concentrate.”

I nodded and held my hands in front of me, concentrating on my nails. Nothing happened immediately, but I gasped when they elongated into sharp,

dangerous-looking daggers.

“Good job!” Dr. Parote praised.

I beamed at him as I slowly retracted them again. “It’s actually working! Thank you so much!” Unable to contain myself, I sprung from the table and wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Dr. Parote smiled at me warmly as he gently extracted himself from my impromptu embrace. “Go and live your best life, Mia. You deserve this. I’ll be in touch.”

I nodded and thanked him again before leaving the exam room with an extra pep in my step. As I approached the lobby, my thoughts shifted to the cute guard. I’d already embarrassed myself with him, so I may as well go for broke and ask him out on a date.

He stood at the door watching the parking lot and didn’t turn around when I came out. “So what do you say we get dinner tonight? Who knows, there could be more rubbing,” I said as I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder.

The guard turned around, and I took a quick step back.

It was not the same guard. While he shared the same body type and black buzzed hair, his eyes were a striking amber, whereas the other guard’s was light blue. Oh, God! What the hell was wrong with me?

The new guard scowled at me for a few seconds before his eyes widened in surprise.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were the other guy, and we had a sort of moment together earlier, but you aren’t the other guy, you’re you, so I’m sorry,” I rambled. “Right, have a nice day!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I rushed past him and into the parking lot before he could. I’d had enough embarrassment for one day. I needed to get home

because today was obviously not a good day for social interactions. I got into my car and drove away without looking back.

I swore I could feel his eyes on me the entire time.

As excited as I was about my new forming abilities, as soon as I got home, a wave of bone-deep exhaustion swept over me, and I stumbled to my couch and passed out. When I woke up, the sun had set, and my house was pitch black, not that it affected my eyesight at all. Cats can see in the dark pretty well. However, as I groggily looked around my living room, I realized that I could see a hell of a lot better than before.

Insanely better. My eyes focused on a speck of dust falling to the floor across the room. This was nuts!

I also felt good—powerful, like I could run a mile without breaking a sweat. I stood and prowled around my living room, my metaphorical tail twitching. I wanted to do something. Run the streets. Hunt mice. Anything. The thought of my tail made me pause. I had been able to partially shift my claws earlier; could I partially shift with my tail? I quickly stripped out of my clothes as I ran to the full-length mirror in my bedroom.

Standing in front of it, I closed my eyes and concentrated on bringing my tail out.

After a minute or so, I cracked one eye open to check my reflection. No tail. Ok. I just need to try harder is all. I squeezed my eyes shut again and blocked everything except one thought— having a tail. I felt a burning sensation at the base of my spine, and then I felt something soft brush against my ass. I grinned as I opened my eyes and saw my fluffy white tail with the gray tip swishing behind me.

Holy shit, it worked!

Now that I better understood how it worked, I closed my eyes again and focused on my ears. I felt a weird pressure in my head, and when I looked at my reflection, my human ears were gone, and two gray-tipped cat ears poked out of my blonde hair. I never had to buy another Halloween costume again! My stomach growled, interrupting my admiration for myself. I was starving! I slipped a sleep shirt over my head and trotted to the kitchen as my stomach lurched again.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered to myself. “I’m working on it.” I pulled out the bacon-wrapped scallops I had in the fridge and pan-fried them. I was so hungry that I kept scalding my tongue as I ate them straight from the pan. As I finished cooking, I contemplated what I should try next. The problem was that I didn’t even know what other abilities would manifest or when. It wasn’t like the good doctor gave me a manual

for this. Ultimately, I did what any other good little kitty would do and curled up in the middle of my massive, stupidly soft, and fluffy feather bed and went to sleep.

As I woke up the next day, I stretched lazily as the sun shined through my window directly onto my bed. I had positioned my bed for this exact purpose. There was nothing better than sleeping beneath its warm rays. I rolled over, and my hand landed on the paper. Confused, I opened my eyes and blinked at the envelope beside me—the black envelope with my name written in bright red ink.

Blink.

Blink.

I squealed as I grabbed the envelope and ran around my room with glee. It was here! My invitation! I knew it would be; I sent it after all, but with all of yesterday’s excitement, I temporarily forgot. I popped a claw out and slit the envelope. I gotta say, these claws were going to come in handy. No more struggling to open something in a plastic clamshell! I had the world at my feet! I pulled out the letter and read it twice.