Shifted

Chapter One

Kelly White suspected something had gone terribly wrong when she woke up. For one, her breasts had never looked this big. No, they were actually huge. She couldn’t help but notice them the moment she opened her eyes. In a dream-like state, she wondered if a breast fairy had given her a surprise visit last night, and when her rational thoughts sorted her state of mind in order, panic seized her in a tight grip.

But that wasn’t the only problem she had. When she slipped out of bed, she saw her legs had become long and slender. Supermodel legs. Her skin had turned the colour of golden honey. Outrageous! She was one of those women who looked so pale, she made a ghost look tanned by comparison. And she never got a tan either, she only got sunburnt. What the hell is going on with me?

She scanned her surroundings. It wasn’t her bedroom. She’d woken up in someone else’s place. The bedroom was painted dark red, and it was tacky with all the fringes and velvet draperies. The period furniture looked like it might have come straight from a museum. In the corner, an ornately carved vanity with a large mirror caught her attention. Kelly dashed to it to find out what was wrong with her. She screamed when she saw her own reflection.

The stranger in the mirror shrieked back at her. Kelly didn’t recognise herself anymore—she’d become a totally different woman. She was normally petite, but now she’d become a tall blonde with a curvaceous, lithe body that any woman would kill for. Her brown eyes had turned a sultry green and her thin lips had become sensuous and pouty, like those models on a lipstick commercial. She felt her face, pinching her cheeks to be sure she wasn’t dreaming.

This can’t be real. I must be dreaming. She slapped her face just to make sure. Darn. It hurt. What’s happened to me? Kelly’s heart was thundering so hard she thought she was going to have a heart attack any second now. She slowed her breathing, trying to be calm. Relax, Kelly, get a hold of yourself. There’s must be an explanation for this.

“What’s with all the screaming?” a sleepy male voice came from the bed.

Kelly started. She whirled around so fast she tripped on the vanity bench. She came crashing down like a blasted drunkard.

The man’s head poked out from under the tangled duvet. “Kitten, are you okay?”

Kelly was cursing about her clumsiness until she saw the man she’d spent the night with in that bed. Her jaw dropped. The man was a golden god, head-to-toe of absolute perfection. He was muscled, with a sun-kissed body that was inadequately covered with the thin sheet. God, he was naked. Kelly blushed. His pale-gold eyes shone cat-like in the dark room. His blond, elbow-length hair, so lush and thick, fell onto his chest as he leaned up to find what was going on. And again, the man was freaking naked.

Oh, my God! Kelly went into panic again. She’d spent the night with a man who wasn’t her husband. She was doomed. And what made it more doomed—she was also naked. She didn’t sleep in the nude because she’d never liked the feeling of being bare-skinned. Kelly’s glance darted to a nearby chair and saw a crumpled towel. She snatched it in a hurry and made herself decent.

“Nick, are you okay?” The golden god scrambled up to sit. “You look pale, love.”

Nick? So her name was Nick now? Outrageous. She was Kelly White, JD, attorney-at-law. Sometimes, people thought she was a bit prudish, but she could live with it. She knew she could be attractive, but she’d never indulged in playing up her appearance because she thought people should judge her by her personality. Her entire life was one of meticulous planning. She’d never done anything scandalous like this before, like waking up in a stranger’s bed, buck-naked, in another woman’s body—which, she noted, had the most fantastic set of knockers she’d ever seen.

“Nicky!”

She jumped. The golden man slipped off the bed and padded over to her.

“Don’t tell me you’re high again already. We have a shoot this afternoon, remember?”

Shoot? High? Wait a minute, did he mean high as a drug addict? Great. Now she was a junkie too?

“Kitten, I’m worried about you.” He touched her shoulders, helping her to stand, his tone tender and affectionate. “What’s wrong? You’ve been awfully quiet since last night.”

Kelly cleared her throat, fumbling with an answer. “Do I know you?”

“Really, that joke has never gotten old.” With one effortless sweep, he pulled her into his arms, cocooning her in a tight hug. His body felt warm, welcoming, scented with his musky male cologne. She could feel his growing erection. But then she also sensed something else about him. Something feral. Primal. Then it hit her. He was a shifter, the feline kind.

Bengal.

Kelly started to get an idea of where she was now. She must be in District One, the place where the government had rounded together folks who weren’t ‘Normie’, slang for regular people, so they could monitor their Misfits citizens’ every moves.

Uh-oh. This wasn’t good. Her body tensed. She spun, trying to think of an excuse to get herself out of this situation. Strangely, another part of her didn’t want to. She felt some unexplainable sense of com

fort being embraced like this. It had been a while since she and Andi, her husband, had been in an intimate situation. A very long while, to be honest. With their hectic schedules, she and Andi had drifted so far apart over the years, they had become almost strangers.

Kelly heard the golden god purr. He kissed the top of her head, mumbling some endearments that sounded so lovely to her ears. She shivered with anticipation as goosebumps crawled over her skin. Her nipples hardened and a wanton ache stirred below her belly. Fevered heat rushed through her veins. Her inner cat started to get restless and wanted a piece of the action. She could feel her nails elongate into claws at the touch of another shifter.

This wasn’t good. She’d always refrained from the change. All her life she’d tried to be normal because shifters had been second-class citizens in Romana since the Separation. Her kin, lynxae, was a rare breed. Its shifting characteristically passed on only through the female line. Their genetic makeup was so rare, the breed’s blood always skipped a few generations before landing its curse on the next unlucky bearer. In her family, the blood had spared her great-grandmother, grandmother and her mom from the curse, allowing them to live outside the District before the Great Purging. They’d married non-shifters, and carried the family secret with them. Until Kelly had been born with the curse.

Kelly’s husband Andi, a Normie, didn’t have a clue that his wife was a shifter, and Kelly was very good at covering her abnormality by ignoring her inner cat. But now, being near another feline shifter, her inner beast had gone haywire. It wanted to play. But mostly, it wanted to fuck its fellow cat.

Kelly squirmed, trying to untangle herself from his embrace. He wouldn’t allow it and tightened his hug instead. His hand slid across her ass, pulling the towel off her body. It fell to the floor with a soft whisper. He tugged her deeper into his chest. Their bodies grazed, skin to skin. This was really not good. Her heartbeat started to accelerate again. She writhed. “Babe?”

“Yes?”

His cock pressed against her belly. Gloriously hard and huge. She couldn’t help but wonder if this guy was really real. This Bengal shifter was one of those candy apple guys on the magazines women secretly drooled over, fantasising about them while they made love to their husbands or boyfriends.

Kelly swallowed hard. “I-I’m not feeling well.”

“But you love morning nookie. You can’t start your day without some.”

Her eyes almost jumped out of their sockets. Most people were content with a cup of morning Joe, but this Nicky required sex as an eye-opener. Kelly was curious. Who was this oversexed blonde she’d got herself trapped into?

“Tell you what, I’ll make it quick, so you can take a shower soon. Or do you want it in there?”

Kelly cringed. His suggestion was downright outrageous. The kinkiest place she and her husband had ever had sex was on their living room couch. She wasn’t adventurous when it came to the sex department—she always felt insecure about trying something out of the box. “Actually, I’m not in the mood this morning…babe.” Kelly fumbled with another excuse. She didn’t know this golden god’s name, so she thought calling him babe was appropriate, at least for the time being.