Paisley slipped through, landing soundlessly on her feet. As quietly as if she were still a cat, she crept toward the laptop on the table.
A big man stepped out of the shadows and slammed the window shut. The man lying on the bed sat up and flipped on the light.
A trap!
Every nerve of Paisley’s body sizzled with fear and anger.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” the man at the window began.
Paisley didn’t stick around to hear more. She bolted for the door.
The man on the bed scrambled off it and dove for the door, blocking it before she could reach it.
“Wait! Let us explain,” the tall man at the door said. “We want to—”
Blood roared in Paisley’s ears, blocking out the rest of what he said. She was trapped. She couldn’t fight two men unarmed and naked. She’d be thrown in jail for the rest of her life, confined to a cell that not even the smallest cat could escape, bored out of her mind and unable to do any good for anyone ever again.
“No!” The shout burst from Paisley’s throat.
She’d never before shifted in front of strangers, but she bet even the toughest man would flinch if he got a faceful of spitting, hissing, biting, clawing cat.
It was the quickest shift of her life. With a yowl of rage, she leaped at the face of the man blocking the window, all claws slashing.
She crashed into a solid wall of shaggy brown fur.
Paisley bounced off and landed on her feet. She looked up from the floor, bewildered.
The man at the window was gone. A gigantic grizzly bear stood in his place.
It was hard to think logically when she was a cat, especially when she was excited. Cats operated by instinct, not reason. All Paisley could focus on was that she was trapped and needed to escape. She spun around, her claws scrabbling on the polished wood floor. With another furious yowl, she leaped at the face of the man blocking the door.
She crashed into a solid wall of soft black fur.
The man at the door was gone. A big black bear stood in his place.
Now in a panic, Paisley began ricocheting from wall to wall, caterwauling and spitting and lashing out with her claws. Within seconds, she’d shredded large portions of the drapes, the bed, and the sofa. She tried to shred the two bears, too, but her claws couldn’t penetrate their thick fur.
As she leaped madly past the black bear, it suddenly swung its head and caught her in its strong jaws. Paisley dangled in its grip, helpless as a kitten, howling and lashing about to no avail.
The grizzly bear at the window became a man. He strode nude to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and deftly wrapped Paisley in it. She spat furiously, but she was completely immobilized.
The grizzly bear man scooped up the Paisley-package, took it to the bed, covered it with blankets, and held the blankets tight.
“Shift back,” Grizzly Bear Man demanded. “I swear, we are not going to harm you in any way.”
Black Bear Man— now also a naked man— joined him at the bed. “He’s telling the truth. We don’t want to hurt you— we want to hire you!”
Paisley lay limp, exhausted. This was all hard for a cat to follow. But she did know that as a woman, she’d be able to understand it better. She shifted back.
She lay pinned beneath a towel and a blanket, with two naked men looming over her. Naked men who had previously been a grizzly bear and a black bear. Now that she could think as a human again, amazement drove out her fear.
“You can turn into bears,” she said.
Black Bear Man chuckled. “Yes. And you can turn into a cat. I have to say, we weren’t expecting you to be a shifter.”
“A shifter?” Paisley asked. “I didn’t even know there was a name for what I am.”
The amusement vanished from Black Bear Man’s face. “Were you turned without your consent?”