Accidentally Catty Read online

  Wanda took a firm grip on Katie’s slack, unchanged hand and pulled her out of the examining room. “Now come with me. We’ll show you what we’re talking about, but we need more room. Let’s go out into your waiting area. Kaih? Will anyone interrupt this late at night, or are we fairly safe?”

  He nodded his slick black head. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Everyone filed out into the waiting area while Katie watched Marty move her sparse furnishings to one side of the room as though it hadn’t taken two fully grown men and Kaih to get them in here in the first place. And she did it in heels and Spanx, no less. Bravo.

  Ingrid’s eyes grew wide and watery. The shiver of her multitude of bangle bracelets in neon colors of pink and green along her forearm gave way to her lower lip trembling. Kaih took her by the hand and sat her on the battered red vinyl couch. “You okay?”

  “What did I do?” she squeaked, her eyes darting to the women.

  “You did the right thing, Ingrid. That’s what you did,” Casey reassured with an easy smile. “We really can help. Promise.”

  As Katie watched each woman move in unison with one another, preparing for whatever this shift thing was, her almostremoved and distant haze began to lift. Whatever these women thought they were going to prove to her, they were going about it with conviction.

  “Katie?” Wanda said, pointing to the far corner of the room. “Sit over there.”

  She moved on sluggish legs to the left corner of her waiting room and sat on the edge of the metal folding chair without a word, tucking her torn sweater around her.

  “Kaih? Towels. We need towels, please,” Wanda instructed.

  Katie gulped. “For?” Was this a messy affair? Would skin and bones fly like so much confetti when they did whatever it was they did to get to their other shapes? She wasn’t squeamish. She saw blood, innards, and any number of unpleasant things Ingrid called icky every day. But this . . . the thought . . . Oh, hell’s bells.

  Nina clamped a hand on Katie’s shoulder. “It’s not gory, if that’s what you’re thinking. Marty and Wanda need them because they turn into dogs. You know, just like those pesky little motherfuckers you charge a hundred bucks an office visit for? They’ll rip their clothes if they don’t take them off first. They need towels so you won’t see Marty’s saggy ass buck naked.”

  Marty hummed a low growl and gave Nina the finger.

  Nina snickered. “But no worries, Doc. Casey and me keep our human forms. We do other stuff.”

  Other. Stuff.

  Katie focused on her breathing and scrunched her eyes shut. “Kaih, can you get some towels, please?”

  When Kaih returned with the towels, he handed them to each woman, his expression a mixture of stoicism and curiosity.

  Wanda’s gaze returned to Katie’s, filled with warmth and the undertones of sympathy. “You ready?”

  Ready-schmeady. If she was nothing else, Katie Woods wasn’t a coward. Hadn’t she faced down the biggest divorce attorney only the best money could hire not nine months ago?

  Besides, really, how many people in her profession wouldn’t give up a major organ to bear witness to what these women said they could do? How many of her colleagues wouldn’t invite someone to bare their lunacy so they could someday write a paper on it? Her eyes narrowed with skepticism, ignoring her hand, her resolve was firm. “Bring it.”

  HAD she said, “bring it” just before all out parageddon had erupted in tufts of hair, tusklike teeth, and fire-breathing fingers?

  Had she said it like she was some badass carbon-copy of Nina?

  Yep. Katie remembered it clearly. She also remembered half thinking she’d simply humor these women so in the end of their supposed shifts, she’d come out the victor. Then she’d spew scientific improbabilities and mock their outrageous statements while beginning the search for some remote remedy to rectify her strange affliction that was surely hidden in a dusty medical journal.

  Oh, what a difference a shift made.

  Now, after seeing what she’d just seen, while Kaih sat with his jaw dusting the floor, and Ingrid huddled in a tight ball on top of the back of the couch, attempting to push herself through the wall and disappear, Katie was considering.

  Or reconsidering.

  As each woman had unveiled their proper title in the paranormal world and how they’d come to be, they’d shown her what they said was true.

  Casey had created the most spectacular light show via her fingertips Katie had seen, barring even the fireworks show Macy’s put on every year on the Fourth of July. To further convince Katie, she’d then levitated and crawled along the rippled, cracked walls of her waiting room.

  And it had been so James Cameron by way of Dean Koontz.

  Casey then went about explaining. In a freak accident, demon blood had been spilled on her by her now mate, Clayton. Clayton the former Viking who was older than dirt, because, Casey said, he wasn’t just any old Viking. He was a vampire Viking.

  Aha. Clearly, he was the super-deluxe, blue-plate-special version of paranormal, and she was his demonic bride. She had a teenaged stepdaughter named Naomi, who was also a vampire, and according to Casey, an eternal bundle of hormones and bipolarlike teenaged vampiric behavior.

  Fascinating.

  Nina’s revelation might not have been as festive and entertaining as Casey’s, but it was done with such maniacal glee, when she’d lifted up the couch Kaih and Ingrid sat on with one finger while sporting fangs, it had been the exact opposite of unimpressive. Nina’s vampiric origins stemmed from her vampire husband, Greg, who’d bitten her quite by accident, while having dental work. Because surely, every vampire sought minty-fresh breath.

  Wanda, now clothed once more, had shed her body like ice melting in the hot August sun. She’d rippled and squirmed until she’d turned into a wolf, er, werewolf that had the longest incisors Katie’d ever witnessed in her twelve-plus years as a veterinarian. Marty followed suit while Casey recited their stories as if she were reading a script.

  Marty, the first of the fab four to have been accidentally bitten while walking her cute poodle, Muffy, uh, Muffin, was a werewolf. A cosmetic-company-owning werewolf. She had a husband named Keegan, aka the biter, who was the alpha male of his pack and also owned a cosmetics company. She was also mother to little Hollis, the child whose name brought genuine warmth to Auntie Nina’s eyes.

  Not to be outdone by Marty, Wanda, once dying of ovarian cancer, allowed Nina and Marty to purposely bite her in order to save her from certain death. Her onetime vampire-turned-into-a-human-then-turned-back-into-a-werevamp beau, Heath, was almost killed when he made the ultimate sacrifice and tried to save her by letting her bite his human flesh. Now Wanda, lovely, cured, and alive, was a werevamp, too. Who had a husband. Who had a manservant. Who . . .

  Wanda’s tale had grown vague then. Katie had zoned out when Nina, with yet more devilish glee, rambled on about some mishap when she and Marty had first tried to change Wanda in order to save her life.

  Everything had gone all wrong and Wanda turned into some sort of “freaky-deaky” beast, as Nina’d said, with another maniacal cackle. Then she’d used the words rabid and slobbering and something about poor Heath, deader than a crack whore who’d OD’d. Yet, if Katie’d heard right, Heath was now alive. Not technically, but for all intents and purposes still roaming the earth.

  Upright.

  Even though he was dead.

  Words like “dead” were maybe a little heavy at this stage in Katie’s state of mind. But it was when Wanda nudged her hand, staring at her eye level with a familiarity in her eerie wolf eyes that had been the tuning out point in this fantastical adventure.

  Kaih patted her hand. “Doc Woods? You okay?”

  As Nina held up the towels to shield the women while they dressed, she snickered. “No, she’s not okay. She just saw some crazy shit. That she’s not sniveling over in the corner like Braveheart here”—she hitched her jaw in the direction of Ingrid—“is a fucking miracle. Goo
d for you, Doc. I like tough in a chick. I’ll like it even better if you save the whine for after we leave. Because there’ll be whining. Trust me. I’ve been to the land of whine. I’ve heard more whining in this lifetime than twelve vampires courtesy of the trio from hell here.”

  Katie dragged a shivering Ingrid down to the cushion of the couch, running her good hand over her forearm in a soothing motion. She regarded Nina with no venom when she assessed, “You can be exceptionally rude in your outspokenness.”

  Nina grinned. “Yep.”

  Wanda retied the bow at her collar with a final flick of her fingers. “That’s our Nina. Rude.” Smoothing her skirt over her hips, she eyeballed Katie with clear concern. “So, now that you’ve seen—we determine where you go from here.”

  “That was exactly my thought,” Katie responded, dry and almost apathetic.

  Marty cocked her head while running fresh lipstick over her lips. “It was?”

  Katie nodded. “It was.” There was no denying what she’d seen. Vampires, demons, and werewolves existed. They were also available in a combo pack. They had children, stepchildren, dogs, hamsters, and the occasional manservant named Archibald.

  Casey popped her glossy-peach lips when she looked at her sister. “Denial,” she stated.

  Wanda sighed her agreement. “Yep.”

  Nina scowled. “Oh, the hell you say. She’s not in denial. Look at her. She gets it, which is more than I can say for the three of you after you were turned. She’ll be fine. That dude in the cage will wake up, tell her how to shift, fur will fly, teeth’ll gnash, and maybe she’ll even cry a little. Though from the looks of her, that doesn’t seem like her bag. Then she’ll adjust, eat some Fancy Feast, and turn into a big-assed kitty cat. We’ll make sure she knows where her kitty comb and some hairball formula in a tube are on our way out. It’s good. So c’mon, let’s hit it. Peace out.”

  “Right,” Marty chided, narrowed of eye. “Because that’s how it worked for you, Elvira. We made a commitment when we decided to do this OOPS thing. All of us. We’re not just going to up and leave her with instructions for “how to be a paranormal” on an impersonal, pink sticky note, you dimwit. Besides, Wanda’s right. She’s in denial. It’s the calm before the monsoon.”

  Katie rose, her legs ironically steady even if her hand slapped around at her side like a dead fish. “No. I’m not in denial. I saw it with my own two eyes. I understand. I believe.”

  Wanda bit her lower lip, her glance at Katie tentative. “I’m not buying it. You’re in shock. We know the signs. We’ve lived the signs. This paranormal thing—it’s like the five stages of grief—”

  “Wait,” Casey held up a hand, shooting Katie a knowing smile. “I got this one, Wanda. Okay, so the five stages of grief—”

  “No,” Katie interrupted with her good hand. “I know the five stages of grief. I’m a veterinarian. I deal with grief every day.”

  “Yeah, but this isn’t about some pet, lady. This is about how your life’s going to change. Your body. Everything. Will. Change,” Nina said pointedly. “It’s not about boohooing over some damn dog.”

  Marty rolled her eyes. “Says the woman who called every last one of us in complete hysteria when she thought her hamster Larry’d been sucked up by her new central vacuum system only to find she’d forgotten he was in his exercise ball in the basement of her dungeon?”

  Nina clamped her fingers together under Marty’s nose. “Oh, shut up, Marty. That was some scary shit. Leave my Larry the fuck out of this.”

  Nina turned to Katie, and this time there was no devilish glint to her black eyes. They were hard and clear. “So, on second thought, I kind of have to agree with Wanda. I don’t like it, and it doesn’t happen often, but here’s the thing, lady. You’ve got some big-ass shit comin’ your way, and it has to do with more than just the physical crap that’s going to happen to you. I just fucking know it involves some lunatic cougar chick that hot dude in there belongs to—is mated to—should be mated to. I don’t know. I only know it’ll be like Mutual of Omaha extreme fighting style. She’ll wanna scratch your eyes out because you have her man—or something. It’s always something with this crazy paranormal bullshit. And it always means I’m going to have to save someone’s ass. Always. Count on it.”

  Katie’s eyes went wide, her one human hand shot to the tip of her braid to twist the fringed ends in an old nervous habit she’d never been able to break. “A woman?”

  Wanda clamped a hand over Nina’s mouth, her teeth clenched, jaw tight. “Nina, I will personally pull your tongue from your head if you speak when not spoken to again. Don’t complicate matters with anything else. Stick to the business at hand.” Marty and Casey giggled when she gave a grunting Nina a shove to the corner of the waiting area.

  Turning back to Katie, Wanda smiled. “Ignore Nina. It’s easy. We do it often and well. What we need to do now, Katie, is talk to the man in the cage. He’s the one who holds the key to the specifics of what happens next for you. None of us can advise you on much other than general information about the paranormal and the emotions you’ll experience as these enormous changes take place in your body. That’s what we hoped to accomplish when we set out on this mission—to offer information and support in paranormal crises.”

  Katie folded her arms across her chest. “So what happened to each of you after you—you . . . were changed? Why does anything have to change for me? You all still live your lives, unconventional as they are. I know blood drinking and raw meat eating are a part of that. So what? There are plenty of cults and the like who call themselves vampires and do the same things you do. Okay, so they don’t really have the restrictions imposed on them the way you do . . . but . . . What could possibly change other than my physical appearance?” Yeah. Big deal. She had a paw and some bitchin’ teeth. And? Oh, indeed and.

  How very minimalist she’d suddenly become.

  Nina snorted, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Listen, homeslice, that’s optimism, if I ever heard it. I’m telling you, shit always goes down on top of your entire chemistry changing. If we have anything, we have drama. Count on it. Nothing’s ever as simple as it first seems. With Marty, it was the beef over her stealing the alpha male of her accidental pack and a power-hungry blonde who wanted her dead because Marty’s mate Keegan didn’t like said blonde. The one his pack had picked out for him to mate with. He liked Cover Girl here better.” She thumbed a finger in Marty’s direction with a roll of her black eyes. “Throw in a kidnapping, a certifiable brother she didn’t even know she had, and that about sums up the bullshit that went down with Marty. And that’s only the beginning, lady. We all had trouble. There’s always some history with these kooks, and it almost always means we have to kick some ass. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good balls to the wall as much as any other girl, but you deserve to be prepared.”

  Katie held up her hand to thwart any further tales, but just as quickly let it fall to her side when she caught sight of her claws, thick and black. Shit, shit, shit. This really put a crimp in her pending manicure. “Maybe it’s better I don’t know anything about your personal histories, and instead we focus on what’s next?”

  Nina nudged her shoulder, making Katie’s legs buckle a little. “I like you. You’re no pansy.”

  Katie gave her a thoughtful glance. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

  Marty barked a laugh. “Not unless you consider Attila the Hun’s compliments flattering.”

  Nina threw an arm around Katie’s shoulders and tightened her grip around her neck. “Ignore the imitation blonde. Let’s go see how brave you really are and wake the hottie up so we can beat the shit out of him until he coughs it up.”

  “Do you mean his intestines, Nina?” Casey taunted from behind.

  As Nina directed her toward the examining room, she shot her middle finger upward at Casey. “Intestines, information. They both begin with the letter i. Makes no diff to me what he hacks up first. Whatever it takes, is my
motto.”

  The moment they entered the room, Katie’s bravado fled, trickling away like sand through her fingers.

  He was so big all huddled in a ball in the cage they kept for their largest breeds like Saint Bernards and mastiffs. He was also, undeniably, incredibly beautiful in the roughest of ways.

  It was just that simple. His long thighs and calves, sprinkled with black hair, were sculpted and lean. Hard shoulders, broad and thick with sinew, lifted in a bronzed shrug of skin when he stirred. The thick fall of his hair, black with the most unusual deep chocolate highlights, was matted in places and raggedly cut at his jawline. He had a Harley-Davidson bad-boy appeal to him, all rigid edges and sharp lines. Big, gruff, and unkempt in a hard-sexy package.

  He was also very, very naked.

  And young. Maybe twenty-two tops?

  “Wow, he’s just a baby,” Casey whispered after a low whistle.

  Katie nodded, averting her eyes to avoid the clear path they wanted to take to his southerly parts. She decidedly ignored the twang of her womanly needs reacting to his manly bits and instead, focused on willing him to wake up.

  His deep snore startled even Nina, who reacted by curling her strong fingers into the edge of Katie’s shoulder and squeezing.

  Marty sighed from behind them. “So what’s next, Nina-nator? You wanna poke him with a stick? Razz him a little?”

  “He should be waking soon,” Kaih said as he came to stand with his boss and Nina, a glazed-eyed Ingrid clinging to his arm. “We gave him that last shot a couple of hours ago. He just needs a little nudge.”

  Katie inhaled to steady her breathing, forcing herself to follow the procedures she used when an animal was coming out of sedation. Under normal circumstances, she’d open the cage door and stroke their fur, cuddle them, speaking in soft whispers to encourage them to rouse. Cuddling probably wasn’t an option when the animal wasn’t an animal, but a man. Who was an animal.

  Oh-oh-ohhhh, God.

  She shook off her fear, bracing herself. Running her nail across the bars of the cage, she said, “Time to wake up now . . .” Her new kitty ears cringed at the groan contained within the cage. It made her eardrums scream in protest. “C’mon now, um . . .”