“You ready?” Danica asked when Dreya and Braden had finished breakfast. “There’s someone I want you to meet before we get to work.”
Once outside, she and Braden fell into step behind Danica and Clayne as the couple led them along a series of sidewalks. As they walked, Danica kept up a steady narration, pointing out various admin, operations, IT, and training buildings. In the distance, Dreya could hear shooting followed by what sounded like a boom of thunder that reverberated in the air around them. But the crystal clear sky and the sharp jerk of Braden’s head in that direction convinced her it wasn’t thunder but something blowing up. Okay, she was definitely not having anything to do with explosives. She didn’t care if Braden threw her in jail.
When they got to a big building with lots of windows, Danica and Clayne turned onto the walkway. Inside, there was a maze of cubicles, but the couple walked past them to an office where an extremely pregnant blond was talking with two other women. Before Danica could make the introductions, Clayne tapped Braden on the shoulder and motioned toward the door.
“Come on,” he said. “If this is like normal, they’ll spend the first fifteen minutes talking about pregnancy stuff. Since we’re not qualified to hear that, let’s leave them to it and go talk about sports, or shooting people, or…well anything but that.”
Braden must have been in complete agreement with that idea, because he turned and walked out of the office like a scalded cat.
“If Kendra attempts to convince you that we should have kids too, run,” Clayne told his wife. “Sacrifice Dreya if you have to, but run.”
Danica laughed, waiting for the two men to leave before turning and gesturing toward the pregnant woman. “Dreya Clark, this is Kendra MacBride. She’s the battery that makes this place go.”
Kendra waved her hand as she got up to come around the desk. Dreya hurried forward to meet her halfway. Kendra wasn’t simply pregnant—she was get-this-woman-to-a-hospital-right-now pregnant.
“Don’t listen to Danica. I’m just a behavioral scientist who helps out wherever I can,” Kendra said with a smile. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you, it almost seems like I already know you.”
Dreya wasn’t sure she was comfortable with someone she’d never met before knowing so much about her, but Kendra was already turning to introduce the other two women. Skye Durant was also a behavioral scientist, while Sabrina Erickson was a training officer and handler, whatever the heck that was. They’d be filling in for Kendra while the other woman was on maternity leave. Regardless of what Kendra said, she must be a pretty big deal around here if it took two people to replace her.
Skye and Sabrina bailed right after the introductions, saying they had some work to do. As Dreya sat in the chair in front of the desk, she noted the photos around the room of Kendra with different people, including the mountain of a man she’d seen in the cafeteria. Since it was obviously a wedding picture, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the guy was Kendra’s husband.
Then a thought struck her. If Dreya’s nose was right, the big guy was a freak like her. Which meant that Kendra was not only married to him but having his kids. Was everyone here that cool with being around freaks?
She turned to see Kendra regarding her curiously.
“I understand you’re not sure you want to become the DCO’s newest feline shifter,” Kendra said. “I hope you decide to stay. We need good people here.”
“Feline shifter?” Dreya frowned. “What’s that?”
Kendra smiled. “Shifter is the word that people with your special attributes and abilities use to refer to themselves. As in the ability to shift between your typical, everyday appearance, then flash your claws and fangs.”
Not a freak or a monster, but a shifter. It was such a simple thing and so amazing at the same time.
“What about the feline part?” she asked.
Kendra lifted a brow. “You never noticed that your claws are curved like a cat’s? That you can climb anything and that you’re not afraid of heights at all? That your face takes on an almost catlike appearance when you shift all the way?”
Dreya shook her head. “I’ve never really given it much thought. I’ve never looked at my face when my fangs were out.” She wasn’t going to admit it, but she’d always been too scared to see her face, too afraid to see how freaky she looked. “When you say part cat, do you mean like a werecat? Isn’t that…I don’t know…impossible?”
“Apparently not.” Kendra smiled again. “There’s a doctor here named Zarina Sokolov who can explain the science behind all this, but the basic theory is that every person on the planet has a little random animal DNA floating around in their genetic Crock-Pot. For most of us, that DNA might as well not even exist. But shifters can access their animal DNA and take on certain traits and abilities of that particular animal. In your case, you’re accessing feline DNA, thus the sharp, curved claws, the delicate fangs, the climbing ability—everything. You may not realize this, but you were born to be a cat burglar. It’s in your DNA, you could say.”
Dreya was amazed that none of that had ever occurred to her. “Wait a second. If I’m a feline shifter, does that mean there are other kinds of shifters out there?”
Kendra and Danica exchanged smiles.
“Clayne’s a wolf shifter,” Danica said. “He’s about as far away from a cat shifter as a person can get.”
“And my husband, Declan, is a grizzly bear.” Kendra pointed to the wedding picture Dreya had seen earlier. “There are other kinds of shifters out there, some of them very unique, but the majority of the known shifters are in the feline or canid families.”
Dreya’s eyes widened. “So there are others who are exactly like me?”
“Not exactly,” Kendra said. “Like any other human, every shifter is slightly different, even in the feline class. We have several who work here, and they’re all unique and special and do things their own way.”
Dreya listened in amazement as Kendra explained what it meant to be a shifter, how the change had been triggered when Dreya was a teen, and how the DNA changes affected different people in different ways.
“The DCO tries to help shifters get the most out of their talents,” Danica added as Kendra told her about all the crazy things shifters could do.
That sounded a little creepy to Dreya, not to mention manipulative. “What do you mean?”
