Shifter Read Free Page A

this to me.
    “Mave,” I scream out in my head for the thousandth time today, turning back to face the women. My cage is hard and too cold. I can’t get comfortable enough to stay in one spot for any length of time. A small hiss escapes my feline lips at the thought of that witch, and the woman sticking her hand into my cage pulls back slightly. I try to look at her apologetically, feeling guilty for my behavior, but I know she can’t understand me.
    Mave continues to ignore me. The stupid witch. Maybe if I call her a bitch enough times she will answer. “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” Nah, she’s too used to people calling her that for it to faze her. “I know you can hear me, you crazy hag.”
    On the other hand, maybe she can’t. I only have limited control over my powers. Maybe I can’t project my thoughts to her. I sure wasn’t able to project them to the people who found me this morning.
    The fact that I risked exposure is a testament to how pissed and desperate I am to get out of this form. I didn’t have a choice. I’m a damned cat for crying aloud. Twenty-four hours ago, I was a man. Okay, technically, I’m not a human man. Being able to shift into any animal I want to means that I’m not completely human. Nevertheless, I’ve never been a cat before. At least not the cute, fluffy kind. Mountain lion, tiger, cougar; I’ve been all three, but I have never degraded myself and shifted into a common house-cat before.
    I hadn’t meant to insult her. The witch, not the woman now stroking my fur. I should have known better than to make promises to a witch. In my defense, I had been drunk. Really drunk. She should have known not to believe anything a drunk man says. All women know this. We say and promise many things we don’t mean when we are trying to get some. Very asshole of us, I know. Trust me, I will never do it again, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
    The pack had been celebrating the purchase of a large chunk of land in the mountains of Tennessee. Being mythical creatures and all, we did use a little magic with the help of a friendly witch to make the buyout happen, meaning it wasn’t a complete surprise. Because of this, it was not necessarily a cause for celebration, but the pack lives to party, and any excuse to do so is welcome.
    The land had originally been my families, therefore the packs, a hundred plus years ago, until a great uncle of mine lost most of it in a bet with a witch. From there, it was purposely lost to the banks by the spiteful old bitch, then auctioned off a small piece at a time. The spells the witch cast over it has kept our family and pack from being able to get it all back at once, until now. If it hadn’t been for Sam, one of the few witches actually friendly to the pack, we wouldn’t have managed it at all. Our magic isn’t anywhere near powerful enough to break the binding words of the bet.
    For over a hundred years, we have resigned ourselves to roaming the small bit of land that wasn’t lost because my father and his other brothers had owned it. The only consolation we have had is that we are shapeshifters, not weres. We aren’t confined to one form. This means we can wander around as wolves, coyotes, or any other animal that most humans will willingly stay away from due to basic survival instincts. This opens us up to being able to roam large parks or wooded areas without scaring the humans. Our favorite things to do are shift into deer and roam the Natchez Trace. The parkway is long, spanning three states, which gives us plenty of room to stretch our legs when we need to.
    Over the generations, we have bought back a few tiny pieces of our land, opening our roaming area up little by little, but until that night, the largest piece was still missing. To finally have it all was a great thing for the family and the pack. A night of drunken debauchery was our reward to ourselves for getting the land back. Starting the next day, the warding spells would have to go up