Six months later

Holy hell! She’d done it.

Sophia stared at the computer screen and couldn’t believe her eyes. The number and letter sequences in front of her drove her excitement. A slow sliver of fear raced up her spine when she thought of what could happen if the information got into the wrong hands, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from smiling ear to ear.

She’d finally singled out the particular chromosome in the DNA strand that made shapeshifters shift. This little baby was the hottest ticket in Shifterville. It’s what bonded with the rest of a human’s DNA to create the furry beast that lived inside these weird people.

If it were a person, she’d kiss it, hug it, probably spank it for being bad and making it so hard for her to find. She grinned; she couldn’t help herself. Julia would be able to have a choice in life now after being attacked by a rogue werewolf.

The one positive outcome was that her sister had met River, the beta of his pack and Julia’s current husband. Talk about love at first bark. His animal had taken one look at her sister in the hospital bed and had literally rolled over for her to pet his tummy. It was sweet and kind of creepy, considering how damn big he was in his wolf form.

River was a nice guy, too, but nothing beat freedom of choice in Sophia’s mind. He loved her sister and treated her better than any other human she’d been with, not to mention the man was absolutely gorgeous. Then there was his brother, the pack alpha.

Thoughts of Chase, the alpha of the Black Meadows pack, made her heart torpedo in her chest and rockets shoot off in her stomach. The better-than-a-sundae, delicious-looking man with golden-brown skin and enough muscles to share with his friends, turned her into a puddle of goo.

The man had so much sex appeal, her girl parts were ready to lift a white flag in surrender just by looking at him. Even thinking of him made her tongue wag. Seeing him was like having your favorite dessert and knowing you couldn’t eat it.

There was no way she’d ever be able to talk to him or even approach him. She’d die if she said something stupid in front of him. In fact, she’d probably forget how to talk if she was that close to him.

She was very aware of her physical appearance whenever he came around her. She was short, fat, and shy, and now that she’d hit thirty-two, she also felt old.

She had long ago given up on the idea of finding Mr. Right and had started focusing on Mr. Right Now. Unfortunately, that hadn’t worked out so well either. She ended up dating boring, geeky guys, and sex tended to be nothing to write home about.

Shit, sex tended to be nothing she’d want to try again with any of those guys, having been responsible for her own orgasms for as long as she could remember. Heat crawled across her skin when she thought of the last guy she’d been with, Jake the Asshole Schnake, before she’d moved to Black Meadows. He was the reason she’d ended up looking for a new job.

The asshole had stolen her research and tried to pass it off as his own. Luckily, she always backed up her work on a flash drive and had months of data to prove the work was hers.

On her own, Sophia never would’ve taken action against Jake the Asshole Schnake. She was too shy to cause that much attention to be focused on her. So Julia took the jerk to court and got a settlement. It included money, but not much. Enough to get out of town to make a new start somewhere else.

But most importantly, Jake the Asshole Schnake was blacklisted with labs across the country. Not her fault he couldn’t play by the rules.

Sophia never wanted to see that conniving prick ever again.

She blinked and squinted tired eyes, then rubbed cold fingers under her rimless glasses, drawing in a deep breath. A burst of energy rushed through her blood when she thought of what she’d just accomplished. Exhilaration made up for the lack of sleep. She’d been burning the candle at both ends working and doing her own private research.

She swatted away the guilt that tapped her shoulder over using the lab resources for her own experiment. Too much depended on the results of her first test to worry about being found out. And if she was—oh well, they did encourage “groundbreaking” and “outside the box” research.

Her sister Julia would have kittens if she knew. Or should she say puppies, now that Julia was a wolf shifter? The woman had been a straight pain before, but now that she had a dramatic animal inside, she’d taken theatrics to a whole new level. Her tears could appear and disappear faster than Superman at the scene of a crime.

Black Meadows was by no means a small town, but with only the research facility and a car plant, it was easy to see people as either scientists or engineers. Then there were the blue-collar plant workers and the small-business owners.

Looking through the microscope at the samples of the particularly special FB chromosome, Sophia had to smile. Yes, she had called the chromosome Furry Beast. It was her special way of keeping herself from losing her mind after working on this for what felt like forever.

Finally, she’d pulled a sample of DNA from both sets of shifters and created pure chromosome strands of a cat and a wolf. A slow smile slid across her face. She could swear she heard birds chirping and a Hallelujah Chorus above her head while she stared through the small eyepiece of her microscope.

“Goddamn, I fucking rock!” Laughter and excitement unlike any she’d ever experienced, not including meeting man-candy Chase, popped and fizzled through her until she was bouncing on her stool, grinning like a fool.

Now that she thought of man-candy Chase, her brain did the usual X-rated stripping of those rock-hard limbs. Mmm, man-candy Chase…he was her biggest temptation. If she had an affliction, it was called Furry Beast Alpha, or FBA for short.

Side effects included, but were not limited to, making a woman stop, stare, and drool on the spot; panties somehow finding themselves off and thrown his way; and finally, if said subject were to smile, blacking out from sudden excitement.

She was still unable to figure out how one minute he could be smiling at her, and the next she would be sitting in a chair counting fuzzy bunnies running across her field of vision.

Thank goodness, she still hadn’t gone as far as the panty throwing, but she was tempted…God, she was tempted. Every time she got near him, her hands itched to tear off the little slip of lace, wave her arm in the air, and yell, “Pick me, pick me!”

She giggled and bounced in her seat, causing her short hair to tickle the nape of her neck. Looking to celebrate, she turned on the radio at her desk to some dance mix. She stood and stretched, lifting her white T-shirt in the process and showing her softly rounded belly. All alone in the lab, she didn’t care if she showed some skin.

Her full breasts strained against the cotton while her stonewashed jeans clung lovingly to her generous hips. When she bent over to stretch her back, the move made her jeans ride low, and cold air caressed her lower back enough to show off the one thing she had ever done to be wild—a tattoo of a pink and purple fairy on her upper right cheek. Thankfully, there was no one around to see that.

She started singing along completely off-key to some song that talked about being sexy and knowing it. Snorting to herself, she knew even singing it was a lie. There were no feelings of sexiness anywhere in her—they only happened when FBA was around.

She pulled out two syringes, filled one with werecat and the other with werewolf chromosomes, and laid them on the small collection tube tray. She sang louder as she moved. It wasn’t like anyone was around to hear her sad attempt at singing.

She needed to find her special vials so she wouldn’t confuse these specimens with any of her other samples. She put away the older mixed strands she wasn’t actively using in the cold storage only she had access to, now that she’d changed the passcodes to her biometrics. When she began working at the lab, there was little security. That changed as soon as she made her first breakthrough in shifter DNA.

Because she was the head of the genetics department, she was allowed her own work space. It also meant she got a big lab to use for her research.

Other than equipment and coded papers, the place was kept immaculate. Large and small machines were strategically placed to make the movement of samples from one to the other quick and efficient, along with multiple computers and printers.

The lab was also really cold. Goose bumps broke out on her caramel skin as she thought of the heater sitting by her desk. Outside, the weather was beautiful, but an iceberg lived inside the building.

She knew complaining would do nothing, since the best way to keep instruments from growing bacteria was to keep them cold. She would have to go to her office, which was located next door, to write her notes before she left, so at least there, she’d be warm. Glancing at her watch, she realized the hour.

Oh, shit! She was going to be late for her meeting with the lab’s facility director.

Holding her precious tray of sharps, she hurried toward the other metal table to get to her special-colored vials.

In her haste, and her hips being well-rounded, she hit the corner of the table.

What came next, she would later tell herself was due to her own stupidity at trying rush around when she was not as coordinated as she liked to think.

Bouncing off the edge and falling forward in a sickening loss of balance, she saw the floor rush up to meet her face. Instinctively, she let go of the tray with one hand to try to catch her fall.

Everything around her narrowed to just the sound of her breathing. Distantly, she heard the metal tray smack the floor, and she landed on top of it, keeping the vials from falling and shattering on the concrete. Thank God.

She winced and picked herself up off the floor.

The damn underwire in her bra pinched her breast; it always seemed to break through the casing at the worst time. She wouldn’t have bothered with them if they didn’t make her breasts look so lingerie-catalog good.

“Ouch, dammit!” Looking down at the tray, she saw that the sharps were not there. Panic seized her, and sharp blades of terror stabbed her gut while she scanned the ground. The pinching sensation in her chest drew her attention to where the two long sharps dangled from the area between her breasts.

Icy fear numbed her brain and lodged in her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe. Frantic, she pulled the two long needles out carefully and examined the amount in each.

There was a minute amount missing from each.

A panicked scream wrenched out of her. Her first thought was to take a blood sample and check for any alterations in her DNA. After a second of logical thought and some frenzied breathing, she decided a few days of waiting were best.

No notable change would show up straight away if there was a delayed reaction. If there had been any life-altering changes to her DNA, she would see it in a few days.

Tears of frustration filled her eyes. Had she destroyed all her hard work with a stupid accident? She’d have to wait until Monday when she returned to the lab to run tests, unless there were any strange occurrences sooner.

Her stomach churned at the thought of her foolishness, but there was not much she could do other than wait and see. She stood, carefully grabbed the two vials with shaky hands, and stored her previously untainted samples.

She secured her storage freezer with her fingerprint and voice, which turned on the double-locked safe. There was no way in hell she was going to take any chances with what was in there. It was a good thing the freezer was made of the thickest metal available and resembled a bank vault.

She headed for her office. Her previous happiness turned into a desolate sense of impending doom when she thought of the notes she would have to write to detail the calamity from that afternoon.

Sophia popped the tiny flash drive from her laptop’s USB port and stuck it in her pocket. She locked up her computer, then grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

* * *

Shit. Shit. Shit. She was late. Her stomach churned at the thought of being yelled at for her ineptitude.

But Ms. Winchester, the facility director, wasn’t that way. She was a nice older woman who had an easy way about her.

In the past, the sweet old lady had been so busy, she’d never been able to meet with Sophia at her office. Their meetings always ended up taking place outside the research facility at some restaurant where they would eat and catch up.

Victoria, or Tori as she preferred to be called, was sitting at a table. She smiled softly at Sophia, motioning for her to take a seat.

Tori Winchester looked amazing for her age. She was short, slim, and so petite, she made Sophia feel like an Amazon at five-foot-three. Her short silver bob hugged the curve of her neck and was coiffed to total perfection.

She wore a forest-green suit that screamed wealth. Tori’s emerald eyes were filled with life. The older woman was alert and sharp as a tack, which had allowed them to have some incredibly intellectual discussions in the past.

“Good afternoon, Sophia. How are you doing?” Tori asked.

Sophia was about to beg for forgiveness for being late, but that wretched feeling in her stomach was gone. Technically, she’d put in so many hours of overtime, being five minutes late wasn’t a big deal.

What surprised her most was that her gut fear was gone.

“I’m great, Tori. Thanks for asking,” Sophia replied.

Tori laughed. “Something good must’ve happened.”

Sophia gave her boss a questioning look.

“I’ve never seen you so joyful,” Tori answered. “What is making your life so happy?”

Sophia chewed on her bottom lip. She was so bad at lying, but if the head of the facility found out she’d been doing unauthorized work…

Tori slapped her hand on the table. “Did you finally extract what you needed from the shifter DNA?”

Sophia sat stunned. No one should’ve known what she’d been doing.

One side of Tori’s mouth curved up. “Are you asking how I know about that?” Sophia nodded. Her boss patted her hand. “It’s my job to know, child. Do you think I haven’t noticed the hours you’re putting in? Have you slept in the past six months?”

She fumbled for words. “I, uh…” Normally, she’d be under the table in embarrassment, hoping the earth would open and swallow her whole.

Instead she said, “I did find a way to separate chromosomes from genes. All I need to do is create a serum and…” Sophia froze. Did the woman know all of what she had been researching? Did she know the end game?

“And what, dear? Serum for both feline and the wolves?”

A waitress saved her from answering. “What can I get you all to drink?”

She opened her mouth to order her normal sweet tea, but something else came out. “I’d like a glass of milk.”

Tori raised a brow and ordered her usual unsweet tea. “We’d like to place our order.” Tori looked at her. “Do you know what you want?”

They frequented this restaurant since it was close to the office and never had a line at the door to get a table. Sophia liked this place for the salsa chicken. Fresh veggies for the salsa made her mouth water.

She said, “I’d like a steak.” The server wrote down the order and asked how she wanted it cooked. “Still mooing, please.” At that, the waitress glanced at her, but kept writing. After taking Tori’s order, the waitress went to put in their orders and get their drinks.

“Sophia, what has gotten into you?” the sweet woman asked. “You’ve never ordered steak before.”

She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what was going on. But she couldn’t tell her boss that. “Well, I thought a change would be nice.” She thought no such thing. Could she have brain damage from working too much with little sleep?

Tori unwound her silverware and put the napkin in her lap. “Now, what were you saying? Something about creating a serum for what?”

Dammit. She’d hoped the too-smart woman would’ve forgotten. No such luck.

“I could go a few different ways, but my goal is to let my sister be able to stop the shift if she wanted to.”

“Fabulous, dear. I knew you would figure it out.”

“You’re not mad about me doing my own thing?” she asked.

Tori’s brows lowered. “Why should I be? You have all current jobs under control with the lab techs and nothing dire is waiting.” Her boss leaned in as if to share a secret. “Besides, what you’re doing is groundbreaking and simply amazing. I want you to succeed.”

Sophia sat back, surprised. “You do?”

“Of course, young lady. We women have to stick together if things in this sad world of ours is to get better. We have to take control and make change happen.”

Sophia was shocked by the enthusiasm coming from her boss. The wonderful woman never got riled about anything.

Tori’s eyes scanned the room quickly. “You are securing your work, right? Locking it up somewhere?”

Sophia nodded, her eyes darting around, trying to see what Tori was looking for. “I’m putting it in the cold storage every night.”

“What about your laptop and notes?” Tori asked.

“I keep them locked in the lab’s cabinet,” Sophia said.

Tori gave her a nod. “Including tonight’s notes? If you made the breakthrough, tonight’s are the most important.”

“I haven’t written the analysis yet, but the data is backed up on my flash.”

Tori scowled. Shit, Sophia knew why, and should’ve kept her big mouth shut.

“You know, Sophia, it’s against policy to take any type of data out of the building.” Sophia cringed, ready for a tongue lashing. “But in this case, I think it’s a good idea.”

Again, Sophia was surprised. “You do?”

Her boss laughed. “Don’t be so shocked, dear. Do you think I’m some old curmudgeon who doesn’t live in the real world?”

“No!” Sophia replied. “I’ve never thought that.”

Tori patted her hand again. “Good. Because I’m not. I think we should take extra precautions with your work. Having a backup is smart. Keep it somewhere but the lab.”

“I take it home with me where I have a hidden spot for it,” she said.

“Excellent,” Tori said. “Now, let’s celebrate your remarkable achievement.”

Their waitress returned with a tall glass of milk and tea. Sophia stared at the white drink then drank it down in one tip of the cup.

“Would you like another?” the server asked, somewhat astounded.

“Yes, please.” What the hell was up?

* * *

Chase took a swig of crisp, cold beer while scrutinizing the crowded bar. The Back Door was packed on Friday nights, and Julia was behind the bar, serving drinks with a smile. Chase’s brother watched from a seat next to him.

Looking at the pitiable adoration pasted on his brother’s face, Chase wanted to smack him upside the head to bring him back to the land of the non-pussy-whipped. What the hell happened to his strong, no-nonsense beta? The one that always told Chase “not me, I never want a mate.”

He’d turned into an overgrown puppy is what. After River met Julia, he’d given a new definition to the phrase love-struck fool. Chase snorted, gulped down more of the draft, and scanned the entirety of the bar for any idiots who might want to start trouble.

His gaze bypassed the women who stared and struggled to catch his attention. Pack and human females had a tendency to fling themselves, and articles of clothing, at him. He knifed cold fingers through his black hair, unconcerned if he messed up the strands and ended up looking like a wild animal.

He didn’t really care most of the time how his hair hung, but women seemed to love the shaggy, untamed look. It wasn’t done on purpose—his hair just grew so much that it became an annoyance to get it cut every two weeks. There were more important things to do than make a trip to a barber to make him look tame.

Julia smiled at one of her waitstaff as she filled glasses. Her long dark hair was in a ponytail and gave her the appearance of a teenager among adults.

Unlike most shifters, she wasn’t a stick figure. After she’d been turned, she’d lost some weight, her body gaining the rapid ability to metabolize fat. Shifters were slimmer, since each shift made it easier to burn a large number of calories.

Julia was a little rounder and softer than most, which explained his brother’s love for groping her whenever he thought nobody was looking. Julia had a flair for the dramatic, which made it sometimes painful to be around her when she was in one of her tearful moods.

He observed his sibling’s mate and immediately thought of Sophia. Julia’s older sister was petite, remarkably smart, and so hot, the air crackled with fire, the temperature going from warm to blistering whenever she was around.

With a body that wouldn’t quit, she made him want to get on his knees and beg. She resembled a 1950’s pin-up model, all sexy curves. He pictured himself blowing raspberries in the valley of her luscious breasts. Her hips—dear Lord, they were a thing of beauty; all rounded, they showed off her nipped waist to perfection.

Caramel skin, thanks to their Latin heritage, glowed when she smiled, as though the sun recently kissed the silky flesh. Her full lips begged him for a kiss every time he got a glimpse of them. It was hell holding back.

Those sexy, sleepy, gray eyes gave her the just- rolled-out-of-bed look and made his cock jerk whenever she turned them his way. Chase was not normally a fan of short hair, but her brown curls had him itching to run his fingers through the silky mass.

Her scent drove him to distraction; she always smelled of peaches and cream. Whenever he was around her, he marveled at her fragrance. If he licked her, would the flavor be as sweet as the scent?

Unfortunately, she wasn’t interested.

Her disinterest was like a slap in the face. He struggled against the impulse to get near her, and wrestled his lust for dominance in order to stay away.

When he first tried getting close to her, she’d blush and make a beeline to somewhere else. Anywhere else. His wolf growled at him each time, telling him to follow. But Chase wasn’t about to push himself onto a female who didn’t want him.

Turning toward his brother, he realized River had been saying something while he’d been mentally stripping Sophia and doing all kinds of dirty, probably illegal-in-some-states things to her.

The barrage of sexual thoughts overran his brain like a virus on a hard drive. Whenever her name popped into his head, he got so hard, he felt the denim tighten around his cock into a painful, unyielding fist.

“So?” River’s brows lifted as he waited for a response.

“So, what?” He winced at his brother’s disgustingly happy smirk. God, just shoot him now. He was going to have to put up with this for how long?

“You weren’t even listening to me, were you? I said Sunday, Julia and I are having a barbecue, and we want you to come over. It’s not a party, so there’s no need to freak out thinking you’re going to be dodging panties. It’s just the four of us.”

River’s strong features resembled his own—dark hair cut to the nape of his neck and brown eyes they got from their mother, and the fierce, angular planes of their faces from their father.

His brother was a little shorter than Chase’s six-foot-three. Both were muscular and got a lot of female attention. Of course, now his brother was oblivious to any woman but his wife.

“The four of us?” Chase put his empty beer bottle down.

Julia came over, put down a napkin, and plunked down a fresh bottle. She leaned over the counter and gave her husband a quick kiss. Great, so he was going to have to watch them play footsie while Sophia pretended he didn’t exist.

“Did you ask him?” She smiled at River, then turned to Chase.

“I just did, sweetheart. He still hasn’t said if he’s coming.” He grabbed her hand and lifted it to his lips. She stared at him, the heat in their eyes clearly visible for anyone to see.

Julia gave Chase a small frown. “Well? Can you come? I really want you there, Chase.” She gave her husband a small, pleasure-filled smile. “We’ve got something we need to tell you guys, but we only want to do it once, so you have to be there.” She grinned and her eyes sparkled when she spoke.

He’d never seen River as happy as he was since meeting his mate. It made Chase feel uncomfortable to be a voyeur to their love-fest.

“Ah, shit, come on, Julia. Do you honestly think I’d ever say no to you? I’d never hear the end of it from Don Juan over here.” He curled his lip in his trademark smile and winked at his sister-in-law.

Julia was family now, and he’d do anything in his power to make the females in his family happy. Even if that meant torturing himself to be near the woman of his every dirty fantasy.

She laughed, grabbed Chase’s face, and kissed him loudly on the cheek, which shocked a blush out of him. Fuck, now she was trying to turn him into a domestic animal.

No way, he was alpha. Hear him roar.

“Great!” she said. “Just make sure you come, or I’ll have to hunt you down and make a wolf rug out of you.” Without waiting for a reply, she went back to serving drinks, her happiness radiating warmth all around.

“So, are you going to be okay with Sophia joining us?”

Chase’s gaze landed on his brother and his shrewd stare. He didn’t want to know what River meant by his probing, but he could only think that his sibling had noticed Sophia’s obvious dislike of him.

For fuck’s sake, the woman acted like he had rabies. Whenever he walked in, she walked out.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“Hmm. Her shyness toward you drives you nuts.”

Chase snorted. “Whatever. She’s never around long enough for me to get to that stage.”

His brother sighed. “Don’t take it personally, bro. She’s that way with most people. Shyness is hard to overcome.”

“So you say.” Chase swallowed half his beer. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

River slapped him on the shoulder. “That sounds more like the brother I know. I’ll call you Sunday. Don’t forget.” River gave him the look that he’d given him before his wedding, the one that said if you try to get out of this, I’ll bitch and moan so much, you’ll visualize killing me multiple times.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

* * *

Ratface tossed his cell phone onto the table. The smack as it hit the wood echoed in the windowless room. It was fucking cold in there; being underground, it was like being in a freakin’ cave.

He hated the cold. If he wanted to be frozen all the goddamn time, he’d be in fucking Alaska or some shit.

The four others at the table snapped awake with his entrance. What a pathetic group of misfits. He was amazed they’d gotten as far in life as they had. Only good thing about it was that it made them dispensable. If one died, then another could easily replace them.

All except him, of course.

“Our person in the field just called,” Ratface said. “Seems our target ate dinner at a restaurant tonight and discussed things they shouldn’t have wanted sensitive ears to hear.”

“All right, boss,” Goon said. “What did they say?” A high-pitched squeal giggled through the hyena.

Ratface sighed and looked at the shifter. “I was gonna tell you until you interrupted, shit head.” He looked around the table. “We got confirmation. The goods are at her home and the lab in something called cold storage.” He mumbled to himself about more damn cold shit.

“We gonna go get it now, boss?” Goon asked. The others nodded, giggling and licking their lips.

“No, we are not,” he said. “We have to come up with a plan. Now shut up before I shut you up.” The group around the table fell quiet.

Ratface paced. Without the boss telling him what to do, he’d figure it out himself. He could do this. He was smart, too. He owed this to his boss. Of all the things that happened, this was the least he could do.

If the woman had stuff at her home and lab, then they needed to get to her home and the lab. Yeah, he was smart.

They’d have to watch her and wait for a time when she was gone. From what intel they had so far, she spent a lot of time with her sister when not in the lab.

The woman was so damn boring, working all the time. She didn’t even take breaks to eat. Only a human could do that. And she didn’t talk to anyone. Only when her boss made her leave to meet and eat did she get out.

He wasn’t worried about this first task. Humans were so easy, too predictable. A whiny laugh trickled out of his throat. He couldn’t wait.