Title: Shifted - A Women of the Otherworld Fanfiction
Written by: Nyx Goldstone
Disclaimer: It's Kelley's sandbox, she's just kind enough to let me build my imaginary castles in it. More officially, Otherworld characters and such are ©Kelley Armstrong
Rating: PG - Strong language, mild violence
Author's Note: I was inspired to write this when I read an amusing Pirates of the Caribbean self-insert called "The Damsel and the Distressed." Shifted started out as a break from another fanfiction story of mine, but then took over my braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!!

Caged

"You fought like hell last night. I'm not sure if we should be impressed or not."

The woman's voice echoed through my head as I blinked away the darkness that inked out my vision. I tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea and a pain that protested my moving shoved me back onto the cold concrete under my back. I lay there a few minutes, my hair fanned out above my head as the floor surface cooled the back of my skull.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckk..." I finally managed to groan. With the effort of someone carrying a lead weight strapped to their wrist, I managed to cover my face with my arm. The aches and protests that my body was giving me seemed to cement the decision that a week of twelve hour work days followed by a night of drinking alone will never again be on my to-do list. That, or experimenting with the liquor cabinet's contents should be removed from said list. Yeah, that one is better.

I was barely aware of the shuffling of feet on concrete until I heard a second voice, male this time. "I'll take over from here." Two sets of feet moving around somewhere near my head, the scrape of a chair moving followed by hesitant footsteps retreating from the room.

Something in my brain suddenly clicked. Who did these voices belong to? I didn't have any roommates. I moved out of that situation a couple weeks ago. Besides, the one guy that I shared the old place with had the barking voice of someone who was constantly under strain, whether or not it was true. This guy sounded like, um, not that. Quieter, calmer, and definitely a tenor if not a baritone.

I shot up to a sitting position, coming face to face with a stone wall. I blinked as if it would clear the sight of the wall from my eyes, like it does that pre-waking up gook when I slept too hard. I didn't have stone walls in my apartment. Shit, I don't even think the pathway from the garage to the apartment was even real stone! I lived in Southern California, for Christ's sake... Nothing there was real except the smog; but, here I was, staring at my faint shadow on a real stone wall.

A light cough and the slight scrape of a chair being moved as someone stood up reminded me that I wasn't alone. I turned quickly at my waist and flinched when I felt and heard my spine line up with the sudden movement. What the hell had I been doing that I was so out of whack? I felt warm and dizzy, like when I start coming down with the flu, but that didn't explain why I was here and not at home. Nightmare! That had to be it! Nightmares have been plaguing me for the last few days, and I went and made it all sensory encompassing by drinking myself into a stupor.

I was no stranger to fighting my way through the feeling of illness, so it wasn't much of a struggle to scramble to my feet and face the person behind me. Succeeding on getting to my feet was a different story all together, though. I hadn't felt such deep, fall-inducing pain since I slipped with my utility blade in art class and had to get stitches. My right leg buckled under my weight and sent me back down to the floor.

"Sunova-BITCH!" I heard myself snarl, pressing my hand to my jeans at my thigh where I found a slash in the fabric and a bandaged but freshly bleeding wound. I shut my eyes, clenched my teeth and sniffed. It was the sniffing that gave me a reason to pause. Most of my life I've had sinus problems so strange that nothing short of my ENT going in and reconstructing my sinus passages would allow me to smell anything stronger than straight peppermint oil stuffed right up my nose. In other words, I had no sense of smell worth mentioning. Or, at least, I hadn't. Until now.

While I was sniffing the air, taking in the unusual scent of laundry detergent, fabric softener, water, and my own blood, the figure that stayed behind the bars shifted again and spoke softly to me.

"What's your name?"

I blinked and looked up at the silhouette above me. Tall, lean, and that was all I could tell with him being back-lit by the light behind him. I opened my mouth, then hesitated a half second while I changed my mind. "Nyx." Sure, it wasn't my given name, but why should it matter to this guy? I was in a cage while he wasn't. I damned sure wasn't going to give him any more of the upper hand than he already had.

He was silent a moment, and I was sure he knew that I wasn't being truthful. "I suppose the Greek goddess born of Chaos is a suitable enough name to call you by, given your current situation."

Crap. Busted.

"I... I don't know who you are, and I won't ask. Just let me go home." I hated when I sounded whiny, too proud to show weakness in front of anyone, no matter who they were. This time, though, I couldn't help myself. "Blindfold me, drop me off two towns down, I don't care. I won't tell anyone anything. Just let me go home."

"And where is home, Nyx?"

I decided to not lie this time. "Santa Ana, 'bout fifteen minutes from Disneyland."

The moments seemed to stretch on as the shadowed stranger before me didn't answer. Finally, he spoke: "Vacationing, then? Perhaps visiting family? Did you just decide to wander around the rural area of New York for fun, or do they live around here?"

"Wh-what?!" I spoke without thinking. I do that sometimes. "I—New York? Los Angeles is the furthest any family that I'd visit stretches! What the fuck are you talking about?" I suddenly felt woozy, but if it was from the fever, the blood loss, or being told in a round about way I was in rural New York I wasn't sure what was the cause.

I watched as the man shook his head and turned his back toward me and headed toward the door. I scrambled to my feet, thinking that he was leaving. I knew I had a nice, high pain threshold, but I didn't know how high until that very moment. I fought through the aches of the fever and the pains of the wound in my right leg to get to the bars that separated me from my only source of finding out what the hell was going on.

He wasn't leaving though. What he did was flick a light switch, summoning life into a bright overhead light. I blinked against it, barely aware of the tiny daggers poking me behind my eyes with the sudden brightness. He turned back toward me, moving with the silent grace of a wild predator. Black eyes that tilted up in a barely noticeable slant, long and scruffy black hair tied at the nape of his neck, and tall. My breath caught in my throat as the description clicked.

"Jeremy Danvers..." I whispered.

Something changed behind his eyes, but his expression remained unreadable. "How do you know who I am?"

I avoided his eyes, instead looking to the side. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you..." I mumbled. His silence was not reassuring, so I looked at him again. "Why am I locked in here?" I was already dreading the answer.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

My heart sank. "Maybe more than you realize..."

Jeremy left me that first night without an explanation or an opening to demand one and I didn't see him again for a while after that. Exactly how long, I wasn't sure. One can't exactly measure the passage of time from a cage in someone's basement. Most of it, though, was spent in blissful darkness. Having read the Otherworld novels and stories so often that I knew them by heart, I was thankful for the black oblivion that followed the itchy and stretching feeling that came before Changing. I didn't want to think about what I did when I turned into a wolf. All I knew was that it must have been bad to leave me locked up. Or, maybe, I had given away any advantage I had when I let Jeremy know that I knew who he was without explanation.

Either way, there was just too much for me to think about. I was in a fictional world, but at least one I knew as well as any fanatic reader could. I may not be Kelley Armstrong herself, but I read every online fiction, author-written "encyclopedia" and forum FAQ that I could. I knew the possibilities of what I could come up against and even some of how to deal with them. What I didn't know was how to control the curse that had been given me.

Funny that I would call it a curse. I had exactly what every wolf Therian dreamed of: the ability to physically become a wolf. Shame that I wasn't a wolf Therian. I identified more with tigers; the ones with the genetic mutation of being "white" tigers rather than the standard orange, to be specific. Maybe I should have taken it as a lovely consolation prize that my totem animal was Wolf. Where was that bastard now that I needed his fucking guidance?

I was starting to remember the hours that I would usually be blacked out. I still couldn't control myself, though, so whether or not this was good or bad was still a toss-up. Clay and Elena would sometimes watch over me during the Changes, I guess to make sure I survived. What did it matter, though, if I lived or not? As far as they knew, I was one of the "mutts" that needed to be exterminated. Was it just more satisfying if I was able to see them coming as they killed me? I had also noticed early on that my bandaged leg would get fresh dressings every so often. I could only assume that it was Jeremy doing it, since he had the closest thing to medical training. Thank the gods I paid attention to those novellas before Kelley took them down. Then again, would I still be in this situation if I hadn't picked up the series?

Another detail that I never let myself forget was the appetite of a werewolf. They fed me generously and I had no problem finding a place for all that food. Not that eating was ever a problem for me before. I was actually kind of curious how this would turn out, considering I had the body that was very appealing to men in the countries of my ancestry, but was just a lard-ass compared to what was appealing in modern America. Damn Italian/Jewish heritage...

During my lucid moments I would try to engage Clay and Elena in conversation. Nothing more deep than trying to find out what they had planned for me, but they were tight-lipped. During my monologues I had started to wonder how much I fucked up by letting it be known that I recognized Jeremy, that I was trying to talk to my captors, that I was just there in general. All that inner debate would become inconsequential the day I was completely aware and in control of myself during the Change.

I suppose the tip off for the Pack was that when I didn't black out, I panicked instead. I stopped mid-Change, stuck between forms and scared shitless about what was happening to me. My monster movie screams that were part human and part wolf brought Jeremy running down. He coaxed me through the change, guiding me into my wolf form and stood there as I panted and whimpered on the stone floor. I let out another low moan as I stared at my paws and the dark brown, almost black fur that covered my arms. I was so screwed.

Stuck in that form for hours, I paced the cage. My emotions were alternating between thankfulness that I was protected behind these bars and irritation that I was trapped there. I wanted to run. To just stretch my new legs and test this new sense of smell that I developed. I knew it wouldn't happen, though. In the off chance that Jeremy did let me out, I was sure that Clay would make sure to follow me and rip me apart at any sign of trying to escape. So, I just settled for letting out a pitiful whine each time my muzzle got up close and personal with the bars of the cage.

All I really wanted to do was explore this whole world that opened up all of a sudden. My nose twitched with each scent that passed by. The colors that I could and could not see changed through my new eyes. Speaking as someone who attended art school from high school on, that there was no end to fascinating. I allowed myself a brief moment to wonder if I could replicate this visual world when I shifted back...if I shifted back.

If...

I had already been too long in this new body to be comfortable with it and caged. I whined as I realized that I could very well be stuck like this. My black and blunted claws made scraping noises as I pawed at the bars and stone beneath me. I didn't know how to ask for help with words, I sure as shit couldn't when I didn't have vocal chords that could form words. I whined again and looked at Jeremy, who had relieved Elena earlier after my panic.

Jeremy watched me from the chair across the room. Watched and waited, I was sure for me to show signs of changing back. I would have been happy to. I just didn't know how. Just as I was thinking that I would be stuck as a brown-black wolf forever, Jeremy stood up and crossed the room until he was right in front of the cage. He spoke to me in that deep, quiet, soothing voice of his. I couldn't make out the words right away, but I could tell he was coaxing me, encouraging me. Eventually I manged to pick out words, helpful ones even. I lost them midway through the Change back, but was able to shift back to my human form. I collapsed on the stone floor, panting as I did before. I couldn't help but wonder what a bitch these Changes would be if I didn't have such a high pain threshold.

I didn't have the strength to move when I heard the door of the cage creak open and the heavy warmth of a wool blanket over my shivering, naked form. I was just so tired... I remember mumbling something about being exhausted, but pushing myself up onto my own two feet. It didn't matter to me how much a werewolf could bench press without breaking a sweat. I wasn't about to let someone carry me, let alone someone who I only knew as the figment of an author's imagination. My hand went to my face to wipe my eyes, and that was when I noticed that I wasn't wearing my glasses. I looked behind me, into the cage, expecting them to be laying there. Everything was so clear though, from the bars to the bed. I held my hand out in front of my face and closed my left eye. The edges of my hand didn't blur. The true test came when I did the same with my right eye, to be pleasantly surprised that the usual result of my hand becoming a blurry flesh-toned blob didn't happen. Becoming a werewolf apparently is better than getting lasik. Jeremy guided me up the basement stairs to the first floor where I came face-to-face with Clayton Danvers.

Clay was always described in the books a being at a model-level of hotness with a well-muscled build. I believe "traffic-stopping gorgeous" is a direct quote from the one of the novels. But, I've never been into physique, especially that variety. If Clay was someone I met under—different circumstances—it would be his golden curls and intelligent, piercing blue eyes that would have made me stop and think "Yep, I'd never catch a man that looked that good in a million years." He didn't exactly tower over me, but my five-foot-seven versus his six-even and intimidating gaze definitely made me feel less than I was.

Unable to hold that hardened gaze, I shifted my eyes to the right to look further down the hall instead. My line of vision was obstructed by Elena Michaels...or was it Danvers? Now that I think about it, Armstrong never did clearly say if Elena took on Clay's and Jeremy's last name when she gave in and considered herself officially married to Clay. I wasn't thinking about that then, though. Just the slight twinge of female jealousy that Elena was everything I wanted to be: tall, slender, athletic, blue eyed... The white-blond hair I could do without, though. Too typical-perfect-heroine for me. Besides, I'd hate to be at the butt of all those blond jokes, and I was sure that she did, too.

A low, threatening growl from Clay forced me to look away from Elena as well and down at the floor. Carpeting... Very nice. I wondered where they got it from. Probably mail-order, if I know the characters as well as I think I do. My distraction was interrupted by Jeremy squeezing my shoulder firmly through the blanket and steering me toward the front of the house. I could hear Elena's and Clays footsteps following behind us.

A set of clean men's clothing was draped over the back of a chair and a large platter of cold-cuts were laid out on the sunroom table, waiting for us. The smell of the meat sent rumbling through my stomach, startling me a bit. I've been hungry before, working 12 hour double shifts and ingesting little more than an energy drink (much to the chagrin of my former roommates), but my stomach never had betrayed me by growling. The sound of it was strange in my ears and I stopped, thinking it was one of the werewolves behind me growling instead.

Jeremy took my stopping as an opportunity to step around me. He reached for the clothes on the back of the chair, handed them to me, then pulled out the chair for me to sit in when I was ready. Quite the gentleman. As Jeremy took a seat in another chair at the head of the table, Elena and Clay took up their positions around him; Elena in a chair to his right, Clayton standing rigid and ready behind them. I blinked slowly, the clothes still clutched tightly in my hands, confused of what they were expecting of me. I didn't care that they saw me naked right after I changed, they weren't going to have a second opportunity. Without even thinking about it, I looked behind me to my left and my right for a spot with privacy. The movement must have seemed like I was looking for an escape route because the warning growl from Clay left no doubt in my mind of what they wanted of me: Drop the blanket, put on the damn clothes, and sit the fuck down.

I did as I was almost told. Once clothed and sitting, my stomach rumbled again as the closeness to the food made the scent that much stronger. I braved a glance to my captors, but there was no response. I may not have wolf instinct, but I knew enough about them to know that it would be stupid to just help myself. I was the newbie, the outcast, the Omega...not a position I was used to. I sat, stared, and waited. Jeremy helped himself first, followed by Elena and Clay. Once they were clear of the platter, I heaped a small mountain of ham, turkey, and salami on my plate and dug in. No one said anything until stomachs were full and the eating had stopped. I had surprised myself again just how much food I put away.

"Now," came Jeremy's quiet voice from down the table, "Care to explain to me how you know who I am?"

"I already said," I muttered, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You put up a good fight against that mutt, and were obviously just at the wrong place at the wrong time." I looked at Elena as she spoke. "So, you obviously weren't told about the Pack before you were bitten."

"Not told in the way that you think, no."

I saw Clay's eyes flash at my response. He was getting frustrated with my word games. My problem was that the true answer could land me in just as big a flame as withholding the information. I looked at each werewolf in turn, weighing my options. My life was being held in a delicate balance that I did not know how to explain my way out of. It was one thing to tell your friends that you saw shadows where there shouldn't be, it was a whole other ballgame to explain to these three that I had somehow woken up, post bite, in a fictional world where werewolves, vampires, and zombie-controlling necromancers not only existed, but thrived under the radar of normal society. Yeah, piece of cake...

That was when another realization smacked me upside the head. I was post-bite. I was a turned werewolf, like Elena. No shit, sherlock, a small voice in my mind said. There's only one hereditary female werewolf in the book, and she isn't even in her terrible-twos yet.

Of course, my mind, being the happy wanderer that it is, wondered if Kate and Logan were even born yet. At exactly what point of the time line was I dropped into? Or was it even the same time line? Was I in an alternate universe, once or a hundred-thousand times removed from the one the novels were set in? If I was, how far removed? How different would this version be from the one I read? Maybe they really were toying with me, and Jeremy had grown up the apple of Malcom's eye. No, that wasn't possible. The protege of a bloodthirsty murder wouldn't give me a blanket and feed me. He would have killed me on the spot, not even bothering bringing me back to Stonehaven. The panic that I was starting to feel rising eased a bit as I reassured myself that I was mostly fine, at least for now. I hadn't realized that I was hyperventilating until a slight attack of feeling lightheaded had blurred my vision. Considering I almost failed regular physics in high school, I decided I should probably leave the issue and possibility of additional quantum physics out of it.