Tuesday went the same, polite chat. Although the boys were nice they also seemed distant. Something I was determined to stop. By Wednesday I found a weak point within the group. Embry – the boy that choked on the food on Monday- he was smiley and decent, he was lovely and I was starting to really like him. Whenever I tried to make chat he was always eager to talk and I had the sneaky suspicion that he liked me too.

That night my mom approached me. Something she never did. We lived in perfect harmony not acknowledging the other, not even a grunt or head nod in the morning. I never had a father and I was a mistake at a young age so she took care of me until the age of 5-6 then decided I would be alright by myself and to say that I lived off pop-tarts that year was not an exaggeration. But I had developed without so much as a second glance by her, only her nice shiny credit card. I followed her without complaint wherever her carrier took her (and me) I like to think of this in a positive way. She was a stuck up woman who didn't treat anyone like equals so I liked to think that I was better off without her influence.

Anyway so when I was walking in the door after school, all happy because of the nice feeling that arises every time Embry talks to me, she called me

"Kayleigh" the word sounded foreign on her lips. I stopped. Wondering if we were moving again after only a week and a half or maybe someone had died.

"Kayleigh, your going on a… holiday back to Spain" I was going back to where I spent most of my childhood. And I didn't miss the way she said your in a way that suggested she was staying here.

"on holiday? Why?"

"there is a catalyst in my blood that was passed on to you and now you have to deal with that in Spain" she said sharply like she loathed this conversation. She was also making no sense what so ever, how would you feel if your mother said that to you?

"What? Who? How? -"

"just go to Spain" she snapped then told me how I was getting there and how there would be someone to meet me and I was staying in this weird hotel. She said go to Spain and that is what I did.

-

Just as she said, when I got off the plane there was a lady there waiting for me. In silence she drove me to a HUGE hotel. I didn't know we had one this big. It must be 15 floors or something. She dropped me off in a waiting room with a reception desk on one side and a row of white and blue waiting chairs on the other side. White and blue seemed to be the theme for the whole building.

I cautiously sat down on the very end of a chair before the receptionist called,

"they are ready to see you now"

it sounded so professional and I felt like I had an appointment with a doctor. I got up slowly and walked to the end of the room and towards the only other door dreading what I would find there.

None of this made any sense, I didn't know what I had done or was going to do, the only thing I had to go on was the nonsense my mother spouted before I left ' there is a catalyst in my blood that was passed on to you and now you have to deal with that in Spain' I heard in my head again and it still made no sense.

I stepped into the room and felt like I stepped into some sort of board meeting. The walls were white and the carpet blue, but taking up the whole room was a massive black glass table capable of seating 12. There were 5 women sitting at the top, the furthest away from the door, and all dressed in black suits.

"sit down" one of the women said with a definite air of authority. So I did what I was told and sat down in the farthest seat away still looking at them.

"What do you know of why you are here?" the same lady spoke. The spokeswomen I suppose.

"Nothing" I told them honestly

"Right, well lets start with your parents" I flinched slightly

"your mother and your father both have special blood. So very soon a change will occur in you as a result of this, usually for our kind the change happens at the age 30 or there about as it differs for each person"

"our kind?" I asked in a small voice, scared of the answer

"do you believe in magic Kayleigh?" I gulped

"I….I suppose"

"well, your father has shape shifter blood which was handed down through his genes from his ancestors and the same goes for your mother, except they are both a different species. Your father held the wolf gene and your mother held this gene, the gene that brings you here today, the feline gene you could call it" I kept very quiet

"this change will occur in you within the next couple of days and you will change into a member of the big cat family whether that be a lion or lynx or something of that nature. In this hotel everyone else is learning to accept the change also so therefore bobcats, jaguars and leopards roam free" I didn't want to believe these people but something was telling me that what they were telling me was the absolute truth.

" Didn't you say people make this change around 30, but I am only 16..." but I was cut of by the woman again

"yes, but as I have already explained, your strange DNA makeup resulted in an early change" she paused before going on. I swear my head is going to explode with information overload.

"the reason for the change is to keep the other magical creatures in line. We are the peace makers and patrol officers. We fight for our charges only when needed we usually only create allies and treaties. But if a charge(s) is threatened then we fight. We are drawn to the charges and that is mainly what starts the change, we have never had a person change who has not got a group to take care of/control."

They then filled me in on the fact that my father is Joshua Uley and I have to baby-sit his son's (my brothers) 'pack'. Well they didn't say baby-sit but that's basically what I'm doing. They informed me of the other 'magical creatures', which was Vampires, other shape shifters and werewolves. They told me all about how we are the most powerful creatures to walk this earth and could easily keep our 'charges' in line, we were faster, stronger, had better agility and also had the power to create mind links between ourselves and anyone, but with charges it was apparently easier. We also had this mental radar for the charges so that we knew if one was in distress. And that was about all I took in that night as it was well past midnight.

I wandered into an empty elevator after being told I was on floor 7 door 3. I slumped against the back wall of the navy elevator out of exhaustion. The doors tinged open on the 4th floor and a mighty lioness trotted in, I jumped back hitting the cold wall behind then cringed into the corner as it turned to look at me, it had a comforting gaze but dropped it when the doors opened to reveal the 7th floor and I practically ran out of the doors and quickly found my room.

-

I found out that this was very common around here, the walking around as a cat thing, people were learning control and would pop in and out of forms unexpectedly. It scared me the first couple of times, as people do not bring clothes around when they are changed, but after the 3rd person who was talking to me suddenly changed into a snow leopard in front of my eyes I came to expect such things.

But it wasn't until after lunch on the second day that I felt sick to my stomach and took refuge in my room, I was prepared though because I knew this was coming so I went to the mirror and stood there watching until I felt like I was sweating, like a bucket of water had been thrown over my head, I felt like I was melting as I slid down going with the melting feeling and then I was on all fours. That process speeded up was how it really was in a matter of 2 seconds I was a big midnight black panther with a hint of blue streaked in there. And I was gorgeous if I do say so myself.

It was as easy as breathing, like slipping on another skin that fit like a glove. My new life had begun.