Chapter One
Amber
The moment I exit our cozy upstairs apartment, I realize something’s wrong. It’s ice cold at the top of the stairs, which makes me think the temperature in Jewels Cafe has plummeted below freezing.
I’m not exaggerating, either. It’s not like I’m dressed in shorts and a t-shirt or something crazy like that. The sweater-dress Wes got me for Christmas—amber-colored, of course—is cozy, and my leggings are made of thick suede. Paired with black boots, it’s the perfect Winter Day in the Cafe outfit, so why do I still feel cold?
Did one of my guys mess with the thermostat settings and accidentally turn off the heat? Either that, or Juli’s latest attempt at magic blew up the front door… again…?
I rush downstairs. We’ve got expensive equipment in the cafe. What if someone broke in? I picture all sorts of horrifying versions of what could have happened, but when I enter the cafe, everything is still intact. The door is closed… so are the windows… but it’s so cold in the cafe that I’m shivering and my teeth start chattering.
Outside the window, last night’s blizzard is still in full swing. I’ve been told it snows every year on Mid-Winter’s Eve, but I didn’t picture it being quite this bad. Mounds of snow are piled high against the front of the cafe, and I can barely make out Main Street. We’re going to have a lot of shoveling ahead of us if we’re going to open the cafe in time for this afternoon’s party. Which I’ll worry about after I turn on the thermostat. If I don’t heat this place up, stat, no one in their right mind will stick around, party or no party.
I debate heading back upstairs to grab my jacket—plus a hat, gloves, and maybe ten heated blankets—but why go to all that trouble when I can shift instead?
Being a chameleon has its perks. I can turn into anyone I’ve seen over the past week, and Silver Springs is brimming with supes. Creatures with much higher metabolic rates and better resistance to the cold than me. Looks like my academy education is really paying off today.
I know that Julian, my witch best-friend-turned-mate, has the same cold tolerance as I do. Even if I didn’t have a rule against shifting into friends and family, turning into him wouldn’t do any good. Turning into one of my other two mates, Wes and Chase, is harder to resist. I wonder who’d do better naked in the middle of a snowstorm—my bear shifter or my bunny shifter?
“Focus, Amber!” I mutter through chattering teeth. I need to pick someone to shift into before I freeze to death or catch the mother of all colds. Literally anyone would do, so long as they have proper hands, with fingers, so I can change the thermostat… and make myself a cappuccino. Barista caffeine addiction is no joke.
My first thought for an ideal cold-resistant supe is Sapphire. She’s a vampire, so she doesn’t get cold easily, but I’ve started thinking of her as a friend, too. A slightly odd friend who orders seventy-five dollar coffee and insists she’s as old as time, but a friend nonetheless. There are other vampires to choose from, of course, like Rose’s guys, or Rose herself. But again, friends…
What about that panther shifter everyone calls Speed Bump? He came into town with Topaz a few days ago wearing a thin jacket instead of a proper coat. And Liam, the troll cop with the Mood Tea addiction, never wears a scarf or gloves. I could even opt for Ruby’s demon mate… the one who drops by the cafe whenever he thinks Chase isn’t around.
They’re all great choices, but which one would handle the cold best? It’s a great question, one that I should definitely test out. Not by dragging all of them out here in their underwear—which would definitely be weird, though totally hilarious—but by shifting into each of them in turn.
It’s definitely tempting, but I’m already cold. Like, really cold. Which is why I end up going for the less attractive, but safer and more surefire choice. The Yeti.
It’s actually pure luck that a Yeti happened to stop by Jewels Cafe last night to try our new specialty drink. He’d been visiting from another town… mountain… cave? Anyone who paid attention at the academy knows exactly where Yetis come from—and not in the biblical sense, either—except me. I was too busy ogling Julian. Which actually turned out alright, now that I think about it, but that’s beside the point.
What matters is that Yetis are Yetis. And regardless of where it is they come from, I know for a fact that they love snow. And ice. And the cold. Which, as it turns out, they do not feel. Like, at all.
I channel my chameleon magic, shift, and instant warmth! It feels like slipping into a fur coat, inside another fur coat, inside a third fur coat that comes with fuzzy socks that send liquid heat coursing through my body. Who needs a hat, scarf, or gloves, when you’ve gone Yeti?
My amber-colored sweater-dress magically reforms and stretches around my Yeti potbelly. Kind of gross, come to think of it, but I’m so warm I can’t quite bring myself to care.
I look down past said belly, and the floor seems really far away. The Yeti’s way bigger than Liam, not that I’m ever telling our Mood Tea drinking troll that. The guy’s a cop, and I’m still not sure if shifting into him counts as impersonating a police officer. That, and guys are just so sensitive about their size.
And speaking of size… my attention zeroes in on the junk between my legs. One particular appendage feels overly large, and I wonder what it looks like. I mean, it’s not like you can feel the shape of your junk just by thinking about it. Trust me, I know.
I take a step toward the back room and grimace. Where did my leggings and undies go? Why am I never wearing leggings or undies when I shift into guys? And why do they all have oversized packages that rub against my inner thighs?
I take another step and grimace. Okay, I did not need to feel that. Not. At. All. And why is it prickly?!
I’m tempted to take a peek under my skirt, but that would be a violation of the Yeti’s privacy. I wouldn’t want to find out that some chameleon out there shifted into me and looked between my legs.
Which is why I try to ignore the junkapalooza going on down there and cross the cafe toward the back room. All I have to do is turn on the thermostat, and soon I’ll be back in my own body, sitting in the cafe, sipping a cappuccino.
Chapter Two
Amber
The thermostat is located on the wall to the left of the back door. I lumber toward it, junk swinging, and jab at it with one thick Yeti finger.
The screen flickers on, and the number seventy stares back at me. That’s odd… we always set the thermostat to seventy. And all the doors and windows are firmly shut and in one piece. But then why the Chameleon—or in this case, why the Yeti—is the cafe still freezing?
I jab at the thermostat a few more times. I up the temperature to seventy-five. Then I let out a loud, menacing growl. Why isn’t it working?
I bet there’s a button I’m not seeing or some setting I need to adjust. One of my guys would probably know, and then I’ll feel like an idiot for not figuring it out for myself.
With another growl—wow, Yetis really like doing that—I head back into the cafe, junk swinging. I even start toward the stairs when a flicker of white outside the window captures my attention. Snow. Piles of snow. Snow everywhere!