CHAPTER FIVE

“WE ALL EAT LIES, WHEN OUR HEARTS ARE HUNGRY.”

MAYA.

The next day.

Okay.

So.

My husband and his best friend had swapped souls overnight because of a orb that was delivered to our home by our pack shaman. My husband was now in Kayden's body. Kayden was now in my husband's body. I was the only person who knew. And I had no idea how long this had been going on before they woke me up this morning or how long it was going to last or what we were supposed to do about any of it.

That was the situation.

I poured my coffee.

I was on my second sip when I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Uneven ones — heavier than they should have been, slightly too careful, like someone navigating a body they were not fully comfortable in yet. I turned around just as Kayden appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Except it was not Kayden.

It was Yulian. In Kayden's face, Kayden's broad tattooed frame, wearing the grey t-shirt and sweats that Kayden had changed into last night, hair pushed back and eyes that were unmistakably my husband's even sitting inside someone else's face. He moved differently than Kayden did — more deliberate, more controlled. Kayden moved like someone who trusted his body completely and let it lead. This was Yulian moving Kayden's body like he was still figuring out the dimensions of it.

He stopped in the doorway and looked at me.

"You didn't sleep," he said. Yulian's voice coming from Kayden's mouth was something I was going to need more than one cup of coffee to get used to.

"How could I?" I said. "Coffee?"

"Please."

I got another mug down and poured. He came further into the kitchen and sat at the island, which he did carefully, like he was not entirely sure how tall he was right now, and I slid the mug across to him and watched him pick it up. He looked at his own hands — Kayden's hands, dark ink running across the knuckles and up the wrists — and something moved across his face that I could not fully name.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

He considered the question seriously the way Yulian always did, like he refused to answer anything without giving it proper thought first. "Strange," he said finally. "Everything feels — the same but louder. Like the volume has been turned up on everything physical."

"That's Kayden's wolf," I said. "He runs closer to the surface than you do."

Yulian looked at me. "You know that about him."

It was not a question exactly. I picked up my coffee. "I know things about both of you. It's not a big deal."

He did not push it. He wrapped both hands around the mug and looked out the window at the city and I looked at the side of Kayden's face with Yulian behind it and thought about how completely insane my life had become overnight.

We heard Kayden before we saw him.

There was a thud from the direction of the living room — something falling, then a muffled sound that was probably a word I would not repeat — and then footsteps that were very different from the ones I had just heard. These ones were confident and fast, the stride of someone who knew exactly how their body worked and was moving it without thinking. Except the body it was coming from was Yulian's and Kayden's soul had not quite calibrated to the fact that Yulian's legs were slightly shorter than his own.

Kayden appeared in the kitchen doorway, in Yulian's body, wearing Yulian's dress shirt from last night which he had not bothered to button properly, and he was holding his — Yulian's — left hand out in front of him and staring at it with an expression of profound offense.

"I walked into the coffee table," he said.

"It's in the same place it always is," I said.

"My legs are shorter."

"They're really not."

"They feel shorter." He dropped his hand and looked up and his eyes — Kayden's eyes behind Yulian's face — went to the coffee machine with an expression of pure relief. "Please tell me that's ready."

"It's ready."

He crossed to the cabinet, reached for a mug, and grabbed the wrong one because he reached for the high shelf where Kayden's mugs would have been at home and Yulian's kitchen was organized differently. I got the right cabinet open and handed him one without saying anything and he took it with a look that was caught between gratitude and irritation, which was so specifically Kayden that I almost smiled.

Almost.

The three of us stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, my husband in his best friend's body, his best friend in my husband's body, and me in my own body which was the only normal thing in the room — and drank our coffee in silence for about thirty seconds before Kayden said:

"Okay so what are we actually going to do?"

We moved to the living room because it felt wrong to have this conversation in the kitchen. I don't know why. It just did.

I sat in the armchair with my knees pulled up. Yulian sat on one end of the couch and Kayden sat on the other end and they both looked at me and I felt the very specific pressure of being the only person in a crisis who everyone else is waiting to hear from.

"First things first," I said. "Nobody finds out."

"Agreed," said Yulian.

"Obviously," said Kayden.

"I mean nobody," I said, looking at both of them. "Not pack. Not staff. Not anyone who works at Voss Enterprises. Nobody."

Kayden looked at Yulian. "She's looking at you when she says that."

"I'm looking at both of you," I said. "But Kayden — you are going to be sitting in my husband's office making decisions that affect this entire pack and I need you to understand how serious that is before we go any further."

Kayden opened his mouth.

"And I need you to understand it without making a joke first," I added.

He closed his mouth. Then he said "fair" and leaned back against the couch cushions.

"Yulian." I turned to him. "You have a race qualifying session in two days. On a motorcycle. On a professional circuit where people have been watching Kayden ride for years."

My husband, in Kayden's body, looked at me with the expression of a man who had already thought about this and found no comfortable solution. "I can learn."

"In two days."

"I can learn quickly."

"You've never ridden a bike competitively in your life."

"I've ridden bikes."

"Yulian."

"I've ridden bikes, Maya."

"There's a difference between riding a bike and being the number one ranked circuit racer in the—"

"I know the difference," he said, patient but firm. "I'll need Kayden to walk me through everything he knows about his technique and the specific circuit. I'll go to the track privately before the qualifying session. I learn fast. You know that."

I did know that. It was also one of the most Yulian things he had ever said — I'll just learn it — like difficulty was just a project he hadn't started yet.

I turned to Kayden. "And you have a full schedule at Voss Enterprises starting tomorrow morning. Eight AM. You have a call with overseas investors at nine, a pack meeting at eleven, and a site visit for the new development in the afternoon."

Kayden stared at me.

"I'll write it all down," I said.

"Maya."

"And I'll come with you to the office. As the Luna checking in, which is normal and happens regularly and nobody will question it. I'll be right there."

"You're going to babysit me."

"I'm going to make sure my husband's company doesn't collapse in the first twenty four hours, yes."

Yulian made a sound that might have been a laugh if he had let it out all the way. Kayden pointed at him. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it loud."

I pressed my fingers to my temple. "Can we please focus."

They both looked at me again.

"We need to contact Gregor," I said. "Privately. Not through any official pack channel, not through the main office line, not through anything that could be intercepted or overhead. Gregor is the only person who might know what this is and how to reverse it."

"I've known Gregor since I was a child," Yulian said. "He'll recognize me regardless of what body I'm in."

"Good. Then we figure out a way to get to him without it looking like anything other than a routine visit." I looked between them. "Until we know what we are dealing with and how long this is going to last, we treat every day as if it needs to be completely convincing. You are each other to the rest of the world. Every single person outside this apartment needs to believe that."

Kayden was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "What about your face."

I blinked. "What about my face."