Swapping Lives With My Cold Ex-Husband

At 7:00 AM, the low-frequency vibration of the backup generator pulled Dara from a deep sleep. She groaned, trying to roll over, but her body felt wrong. It felt incredibly heavy, like her bones had been filled with lead. The muscles in her shoulders and back were tight, thick, and entirely unfamiliar. Still half-asleep, she reached out to grab her phone from the nightstand. Her arm extended much further than it should have. Her hand slammed into the heavy brass lamp, knocking it over with a loud crash. The force behind the movement was terrifying. Dara's eyes snapped open. The ceiling looked closer than usual. Her center of gravity was completely off. She lowered her chin and looked at her hand. It wasn't her hand. She was staring at a massive, calloused palm with thick knuckles and faint, white scars scattered across the skin. Dara's heart stopped. She sucked in a frantic breath to scream, but the sound that ripped from her throat was a deep, gravelly male baritone. She kicked the silk duvet off in absolute panic. She was looking down at a broad, heavily muscled male chest covered in faded laceration scars. Her brain short-circuited. She scrambled backward, falling off the edge of the mattress. The tall, heavy body hit the floor hard, her limbs tangling awkwardly because she didn't know how to control the length of her own legs. She crawled frantically across the carpet and lunged into the attached master bathroom, gripping the edges of the marble sink. She looked up into the mirror. Donavon Monroe's cold, chiseled face stared back at her, his eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated terror. Dara raised a shaking hand to her cheek. The man in the mirror did the exact same thing. "Oh my god!" Dara screamed. The deep bass of her voice bounced off the bathroom tiles. On the other side of the bedroom, the deep male scream jolted Donavon awake. His combat instincts flared instantly. He attempted to execute a tactical kip-up to spring out of bed and into a defensive stance. But the body he was in lacked the explosive muscle mass he expected. His center of gravity failed him entirely. His feet tangled in the sheets, and he pitched forward, face-planting hard into the thick carpet. A high-pitched, feminine gasp escaped his lips. Donavon froze on the floor. He reached up to touch his throat. His Adam's apple was gone. The skin was smooth and delicate. He looked down. He was wearing a thin French lace nightgown. He saw the soft curve of breasts pressing against the fabric. The iron-clad psychological control of a former elite mercenary shattered into a million pieces. He scrambled to his feet, his balance completely off, and sprinted toward the bathroom. He shoved the bathroom door open. Donavon (in Dara's body) and Dara (in Donavon's body) stood face-to-face. They stared at each other across three feet of marble floor. The air in the room turned to solid ice. Donavon spoke first. His new voice was high, breathless, and shaking with rage. "What the hell did you do to me?" Dara stepped forward, her new massive frame towering over him. "That's what I want to ask you! You psychopath!" Donavon lunged forward, instinctively trying to grab her by the collar to slam her against the wall. But he was a full head shorter now. His hands merely grazed her chest. Dara flinched, stepping backward to avoid the attack. Her heavy heel caught the edge of a glass shelving unit. The entire shelf tipped over. Expensive glass bottles of cologne and serum shattered across the floor with a deafening crash. Donavon stared at his own massive, lethal body stumbling around like a clumsy idiot trying to avoid glass shards. It was the most absurd thing he had ever seen. Dara looked down at the delicate, beautiful woman standing in front of her. The woman's eyes were red and watering-a physiological reaction to the adrenaline spike that Donavon couldn't control in this new body. They both stopped moving. The horrifying reality settled into their bones. This wasn't a hallucination. They were trapped in each other's bodies.