Page 2 of Shifter's Dream

Dude had eyes on the ceiling, then he crouched and covered his head with his hands, freezing in place, looking exactly like someone was dumping rocks on his head. But they were indoors, nothing above him but grimy bathroom ceiling.

Dude squealed a little, like a piglet, then tried to cover it with anger. “Fuck, I am over this bullshit,” he said, staring at the floor, arms still locked in place over his head.

“Dude,” Troy said, embarrassed for him. Not really, but he tried to be. That’s what you were supposed to do when someone made an ass of themselves.

Dude lowered his arms slowly, then he shook it off. He came up to the sink next to Troy and pretended to wash his hands.

“Molly?” he said nonchalantly to his hands, like he could be saying anything.

Troy snarled. Fuck no, he didn’t want any fucking Molly, but fuck yes, he wanted some fucking Molly. Troy the wolf had rarely felt a compulsion to do anything more than run.Run and bite, and protect his family.But as a man? As a man his vices were numerous. In the last month he’d sampled every type of liquor sold or stilled in Serenity, and he’d tried weed, acid, cocaine, ritalin, valium, speed, and several kinds of mushrooms, doing each only once, but unable to stop trying new drugs, no matter how much Trevor lectured him and how much Ella worried. Most of them only made him sleepy. He’d smoked for a day, three full packs, walking around in a sick, vomitous daze for most of it, then vowing at midnight to never touch the cancer sticks again. It had been fun. Trevor had not thought so. Ella had asked Graeme to burn the clothes he’d been wearing, refusing to wash them in her washing machine. She’d even made Troy hose down in the backyard before he came in the house to shower. He hadn’t minded.

Troy was also obsessed with women, all women, all shapes, sizes, flavors, and attitudes. He was obsessed with sex. He was obsessed with food, and he was obsessed with sensation, good or bad. If you could fuck it, feel it, touch it, or taste it, he was all about it.

“Feels like?” Troy snarled at dude, not trusting himself any more words than those two. Neither had a W.

Dude shrugged his shoulders. “Molly? It feels like ecstasy, you know. Flying. Sex.”

“Price?”

“$40 a pill.”

“Sample,” Troy demanded. Dude’s eyes got big and he shook his head, but Troy snarled, a real rumbling wolf-snarl. Dude got smart, reached in his jacket pocket and came up with a tiny pill case. He shook out a pill and handed it to Troy. Troy tossed it in his mouth and crunched it, then dry swallowed.More,came the whisper from inside.

Troy dug in his pocket for $160 and came up with his money clip, overflowing, for exactly this kind of thing. He had plenty of money, because Trevor had always been a damn good brother and done all the footwork to ensure both Troy and Trent, their other brother, had always had fair paychecks and many investments, even though both had been expected to live out their lives as wolves, always needing someone else to take care of them in the land of men. “Three more,” he said, holding out the bills.

Trent was still stuck that way and he hadn’t stuck around in Serenity long enough after Troy had shifted for Troy to try to help him shift.

The bathroom door opened, letting in a blast of bar music. Blake came in, Blake, awolfenofficer from patrol, Trevor’s good friend. What in the hell was he doing in this dive bar?

The pills were dumped in Troy’s hand, in Blake’s full view. Troy shook his head once to the side, and tossed the pills in his mouth. He was caught, but he wasn’t guilty. Toss. Crunch. Swallow.

Troy pushed past Dude, nodded once at Blake, and got the hell out of there.

2 – Troy and the Three Fs

Troy stepped out into the heat and sweat of the bar. Knife-baby and ZZ were gone. The bar had gone back into bar mode, “Country Girl (Shake it for Me)” was booming from the speakers, and mostly-drunk people danced and flirted everywhere but the dance floor. Troy wound his way back to the corner table where Canyon and Timber sat, Canyon alone, but Timber with a curvy blonde on his lap. Troy’s nachos were just arriving. Jackpot.

The waitress cleared the area, and Troy stepped up next to the table. When the woman on Timber’s lap saw Troy, she bounced up and stepped in close to him, touching his arm. Troy shivered, resisting the urge to let his eyes roll back in his head at the blissful feeling. Troy rarely had been touched in his life. As a pup, sure, but not much after his mother had died with everyone else’s mother, and not since then. Ella had touched him sometimes, a friendly hand on his neck when she was talking to him or sitting next to him on the couch. He and Trent wrestled and lay near each other. Trevor had occasionally touched him. None of it had prepared him for what it felt like to be touched as a man.

“T-ster!” the woman cried, kissing him on the cheek. Behind the woman’s back, Timber shot him a dirty look. Troy nodded at him and returned it, but his look included that evil smile he’d forgotten to look at.

“Hey, Babe,” Troy said. He searched his memory for her name. Riana? Rhodendra? Rhonda! He remembered she had,Cowgirl Up,tattooed above her ass crack. The memory made him snarl and she smiled at it, her smile going dreamy and coy like she knew what he was thinking.

“Hey, yourself,” she said, leaning in close, wrapping her body around his, whispering in his ear. “Want to get out of here?”

Troy smiled at her, but shook his head sadly. He spoke slowly, and still tripped over thew. “Sorry, Cowgirl, this rodeo is closed until further notice.”

Rhonda pouted and tilted her head, but her eyes were focused on a friend in the crowd. She kissed him on the cheek again and ran off.

Troy lifted his chin at Timber. “De nada.”

Timber only growled at him and helped himself to a handful of Troy’s nachos. Troy considered punching him in the side of the head, but held back. Timber was a big fucking baby about getting punched in the head.

Troy shoved in next to Canyon and pulled his nachos in front of him, curling an arm around the plate, staring Timber down.

Timber crunched deliberately on what was already in his mouth and flipped him off, then laughed and asked him a question. “You’re missing anFtonight, Troy, what gives?”

Troy replied inruhi. Too manyWs.WhatF? What are you talking about?

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