Page 3 of Shifter's Dream

Timber held up a fist. He leaned forward for effect. “You know, the three Fs, what you’re all about for the last few weeks.” He popped out his thumb. “Food, but don’t think no one has noticed you are only eating shit you don’t need silverware for.” His index finger. “Fighting. That’s self-explanatory.” His middle finger. “And of course we can’t forget everyone’s personal favorite, fucking.” He dropped his hand to the table, slammed it, really, making Troy grin. Timber always talked like a camera was on him. The Timber Show, starring, you guessed it, Timber. “You just turned down the thirdF, Troy, the favoriteF, the bestF, the mother of all the fuckingFs so I gotta know, what gives?”

Troy grunted as he ate, not bothering to speak out loud.Mind your own fucking business, he told Timber, suddenly wondering the same thing. Whyhadhe turned her down? He was as horny as he’d been when he’d first shifted to a man and then seen a female that wasn’t mated to his brother, but for some reason, he didn’t want… Troy thought for a moment, his thoughts diverting. What hereallywantedwas to go to a different bar.

He nodded across the table at Timber.Take me to Mugshots.

“Can’t,” Timber said, waving a hand at Canyon. “We’re banned for life. If we ever go back the owner says he’ll get a restraining order against us. We’ll get fired. It’s this whole big thing. So no, we aren’t going to Mugshots.”

Troy shoveled in the last of his food.Just me, then. You go home.

Timber shook his head. Canyon spoke in their heads inruhi.You’re not going by yourself. Forget it. You have babysitters for a reason.

Troy was set to go anyway, even half-rising from his seat, when Blake showed up, putting a hand on his shoulder to push him back down. Blake looking at Timber, pitched his voice low, and said, “Troy took Molly in the bathroom.”

Timber groaned and threw his hands in the air. “Troy! How many fucking times do I have to tell you, no fucking drugs! You’re a fucking adult!” He leaned over the table close to Troy and hissed, “You’re a fucking cop. You can’t fucking take drugs.”

Troy shrugged. He’d forgotten about the Molly. So far, nothing. Another bust. He yawned. Swayed a little in his seat.He did feel tired. Shit. His mind floated. His wolf leaned in close. From all around him, Canyon and Timber and Blake talked about him like he wasn’t even there.

Voices floated with his mind.

“…. falling asleep. … . get him out of here. help .. grab his shoulders, Canyon, you get … feet.”

“…not shift..”

“humans…”

“Crew says…. strong will… not sleeping. Only way his wolf … come through…”

Troy dropped his head onto the table, clunking it there, feeling nothing at all. He drifted.

He slept.

…

He scented his brother.

Trent, he called in his darkened sleep-mind, plunging headlong toward the scent in a semi-dark that revealed little detail.

Wait, that was a man. Troy stopped running, knowing what he knew, taking the time to mark this occasion in his mind. It was his first look at his brother, Trent, shifted into a man.

Trent the man was tall and broad with a clean-shaven face, a cleft chin, and dark, neatly-trimmed hair. Troy grinned, joy suffusing him at seeing his brother this way. Being a wolf for his whole life, with a man stuck inside, was different than the otherwolfenthought it was. It hadn’t been hard, it hadn’t been sacrifice, at least not since he’d accepted it. It had just been who he was. But it wasn’t who he was anymore, and he didn’t want to go back. Did Trent feel the same?

Trent was wearing dark work khakis and boots, a gun strapped to his side, a badge hanging on his chest from a chain, but not a Serenity PD badge. He was at the very edge of a cliff, whipping small rocks onto something below. As Troy focused harder, more of the landscape appeared, in the way of dreams. There were two wild catamounts next to him, both about the same size, one male with two canted lines for arenqua, one female with norenqua. As Troy watched, the male catamount knocked a rock off the cliff. The catamount next to him snarled to show she was pleased, then she lay down, her big claws hanging over the edge of the cliff, regal head up, belly heavy with young, surveying some foggy vista Troy couldn’t see.

“Trent,” Troy called again, hauling his ass that way. “You shifted. When? Where are you? Why haven’t you answered me for the last month?”

Trent still didn’t answer him. He acted like he didn’t hear Troy. Troy ran faster, not getting any closer. “Trent! I’m telling you, Trevor is having kittens out of his own man-gina. We’re heading into the Canadian backcountry next week to look for you. We haven’t caught you on a trail cam in days, and I can’t hold anyone off anymore. They all think I’m crazy and that I’m wrong about you not wanting us to follow.”

“I’m not there,” Trent said, still facing away, his voice echoing like they were talking across a canyon. He turned to look at Troy. Troy kept running toward him. Trent rippled, shifting from man to wolf like a dream, perfectly, starting with the front of his body. Clothes morphed into black fur, nose to muzzle, upright posture to a wolf’s forward animal prowl.

Troy stopped, dumbfounded. He’d slept through his only shift, and it had been from wolf to man, but he’d seen his other brother Trevor and the rest of the wolven shift from man to wolf many times, and they always looked like they were trying not to die. Trent looked like he was stepping out of the shower.

“Then where are you?” he shouted at his brother. “Give me something to go on.” Troy had dreamed of Trent most nights since Trent had left, but this dream was different. In this dream Trent was shifted, and Trent was talking to him.

“Are you ever coming home?” Troy asked, still getting no closer to Trent, even though Trent was standing still, a black wolf with a winding white renqua on his left shoulder, against a backdrop of windy, dark nothingness. ‘A figure eight,’ Trent said his renqua was. ‘An infinity symbol,’ Troy said it was. No one else had ever cared. Troy and Trent had always been personas non grata to all theCitlalibut Wade.

“I am home,” Trent said inruhi, his fur rippling once. He turned and loped away from Troy, until Troy could barely see him anymore. Only occasionally, did Troy spot him in the hazy, vast distance. Troy tucked in his elbows and ran faster, but could not catch up with his brother. If he shifted…

The real world swam back to Troy all at once, harshly, in the way of reality. He opened his eyes and sat up. He was in a vehicle with a cloth that smelled like Timber wrapped around his head. Urgent, hushed voices came to him, then Canyon said, loudly, as if to a concerned passer-by “Nah, he’s fine, we’re good. Thanks.”

---