Page 38 of Shifter's Dream

Don’t you?

Reed thought about it, then let her mind drift until she knew her answer.

She wanted to believe in that kind of thing, but she couldn’t, because real life was nothing like the movies, nothing like books. There was no true love, only hard work on a relationship, there were no soul mates, only people you could stand more than other people, and nothing magical ever happened to anyone, at least not anyone she knew.

Reed left the phone and ice cream on the couch and got up, pacing restlessly, feeling rudder and aimless. She should be out looking for a job, but really, all she wanted to do was run home to her mother. Which was ridiculous.

Reed shook her head and headed out to the balcony to call Wiz for the third time that day. He hadn’t been around and she missed him. Her landlord was at work so she could call him all she wanted.

“Wiz! Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Psss, psss.”

No snarly meow in return. No kitty claws climbing up the busted rain gutter. No Wiz.

Reed returned to the couch and ignored Sage’s last question about whether or not she believed in soul mates and destinies and typed something else entirely.

He can’t write, you know, not even his name.

What?

Reed stared at what she had written, knowing she couldn’t share anymore, she shouldn’t even have said that much. She flipped to what Aspen had texted her only an hour ago.

A picture of an empty form, with T-R-O-Y overflowing out of the signature box in two-inch high, shaky letters, no last name given.

Like a kindergartener learning to sign his name for the first time.

24 – Floundering at First (Aka Alpha Angst)

Troy lay on Trent’s bed, legs straight, back straight, head on pillow, clothes on, boots on, eyes focused on Trent’s ceiling.

In his mind, he was curled in the fetal position, forehead to knees.

The door opened and he was peeked at. He couldn’t care, didn’t want to know, and still his nose told him who it was. Remington, Trevor, and Ella.

They whispered to each other, but Troy could hear every word.

“He hasn’t eaten or spoken or moved since he came home yesterday.” That was Trevor.

“Is he sleeping at all?” Remington’s voice.

“We don’t think so.” Ella. She sounded really sad.Sorry Ella.

“Is he responding to anything?” Remington.

Why did they care? He was a failure, a reject, and love had felled fiercer wolves than him. What chance did he have? He would stay in this bed forever, or until Trent came home. Yes! Troy’s mind seized on the idea. He would go find Trent. He would shift into a wolf, be stuck that way forever, and he and Trent would live like hermits at the north end of nowhere.

“He’ll hold the young,” Ella whispered, “If we bring them to him, but he won’t look at them and they only cry and pat his face.”

“What happened yesterday?” Remington said.

Nothing,Troy thought.Only the sky split open and the seas dried up and the earth stopped spinning.

“I dropped him at his speech therapy appointment. He walked in the driveway six hours later and came straight in here. He’s been like this ever since.” Trevor.

“His mate was there,” Ella whispered, pity in her scent.

Troy grabbed the pillow he didn’t deserve to use out from under his head and tried to smother himself with it, or at least make it so he couldn’t hear anything.

Remington’s scent abruptly changed. “Wait just a minute. You called me here for heartbreak? Get him drunk and make him binge watch all the Die Hard movies or something.” Remington stalked away, muttering, “I don’t have time for this.”

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