Page 74 of Shifter's Dream

“Come on, Rrrrreeeeed,” he called, rolling theRand drawing out the middle. “It’s your honeymoon. Come be wild with me.”

Reed laughed and shook her head. “We didn’t get married.”

“We kicked bad guy ass together. That's totally the same thing.”

Reed laughed again and threw his shirt at him while they walked. “Put it on.” The pants were next.

Troy snatched it out of the air, then pointed to the last cabin in the row on the right that they were coming up to. It was painted a pretty mint green, with white and purple flowers blazing from every window box.Adorable.

On the porch railing there was a cat.

Reed couldn’t see the cat well, only its silhouette, because the sun had dropped low enough in the sky to backlight it.

“Hey, Grizz,” Troy called, sounding genuinely pleased. “Good to see you. You terrorizing Mac?”

Reed’s heart stuttered in her chest. She got closer, until she could see a hint of a two-tone, calico face. The cat meowed at her, that grinding noise it made when it was happy. Reed could barely see him past the sudden tears that had sprung up, but she would recognize that sick meow anywhere.

Wiz.

Reed reached the porch. She stopped and stood there, smiling at the cat, happy tears flowing. She reached out her hand to touch one soft ear.

Troy came up next to her on the porch, his shirt on but that was it. He didn’t care. He took her free hand gently, peering into her face.

“Hey, are you ok?”

Reed could only nod and pet the cat for many minutes, swallowing a lump in her throat. Finally, she felt like she could speak. She turned to Troy and patted his face. “How did you know?” she asked.

“Know what?” he said, his tone curious, maybe a little baffled.

Reed laughed softly. She petted the cat. She melted into her mate. “Never mind,” she whispered.

It didn’t matter how it had come to be, because she finally felt it. It dropped in on her with finality: This was where she was supposed to be, this cozy little cabin, on this little plot of land, with all these crazy people, and all these things she couldn’t explain. She was with her…mate, and with her family, most of whom she hadn’t even met yet. It was a mess in her mind, and yet it all made perfect sense, at the same time. Itfeltright.

Troy hugged her hard. He sniffed her hair. He took a deep breath like he was trying to breathe her into his body.

She heard the sounds of a car in the driveway on the other side of the big farmhouse. “You’re naked,” she whispered to Troy.

“That’s because youhadto see me shift,” he whispered back.

She laughed and let her mate take her hand and pull her into the house, all the way to a cute little bedroom in the very back. She let him undress her in the moonlight filtering in through the sheer-draped window. She let him have her body, to do with as he would. She let him worship her, because that was what it felt like he did.

And before she dropped off to sleep, she whispered a little prayer of thanks to… someone.

45 – Finally

Troy slept.

Troy dreamed.

In his dream, he finally shifted into a man, and it was better than he’d ever thought it would be, all those years of dreaming it, and finally he was living it. In this dream, he even got a mate, and she was beautiful and sweet and strong and she smelled like the forest felt to him and her name was so pretty it gave him chills to say it. In this dream, they had so many pups, more pups than he could fit in one car, and they were little rascals all of them, especially the girls. They would pounce on him when he came home from work, until he shifted into a wolf and then they bit his tail and chased him around the yard. They played with their cousins and grew up clever and fierce and his life was good and long and happy and when his young started having young, life got even better.

Troy woke up, his hand curled around his female, her back pressed against his front, living the reality he’d only dreamed of before, satisfaction and happiness filling him completely. He palmed Reed’s belly softly, then sniffed her hair.Stay asleep, pet,he told her inruhi, even if she couldn’t hear it.Pet, he liked it as an endearment, but would she? He had no idea. He would try it out in the morning. If not, there was always babe, baby, bae, sweetums, peppermint pie. He would try them all.

Should he tell her she was with young? His wolf was silent about it.Not yet,he decided. She wouldn’t want to know until she’d had some time to get used to her new life. In a few days, maybe, if she didn’t already suspect. She was smart, his Reed.

“Mowr,” a cat purred from outside the partially-open window and Troy knew it was Grizz, even though it sounded mostly-normal. It landed on the windowsill like it had jumped from the ground below, then leapt neatly onto the foot of the bed.

Troy growled at it. This washisbed. The cat didn’t even look at him. It kept going, the very tip of its tail twitching once, like it had never intended to stop on the bed, anyway. It leapt down the other side and sauntered across the room to the partially-open door, tail held straight up. It disappeared into the darkness of the cabin beyond.

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