Page 8 of Shifter's Dream

Mac didn’t hesitate. He came in swinging, driving Troy into the wall, putting all of his weight into it. Troy fought back with everything he had, pushing Mac onto the table then body-slamming him like a WWE wrestler. Half of the table collapsed, tipping and spilling them to the floor, where they rolled and punched each other. Troy made a noise like a yodel, dodging a swing and a miss from Mac, then pinning him, going vice-grip on his torso.

Ella’s voice filled Troy’s head.WHO IS FIGHTING DOWN THERE?but he couldn’t listen or respond, he was fighting. Jumbled voices came at him, and then more from Ella, like she was shouting in their ears. Mac stopped his bullshit long enough to listen, one hand gripping Troy’s throat. Troy didn’t move a muscle.

Throw water on them! Then clean it up! I’ll kill everyone in this house if they wake these babies up!

Mac’s arm tightened, threatening to cut off Troy’s air. They rolled again, punched some more, slamming into the wall, making the swear jar topple off a shelf and crash to the floor, cracking, spilling Rogue’s change everywhere.

Troy finally got an elbow around Mac’s chin, about to choke him out, when Mac shifted into his wolf, his clothes falling away, his claws and teeth tearing at Troy’s skin until Troy had to let go.

Mac scrambled to his feet as a pure white wolf, snapped once at him, a loud rumbling growl rolling out of his throat that had Dahlia and Cerise yelping and sprinting out of the room.

Troy lay on the ruined table, his belly exposed, trying so hard to look weak, trying so hard to lure Mac back in close but Mac backed away, then turned and loped to his mate.

This is on hold till you shift,Mac snarled in his mind.

Troy collapsed to the floor, cursing Mac. When Mac reached Rogue, he shifted, his bare ass shining like a magic 8-ball.Don’t ask again later.Troy snorted, looked away, and shook orange juice out of his hair, then levered his arms under himself like a backbend and pushed himself up to a standing position in one move, one he practiced every day.

Rogue brushed egg off of Mac’s shoulder. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said, while smiling whole-heartedly at him.

Mac hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Troy. “He called me a brown-noser.”

Yeah, months ago, you fucking brown-noser, Troy told him

Rogue pushed Mac down the hallway and into a bathroom. Troy forgot all about it.

Trevor,Troy said to his brother, who was still upstairs.We’re going to need a new table. And I need new babysitters tonight. I’m going to Mugshots for dinner and drinks but Canyon and Timber are banned.

5 – The Forest

Reed Marion stared out the window at the forest. It was so close, the forest. The trees, they wereright there. They were calling her name. They were looming in her mind.

She was home. But she wasn’t safe.

Her phone rang, and her reverie broke, allowing her to look away.

She pulled the phone from her pocket and answered. “Hello?” she said, pulling the drapes shut to block the view, but giving up halfway to hold her free hand to her head, which had been pounding since the night before.

She’d hoped sleeping would fix it, but she hadn’t gotten any. The nightmare had come instead, leaving her more tense than when she’d only had a pounding head. She already had to go back to work at the bar, and she’d barely slept at all.

“You’re late,” Sage whisper-shouted into the phone.

“No,” Reed said. “No way. I still have…” She looked at the time and saw Sage was right. She was late. How had that happened?

“Oh no,” Reed moaned into the phone. “Cover for me?”

“Already done, just hurry.”

“Yeah, be right there.” She hung up and booked it through the room, moving as quietly as possible.Habit.She grabbed her keys and purse and tip-toed to the door of her apartment. The woman in the apartment below her was her landlord, and her landlord hated her for no reason Reed could see. So Reed tip-toed.

Reed heard a pathetic, desperate, grindingmeowfrom beyond the closed sliding-glass door leading to her balcony.

Wiz! He’d come back!She hadn’t seen the stray cat in a few weeks, so long that she’d stopped putting food out for him. She had two minutes to pop him open a can. She regularly put food out for all the stray cats the hung around the apartment building, hiding them on the far end of the building so her landlord wouldn’t know, but Wiz was the only one with the audacity to come right up on her balcony.

Reed headed for the door, trying to see her balcony without seeing the forest beyond. The forest was there, green, bold, and unapologetic, and it seemed to speak to her. To tell her things. Reed shook her head and tried to scrub the thoughts clean. Forests, any forest, had always both fascinated and repelled her, but since last year, that fascination had begun to border on obsessiveness. Her hands shook as she tried to control her own mind, tried to remember where the cat food was.

Reed muscled her crazy under control, not knowing what else to do, besides stuff it all down and deny anything strange was happening. Because acknowledging that something serious was wrong with her wasn't an option. She was embarking on a new life and her forever career in a new city, and she had no time to pop a few screws loose. She found the cat food. She slid open the door and pet the cat, smiling at him.

He was a rare male calico, with a two-tone black and orange face and a white body, and he was old and grizzled but the sweetest thing. He reminded her of a cat that she’d had when she’d been young, he’d been a stray, too, and her mom had always called him, Wizard the Cat because he showed up out of nowhere. Her mom had let four-year-old Reed feed him on the back porch sometimes. Those were good memories, and that alone was enough for Reed to name this stray, and to keep her feeding him, even though she’d gotten in trouble a few times for it.

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