Page 15 of Shifter's Homecoming

Hi Trent, he said directly into Trent’s mind, his voice curled and sly.Still want to fight?

Trent startled, knowing who this was, although he did not know how such a thing was possible. This was the beast’s cat half. He sounded like a perfectly ordinary male, for a cat.

Got it in one, wolf. You’re smarter than you look.His voice was sly again, a low growl.The name’s Tabias. I’m over that ‘beast’ shit.

Trent was about to respond when the catamount cut them off with a snarl, then she laid her head down on the ground, shut her eyes, and sighed contentedly.

Her meaning was obvious:Keep a lid on it boys, I need my beauty rest.

Trent raised his eyebrows and took a step back toward the path he’d come in on.

Tabias snarled lightly, like Trent was no longer there. He showed his teeth and laid out next to the catamount. He draped a heavy paw on her feline hip and showed Trent first one fang, then a second.

Trent took the hint and backed up out of there, heading down the path, back the way he had come.

Trent explored the meadow.

9 - Troy’s Dreams

The night was long. The meadow was empty, making Trent think this had to be a different meadow than the one he’d seen the wolves running Zyanya in. Trent only skirted the bear territory, scenting no one inside it, then circled back around to catamount territory. The catamount guardian and Tabias were still in the same spot, pushing rocks off the edge of the precipice and alternately snarling and bathing each other with their tongues. Trent didn’t want to watch that.

He turned his back on them, but he got close to the edge and peeked over. It was dark below. Trent could sense his world spinning down there somewhere. Clouds obscured his view.

To Trent’s left, Tabias nudged a small rock toward the edge of the precipice with precision and care, flicking it off with a practiced move. It fell. It tumbled. Trent watched until it dropped through the center of a thick cloud.

Trent picked up a rock, he hefted it in his hand. He threw it off the edge at nothing, but he felt it hit something, just the same. Not something,someone.Someone who deserved to be hit on the head with a rock.

Behind him, something moved in the forest.

Trent turned quickly, expecting Tabias and the catamount to be up and moving, but they weren’t. Tabias licked a paw then snarled at him.That’s just your brother.

Trent stared hard into the forest.Which brother?Then he saw him. Troy as a man, tall and strong and way more secure in his walking and himself than he’d been the last time Trent had seen him, but still with that damn mustache he liked so much. Somehow, Trent knew this was the Troy from his real world, and not from his mission world. Troy stalked darkly through the forest wearing a… Trent rubbed his eyes.

Is he wearing a Hawaiian shirt?he asked Tabias.

Tabias laughed.He’s dreaming, but yeah.

Troy was coming toward him, his face uncertain, his eyes screwed up, waving a hand in front of him like he couldn’t see anything, but Trent knew perfectly well that Troy’s night vision was as good as his own.

Trent realized two things all at once. One, a lot of time had passed back home, and two, Troy still had not purposely shifted into a wolf. He would not let himself. He was completely frozen by the thought that he would be stuck that way again. Trent could not blame him. Trent did not want to be stuck that way again either.

Troy saw Trent. His eyes went wide. His mouth opened and he spoke but Trent couldn't hear any words. Troy ran toward him, but his movements were slowed and confined, like he ran through jello, like he was being held in place on the forest trail by some unseen substance.

Dream stuff,he thought, and he could almost see it there, obscuring the forest.

Troy was speaking again. Trent heard a few words coming at him like through water. Trevor… kittens… man-gina … Canadian backcountry … trail cam…

Trent caught the meaning of Troy’s words somehow. Troy was worried about him. Troy thought he was in Canada.

“I’m not there.” Trent said, watching Troy closely to see if he heard. The meadow spun underneath him. Troy was doing this. Troy was doing something in his mind, something that made the meadow spin and grow hazy.

Trent wanted to talk to Troy, he wanted to have a real, strategic conversation with his brother, but he knew instinctively that it would be impossible. So he did the only thing he could think of. He shifted and he ran off as a wolf, hoping Troy would shift and follow. If he couldn’t talk to his brother, maybe he could help him, and shifting was so much easier in the meadow…

But Troy didn’t shift. He ran through the forest as a man, calling out to Trent. “… coming… home?” was all Trent heard.

I am home,Trent said inruhi, thinking he was anywhere but. He did not know why he said it.

The meadow had taken on a strange quality, like it was absorbing all sound and color, and maybe had gone flat and dry, then it became normal again, all at once. Trent stopped on the trail, skidding to a halt and turning to look behind. The misty, smoky, dream landscape dissolved and became “real” again, normal again, and Troy was gone.

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