Page 16 of Shifter's Homecoming

The meadow rumbled under his feet like an earthquake. Trent thought of his friends, his family, thinking suddenly that they were in danger. But then the feeling passed.

After a moment of indecisiveness, Trent started down the path again, heading back toward Tabias and the catamount.

But before he got more than a few steps, the landscape dreamed-up again behind him, back where he just had been. Trent felt the cool mist of it catch up with him and envelop him. He stopped. He turned. Troy was there again, in different clothes, with damp hair, with Track, their nephew in his arms. But Track had grown so much! Track looked almost a month older.

Track saw him. Track held out his chubby arms and calledRowr-rowr!inruhi, Trent clearly heard it in his mind, but it also reverberated throughout the meadow like from a loudspeaker. He wanted to be held. Troy came close. Trent raised his hands to take his nephew, but as he did so, the catamount snarled a warning.

He’s not admitted,Tabias said urgently in Trent’s head.If you hold him he will enter the meadow. This is catamount territory and she will not admit a malewolfengel, pup or not. You’ve been warned.

Trent tried to stop reaching for Track, but Track didn’t want him to, Track wanted to be held by his uncle, and Track was strong in the meadow. Trent could not stop himself from moving to take his nephew.

Trent saw a flash of fear cross Troy’s face.Don’t let me take him!He was about to yell to his brother, but then a voice sounded in his head.

It was the wolf guardian.I shall admit him, catamount. Stand down, please.

The catamount snarled.

Please.

There was no response, but the danger passed. Trent felt it go.

Trent had his nephew in his arms. He buried his nose in the baby's soft hair and inhaled the aroma deeply, taking in everything from his puppy scents of cool earth and grass, to his clean human scents of warm sunshine, baby powder, and milk.

Trent could not help but kiss him on first one cheek, then the other. “That one is for Treena,” he whispered, but his voice boomed like Track’s had. “Give it to her for me.” Sadness speared through his being as he wondered if he would ever hold his nephew again. Was this a good-bye?

Trent met Troy’s eyes. “It’s almost time,” he said, with no idea what he was talking about. The words were not his own. Again, his voice boomed through the meadow. The catamount snarled somewhere, and the wolf guardian growled lightly, but it was conciliatory.

Trent did not know what it was almost time for, but Troy seemed to. “To tell Trevor about Blake?” he replied, his eyes searching Trent’s.

Trent passed their nephew back to Troy. Track cried and reached for him again but Trent backed away, then turned and ran. He needed to get away from Track. He had the strangest feeling that Track could choose to stay in the meadow if he wanted, and Trent did not want that.

With his back turned, more words that he did not mean to speak came from him. “You’ll know when the time is right,” he said, heading fast in the other direction.

The dream mist closed in, then disappeared completely, and this time, Trent went with it.

10 - The Purple Door

Trent woke up in the haze of the hospitalized: in and out, fitful, and filled with lots of poking and prodding by the doctor. His beard was back. Always when he woke, he felt Troy’s heavy gaze on him. He did not seem to go to the meadow.

As night fell, the lights were dimmed, and the doctor finally left him alone. The pain in his leg had faded into a dull ache and Trent finally fell into a deep, natural sleep.

Trent opened his eyes on his side in the dirt of the meadow’s forest. Trees surrounded him. The temperature seemed a perfect 72 degrees Fahrenheit. His wolf was there.Relief.He shifted immediately, then shifted back and forth and back again, loving the shift, loving the way his body, his soul, and his spirit felt when he shifted.

He ran for a few moments, just because he could, then he returned to the dirt trail as a man, and got down to business. He needed a plan of action. He was done being jerked around. From now on, he was on the offensive. He would plan an attack, a strategy,a way to find the vaccine.

Trent paced and he thought and he ticked off what he knew about this vaccine on his fingers. One, it might be the vaccine for the Deaden Curse that he was supposed to get his hands on, or it might not be, he had no way of knowing. Two, he was supposed to not only get the vaccine, but also the ingredients list and formula… somehow. Three, he could not tell Troy anything or ask Troy for any help at all, or even say anything that would make Troy think he was acting strangely. Four, Smokey was no help whatsoever. Five, he had to get the vaccine from “her”, and so far he’d seen no, “her.” Six, a vaccine was coming from Dr. Atenboro who was in Illinois, he did not know if Dr. Atenboro was a “her.” Seven, he had to meet his wolf in the meadow every night, and he was doing that.

Was that really all he knew? Was that really all he had? He was good at planning strategy in his head and always had been, he’d never been able to write anything down, but how could he plan a strategy with nothing to go on? He couldn’t. All he could do was what he was doing, which was absolutely nothing.

Trent growled into the forest, anger filling him again. “Right about now would be a great time for some divine revelations. Anybody out there?”

Fuck it. He was here, he would hunt down clues. He would finish this mission. He would sniff his way down every trail. He turned and headed inward, to the meadow within the meadow, to the office within that.

Everything depended on him regaining his health and his strength in his body. He had to get out of that hospital bed. He had to convince his brother to help him, even if what he was asking seemed insane. But how? Ideas started to fill his mind, and for the first time ever, he wished to write them down. He started to jog down the trail, growling into the forest as he ran.

“Smokey, you divine dickhead, I could use a little help here.”

No response.

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