Page 43 of Shifter's Homecoming

I dunno, because you are an idiot?Troy said back, but his mental voice was distracted and out of breath. He was busy with something.

Rowan held up one hand like a traffic cop. “You don’t get to mention ‘our young’ to me. You are the one who explicitly said that you don’t wanthalf-breeds.”

She dropped her hand. She turned and rushed away from him. Trent’s thoughts whirled.This was bad. This was bad. This was really bad.

“I didn’t…” Trent grasped for something to say. The other Trent’s dying words came back to him, and he repeated some of them. “I didn’t understand what I was saying. I was an idiot. I am an idiot. I didn’t mean it…” He trailed off. He still followed her, pacing round and round her equipment, but he had no more words.

“Rowan,” he said, intending to tell her the truth, every last detail. He would make her believe. He would somehow get her to believe that he was not the same Trent who did not want young with his fated mate because they would be half-human.

But she headed him off. She stopped him with a hand to his chest. She popped something in his mouth.

“Eat this. If you haven’t had a reaction to it in an hour, you’re gone, whether you can shift or not.”

Then she disappeared into the tiny room and shut the door.

Trent chewed and swallowed, tasting nothing. He heard the lock engage. She would come out in fifty-nine minutes, check him over once, and that would be the last he saw of her.

He went to the door. He leaned against it. He tried to think of what to say, knowing somehow that telling her who he really was would not help him.

“I do want young with you,” he finally said, sensing her just on the other side of the door. “I want as many young as you want, and it’s not important to me if they ever shift or not.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he heard her voice, even softer than his had been.

“They will have no rights. They will be ridiculed…”

Trent shook his head. Not if he could help it. “We’ll change the system,” he said. “We’ll fix it. We’re trying. We’ll do more.I’lldo more.”

She didn’t respond.

Trent did not know what else to say.

So he said nothing, he only waited.

29 - The Hot Portal

They pulled in the driveway and stopped. Reed jumped out of the truck and ran inside. The place was a madhouse, packed with people, even though it was still early morning. No one paid her any attention. She headed for the back bedroom, Trent’s room, waving to both Trevor and Ella in the kitchen. The young weren’t with them, and she assumed they were upstairs, still asleep.

Troy found her in the hallway. His tense face brightened immediately. He rushed to her and picked her up. She bent her face to kiss him.

“You made it,” he said.

“Of course I did.” She grinned at him and sought out another kiss. He gave it to her, then set her on her feet and pressed her against a wall like they were the only two people in the entire world, even as people edged past them in both directions.

When he finally let her come up for air, she said, “Trent?”

He looked down the hallway, then back at her, nuzzling her neck while he spoke. “No change.”

A popping noise sounded in the middle of the living room, drawing everyone’s attention. A note appeared and dropped to the floor.

“Not this bullshit again,” Harlan growled.

Troy let go of Reed and rushed to the note, shoving Harlan out of the way to get there first. “Go take a Xanax, Harlan,” Troy told him as he shoved.

Troy unfolded the note. He read it, his lips moving. He read it again. He looked up and his eyes met Reed’s, then Trevor’s. “It says ‘use the hot portal.’”

Trevor took it from him and read it a few times himself. “The hot portal? Is that Graeme?”

Reed saw Troy take a moment, probably talking to Graeme in his head.

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