Page 54 of Shifter's Homecoming

He stepped across the wraparound porch, heading for the back, his eyes alert, his head on a swivel. He didn’t know what his mate was doing here, or exactly what was coming, but whatever it was, he would be ready for it.

He made it to the back and grasped the railing, staring at the pool in back. The part that had been separated from the rest of the reservoir looked much like it had in Tranquility, except here, the water had a moving, fiery sheen across the top of it. He scented deeply. It smelled sweet.

As he watched, a red-tailed hawk dropped down from the sky and landed right on top of the fence. The fence itself was high and wire covered the top opening so birds could not get in. The hawk grasped the wire in its talons and flew up, beating the air with its wings, trying to pull the top off.

“Hey!” Trent shouted, clapping his hands. The hawk fixed big eyes on him, but did not stop what it was doing. Trent curled his lip and growled instead, the low, deep rumbling echoing across the water. The hawk let go and flew off.

Trent frowned and fell silent, thinking the fence did not look as secure as it should be, if that was Khain’s poison in there.

A squirrel chittered its way across a foot-bridge and tried to stick its head through the wire. It couldn’t get in, but like the hawk, it did not give up. It curled its long fingers around the fence and yanked at it.

Trent growled again, until the squirrel ran off, and then he went back around to the front to get his brother. If he knew his mate at all, and he thought he did, she would not want any animals to drink that water.

***

“I don’t know crap about fences,” Troy said.

“Me neither. We’ll manage,” Trent growled.

They had found rolls of fence and a few tools in the shed and were carrying it all back to the circular pool. Reed was sitting on a rock in the shade near the building, on her phone, trying to find someone who had seen Sage in the last few days.

They set to work, making quick progress, until the scent offelenin the forest became so strong that Trent could no longer ignore it.

“You keep working,” he told Troy as he got up and headed for the forest. “I’m going to go talk to one of thesecats.”

“Be nice,” Troy told him.

Trent laughed lightly. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to work in the sunshine with his brother. He turned around and flipped his brother off.

Troy’s mouth dropped open. He clearly had not expectedthat.

Trent laughed again, then turned around and headed into the trees.

38 - Almost A First Kiss

Rowan woke to the sound of an alarm on her centrifuge beeping. She hadn’t even been asleep for an hour. Her eyes burned and her body was heavy. She got up anyway and turned the alarm off, then checked her solution, then headed back for the couch... until a woman’s laughter caught her attention. It was coming from out back. She slid open one of the doors, ignoring the heat and humidity, and went out onto the porch.

There were two people at the pool that collected the poison, a man and a woman. They only had eyes for each other and did not notice Rowan. They had the roll of fence from the shed and a few tools scattered around on the ground near them, but that made no sense. They didn’t look like they came from a fencing company. The man was big and muscular with brown hair and a throwback mustache. He was dressed all in dark blue with black boots, while the woman was smaller with brown skin and lots of gorgeous dark curly hair. She wore jeans, hiking boots, and a simple purple blouse. They were in love, that much was obvious, even from as far away as Rowan was. The guy had wire cutters in one hand, but his other hand was around the woman’s waist. He had ahold of her ass with his big paw and he was pulling her into him, kissing her like he meant it, with her bent backwards and clinging to him, her hands twining in his hair.

Rowan watched the scene somewhat wistfully, not even wondering who they were or what they were doing, but instead wondering just how she could find herself a man like that. She’d had boyfriends, but never one who had kissed her likethat;like she was the only woman on the planet for him. What exactly did someone have to do to find a relationship likethat, she wanted to know.

The man stopped. He whispered something in the woman’s ear and let her go, and then he looked straight at Rowan.

Rowan flushed and almost stepped backwards, but it was too late, he’d seen her. For the first time in her life she knew what her mother meant when she had said, ‘his face was wolfish.’ The guy looked a little like Tom Selleck during the Magnum P.I. years, because of the mustache and the hair, but other than that, he looked like a wolf masquerading as a person. Rowan could almost imagine how the shape shifting would happen, how it would change his features—

When the man’s eyes met hers he smiled widely, so widely she was almost pissed off for his girlfriend, but then she saw that the smile had nothing but friendliness in it, like she was his dear friend… or his sister.

She frowned slightly and thought hard. Did she know him? The woman was looking up at her and smiling too, like both of them knew her, or thought they did.

“Uh, can I help you?” Rowan called down to them.

“Yup,” the guy said, but he didn’t say anything else, he just kept grinning at her.

“Hold on, I’ll be right down.”

Rowan went inside and thought about pulling on a lab coat to look more professional. She decided against it. She stopped in the bathroom to check that she was presentable, then headed outside.

“What are you doing?” she said, when she was close enough to them.

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