Page 73 of Shifter's Homecoming

Rowan thought long and hard about that. The fact that there was a vaccine in existence and it had already worked to save males meant that they had been aware that this… demon, this Khain, could poison shifters. They’d expected it. How? Why? It also meant that whoever developed the vaccine had to have had a sample of the poison in order to create the vaccine. Who? She had so many questions, but the biggest one was… should she continue her work with the poison as she had planned it, or did this change everything? She wanted to get her hands on that vaccine, for sure. Whatever worked as a vaccine might work as a neutralizer of some sort, or it could be modified into a neutralizer.

Rowan put the vial back in the potentiator. She stood there for a moment, then took it out again. She put it back in again. She closed the lid. She hovered her finger over the power button, staring at nothing, her mind working so fast she could not consciously track her thoughts. After a long time, she turned the potentiator back on and turned to her notebooks. When Trent woke, she would tell him everything and let him decide what to do.

She sorted through the wire rack her notebooks were in, frowning. Her most current notebook was out of order. Someone had moved it. Trent? Troy or Reed?

She would ask later. She pulled it out, made a few curt notes, put it back, and then found a stack of blank paper. She had a lot of work to do. Movement caught her eye out the window, and she looked up just in time to see a black wolf squeeze out of the opening to the tree house. Troy. Perfect.

Notebook and pen in hand, she ran out into the night to talk to him.

***

Trent woke up slowly, his thoughts on his mate. He was in her bed, but she was not there with him. She was close by though, he could scent her moving about somewhere behind him. Sunshine streamed in the windows around the corners of the curtains, so he knew it was morning. He lay still, completely relaxed, and thought back, trying to remember if he had dreamed or not. He hadn’t that he could remember. No meadow, no dreams, no traveling. It came as a relief.

He shifted to his wolf in the bed, just because he could, and then he shifted back just as quick, thinking just how much fun it was to be a man, just how much pleasure there was to be had as a man. He lay there naked in the bed, facing the wall, playing the night before over in his mind.

He, Trent Burbank, non-shifting shifter who had finally accepted that he could shift, and that he would always be able to shift from now on, he hadclaimedhis mate. He’d bitten her, and now she was his forever, and he was hers forever. Trent took one last long scent of his mate’s pillow, then rolled over.

Rowan was across the room, paper in both hands, more paper laid out on the floor all around her, and more paper taped to the blank wall in front of her. As he watched, she taped both of the pieces she had in her hands to the wall, then stepped back and eyed it, then she ran straight out the door without looking at him.

Trent got up quickly and cleaned up in the bathroom, then hopped back in bed, hearing his female coming back up the stairs. She swept into the room, still not looking at him, with more paper in her hands. She taped up what she had.

Trent growled lightly to let her know he was awake.

She turned around quickly. “Trent, come look at this, tell me if I got anything wrong.”

“You come look at this,” he told her, throwing off the sheet and palming his erection.

Rowan made a face at him, but her eyes were on what he was holding, and they were full of desire. He stroked once, twice, three times, then he relaxed on the pillow, and put his hands behind his head.

“Come and get it, she-wolf,” he said. “Or just come, and I’ll give it to you.”

She came, desire clear in her expression. When she got to the bed she grabbed for him before he could grab for her. She got her hands on him, both hands, and then her mouth. Trent threw his head back and gritted his teeth. This was a whole new kind of sensation and one that he would not be able to handle for long. This was something to enjoyafterhe’d already fucked her silly.

He put his hand in her hair and pulled her off until he could replace his cock with his mouth, he kissed her until she was panting, and then he pressed his body over hers until she was the one on her back and he was the one going down her body.

He rid her of her clothes quickly, then told her “If you want to eat, she-wolf, you have to fight for it.”

He held her hands to her sides, kissing his way around her lower lips and clit, grinning at the her sensual pants and moans and the way she arched into his mouth. He held her still until he could find a good rhythm, and then he didn’t need to hold her anymore. Her hips met him. Her hands snuck into his hair. She pulled and she pushed and he tried his best to follow her exact guidance.

She arched hard, and she pulled his hair hard, and then she cried out—hard. Trent smiled, and as soon as she relaxed, he made his way back up her body, nudging her legs apart with his knees. She tried to grab for him, tried to get him in her mouth again but he held her hands just long enough to plunge inside her.

“Better luck next time,” he told her softly as he entered her.

She opened her eyes and actively growled at him in a sexy parody of his own growl, one that made him grow harder, until he felt like he would explode. His she-wolf wanted to play.

He would play.

***

An hour later, Trent curled a contented arm around his female while her breathing slowed and she recovered from the orgasms he’d given her. He was getting good at the fucking, and he liked it a lot. No wonder everyone’s dick ruled their lives. There wasn’t anything he could think of that excited him more than cornering his mate in some soft place, and trying to make her pant. He had a lot of missed time to make up for. Luckily, his she-wolf seemed like she was open and ready for it.

She lay relaxed and drowsing and so he let her sleep. He got up and cleaned her up, then lay on the bed next to her for a few minutes before he went to see what she’d been working on.

The far wall of the studio apartment was completely blank, no pictures on it, no furniture covering it yet. She had moved her boxes out of the way and had put up what almost looked like a family tree. Trent, naked, moved in close to the wall and began reading.

It was not quite a family tree… more a tree of connections.

In the far left corner on a single sheet of paper was Khain’s name, with a few paragraphs about him. In the far right corner was Rhen’s name, with a few paragraphs about her. Between and slightly above them was a paper with only the word ‘Angel’ on it.

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