Free Changeling Dream by Dani Harper

welcomed the waft of smoke that stung his eyes, gave him an excuse for the tears that filled them. He rubbed them and tried to focus on the line of trees beyond the barn. The moon’s light was weak and the forest looked black and ominous. Suddenly there was a flash of white and a great silvery shape sprang from the darkness, running hard.
    “Hey—hey, there it is. I see it!” He stared at it, terrified and fascinated at the same time. “Holy shit! It’s big, it’s fuckin’ huge.”
    His father was beside him at once. Thick smoke was now hovering near the ceiling and there were loud popping and crackling noises as flames consumed the rooms above them, but the old man was determined to finish what he’d started.“Get back behind the wall over there. Let him come all the way through the door, then pull the trigger. Got it? Aim for the head if you can.”
    “But the fire—” It was getting hard to breathe.
    “There’s time, we can get him. We gotta get him. Listen to what I tell you.” The old man ducked back to the other corner of the dining room.
    Seconds later the front door burst inward as it was struck by the massive animal. Dougie flinched at the explosive noise of shattering wood and nearly dropped the gun. He swallowed and forced himself to peer around the corner, his heart pounding so hard it hurt his chest. A great white wolf stood in the doorway, nearly filling half of it. Then abruptly, instantly, it became a tall, blond man. It was almost more than the boy could do to remember to breathe and yet keep from gasping aloud. His throat constricted with the effort. Holy Jesus. Dad was right. He was fuckin’ right! The teen pressed his back to the dining room wall and gripped the rifle in one shaking hand and his crotch in the other, praying he wouldn’t piss his pants like a baby. That’s when he heard the sound—not a sound he’d ever heard in his life and not one he ever wanted to hear again. A wild keening of terrible grief, unendurable pain. The unearthly howl pierced his head, stabbed at his heart. He couldn’t stop himself from peering around the corner again. The blond man was kneeling on the bloody floor, cradling the woman’s body, rocking back and forth.
    Without warning the old man sprang out and fired twice in deafening succession. The son stepped away from the wall as well, but his .22 was slack in his nerveless hands. He watched as their quarry slumped to the floor in a strange kind of slow motion. Even dead, the man seemed to curl himself protectively around the woman.
    Dougie’s father shouted at him, urged him to shoot, shoot now , but the boy could only stand and stare through the thickening smoke with helpless tears running down his face.
    Suddenly an ominous crash sounded right above them and a great shower of sparks and wood collapsed into the stairway. His father grabbed his arm and hustled him out the back door, both of them coughing and choking. Dougie nearly fell twice as they ran across the backyard and into the forest beyond where the truck was hidden. And all the way home he could still hear that terrible outcry of grief in his head.
    Thirty years later, Douglas Harrison still heard that howl in his dreams. Still woke up sweating, sometimes in tears like the boy he had been. Tears were running down his cheeks now, as he held his coffee cup in front of him with both hands as if in supplication, praying for forgetfulness.

Chapter Six
    C onnor had every intention of hunting down his brother for an explanation. But when night came, the tall vet was tied up for hours with an emergency surgery on a boxer that had been struck by a car. By midnight, the anxious owners had gone home, and the dog was recovering from the anesthetic in a kennel. By one a.m., Connor was sure the dog would live, but he was less certain that he would. He didn’t dare try to Change, not until he had eaten and slept and eaten again. Changing burned up an ungodly number of calories. Add a rapid metabolism