Let’s Talk One True Mate (One True Mate Companion, Vol. 1)

5-Mac and Rogue ♦♦

Canyon threw the ball, Timber caught it and threw it back, then said. “Everyone came back from Cali just before Christmas. Next to find his mate was Mac, but not until spring. He met her at a rut.”

Burton, choked on his soda. “Holy shit,” he said.

“Well, no, let me back up. She wasn’t there for ‘rut stuff’.” Timber made air quotes, laughing to himself about ‘rut stuff’, because it rhymed with ‘butt stuff’. “Mac only found her there because Bruin predicted she’d be there.”

Burton’s lip curled. “Bruin the fire chief.”

“Yeah. He wasn’t fire chief back then. His dad, B3, was chief back then.”

“B3,” Burton muttered. “What the fuck kind of a name is that?”

“The bears have a thing for bees and Bs—what can you do? So Bruin was loaned to us for several work details. The bearen didn’t like him because B3 had smeared him over the years, but Mac liked him and he liked Mac—to the point where Bruin was on permanent loan to us and permanently partnered with Mac. Bruin can sometimes see the future—he knew Rogue’s name and said she would be at the rut.”

Burton leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, frowning.

“You know Rogue’s background?” Timber asked him.

“Thief,” Burton said.

“Right. Thief, criminal, smartass.”

Wolverine wanna-be.

Timber laughed. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

What? It’s not an insult.

Timber snorted, then kept talking. “Mac and Rogue already had met—twice. Once four years before—they met in Yosemite and had a one-night stand—”

More like a ten-minute stand.

“—and they also met when they were kids.”

Burton spoke, his voice quiet and modulated. “Coincidences are the goddess’s way of spinning fate in her favor.”

“Exactly,” Timber said. “Crew and Sebastian hypnotized Cerise, looking for clues about Grey and found out that Grey had a hideout under the Englewood Post Office. It was something about some gibberish he said—Grey’s crazy, Chief, you know that right? Literally insane.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Burton said, his voice quiet and tight, his eyes hooded and dark. “He’s still liable. I hold him responsible. I’ll take every fucking offense out on his hide.”

Timber looked at Canyon and Canyon eyed him back, then turned his palms up and mouthed, Food ?

Absolutely , Timber mouthed back. Canyon opened a drawer and found several bags of peanuts. He whipped one to Timber, then called out, “Heads up,” and whipped one to Burton. Burton snatched it out of the air, opening and eating mechanically.

Timber dropped the peanuts on his desk and went on. “Wade sent Mac and Bruin to check out the post office, but when they got there, Rogue had come and gone. The pendants called her mentally into Grey’s hideout—but we don’t call it ruhi , because Rogue can’t speak or hear ruhi . Rogue found the pendants and pocketed them—neither was hers, she’s never seen hers—then she fell into a trance and drew a design on the concrete floor.”

Canyon pulled up several images on his computer and displayed them on the wall of monitors, one at a time. First was a slim concrete tunnel underground, leading to steps and a sunken chamber containing two pieces of worn furniture. An intricate circular design was scratched into the floor of the chamber.

“What's it mean?” Burton said, studying it.

“Maybe nothing,” Timber said.

“Maybe something,” Burton said. He got up and walked over to the wall of monitors, pointing. “Zoom in over here.” He looked closely at the markings, then said, “Now over here.” He studied it, saying, “Could be a map, or maybe a code…” He took the notebook out again and wrote in it, then returned to his chair, saying, “Send me that image.”

Canyon got right on it—a few mouse clicks later, Burton’s phone dinged, then Canyon leaned back in his chair, put his boots up on his desk, and spiraled the football up into the air, saying, Wild shit man—the pendants and the powers. I’m glad they’re on our side.

Burton clasped his hands together in his lap, his gaze far off. “Rhen’s told me many times how much she wishes she could help us more,” he said. “She and the guardians always keep their eyes on us.”

Canyon dropped his feet to the floor and quietly put the football on his desk, staring at Burton in rapt attention.

Timber didn't dare speak. Burton rarely talked about Rhen, and Timber wanted to hear what he would say next.

Burton took a deep, shaky breath, his eyes roaming over the ceiling. “She sent us Eventine. She said my own fear was what stunted Eventine from the beginning. She says I have to be strong now. She says I have to believe in myself, and in Eventine like—” He gestured at Canyon and Timber “—like you two believe in yourselves and each other.”

“Rhen mentioned us?” Timber said, amazed.

“Yeah, she did.”

A slow grin crossed Canyon’s face. By name?

“Yeah.”

“When?” Timber asked.

Burton shook his head and lapsed into silence for several long moments, then said, “I don't remember.” He lifted his chin at Timber. “What happened next?”

“What?” Timber said, feeling dazed.

Canyon barked a laugh. Tell him about Soren and Rex and the bomb, and Boe being protected at Rogue’s place.

“Yeah, okay, I got it. Like I’ve said, Boe was already living at Rogue’s house. She’d let him live in her house here in Serenity while she was stealing shit in Chicago. Wade thinks Rogue’s One True Mate powers protect Boe from being detected by Khain.”

“Her power is protection?”

“Her power is opening locks, but Wade thinks she’s protecting her house and Boe with a power she’s not aware of yet.”

“You’re telling me the criminal’s power is lock-picking? That’s convenient.”

Timber shrugged. “She went with what she was good at—she was always good at picking locks but now she's like a 'safe savant' and can open any lock by touch or even sight."

Burton got out his notebook and wrote something down, then put it away and looked expectantly at Timber.

“Rogue was raised a petty criminal. She’d been working for Soren Brenwyn, the foxen criminal , when his brother, Rex, resurfaced—did we tell you that Khain had snatched Rex from jail?”

“Nope.”

“He did, just disappeared Rex right outta jail and out of the Ula for a while. But unfortunately, not forever. Rex went to Soren, trying to get him marked so the two of them could work together for Khain. Soren wanted nothing to do with it, so when Rex realized Soren had a thing for Rogue he decided to use that to his advantage. He gave Rogue a job, then framed her for murder, which is how she ended up at the rut, running from Rex. She held Mac at knife-point to get away from all the cops, then ran off, and dude was seriously butt-hurt after, probably already in love with her. He eventually found her but she kept slicing him up with her knives, flirting then fighting, then wanting nothing to do with him, giving him the slip. In fact, her plans were to leave the country.”

Burton grinned a little and Timber grinned back—Canyon, too. Mac was an asshole to everybody sometimes, so most of them had enjoyed seeing him miserable during that whole ordeal.

“Mac tracked her down in Chicago and brought her back here. He had to board up the windows to keep her in his house.”

Burton laughed right out loud. “That’s funny,” he said.

“She came around though, little by little. Bruin used his crystal ball powers again and said Mac had to claim her or she’d die, so Mac claimed her, and that very night, Rex grabbed her and took her back to Chicago. We aren’t sure of the mechanics, but it’s possible he pulled her through the Pravus, similar to how Graeme can pull people through worlds.”

Timber sat on the edge of his desk and leaned forward toward Burton. “Mac couldn't speak ruhi his whole life, you know that right?”

Burton nodded.

“He can now. He learned that night—something about his connection to Rogue made him get it instantly—like it just downloaded into his noggin. He’s not strong in it, but he did manage to track Rogue to Chicago with his mind.”

Burton crossed his arms over his chest, his expression studious. “Fascinating,” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Timber nodded. “Good thing, too. Rogue was hurt bad, Soren was marked. Rex shifted into the oversized slobbery fox—”

“—the arctophox .” Burton said. “A-r-c-t-o-p-h-o-x.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s what the foxen call their shifted form once they are marked and it gets all big and slobbery.”

“Who said?”

Burton shook his head.

“Where’d you hear the word?”

Burton waved a hand. “I’m old, I know things.”

Timber shot Canyon a look. Canyon made a pushing motion, nodding. Now was the time to press Burton—the last time they’d asked him about foxen , he’d changed the subject and that was that.

“Seriously, Chief, we’re hip deep in this investigation, and where you learned that word might be important.”

“Okay, okay,” Burton said. “Give me a second to think.”

Timber went for a long pass in the far corner of the room and Canyon threw him the football. They tossed it back and forth a few times, until Burton spoke, then Timber returned to his desk.

“I remember now. Back when I was a buck sergeant, I had a lieutenant who killed a marked foxen . He was the one who called it an arctophox .”

Canyon's fingers flew over his keyboard and Timber lightly tossed and caught the ball in the air a few times, saying, “Killed it why?”

Burton shook his head. “In a fight. That’s all I know.”

“When was that, Chief?”

Burton paused, closing his eyes for a moment. “Let’s say 1964.”

“Ok, ok. Rex shifted into the arctophox , aka Slobber Kitten, and fought with Bruin while Mac tried to help Rogue. She had pendants with her and Mac tried to heal her using them but nothing happened. He ended up swiping her blood on one, then talking into it like a walkie-talkie, because who knew the pendants would have, like, their own cellphone plan or some shit? Anyway, his voice came out of all the other pendants, alerting Graeme, who got to him quickly and healed Rogue with dragen blood, so that was a win, but Rex and Soren got away, so that was a loss. There was a bomb at the station—two actually, but the first one had been a decoy. Rogue tipped us off to the second bomb, saving a lot of lives. Rex got the bombs in by travel directly from the Pravus into the station—”

"Wait, what?" Burton's eyes went almost comically wide.

“—but Canyon invented something real quick that detected travel from the Pravus, so we’ve got the whole place wired up now.”

Burton took a deep breath and shook himself, eyes on the ceiling. “Good,” he said.

“Rogue’s a twin,” Timber said, not giving Burton a second to think.

“Seriously?”

“Name’s Amaranth. She disappeared at 5 years old, possibly sold. Rogue hasn’t seen her since.”

Burton growled. “What the fuck is wrong with people?”

“Bruin said prophecy about it.” Timber pointed to Canyon.

Canyon read it off his monitor. Caught between her future and her past, Amaranth calls for her sister, but denies it even to herself. Find her along the river walk, behind the purple door.

“One thing I want to know,” Burton said, arms crossed, voice hostile. “What the hell is the fire chief doing reciting prophecy about the mates?”