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

9-Troy and Reed ♦♦

Burton opened his mouth to say something, closed it, shook his head, and fell silent, his gaze wandering over the surrounding trees. Timber took a minute to think while Canyon pitched pinecones steadily into the hole.

“So, we had a few weeks of downtime and everyone got to know each other. They had a lot of get-togethers out at VF, but we only went when they were discussing strategy.”

Someone had to keep SPD running, Canyon said, his arms crossed, leaning against a tree.

Timber nodded. “That was us. We should get a reward or something.”

“Good job doing your job,” Burton said gruffly. “I’ll get you a gold star the next time I’m at my desk.”

Timber laughed. “Thanks, Chief—Troy was hanging out with the young a lot, learning how to crawl and walk from them.”

Canyon snorted. His toddler phase.

“To his credit, he learned quickly and moved on to his teenage phase pretty damn quick. Last week, he met Reed at Mugshots, took her to a motel, and claimed her without even knowing her name or explaining the biting.”

Canyon laughed, shaking his head. Classic Troy.

“Reed took off—just ran from him—a lot like Rogue ran from Mac.”

Reed didn’t slice Troy up, though.

“Nope, just slapped him around with a couple of trees,” Timber said. “She can talk to the trees, Chief. They do her bidding.”

“Now that’s a cool power,” Burton said.

Canyon nodded. Hell yeah, there’s trees everywhere.

“And they’re strong,” Burton added.

And get this. Canyon gestured to the north. The trees in Wisconsin can talk to the trees here, and they told Reed how to find Trent. They showed her exactly what path to walk in on to find him.

Burton’s face lit up. “That’s amazing. That’s so useful. Can she set the trees on watch for her? Like guards or surveillance?”

Timber nodded. “Seems like it, although we don’t know to what extent yet. We do know she grew a super badass mutant tree cage around herself when she was a kid because Grey was chasing her through the forest—”

“Grey!” Burton exclaimed with a growl. “That lowlife sure was busy.”

“He was trying to get his hands on her pendant, but instead she caged herself and the pendant and Grey had to give up when her mom called 911 because she was missing. She left the pendant in the tree cage and it was there for 20 years until Troy found it.”

“ Crazy,” Burton said.

Timber nodded, feeling like he was missing something.

Earthquakes, Canyon said.

Timber snapped his fingers. “Did you feel the earthquakes last week, Chief?”

“Sure did, four of them.”

“One of them triggered Blake’s coma.”

Burton frowned, saying, “I went out to Remington’s yesterday to see him.”

“How’s he look?”

“As good as can be expected. Not like he’s dying.”

“Good, good. And you know about the new kit statue that just appeared next to the catamount statue.”

Burton nodded. “It’s a new guardian.”

“Oh,” Timber said. “Ok.” He looked at Canyon. “There’s the confirmation we’ve been looking for.”

Canyon nodded, already typing it into his phone.

“Is that how the other statues arrived?” Timber asked. “They just appeared when the guardian was born?”

Burton shook his head. “Don’t know. Doubtful. It seems to me the other guardians were never born, only… they’ve just always been.”

“So this is new.”

Burton nodded, his mouth set in a line, his gaze on the trees.

“A day or two after it showed up, Troy stumbled on a trap up Crimson Bluff set by Grey and Rex. He went after them by himself, which was dumb, but even dumber when you consider that he attacked them as a dude—he’d been refusing to shift, thinking he’d get stuck as a wolf again. They beat him up pretty good and he would've been dead except Reed asked the forest to protect him and it grew a mutant tree cage around him. The thing was awesome—I mean, seriously, even a bulldozer would have had a hard time getting through it.”

“See—I told you it’s a cool power.”

“When you’re right, you’re right. Rex and Soren tried to ambush our team, but the trees filled Reed in on their plan, so we managed to stay out of the ambush. Rex, Soren, Grey, they all escaped—the other foxen , too.”

“What other foxen ?”

“We’re not sure who they are. We found an encampment that scented of foxen , and we’ve learned Khain may be steadily and secretly taking foxen to the Pravus and marking them, preparing for a battle. We’ve had a flurry of reports of men gone missing in Serenity over the last couple of weeks and they’re all proving to be foxen . Trevor handed us this assignment last week but we’re still working on Abigail White, too, because they’re connected. We haven’t had any reports of missing members of the White family, so we’re running with the abandoned Van Crimson village today—we’re going to head up there and see what’s what as soon as we tuck your old ass in and tell you some bedtime stories till you go sleepy sleeps,” Timber said.

Burton stood, shaking his head. He gave Timber a withering look, then headed past him to the exit. “Let’s go, then,” he said. “We can walk and talk.”

Timber and Canyon followed. They hit the trail and walked in single file, Timber still talking. “Oh get this—it wasn’t just Mac who learned ruhi , Harlan did, too. He said one morning after Eventine was back, they just started speaking in ruhi instead of out loud and neither of them even realized it for a while.”

Burton, the leader in their trio, nodded, not saying anything.

“They found Trent in Wisconsin yesterday. Both him and the cat were unresponsive. They’re home now, out at Trevor’s place, with Remington working on Trent.”

Burton said something Timber couldn’t make out. They reached the trail that took them back to the entrance to the tunnels, then down the steps and through to the bunker. Timber expected Burton to peel off at the breakroom or his office but he stayed with them all the way into the bunker, straight to their pile of equipment.

Burton picked up two rucksacks, putting one on his back and one on his front, then he grabbed a cooler and a tool kit. “The least I can do is help you haul your gear,” he said. “Where’s it going?”

My truck, Canyon said. In the rear parking lot by the duty room exit.

Burton nodded and headed out the door.

“Thanks, Chief,” Timber called after him, grabbing up several pieces of gear himself.

Within fifteen minutes, Burton was asleep on the couch in his office, while Canyon and Timber sped up Crimson Bluff in Canyon’s truck.