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

10-Trent and Rowan ♦♦

Lisa here—well DANG, I don’t know about you, but I learned a whole lot from that conversation! Much of the information, we haven’t heard before, and we won’t be hearing it again in this straightforward format.

First, let me mention four big events that Canyon and Timber didn’t:

Eventine, in the past, saw and scented Abigail White at the duty room desk, disguising her foxen scent, somehow scenting like a wolven . (seen in book 7, Harlan and Eventine).

Jaggar killed Joel, but the catamount sent Leilani back in time to change the past to make sure it didn’t happen. (seen in book 8, Jaggar and Leilani).

Grey used Cerise’s pendant to kill the angel because the demon demanded it and the angel wanted it. (seen in book 9, Troy and Reed).

Conri brought Sage flowers and said he was dating her. (seen in book 9, Troy and Reed).

That super long conversation between Canyon, Timber, and Burton, happens during Chapter 27 of book 10 (Trent and Rowan), while Reed flew home from Wisconsin and before Abigail White poofed notes into Trevor’s house, so half of the events of book 10 haven’t even happened yet! Let me catch you up on the most recent events we saw in book 10.

The last thing Timber said about Trent was that he continued heading north after the altercation with the beast, which happened during the events of book 8 (Jaggar and Leilani). What Timber didn’t know was that Trent was hit on the head by a rockfall and he died.

Trent left his body, which had only ever been a wolf with a man inside, and sped toward the afterlife as a man with a wolf inside. He moved through the ether to a meadow of green and brown which was full of lost friends and family, but just before he landed there, Smokey, his echo , snatched him away and took him to an empty, dead meadow, where Smokey gave Trent a very important mission.

First though, Smokey separated Trent from his wolf and his wolf was sent back to the moment of death, on his own very important mission, one we don’t know much about. He helped a wolf pack travel north to secure wilderness where they could find territory. He stayed with them for almost a month, and they protected him after he became too weak to move, depleted by his inability to connect with Trent while dreaming. Trent would have suffered the same fate, except the nearness of Rowan counteracted the effect for him.

Two days ago, during the events of book 10 (Trent and Rowan), Reed got a clear message from a tree about where exactly Trent’s wolf was. She told Troy, Troy told Trevor, and he gathered a team to head straight there. They found Trent’s wolf and the cat unconscious, and brought them home via freaky-fast dragen travel. Oh, and there were four or five pregnant female wolves in the area, prowling around—not sure what that's about!

During all of that, Trent was without his wolf in the dead meadow with Smokey, receiving instructions on his next mission. Trent, distracted by the events of space and time, missed 90% of the instructions, then Tabias streaked through the ether with a silver clock in his mouth, marking the end of the events of book 8 (Jaggar and Leilani).

Trent was sent to the world that Crew used to go to while he slept.

Turns out, Trent’s a traveler, but he has had no conscious recollection of traveling since he was a child, when he was disbelieved and even punished (by Grey!) for saying he lived a second life in his dreams.

In the alternate life in the other world, Trent was not stuck as a wolf, he’d shifted, spoken, driven—all the things Troy had been having such a hard time with.

Trent had no issue with any of that, he had other problems—he entered the body of Trent in that world bleeding out on the ground with Troy there as a man, digging around in a bullet hole in Trent’s leg.

Troy got the bullet out and screamed at Trent to shift, but Trent was unable—his wolf was not with him.

In this other world, shifters divide themselves into two camps, those who oppress and dominate humans, and those who protect and fight for humans.

Trent and Troy work to protect humans in this world’s version of New York City.

When Trent continued to be unable to shift, Troy decided Trent had somehow contracted the ‘deaden curse’ a shifter disease that restricts a shifter from shifting, so Troy took him to Illinois, to a human female who had created a vaccine that can cure the disease.

Problem was, this human female was also Trent’s mate, they’d had a long relationship in the past, but they’d also had a falling out.

She wanted nothing to do with him, but because he was in trouble, she agreed to help him.

Rowan gave Trent the vaccine and monitored him while he tried everything he could to get close to her, thinking he needed to bring her home, contemplating how to do it. He did not want to leave the world without his mate.

But when the time came, he did—he died in that world, propelled out of the body, while the other Trent, the one who had fucked up so badly, returned to it. Rowan, shocked by Trent dying in her arms, realized in her heart she wanted to give him one more chance, and so when he miraculously came back to life, they reconciled.

Trent realized that Rowan in that world was not his mate, but there was a Rowan just for him, at home, and that’s where he was headed.

At Trevor’s house, Abigail White poofed magical notes into the living room, telling the KSRT to use the hot portal, who turned out to be Kendra, the tiny dragen baby. Kendra knew she had a job to do, and she did it well, even suspending her hatred of Conri… for a time. Little Kendra called Trent home to his body, then helped him shift with a fiery touch, which stunned everyone.

Trent jumped to his feet, got dressed, said his hellos and his thank yous, gathered up Troy and Reed, and the three of them headed straight out to where Trent knew his Rowan would be. He found her easily and she was even more perfect to him than the Rowan he’d left behind.

In the Ula, Rowan is a scientist dealing with a daily drop of Khain’s poison into a water reservoir, killing all wildlife who drank from it. She’d been hired to find an antidote to the poison—which was her specialty. When Trent showed up, the pieces fell into place for her easily, and their coming together was low-angst, high-heat, both of them knowing how right it was.

In downtown Serenity, Grey was figuring out the pendant he’d killed the angel with was still somehow in his hand, but only when he held his body in the pose of the killing blow.

Rex and Soren found him, and they went after Rowan at the reservoir, but Trent and Troy and Reed were already there.

Still, the bad guys got their hands on Rowan’s super-poison and planned to poison the water, triggering a Vahiy sign about a second poisoning.

Khain launched an offensive on downtown Serenity, leaving our team at the reservoir cut off and alone, until Khain appeared at the reservoir, blowing shit up and generally being an asshole.

Rowan never managed to find an antidote, but in the end, she was the antidote, and the water was saved, Khain was chased off, and Rex was killed by Graeme.

Khain also scraped off Grey’s renqua and marked his chest, but we don’t know exactly when. The mark was hidden from Grey until Rex was killed.

Trent and Troy brought their mates home to VF in the middle of the night to find a double cabin built just for them.

Two more things—while in that other world, Trent overheard that the augur wanted a triple batch of something from that other Rowan, and she delivered.

Trent also brought the ingredients of the deaden curse vaccine from other-world Rowan, to his Rowan, and they may prove useful someday, possibly in the creation of an efficacious-for-all vaccine to protect against a future poisoning.