by Lisa Ladew
Canyon whipped a spoon at his brother’s head. Timber ducked. It flew off the back wall.
“Relax, you’ve got the fucking patience of a fruit fly. Pay attention. I’m getting to what happened. Leilani and Burton went back in time and brought her body to this time, and then she drank the dragen blood. Now she’s fine. She and Harlan have been locked away for days. Rumor is, the sound of them fucking can be heard five counties away.”
Canyon scratched his head and spoke out loud. Leilani liked his voice out loud. He sounded like a rascal. “Shit, she got back with Harlan?”
Timber laughed long and hard at that. “Yeah, what did you think, she was gonna get poisoned and die, but then get saved and not die and travel into the future so that she could dump her mate and look up your sorry ass?”
Canyon laughed, but it faded quickly. He turned around and stared at his computer screen, seeming lost in thought.
Timber watched him for several moments. “Yeah, I get it, little bro. It might happen for you. I mean, I know it’s gonna happen for me, and you’re related to me, so it stands to reason someone might take pity on your grade-A-issues, scratch-and-dent ass and try to scrounge up a female who can look past your flaws. So yeah, you and me, we’re going to have to get out more.”
Leilani sank into a chair. This was definitely where she needed to be.
10 – The Beast Returns
The beast drew close to the farmland where the female was, sticking to the forests. The return trip had taken much less time. He’d been focused and fast and not stopped once. Now he would rest while he waited for nightfall. He would heed the words of the wolf, Trent, and cross the open farmland only at night.
And then what?
He’d left Serenity, thinking that the female couldn’t possibly want him, or even want to know him, but now he was back, because, inexplicably, he thought different.
He didn’t actually think, he couldn’t think well, because the two animals inside were fractured and divided, but he could feel, he could react, and he could know.
He knew one thing. If the male, Harlan, was near the female, Leilani, he would die.
11 – Poor Burton
Leilani lightly dozed in a chair near one wall of monitors, in plain view of Canyon and Timber, but they didn’t see her. She wasn’t actually dozing, more… resting, not wanting to go back to the meadow just yet. Canyon and Timber were in the real world, but she didn’t think she quite was. She had a feeling that she was in the meadow still, but a part of it where the catamount would not or could not follow her. Even though she wasn’t quite there, in the office with Canyon and Timber, she almost was. This was where she belonged. Here. The real world. Not in the meadow. But she did not want to belong here. This world was too confusing, too painful, and she was already such a mess in it. If only she could stay in the meadow forever.
Both males were at their desks, fingers flying over keyboards, as the images on the monitors changed again and again. They weren’t speaking, only working. Night was coming, the images of VF on the monitors showing long shadows and darkening forest paths.
Canyon grunted, making Timber look him. Leilani could see them from under her lashes, her eyes only open a sliver, her entire body relaxed, thinking lightly as she rested.
Canyon indicated the screen in front of him. Think anyone needs to know where Burton is?
Leilani became instantly alert. She wanted to know where Burton was. She opened her eyes and sat up in the chair, twisting to get a look at the screen Timber was gazing at. Canyon caught her eye and she looked at him quickly, dismayed to see he was staring right at her. They locked gazes for a moment and her heart sped up. But he acted like nothing had happened and looked away.
Leilani did too, checking out the screen. There was Burton, face a sad mask, head down, eyes on the ground, plodding toward the camera in what looked like a concrete tunnel. He opened a door on one side of the tunnel and disappeared. The image flipped and showed him heading down a hallway, then into a room, where he sank onto a couch, kicking off his boots and lying down immediately, like he was exhausted. He covered his face with one big arm and breathed deeply.
He’s in the break room, Canyon said in ruhi. The one on the north end of this room. Through the shelves.
Timber looked at him strangely. “Yeah, dude, I know where the fucking break room is. Duh.”
Canyon threw his brother a look, then said, We’ll let him rest, we’ll go see him when he wakes up.
Leilani shivered. “Can you see me?” she said into the room before she lost her nerve. Neither brother answered her. Ok. This was getting weird. But she did want to see Burton. She hadn’t said a word to him when it had happened, only taken his hand when he offered it, taken them both back in time and watched while two of him cried over Eventine. She’d taken his hand again and brought him back to the present, using the clock to do so, even if she didn’t quite understand how.
Leilani stood and scooted out of the area where the brothers were, ducking between the wall of monitors and the other wall of computers. Shelves and shelves of boxes made a kind of corridor and she followed it until she found the break room.
The door was closed. Could she open it? Her mind scrambled and her body moved and the little hand of her pretty clock ticked only a sliver to the right before ticking back to straight up, then the clock disappeared like it had never been.
She was inside, and the door had never opened. That had been easy, except for what it did inside her head. She would never get used to the scrambling sensation. At least here it didn’t hurt.
The break room had a small kitchenette on one end, with table, fridge, toaster oven, and microwave. There were four couches at the other end of the room. Burton lay on the couch closest to the door. She made her way to him, slowly, wondering if he would be able to hear or see her. He was a Citlali, supposedly a powerful one with much vision and a direct connection to Rhen. If anyone could sense her, it should be him.
But he was snoring softly, his face still sad in his sleep. She wanted to comfort him. She lay one hand gently on his shoulder, wondering if she could. She couldn’t touch him, but when her body seemed to touch him, a bit of information flowed from him to her. He hadn’t spoken to Eventine yet and had been hiding from her for days, hiding from everyone, asking his own questions and finding no answers. Was he Eventine’s father? Had he slept with Rhen? He’d dreamed about it sure, but-Leilani gasped and pulled her hand from his shoulder. Ah crud, she should just stay out of this. She patted him twice, quickly, wished him a restful sleep, and headed out of the room.
When she got back to Canyon and Timber, Timber had his chair over by Canyon’s desk and they had their heads together over a stack of papers. Leilani looked over their shoulders.
Timber was talking and drawing lines from paragraph to paragraph, scratching some out, circling others. “We have to talk to Eventine,” Timber said. “Get her to hear our ideas.”
Timber squeaked his chair back to his own desk and Leilani settled back into the chair she’d been in. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty or too tired, and she was… content there. Watching VF with Canyon and Timber was better than watching from the meadow. Here, she was with people who were supposed to be watching, so it was less like she was a peeping tom, and more like she was part of what was going on. She wanted to be part of it, at least on some level.
Canyon’s fingers flew over his keyboard, fast and urgent. Get this, he said.
Timber sailed over to his desk on his chair, slamming his chair into his brother’s chair. His brother shoved at him, almost knocking him and the chair over. Timber hit back at Canyon. “What? Fucker. I saved your fucking life a couple times. Show some fucking thanks every once in a while.”
Canyon grabbed him by the back of the neck and forced his head to the computer screen.
“Hey, is that Trent?” Timber asked. Canyon let him go.
Canyon didn’t respond, but he worked his keyboard. Three more screens popped up, then the imag
es they showed appeared on the wall of monitors in front of their desks.
“That is Trent!” Timber said. “What in the hell is he doing?”
Leilani leaned forward with the both of them.
The monitors showed a large black wolf with a bit of white on the tip of his tail and a spray of white on his chest, prowling inside what looked to be a small pharmacy. An alarm blared incessantly. The camera angle switched to other views and other parts of the building, showing a front window that had been destroyed. Glass littered the pharmacy floor.
“Shit, did he go in through that window? Where is this?”
Canyon’s fingers made rapid clacking noises on the keys, and still he didn’t speak. His brother just stared at the screens.
Bear Key, Wisconsin, Canyon said in her mind. The Good Neighbor Pharmacy. Cops are four minutes out. The pharmacy owner is screaming about it on the Internet – he’s the one streaming the footage from the cameras. Activist groups have gotten ahold of it, The All Wolves are Beautiful forum is already trying to name him.
Timber laughed. “Tell them to call him Wolf 477.”
477?
“His badge number.”
Canyon snorted. His fingers flew.
Leilani pulled her legs up to her chest, watching intently. She kind of knew who Trent was. He was one of the wolven, but he couldn’t shift. He was locked into a wolf’s body. He had been sent to find Jaggar. Her body was in his room, in his bed. She shivered, her eyes searching the screen. Maybe Jaggar was with him and she could get a look at him. Looking was safe. Looking didn’t mean anything.
On the screen, the black wolf loped through racks of shelves, slowly eyeing them. Trying not to look like he was reading the labels, she thought.
Canyon pointed at his computer screen, where a stream of comments flowed by almost too quickly to read. They love it, Canyon said. Wolf 477, it is.
Timber laughed. “Get me some fucking cereal, bruiser. This is better than Game of Thrones. What the fuck is Wolf 477 gonna do now?”
Better tell Trevor, Canyon said.
“Trevor doesn’t know his ass from his breakfast bowl.”
Canyon shook his head. Still gotta tell him.
“I’m serious,” Timber said. “I heard him tell someone that our mom was Jaggar’s mom. And I heard him tell someone else that Jaggar’s mom was wolven, and that she had Wade’s job.”
Yeah, I know, you’ve told me that four thousand times. He’s new. Cut him some slack.
“He ain’t new anymore.”
Canyon growled. Timber laughed. “Ooh, I’ll tell Wade. He’ll throw a fit. It’ll be more fun than telling Trevor, because if tell him he’ll be mad for a second and then a baby will puke on him and he won’t even remember what we said.”
On the screen, Trent stood up on his hind legs, hooked a box of medicine off the shelf with his paw, then picked it up off the floor with his mouth, and out the busted window he went, into the night, disappearing from the camera’s vision.
Leilani’s attention was drawn by the images at VF that were showing on the other monitors.
Canyon saw what she saw. Graeme’s on the move.
“Yeah, Eventine wants him to give his blood to the time-traveler. She hasn’t moved or spoken in a few days.”
Leilani shot to her feet and ran without hesitation. She wanted, no, needed to be in her body if there was going to be an opportunity to heal.
12 – The Wolven are Restless
Canyon stared hard at the tiny alcove behind his desk. He got up and walked into it, touching the wall there. Solid. He knocked on it. Still solid. So why had it looked like an open door for a second? He returned to his desk.
Bro, he said in ruhi.
“What?”
Do you believe in ghosts?
“Of course I do. You don’t?”
I don’t know. He couldn’t help but feel like he’d just been through a haunting, but a very sweet one. If there were ghosts, the one who had just sat in his chair and then left through that wall was a sweet and gentle one and Canyon was sad she had left.
He returned his focus to his work. He punched the button that would cycle through the images on the monitor. They needed more monitors. This place was going to be done up like mission control when he finished with it.
They had no eyes on Trent but they were scouring for him. He’d taken his antibiotics and run out of the building and away from any cameras. Canyon had no doubt the internet would find Trent before he and Timber could, so they would watch the Internet. They had keyword programs scouring social media for any mention of the words Wolf 477. Priority two was the words wolf or dog, plus news, and Bear Key. The positive hits would be filtered through an algorithm and he would receive notification of the ones that were mostly likely to be related to Trent. He’d designed the software himself and was immensely proud of it. Predator he called it. Wulf, his brother called it.
Timber spoke, his tone light. “Wade says he’s got more important shit going on right now than Trent and we should watch the situation.” Timber pressed a button on his computer and half of the screens displayed different vantage points of the inside of Trevor and Ella’s house. There was no sound. “See,” he said. “More important shit.”
Canyon could see. The place was packed to the rafters with people, most, had not been invited, he bet. Those were the ones who looked a little too much like they were about to riot. Canyon counted thirty wolven, all males of course, before he gave up counting. He noted every member of the KSRT except Trent, him and Timber, Jaggar, Troy, and Sebastian. The one true mates were also there, except Heather and Willow and Leilani.
Canyon realized he would not recognize Troy because he hadn’t seen him shifted yet. Maybe Timber had, that morning. Before he could ask his brother, he noticed Eventine. He’d never met the female, but the house he’d grown up in had been filled with pictures of her, Harlan and Burton both having adored her.
Eventine had been crowded into a corner. People were shouting questions at her like a news conference and Eventine was doing her best to answer one at a time, but before she could answer one, another was being thrown at her. Harlan strode into the room and elbowed his way between her and the crowd.
“Ooh,” Timber joked, putting his feet up on his desk, and flipping his pen up into the air, catching, flipping, catching, flipping. “Look, Harlan’s got his mean face on.”
Canyon snorted. Sound, he told his brother.
Timber hit a button on his keyboard with the heel of his work boot and sound of the melee they were seeing filled the room. Lots of murmuring, a few sharp questions, then Harlan’s deep voice, dripping with hostility.
“Back, all of you, get your asses back, I don’t give a shit who you are.” He pushed at the males who were crowding Eventine. Beckett and Crew came in to help him.
“Go, Harlan, protect your female,” Timber said. “Good to see you with a little fire in your eyes.” He threw some fake gang signs at Canyon just to annoy him. “This is better than The Walking Dead.”
Trevor and Ella and Wade came over and had a whispered conversation with Eventine, while Beckett and Crew stood dispassionately, waiting for orders, looking very clearly like they would rather be anywhere else. Citlali were rather like officers in the military, in that they were always an ordinary wolfen’s boss, no matter if they were in the chain of command or not. Plus they talked to Rhen, and no one wanted to be on the bad side of someone who could talk to Rhen.
Timber whistled, then grinned. “Look, here’s comes Troy. Watch out, everyone.”
Canyon grunted, eager for his first look at Troy shifted. He picked him out right away. He was big, as big as the rest of the males, but something about him was a little wilder, and a little goofier at the same time. Definitely Troy, he decided.
Troy didn’t walk. He marched with his arms out, and his head thrust forward. He plowed through the crowd, knocking people over, even falling over himself once. They both heard the wolfen’s grunt as Troy firs
t knocked him into the guy next to him, spilling them both to the floor, then fell on the first guy, elbowing him right in the kidney. Troy didn’t say a word, he grabbed the two males by the elbows and hoisted them to their feet, then pushed them back a few steps.
Troy made his way to stand next to Crew and Beckett and turned around, widening his stance, crossing his arms and beaming, showing all his teeth.
Timber snorted a laugh. “Little pig, little pig, let me in!” he cried in a sing-song voice before returning to his normal growl. “He looks happy as shit.”
Wonder why.
Timber nodded. “Right, that must be a head trip, to finally shift after all those years. It can’t be all fun though, he’s what, thirty-five years old? And he’s gotta learn how to brush his fucking teeth? He probably still can’t talk, and he could use a few lessons on how to walk and maybe one on how to smile without looking like Lurch’s lupine cousin. Seriously dude, put some of those teeth away.”
Canyon laughed. His brother was a fucking crack up.
On the monitor, Trevor whispered something to Troy, and then Eventine stood on the couch, stepping up on an arm of it so she was above everyone’s heads. The room quieted immediately.
Eventine spoke, her voice clear and measured. “I did not plan on this being a speech or a spectacle, but I can understand why you’re all here and that you want answers. You may have to accept that we don’t have many, though.”
“Answer this,” an older wolfen with a gray beard said. “Were you dead?”
Eventine shook her head no. “I can’t answer that.” The males in the room all spoke at once, their voices urgent and angry. Eventine held up her hands. “I know this sounds like we’re keeping secrets from you, but we’re not. It’s hard for me to explain what happened to me, and it becomes less clear in my own mind with every passing moment. I’m not allowed to write down the details, you all know that, but here’s all I know. I was with Rhen in her spiritual home, although she didn’t speak to me. Through some miracle, I have been brought here, now.”
