One True Mate 6: Bear's Redemption

by Lisa Ladew

  Harlan leaned up against his truck and crossed his arms, settling in to wait. Fuck. Sebastian better show up before the sun reached its zenith in the sky, baking the driveway they were standing on like cookies.

  Speaking of cookies… He glanced behind him at the house again and sniffed. Yeah, Boe was cooking something good in there. Harlan hadn’t been out here yet but the patrol officers who watched the house in shifts always came back with cookies, or banana bread, or homemade donuts. If Boe was trying to earn the trust of the Serenity Police Department via their stomachs, he was doing a good job.

  Harlan kicked a rock past Wade’s ankle. “Why am I here anyway? Why not Jaggar? I don’t know why you think I would be able to analyze Boe better than him.”

  Wade shielded his eyes from the sun. “You’re here because I asked Rhen if there was a Vahiy sign about any of my wolves and she said yeah, you.”

  Harlan took a moment to digest that. Him? Why would he have anything to do with the events that led up to the end of the world?

  He was about to ask but Wade already knew what was on his mind. He shrugged. “I have no idea why. Rhen just said you should come.”

  The low growl of a large vehicle caught Harlan’s attention. Finally. Harlan stared down the country road until Sebastian’s yellow Hummer H3 turned the corner at a high rate of speed. Harlan held his breath.

  By the looks of Sebastian’s driving he was in no shape to go inside with Boe, but when Sebastian parked the car and got out Harlan changed his mind. Sebastian’s eyes were clear, his tattooed face relaxed and his hands were not curled into fists. Ok. This was going to go just fine. Hopefully.

  Sebastian walked right between him and Wade, lifting his chin as he passed. “Let’s do this,” he said, his voice harsh and commanding. The wolf did not know his place, never had.

  Wade shot Harlan a look and Harlan knew exactly what it meant. If they got in there and Sebastian went for Boe they would have to take him down. Harlan had been there, done that already. He knew the score.

  Up the porch the three of them went, to the front door. Boe answered on their first knock. He smiled and bent a little at the waist, almost like he wanted to bow to them but was holding himself back from it. The sweet scent of vanilla and sugar rolled out the door to Harlan.

  Sebastian was on his best behavior. He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and left them perched there, looking down at the grizzled old man.

  Harlan took the moment to study Boe, also. The foxen who had escaped from the Pravus when the KSRT did a rescue mission for Trevor and Ella looked much older than he’d been described by the others.

  No one knew how old he was. Boe himself said he thought maybe two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty years old.

  “So you’re Boe,” Sebastian said, pushing past him inside the house.

  Boe stepped back and stared up at him, a rapt and small smile on his face. “And you must be Wolf Breese.” Boe said wolf like it was a title, like Mister or Doctor.

  Boe turned back to him and Wade and did that almost bow again. “And you are Wolf Mundelein. Such a pleasure to meet you.”

  Harlan didn’t say a word but glanced at Wade. Wade actually smiled at the old guy. Ok.

  Harlan had heard that most of the wolven who came home from this duty professed to liking Boe but Harlan hadn’t believed it himself. The guy had been with Khain, had lived with him for decades, and so far had not told a convincing story of how that happened.

  No one knew if he had been with Khain of his own free will or if he had been forced to help him. Boe did not do well with direct attempts from the wolves at eliciting information from him. He would shake and cower and say he couldn’t remember exactly. His mind was obviously slipping, but his general demeanor was that he had been there of his own free will and that he regretted it. In fact, he hated himself for it. Harlan didn’t know how to feel about any of it.

  Sebastian dropped into one of the chairs in the living room and stared at Wade as he and Harlan entered the room and shut the door behind them. The house was tastefully decorated with wide open windows, letting in the slight morning breeze. Wade set up a tripod and a camera, pointing them into the room but not turning the camera on yet.

  Sebastian looked at Wade. “So what exactly are we doing here?”

  Boe bowed at the waist and answered, “You, the scariest wolf, are to ask me questions and I am to answer them in the hopes that something you say will trigger my state.”

  Sebastian eyed him, showing no reaction to being called the scariest wolf. He turned back to Wade. “He knows?”

  Wade nodded. “Boe has been quite active in trying to help us discover the Vahiy signs.”

  Boe spoke up. “Vahigns I call them.”

  Harlan grinned. “Hey, that’s clever.”

  Boe positively lit up, his wrinkled face smiling brightly. “Why thank you Wolf Mundelein, thank you very much.”

  Harlan smiled back a little, completely disbelieving of why Wade said he was there.

  Sebastian looked at Wade. “What’s his trigger?”

  Wade shrugged. “We haven’t found it yet. We’ve tried a few things, but none have worked. You, with your past, your mind, maybe you will stir something in him. Just do your thing. Be you.” He turned on the camera and pointed it at Boe.

  Sebastian grinned. A dangerous grin if Harlan had ever seen one. Still grinning, Sebastian shot to his feet and hunched his shoulders, glaring intently at Boe. “You, sit down,” he said to Boe, and it was obvious to everyone in the room that that was a direct order not to be disobeyed.

  Boe’s countenance shrank immediately and his eyes grew wide. He edged past Sebastian to a chair in the far corner and sat down. Sebastian followed him, shoulders rounded like a werewolf, his aura menacing.

  “How old are you?” he barked at Boe.

  Boe licked his lips and pulled in on himself. “I don’t know exactly, wolf, sir. I do believe I am at least two hundred years old.”

  “You don’t know what year you were born?” Sebastian barked the question like Boe was lying to him.

  Boe shook his head, shrinking even more. “No sir, no wolf, I have lost much of my memory.”

  Harlan sank down to the couch to watch. He hadn’t formed any opinions yet.

  Sebastian snarled. “Did you come here under Khain’s order? Are you a spy?”

  Boe shook his head emphatically. “No wolf, not a spy. And master cannot know where I am. If he did he would kill me, surely.”

  Harlan settled in. This was all stuff they already knew. Either Sebastian hadn’t read the file on Boe or he had something up his sleeve.

  Sebastian stalked away from Boe then turned suddenly toward him, his hand outstretched. “Who is your loyalty to?”

  Boe shrank back into his chair and his eyes shot around the room. Harlan leaned forward. That was a great question.

  Boe didn’t answer for a long time. He looked scared to, like he didn’t think he would be believed. His voice was small when he finally spoke. “In that I have loyalty to give, it is to Rogue. She saved me, gave me a place to live, treated me like a being worthy of respect. Beyond her, I might say to the wolven. I’ve been scared of you for much of my life but since I have had the pleasure of meeting so many wolven I have discovered that you are noble and fair beings. I do find my thoughts being favorable and loyal to you.”

  Huh. Harlan could see himself learning to like this little foxen also. He scented no deception in the male.

  Sebastian paced through the room before he turned on Boe quickly, like he had before, and asked another urgent question. “Are there gifts or rewards waiting for you when you return to the Pravus and tell your master everything you have learned about us?”

  Boe dropped his head. “I do not mean to call him master, but it is a habit born of many years. I wish I could resist him and I tried every day for the last many weeks and months and years of my stay with him. It is hard to resist the pain though, the desire for the pain to cease.�
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  Sebastian shot a look at Wade and Wade motioned for him to keep going. “The pain?” Sebastian said.

  Boe nodded and began to unbutton his shirt. Harlan had heard about this. Khain’s mark. He was about to see it for himself. Boe’s spoke quickly. “Foxen who work for the master are marked.” He pulled his shirt apart and showed the three claw marks diagonal on his chest from shoulder to hip. Harlan sucked in a breath. He’d never thought of his renqua as a mark from Rhen but seeing Khain’s mark he understood that’s exactly what it was. At least Rhen’s mark was not the angry, blistering red of the claw furrows on Boe’s chest.

  “Did he do that to you?” Harlan asked.

  Boe nodded.

  Sebastian’s voice was still harsh, rasping. “How many years ago? You must have some idea.”

  Boe shook his head and glanced up at Sebastian, heartbreak in his eyes. “It’s hard to understand the passage of time in the Pravus and I do not know how many years ago. I would guess it to be more than one hundred, but I can’t say for sure.”

  Sebastian brushed that aside, his words tight against each other as he dug deeper. “You mentioned pain. Is that from the mark?”

  Boe ran his hand over his chest and nodded. “When a marked foxen defies the master’s orders or even considers defying the master’s orders, the mark creates agonizing pain throughout our body, until we decide to do otherwise.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “That mark can read your mind?”

  Boe shook with fear. “I don’t know how it works.”

  “You don’t look like you’re in pain right now, but I doubt your master-” Sebastian sneered the word- “Would want you here talking to us right now. So aren’t you disobeying him?”

  Boe nodded his head. “Oh yes, but I have learned many tricks from the master over the years, and I am sometimes able to limit his magic and block the resulting pain. It is extremely hard on my body and I won’t live much longer but I want to give this gift to the wolves, if I can. I do not agree with my master’s aims anymore.”

  “So you did believe his aims?”

  Boe shrugged and a tear tracked down his cheek. “He is my father and I tried for a long time.”

  “Your father? You know this for sure?”

  Harlan shook his head. Boe could remember none of his childhood, and this question had never been answered to anyone’s satisfaction.

  Boe looked at the floor. “No, I do not. But I believe him to be my father. He said he was.”

  “How many marked foxen are there?” Sebastian asked.

  Boe shook his head, his voice desperate, his eyes shooting to Wade. “I don’t know the answer to this.” Wade motioned for him to tell what he knew. He gathered himself and spoke. “As far as I know there are only two marked foxen left in the world, myself and my sister.”

  “Who is your sister?”

  “Adil is her name.”

  Sebastian checked in with Wade and Wade nodded. They already knew this. “Where is your sister?”

  “I do not know. I have not seen her for many years.”

  Sebastian walked around in circles in the room for many moments and then strode up close to Boe and bent over him. His voice was a steel wire. “Here’s something I want to know about the Vahiy. There are signs and we’ve gotten a few of them, and you say that you want to tell us the rest. We just have to trigger you into the state to retrieve them. Let’s say that’s all true. Can we stop the Vahiy if we stop one of these signs?”

  Boe seemed to think about it, his fingers winding between each other and his eyes going far away. Finally he said, “I am unable to interpret the Vahiy or the vahigns, but it has always been my impression that even if a sign is stopped the Vahiy will still happen. All that is needed is for it to begin.”

  “So if we stopped one of these signs from ever happening or ever beginning at all we could stop the Vahiy from happening.”

  Boe licked his lips and looked around the room several times before he finally nodded. “It is theoretically possible.”

  Sebastian continued to question Boe but in Harlan’s estimation that was the most important thing they had learned all day, that they could stop the Vahiy, that they weren’t helpless. Now they just needed to know the rest of the signs. Sebastian continued to grill Boe but no matter how many questions he asked or how he asked them, Boe remained lucid and did not recite any Vahiy signs.

  Sebastian growled, his patience wearing thin. “There’s one more thing that I sure hope you know the answer to, for your sake. How did Khain manage to get his poison into all the water supply in the entire world at once?”

  Boe’s shoulders were slumped, but he answered quickly. “He used to have that ability, to be in all places at once.”

  Sebastian looked around, catching Harlan’s eye for the first time that day, then he turned back to Boe. “What do you mean he used to have that ability? He doesn’t have it anymore?”

  Boe kept his eyes on the floor, speaking as if he knew he were about to get in trouble. “I used my limited magicks to steal it from him while he slept.”

  Sebastian turned to Wade to ask a quick question. “What do we know about magic?”

  Wade shrugged. “Not much. We’re warriors, not spell casters. Khain apparently has magic, Rhen too, I’m sure. The One True Mates have powers that could be described as magic, so it stands to reason the angels have magic, too. But nobody has catalogued or studied it.”

  Sebastian curled a lip, then turned back to Boe. “What do you mean steal it from him? Where is it? Is it solid?”

  Boe nodded slowly, then shook his head. “Not solid. Energy. I am holding on to it.”

  Sebastian looked at Wade and then Harlan again, as the weight of that answer hit them all equally. Harlan was impressed. Sebastian seemed almost normal.

  Sebastian faced Boe again. “What happens to that ability if you die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does it go back to Khain?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sebastian curled his hands into fists and stood up straight, looking Wade in the eye. “I’m not getting anywhere,” he grunted.

  Wade waved at him, nodding his head, and Sebastian strode out the door, getting in his truck and driving away. Wade stayed quiet until the noise of his engine disappeared. Then he raised his eyebrows at Boe.

  “Boe, would you touch Harlan… or let him touch you?”

  Harlan nodded. He knew they would get here eventually. He stood and went to where Boe was sitting. Boe reached out his hand and pressed a finger to Harlan’s arm.

  Boe relaxed visibly and then stared at him. Recognition flooded into his eyes in a way that hadn’t happened before. “Oh, Wolf Mundelein, I see something. Your… your destiny.”

  Boe’s eyes closed and his voice changed, deepening as twenty or thirty years fell of off his face, his wrinkles smoothing, his spine straightening. “The knotted wolf fights with his brother over their One True Mate, sending shockwaves through the shiften.”

  Harlan stiffened then he yanked his arm out of Boe’s grip. He was the knotted wolf, his renqua a thick, swirling knot on his shoulder. He’d long thought that he wasn’t getting a One True Mate, and he was fiercely glad about that. The only female for him was his Eventine and she was never coming back. There’s no way he would fight with anybody about getting a mate.

  He glared at Wade, as anxiety speared through him anyway. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Wade shook his head, but his attention was quickly pulled to Boe, whose eyes were still closed, his lips and tongue moving quickly as if he were trying to speak but nothing was coming out.

  But then the words started, and the vahigns tumbled out and Harlan fought to keep from covering his ears, denying the words that spelled out the end of his race.

  A foxen is found who can identify the One True Mates on sight. A great leader is killed, and it begins the beginning of the end. One shifter sect betrays another.” Boe’s words came faster. “Shift
enare markedand battle linesaredrawn along lines ofideology, instead of identifyinganimal. A chiefbetrayshispeople. Fire killsbutlove saves. Amatesplits.”

  The words became an unidentifiable blur of sound, and Harlan was glad.

  He would rather die than hear more of them.

  Chapter 16

  Willow strode up the side of the hill, her mind in turmoil, wanting only to get to her hives. She could see them, in the upper right hand corner of her land, near the fence of her neighbor’s acreage, directly under the summer apple trees. When she got up there, the entire valley, down the side of the bluff, would spread before her. It was a wonderful place to get away by herself and think.

  Her mind spun with the words that man, Bruin, had just said to her, how he wanted to protect her, not from anything big and scary, but from the little hurts of everyday life. She liked that. It made her feel safer than she ever thought she could, like if she were wrapped in his arms, the arrows and the sorrows of the world could never reach her.

  She heard a blustering behind her and turned quickly. It almost sounded like a bear pushing its way through the underbrush, but it was Bruin. Willow smiled, glad to her very core his open and honest face, his easy and quick smile, his bulk, and his brawn, and his heart that spoke clearly to her. Willow sighed. She was smitten and there was nothing she could do about it, or wanted to do about it. She’d been promised an angel, but Bruin was better.

  Bruin was still twenty feet away, coming quickly, but she couldn’t see what he was pulling back from. He waved a hand in front of his face, his eyes on her, then he waved his other hand. He frowned and she could just see three bees light on his shoulder. He frowned again, staring at them, but not smashing them.

  “Bruin, don’t,” she cried, knowing most people’s instinct was to smash them. When she reached him, she waved the bees away quickly, then inspected his hands and arms, finding several red bumps. He’d been stung repeatedly but had not smashed one bee. She grabbed his right hand, pulling it closer to her face, wanting to make sure he wasn’t having a reaction.