Page 10 of Let's Talk One True Mate

Guess who,Canyon said.

Burton’s face took on a thoughtful cast. “Another mate?”

“Yep. Dahlia, Crew’s mate. She came and got the bobcat, named it Angel, took it home, and never went back to work. The little guy turned out to be herecho, and Crew’secho… but we didn’t know any of that for a while. After she left the scene was when the spider attacked and Graeme roasted him, then he flew Heather to Scotland, and left the mess for the rest of us to clean up. While they were in Scotland, Heather saw something in the forest that Graeme didn’t see, and she thinks there’s a chance it was adragen,but Graeme says all thedragenbut him are dead.”

Burton nodded along, a vertical crease between his eyes.

“I never explained where the video of the Vahiy came from—Boe was living with Rogue and she knew something was up with him. One night he went into a trance-like state andrecited the Vahiy and she videoed it. The internet got ahold of it and a couple of opportunisticfoxenused it to create a shamfoxenrevolt here in Serenity, out at some doomsday prepper’s farm just outside the city limits.”

“This was Rex Brenwyn’s bullshit?”

“Yeah. He and a partner in crime faked a rally at Serenity Community College and managed to trick some college students onto a bus, then he took the whole bus hostage—drove them out to the farm, and holed up. The place was set up to withstand a siege from zombies, with an actual ring of fire around it—like some real The Walking Dead shit. At first they said they wanted mates, then money, but the real purpose was that Rex wanted Khain’s attention.”

Burton listened intently, leaning forward.

“Here’s where it gets crazy. Graeme took hours to fly to Scotland, but he made it back in minutes. He did it bydragentravel through other worlds that took less time than travel here would have—and that’s not even the interesting part.”

Burton’s expression said he was hanging on Timber’s every word. Timber loved it. He took a moment to rummage a package of mints out of a drawer. He tossed them on the desk and went on.

“Heather had purposely left her pendant at home, but it magically appeared in her pocket while they were in one of the worlds. She says she was told by a voice in her head to leave the pendant with a kid there.”

Burton was incredulous. “She left her pendant in another world?”

“Crazy, I know. What’s crazier is how she got it back, but I’m getting ahead of myself—Graeme and Heather came backwithout it. They went out to the field operations headquarters and Heather saw the ring of fire, and she ran right through it to prove to Graeme she was fireproof. She turned off the fire and our team rushed the place, they captured Rex and took him to jail. Later, Heather and Graeme officially got together—bonded in some secret ceremony, and then they moved out to Trevor’s place.”

Timber paused, thinking, scratching the stubble on his chin. “You know about the boinkorama moment, right?”

Burton blinked. “The boinkowhat?”

“Every time one of them gets claimed, everybody gets all excited and disappears for a few hours for super secret sexy times but nobody talks about it. Anyway, we call it the boinkorama.” Timber leaned against his desk and spoke wistfully. “Someday, I’ll get my boinkorama moment.” He snapped out of it and went on, his voice all business. “Trevor hadn’t given Ella’s pendant to her yet, but he did around this time, and it sent her to another world, possibly the same world that Heather left her pendant in, but she came back right away.”

Burton looked more than a little confused, but he nodded at Timber to go on.

3-Crew and Dahlia♦♦

“About a week passed before Crew met Dahlia,” Timber said.

He was doing everything possible not to meet her.

“Sure was. Crew was convinced Khain was tracking him and when he met his mate, Khain would know how to find her— but Khain couldn’t track him when he went to that other world he used to go to when he slept, so his big plan was to go to that world forever… if he could just figure out how to do it. Instead, he met her in that world…” Timber left the punchline for his brother.

At a rut.

“A rut!” Burton’s mouth fell open.

“In that world they schedule ruts like football games. Crew worked security over there, protecting humans, but there he has to protect them from othershiften. Dahlia was a world hopper like Crew, but neither of them does it anymore. On the day they met, Dahlia actually died in the other world she went to when she slept.”

Burton sat up straighter in his chair and leaned forward. “Hold on, what? Died? What do you mean, died?”

“Died for real, in a car accident.”

Burton winced. “Ouch.”

“Yep. But then she immediately woke up in another world. Actually, it wasn’t immediate, but she didn’t remember her…” Timber grasped for how to explain it.

Divine interlude,Canyon offered.

“She didn’t remember her divine interlude until after she’d returned to this world. After she died, she found herself in a kind of divine hallway and… and herechowas there, talking to her inruhi.”

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