Page 22 of Let's Talk One True Mate

Canyon looked at Burton, eyebrow raised, his phone at the ready. Burton nodded. Canyon tapped his screen a few times and Burton’s phone dinged.

“They got Leilani out of there, and moved her into Trent’s room, with Ella taking care of her, and Remington managing a gradual weaning off the drugs. She was circling the drain for a while and no one could figure out why—come to find out, all that time travel must’ve zapped her eyeballs because she went blindandshe was hanging out in the meadow with Eventine instead of in her body.”

“Mm,” Burton said, his expression troubled.

“Eventine, from the meadow, was able to get into Leilani’s body when Leilani wasn’t in it… and that’s how Harlan almost got murdered.”

Straight-up mauled.

Timber nodded. “I would call it a mauling. Harlan kissed Leilani, thinking she was Eventine, and Jaggar saw it and hulked out into the beast. He mauled Harlan, and ran off, heading north. Harlan ‘bout lost his shit, thinking Eventine was somehow alive, but in Leilani’s body. Conri told him that Abigail White was afoxenwitch who could get Eventine a new body, and the reason we didn’t know this is because she could do disappeary shit and hide from us with magic. By this time, Seb had already figured that out. We weren’t so sure—” Timber motioned to himself and Canyon. “—We’d read Seb’s investigative conclusions but they seemed farfetched—but then Harlan cleared that shit up for us real quick. He broke into White’s store and tore the place up, forcing her to do something, and she made three notes poof into existence out of nowhere.”

Canyon held out his phone, showing images of the notes. Timber read them out loud.

“Note 1—Hello children. I can’t help you. Even if I could, I’m really quite booked till summer. Thosebearenare some superstitious fools but they’ve got plenty of cash and they never get handsy.”

“Note 2—Seriously. I can’t put her in a coma patient’s body. It doesn’t work like that. That is not a natural process and therefore, only chaos can arrange it.”

“Note 3—What about her own body? You have a time traveler, do you not? All you need is her body at the moment of death, an antidote to the poison, and the halfling can do the rest.”

Burton rubbed his chin, staring at the images of the notes, his expression conflicted. “She’s responsible for us having Eventine back.”

Timber shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Leilani would have taken you back in time no matter what. She already knew Eventine. They’d already been time-traveling together.”

Burton looked at him with eyes narrowed, like he hadn’t considered that before.

“Abigail White said go back in time, Harlan said no way, Wade put it to a vote, but then you and Leilani did it anyway, and no one else even knew till it was done.”

Burton was nodding, his brow furrowed. “I’m not clear on the time traveling that Eventine and Leilani have done. Eventine says we lose-uh-lost the war against Khain in the future?” He looked at Timber for confirmation.

“She says we did, once, yeah. She watched it from the meadow, then figured out a way to go to Leilani in the Roosevelt Asylum. She helped Leilani escape and lead her to the KSRT officers who were still alive, and they worked out a plan forLeilani to time-travel back in time in a way that would destroy that old timeline and give us all another chance. She says last time, Bruin was killed and thebearenwere all marked by Khain, so things are already different.”

“Only B3 was marked.”

“Right, only him.”

Burton sighed heavily. “And Eventine is here with us. That’s different.”

“Right—could you give us a recap of how it went—the time travel?” They’d already asked Burton about it once, but he’d been out of it at the time.

“I have a hard time thinking about it,” Burton said, his voice cracking slightly. “I… I remember walking into Trevor’s house without a thought in my head. I knew I was on a mission, but I didn’t know what the mission was, or who’d set me on it. I went to Trent’s room. Leilani didn’t react when I went in the room, but when I reached the bed, she opened her eyes and took my hand… I felt like… like I was yanked around a little bit, and then I was in the past, in my office, staring at my dying Evie and my past self. I picked Evie up, said a few words to myself, took Leilani’s hand again, and just like that we were back in the present.” Burton’s eyes were on the ground. “Evie drankdragenblood and lived,” he said quietly.

Timber nodded. “And what about that day in the past?”

Burton clasped his hands, sitting quietly, his eyes almost closed. “Strangely, I can remember that like it was yesterday. I’ve spent 30 years trying to forget. If I could cut the memory out of my head I would.”

Burton lapsed into silence. Timber met Canyon’s eyes over his head.

“I thought I was moonstruck, you know—out of my right mind and separated from the instincts of my wolf,” Burton said quietly. “Because… because…” He looked up at both of them, eyes pleading for them to understand. Timber moved a little closer to him, and so did Canyon, coming in next to the log and going down on one knee. Burton seemed to take some comfort from them. He took a deep breath and spoke. “It started like a normal day, except for one thing. Eventine had left the house before I woke up. She’d gone to the courthouse and married Harlan without telling me, because I was aggressively trying to keep her from her mating day.”

Burton stared at the ground, then looked up, speaking in a rush. “The first calls came in while I was still home. I drove straight to the station and found two female officers unconscious in the parking lot. I carried them into the duty room, but there were more dead and dying in there. That was the first time I thought of Eventine, and I knew right away what had happened. I was told a horrible fate would strike theshiftenon the day she mated… I just wasn’t told… why.”

Burton stared far off, his expression full of pain and long-suffering.

“We opened up the civil defense building and pulled out the emergency cots and moved our females in there. We called for ambulances, something we’d never done before, but the bears didn’t even show up. They were already dealing with their own females dying, and they were calling us for help. Eventine and Harlan arrived. Eventine seemed okay at first. She sent Harlan to SFD to commandeer an ambulance. The moment he left the room, she collapsed into my arms, slurring, saying, ‘Burton was right,’ over and over again.”

Timber and Canyon were quiet as Burton continued on, staring off into the distance.

“I carried her to my office and laid her down on the couch. The phone was ringing off the hook and I pulled the cord out of the wall… then wind blew inside the closed room, and Leilani stepped out of nowhere with a male. Suddenly I was looking at myself, but 30 years older and I could clearly see the 30 years had not been good ones. He locked eyes with me and said, ‘She dies, but we’re trying to save her,’ and then he picked Eventine up and took Leilani’s hand and they just left—disappeared into nowhere.”

---