Page 25 of Let's Talk One True Mate

“Sure did, four of them.”

“One of them triggered Blake’s coma.”

Burton frowned, saying, “I went out to Remington’s yesterday to see him.”

“How’s he look?”

“As good as can be expected. Not like he’s dying.”

“Good, good. And you know about the new kit statue that just appeared next to the catamount statue.”

Burton nodded. “It’s a new guardian.”

“Oh,” Timber said. “Ok.” He looked at Canyon. “There’s the confirmation we’ve been looking for.”

Canyon nodded, already typing it into his phone.

“Is that how the other statues arrived?” Timber asked. “They just appeared when the guardian was born?”

Burton shook his head. “Don’t know. Doubtful. It seems to me the other guardians were never born, only… they’ve just always been.”

“So this is new.”

Burton nodded, his mouth set in a line, his gaze on the trees.

“A day or two after it showed up, Troy stumbled on a trap up Crimson Bluff set by Grey and Rex. He went after them by himself, which was dumb, but even dumber when you consider that he attacked them as a dude—he’d been refusing to shift, thinking he’d get stuck as a wolf again. They beat him up pretty good and he would've been dead except Reed asked the forestto protect him and it grew a mutant tree cage around him. The thing was awesome—I mean, seriously, even a bulldozer would have had a hard time getting through it.”

“See—I told you it’s a cool power.”

“When you’re right, you’re right. Rex and Soren tried to ambush our team, but the trees filled Reed in on their plan, so we managed to stay out of the ambush. Rex, Soren, Grey, they all escaped—the otherfoxen, too.”

“What otherfoxen?”

“We’re not sure who they are. We found an encampment that scented offoxen, and we’ve learned Khain may be steadily and secretly takingfoxento the Pravus and marking them, preparing for a battle. We’ve had a flurry of reports of men gone missing in Serenity over the last couple of weeks and they’re all proving to befoxen. Trevor handed us this assignment last week but we’re still working on Abigail White, too, because they’re connected. We haven’t had any reports of missing members of the White family, so we’re running with the abandoned Van Crimson village today—we’re going to head up there and see what’s what as soon as we tuck your old ass in and tell you some bedtime stories till you go sleepy sleeps,” Timber said.

Burton stood, shaking his head. He gave Timber a withering look, then headed past him to the exit. “Let’s go, then,” he said. “We can walk and talk.”

Timber and Canyon followed. They hit the trail and walked in single file, Timber still talking. “Oh get this—it wasn’t just Mac who learnedruhi, Harlan did, too. He said one morning after Eventine was back, they just started speaking inruhiinstead of out loud and neither of them even realized it for a while.”

Burton, the leader in their trio, nodded, not saying anything.

“They found Trent in Wisconsin yesterday. Both him and the cat were unresponsive. They’re home now, out at Trevor’s place, with Remington working on Trent.”

Burton said something Timber couldn’t make out. They reached the trail that took them back to the entrance to the tunnels, then down the steps and through to the bunker. Timber expected Burton to peel off at the breakroom or his office but he stayed with them all the way into the bunker, straight to their pile of equipment.

Burton picked up two rucksacks, putting one on his back and one on his front, then he grabbed a cooler and a tool kit. “The least I can do is help you haul your gear,” he said. “Where’s it going?”

My truck,Canyon said.In the rear parking lot by the duty room exit.

Burton nodded and headed out the door.

“Thanks, Chief,” Timber called after him, grabbing up several pieces of gear himself.

Within fifteen minutes, Burton was asleep on the couch in his office, while Canyon and Timber sped up Crimson Bluff in Canyon’s truck.

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 theinformation, we haven’t heard before, and we won’t be hearing it again in this straightforward format.

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