by Jules Tyler
“No Beckett, I don’t want to guess what song you’re going to sing to the rest of the station next,” a tired sounding Wade replied over the radio.
“No, that’s not it this time. Although it was going to probably be something from Journey. Bitches love Journey.”
“Get to the point please, Beckett.”
“I’ve got a foxen and a blonde woman who looks like she could kick my ass standing at the Receiving Desk asking to see Crew,” Beckett replied.
There was radio silence for a few minutes and Caylan exchanged a look with Tansy. He had anticipated that there would be some resistance to his presence at the station, but he hadn’t expected this much effort would need put in to get a meeting with Crew.
“Bring them back to my office please,” Wade instructed.
“Do I need to pat them down?”
“Crew says they can be trusted and that he was expecting them. Pat downs won’t be necessary.”
“He didn’t think he should mention it to me?” Beckett pouted, getting up from the desk.
“Beckett.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming,” Beckett said before clicking his radio off and waving for them to follow him.
They walked past more desks, occupied by officers that stopped to stare at him and at Tansy, especially at Tansy. Caylan felt a snarl crawling up his throat and tried to stuff it back down. Tansy wasn’t here for them; she was here for answers. He wasn’t about to tolerate all of these men pining for her attention.
What if one of them is her mate though? I don’t like thinking about it, but I’ve got to remember that she’s not for me.
A choked growl escaped as he was guided into a room that he had to assume was Wade’s office.
“Careful there, son. I just welcomed into you into my office. My territory, my rules. Let’s play nice, shall we?” A man with silver hair suggested from behind the desk at the front of the room.
Caylan studied the man briefly, taking in his demeanor. The man sat in a chair, hands folded on the desk, slight wrinkles surrounding his wise eyes. From what Jedrek had been telling him about the wolven at the KSRT, Caylan knew this must be Wade Lombard.
Nodding, Caylan took a seat in front of Wade’s desk, Tansy to his right, “Thank you for seeing us.”
“Did you know that a few months ago a group of foxen met with a member of the KSRT demanding One True Mates for themselves?” Wade asked coolly, watching Caylan as though he was trying to get a read on him.
“I did. My friend, Jedrek, his father was the asshole that was the leader of that protest. I found out it happened after the fact or I would’ve been here to put them in their place.” Caylan said as he remembered back on Jedrek explaining the protest to him.
“What do you make of the situation?”
Caylan felt Tansy’s eyes on him as he responded, “I feel that the OTMs have a free will and it should be their right to choose who they’re mated to.”
“Even if there is a suitor that’s interested in her and she’s not interested in him?” Wade asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
“Yes. It’s their choice to make,” Caylan replied without missing a beat.
“Very good. Beckett, you’re free to return to… Whatever you were doing.” Wade said, dismissing Beckett from the room as another man entered it.
From the dark hair and the beard, Caylan guessed this was just who they were looking for.
“Crew here says you’re trustworthy. I’m intrigued to hear what he has to say about you. From talking to you, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Maybe that’s the bearen in you that helps you be that way.”
“Not all of us are the conniving, dishonest bastards that you take us for. Jedrek is all foxen and doesn’t approve of their behavior. There’s also lots of us here, outside of the Pravus, hiding from Khain so he can’t use the blood bond to control us.” Caylan smiled with pride as he thought of how many foxen there truly were that wanted nothing to do with Khain.
“He’s right Wade. The foxen that caused all the problems a few months ago were Khain’s most loyal. Which is kind of sick, because I’ve seen what he did to the females that were mated to the foxen men. I don’t know how they’ve managed to stay loyal to him,” Crew said, giving a sympathetic smile to Caylan.
Caylan shrugged, “I think some of it is loyalty and some of it is fear of the unknown. Regardless, I agree with you.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” Crew said, turning towards Tansy and taking her hand in a polite gesture, “I’m Crew. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”
Tansy gave Caylan an uncomfortable glance as she shook Crew’s hand back, “Tansy. This is Caylan.”
Caylan nodded at Tansy encouragingly, trying to communicate to her that Crew was someone she could trust.
“So what brings the two of you to our station today?” Wade asked as Crew crossed to sit in an empty chair against the wall of the office.
“I wanted Crew to read her. I think Tansy is an OTM and I wanted to hear what he thought about it. I also thought maybe you guys explaining what an OTM is to Tansy would help, since the wolven have more information than the foxen do at this point,” Caylan explained to the two, watching for either one of them to disagree with what he was saying.
As Crew opened his mouth to speak, the door to the office opened and a blonde officer poked his head through the door. Caylan took note of the two wolven flanking him in wolf form and assumed this was Trevor from the stories Jedrek had told him about Trevor and his brothers.
“Why the fuck is Beckett singing at the top of his lungs about a foxen in your office?” the man asked.
Wade gestured to Caylan and Tansy, “Because Caylan here is a foxen-bearen hybrid, and because he brought this young lady here for Crew to determine if she’s a One True Mate or not. We were just about to find out before you interrupted.”
“How did you-” Caylan asked, eyes going wide with shock that Wade had known that without Caylan having said anything about it first.
Wade pointed at his nose, “Let’s just say I’ve got a good sniffer. That’s the easiest way to sum it up.”
Caylan nodded in acknowledgement, trying to ignore the uneasiness he was feeling from a stranger knowing something so personal by simply sniffing him.
Trevor narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Caylan, “How do we know he’s trustworthy?”
“Because I’ve seen him in visions,” Crew said matter of factly.
“Details, Crew, details,” Trevor said, inviting himself and the wolves into the office.
“There is a prophecy about the one foxen who will lead a rebellion against Khain when the time is right. A foxen that is larger in fox form than any other foxen to date. I’ve had visions of Caylan holding meetings with the other foxen on this side of the Pravus. He lives out in the middle of the woods, farther out than our cabins are. He moved out there to be close to us in case he found himself in need of help. His meetings always consist of what Khain knows about the Mates and what little things are going on in the Pravus.
“Plus he brought Tansy here knowing that if he tried to hurt her or violate her in any way, that we would put a stop to it. Don’t you think that would be a little risky just to confirm a suspicion about a woman being a One True Mate for him to take as his own?” Crew asked pointedly at Trevor.
“Good points, but still, how do we know he isn’t really a spy for Khain?” Trevor asked.
Caylan felt his anger boiling over as he stood up, walked over to Trevor, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. Ignoring the wolves growling on either side of him, Caylan lifted Trevor in the air.
“Khain killed my mother in front of me twenty-five years ago, you ass. Have you ever watched someone you love incinerated in front of you? No? Okay then. If I was working for Khain, I would already know what I need to know about Tansy and I would’ve taken her to him instead of bringing her here to Crew and the rest of your KSRT,” Caylan growled at him before setting him back on the floor a
nd going back to his chair.
There was an awkwardly charged silence for a moment or two before Tansy stood up and walked over to Crew, “I never knew my father. My mother always said he looked like a cross between a young Clint Eastwood and a young George Strait. I’ve always felt invisible and that paid off when I joined the military because I was quick and quiet. I’ve killed one man with my bare hands to save a woman in an alley from being raped. I killed even more when I was in the military. I’m always on the run; my mother told me all the time to run like the devil was on my heels. What else do you need to know to get the answers you need?”
Crew smiled at her tenacity, “You forgot to mention you’re passionate about what you believe in. From what I can tell, you’re passionate about Caylan’s thoughts on you. You also forgot to mention that you seem like someone that is slow to trust, so can you explain to me why you would trust Caylan with this information, let alone a stranger like me?”
“You’re right, I trust no one. I keep on the move and never make friends because having ties can get you killed or the people you love hurt. I think I’m trusting you with this information because I’m proving that Caylan is being honest with all of you about what his intentions are.” Tansy nodded affirmatively at the thought.
“Here’s my only concern,” Crew said, looking at the other men in the room before looking back at Tansy, “I can’t read anything from you. When you touched me, there wasn’t even a glimmer of what you could be. I don’t believe you’re only human, because I would at least be able to tell that. So for now, before I confirm what I’m assuming about you, I need to ask you one more question.”
“Apparently I’m an open book. What else do you need to know?” Tansy asked.
“Do you by chance have a gold pendant in the shape of an animal?”
Tansy’s eyes grew round, and Caylan could tell she was debating with herself about what she was willing to reveal about herself now. He watched as she hesitantly reached in her pocket and withdrew a single chain necklace with something gold glinting from the bottom.
“How did you know about the pendant?” Tansy asked Crew, holding it out to his open hand.
“Each of your half-sisters have had a pendant, with the exception of Cerise, in the shape of the shiften that she was intended for by the Angel Azerbaizan. From what I can tell, during the forty nights that he was here, laying with the women he was bedding, he was leaving behind a gold pendant for each of them. Now here’s the interesting part, none of us have been able to tell which shiften would be gifted with One True Mates. At first we assumed it would only be the wolven that would have them. Then Heather and Graeme mated, and he’s a dragen. Now Willow and Bruin -- he’s bearen -- are mated. One could only assume that would mean that the felen will have their own Mates to claim when the time comes. The foxen have been the only one in question. The other shiften were created by Rhen herself. The foxen were a result of tragedy when Khain forced wolven women to lie with him.
“Now that being said, obviously we were mistaken to assume that Azer didn’t have a plan in store for the foxen too,” Crew said, holding the pendant up off of his palm to show the rest of the room, “Because you, Tansy, were meant to mate a foxen.”
Chapter Ten
Tansy’s heart was beating in her ears. What did all of this mean? She felt her heart rate quicken with her breathing. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be dreaming or something. She was meant to be a drifter for the rest of her days, running from whatever was chasing her. Now they were telling her she was destined to be with some foxen? She wasn’t destined to be with anyone, she was her own person.
Glancing between Crew and Caylan, she darted for the office door and ran through the building towards the Receiving Desk. She needed to get out of here and clear her head.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where’s the fire girl?” A short, dark haired, curvaceous woman asked, holding up her hands to stop Tansy from running into her.
When Tansy stopped herself from knocking into the woman, she noticed two little haired heads poking out the top of the wrap she had on, “I am so sorry! I just… I’ve gotta…”
The woman took Tansy by the hand and guided her to a chair just as Tansy’s vision started to go black.
Tansy woke up in a sweat covered panic. Sitting up she looked around the tent where the rest of her platoon was sleeping. She kept having that dream. The dream about him. The one with the brown eyes. The only one who made her feel safe in this world. He called to her, but who was he? Why did he feel so important?
“Have that dream again, O’Connor?” the soft feminine voice that belonged to Eickhoff came from her left.
Laying back down on her cot, she sighed, “Yeah. This is getting ridiculous. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks.”
“Maybe it’s your mind trying to cope with the stress from what happened to Andrews?” Eickhoff suggested.
“Maybe that’s it,” Tansy said, forcing her mind to relax enough that she could go back to sleep.
“I don’t know what happened. One minute she looked like a caged animal, the next she was limp in the chair I helped her into,” a woman’s panicked voice said, coming through the brain fog from the episode she just had.
“This happened yesterday on our way down the mountain. I think she is coping with PTSD and it’s causing some problems when she gets overwhelmed,” Caylan said from Tansy’s side.
Cracking her eyes open to see who was standing around her, Tansy felt embarrassed. To have a panic attack like that in front of just Caylan was one thing, but in front of a whole group of people? That was downright mortifying.
“Well hi there, Sunshine. How you feeling? You scared me!” The dark haired woman exclaimed from her other side.
“My head hurts. Could I get some Aspirin and a bottled water?” Tansy asked, trying to sit up.
“Beckett! Could you get the poor lady some water?” Trevor asked, hovering near the dark haired woman, “Tansy, this is my wife and mate, Ella. These are our twins, Track and Treena.”
“Nice to meet you.” Ella smiled down at her, bobbing back and forth on her feet to keep the twins she was carrying asleep.
“Same. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but whatever everyone is selling around here, I don’t want any part in it. I’m a loner. I do better that way. All this nonsense about be having sisters and being someone’s soul mate or whatever you called it? It’s obviously all some weird cult, and I don’t need to get involved,” Tansy said, pushing herself to her feet.
Trevor and Ella exchanged a look before Ella spoke again, “I can understand how you’re feeling a little overwhelmed. I was in your shoes not that long ago. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll leave the boys to whatever they think they need to do?”
“Ella…,” Trevor started to say before Ella hushed him.
“You boys figure out whatever you need to figure out, okay? I’m gonna take Tansy shopping for some clothes and maybe a bottle of wine. Sound good?”
“Fine,” Trevor muttered.
Man, for such a small person, she sure can get her way when she wants to.
Caylan stepped forward and gave Tansy a pleading look, “I want to talk about all of this. Please don’t run before we get the chance.”
Tansy looked away, “I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t you worry, big guy. I’ll take good care of our girl,” Ella said as she patted Caylan on the chest and headed for the door. “Well, are you coming or what?”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Tansy said, looking behind her at Caylan’s sad brown eyes as they walked out the door.
What a weird coincidence that his eyes look so much like the ones from that dream.
Chapter Eleven
Caylan tried to ignore the pain in his chest as he watched Tansy walk out the door with Ella. It had been one thing when they had walked in here and he knew she was never going to be able to be his. Then when Crew revealed her pendant, everything changed in his mind. The pull he felt to
be with her and protect her wasn’t just loneliness and it wasn’t just because she was a One True Mate. She was meant to belong to a foxen, and he wanted to be that foxen. Of course, it was still her choice, but it was time for him to step up his game. It was time for him to prove to Tansy that she deserved happiness and that she deserved someone that could protect her enough that she could stop running.
Caylan turned to face Crew as he clapped Caylan on the shoulder. Crew smiled and said, “It all can be a little overwhelming. Let’s go back to Wade’s office so we can talk about you, shall we?”
Caylan nodded and followed Crew and Trevor back towards Wade’s office. Beckett came running around the corner and ran right smack into Crew’s chest, sending the bottled water and Aspirin flying.
“Sheeeeyit, I’m sorry, buddy. I didn’t see you there. It took me forever to find the Aspirin, since we never use it. It was tucked back in one of the storage rooms in the first aid kit. Wait… Where is she?” Beckett asked, craning his neck around the group to look for Tansy.
“She went with Ella. Thanks for trying, Beckett,” Crew smiled at his friend. “Why don’t you go back to your singing? It sounds like everyone is disappointed that you stopped.”
Beckett beamed at Crew before doing a little hop-skip and heading back towards the door, “Okay! Who’s ready for round two?”
Crew shook his head after his friend departed, “Only Rhen knows how he ended up being this happy. Cerise definitely fixed him up right.”
“Wait, that guy is mated?” Caylan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Sure is. I think the one we’re all most surprised by right now is actually Mac. He’s kind of a loud mouth. Then again, so is Rogue,” Crew chuckled, opening the door to Wade’s office.
“So what happened to Tansy?” Wade asked, looking up at them all as they entered the room.
“Ella happened,” Trevor smiled.
“Rhen bless that girl. Poor Tansy, Ella is kind of a force to be reckoned with. However, if anyone can help Tansy cope with all of this information, it’s probably better that Ella be the one to do it,” Wade said. “Now, let’s talk about you, Caylan.”