Part 3 - Present Day
Sage was placed into the job at Mugshots.
She put her issues with spying on the vod aside to keep her daughter safe.
None of the vodvod, the KSRT officers, ever came to the bar, and that made it easier.
She hung out with some vod and dated a few, discovering exactly what she’d always thought, they were mostly good guys who just wanted to do the right thing.
Of course, they were lying to her from the start, because they had to hide their wolven natures and pretend to be human, just as she had to hide her foxen nature and pretend the same.
Sage continued to go to ‘treatment’ every month, not realizing what was happening until it was too late and she was locked in, again. Every time she got her foxen essence back and was locked into the treatment suite for three more days, she got more pissed.
Paisley was escorted to her vihvee’s (grandma’s) house and back each month and there were no more incidents.
The foxen never did move back to the street where Khain had stolen Paisley and the vod had come to call, although Abigail still had full access to Kurzwell Townhouse from the spinning bed inside Kurzwell Manor.
Dahlia, being half-angel, a dream traveler, and having given her life to save an innocent, got to choose whether to live again or stay dead and of course she chose to live again—she wanted to check out what was up with the hot wolf guy.
But, because divine intervention is convoluted sometimes, she wasn’t able to return directly home.
She ended up in the world where Heather had left her pendant, tasked with retrieving it.
Crew followed her there and they hung out with the king until the dragen and his mate figured out how to retrieve Dahlia’s pendant (and her mom!) from a world where giants live.
Everyone made it home safe, and Dahlia joined the team, with the power of animation and illusion.
Sebastian quickly discovered Abigail White was foxen, and so he kept his investigation mostly underground, to avoid dealing with the prejudices of the officers around him. He soon discovered Abigail was also a witch, with powers the other wolven couldn’t fight or understand.
~
Six weeks later, just before Christmas, Beckett met Cerise and her ‘little sister’ after they’d gotten in some trouble.
Cerise mind-controlled Beckett to help them, which he would have done anyway.
The trio drove out to California with the traitor wolf, Grey Deatherage, on their tail.
Grey forced Cerise to use her pendant to summon the actual demon, which caused a big fight that ended with Cerise’s pendant and Grey being pulled into the Pravus and not seen again for several months.
Grey was happy to reunite with his angel friend Azerbaizan, who is the celestial Father of the One True Mates, and who had been held in the Pravus by the demon for the last 25 years.
Cerise’s ‘little sister’, whose name was discovered to be Lillian, turned out to be a quarter wolven. She was forced into shifting by a confrontation with the demon and she helped fight him off. Lillian reunited with her family, and they have also joined the team, moving to live near VF.
Most importantly, Cerise and her power of mind control joined our team of heroes in the ongoing fight against the demon, moving to VF just before Christmastime.
Heather discovered she was pregnant, and her baby girl was on fire in her belly.
~
Things settled down till spring. Bruin the bearen was ostracized by his kind, but the wolven liked him just fine, so Bruin worked with the police, Mac especially, more than the firefighters.
In March, Bruin and Mac were sent to Chicago in hot pursuit of the traitor wolf.
What they found was Mac’s mate, Rogue, and she did not come quietly.
It was a fight from start to finish, just the way they like it.
Their story ended with already-kidnapped Rogue being kidnapped again (by Rex and Soren, two new foxen bad guys), then rescued and this time going home with Mac because she wanted to.
Rogue joined the team, bringing her ability to unlock anything with a touch.
Rogue had Boe living at her home in Serenity. When the wolven promised to treat him right, she handed him over to them, and he still lives in her house to this day, with a wolven guard.
Rogue is a twin. Bruin said prophecy about her sister, Amaranth, and our heroes have been searching for her ever since but haven’t found her yet.
~
A few months later, during early summer, Mac and Rogue took Bruin out to the Honey Depot, which Willow owns.
Bruin met Willow and fell head over heels, on the ground, tongue out, but would not act on his attraction.
He couldn’t believe sweet, beautiful Willow was his mate, because there was only one bearen good enough for Willow: the prophesied BOGI (Bear of Great Insight).
Bruin decided he could protect Willow until this BOGI guy showed up, which gave Rogue time to convince Bruin that he was the BOGI.
After this realization, Bruin could only purr, especially when Willow returned his renqua to him with a touch.
Ella gave birth to the first ever wolfengels, Track and Treena, who were conjoined at the back and successfully separated.
Ella’s sister gave birth to two males who showed no sign of being fathered by a demon and therefore were allowed to live.
Sebastian was pulled off of the Abigail White investigation and put on round-the-clock surveillance of the maybe-probably demon babies, while Canyon and Timber took over the Abigail White investigation, in addition to the foxen investigation.
Leilani, the time traveling One True Mate, showed up just in time to keep Bruin from being blown up.
Bruin went to confront Serenity’s Fire Chief, for trying to kill him, but B3, who is also Bruin’s father, was busy using the foxen witch Abigail White to summon the actual demon, rather than admit he screwed up.
Bruin and Willow showed the bearen the truth and stirred them into fighting the demon. The bearen managed to chase Khain back to his own world, then they invited formerly ostracized Bruin back into the fold by making him Serenity’s new Fire Chief.
Willow joined the fight, bringing her empath power.
Bruin and Willow left within days to restore renqua to all bearen around the world, while Bruin’s twin brother Conri Bloom stepped in to run the fire department in Bruin’s absence.
~
That summer, Harlan had dragged his ass out of bed and went to work every day, thanking Rhen he was one day closer to death, one day closer to reuniting with his dead mate, Eventine.
Things were pretty boring until, just after Bruin and Willow left to on their trip round the world, Harlan was tasked with leading the team protecting the dragen’s mate as she gave birth to the first dragengel in history.
That was terrifying, especially when Leilani stepped through time to be there and Jaggar’s beast stood up and took notice.
Later, Harlan and Jaggar went out to Roosevelt Asylum to follow up on a tip.
They found Leilani tied to a hospital bed and the male orderly with her scenting of deception and shame.
Jaggar would stand for neither when it came to his mate.
He punched the male in the throat one time, and the male dropped dead to the ground.
Jaggar didn’t care that vengeance exacted meant his termination from the police force. Leilani was all that mattered.
The wolven took Leilani out of the Roosevelt and took her to the farm. Harlan only wanted to protect her, but sometimes… sometimes she reminded him so strongly of his lost Eventine he could just… close his eyes and imagine Eventine was in the room…
Eventine’s mother is the goddess Rhen, which makes Eventine powerful in ways no one can understand.
Eventine was operating Leilani’s body while Leilani hid in Rhen’s Meadow.
Harlan kissed Eventine’s spirit but Leilani’s lips, and Jaggar caught him at it.
Jaggar shifted into his beast and mauled his best friend, then ran north.
Conri told Harlan that Abigail White was a foxen witch who could hide from the wolves and Harlan should ask her to procure a body for Eventine.
Harlan went after the witch in a rage instead, breaking into her store and trashing it.
She used magical notes to suggest Harlan use the time traveler to go back in time and save Eventine.
Harlan refused to do it, but he wasn’t the one destined. That job fell on her father, Burton.
Eventine was brought to the present. She drank the dragen blood, and she lived… lived… lived. Harlan still hears those words in his dreams, when he’s cuddling his perfect mate to his chest.
Trent followed Jaggar’s beast north. Trent was the best one to go, because he was still a non-shifting wolf. Trent left behind his brother Troy, because Troy had recently shifted into a man for the first time ever and was scared to shift back into a wolf in case he got stuck that way.
~
A few days later, Trent found Jaggar’s beast in a cave in Wisconsin and confronted him.
During the incident, Trent was struck on the head and died, shifting for the first time ever at the point of death, and heading to a dead meadow, where his echo Smokey, separated him and his wolf, sending his wolf back to its body instantly, and sending Trent to another world, on a mission he could only succeed at without his wolf, while his wolf was sent on a mission in Wisconsin that he could only succeed at without Trent.
Jaggar had no control over his beast, but when Leilani talked to him from the meadow, the beast turned right around and headed back to the farm.
He arrived as Leilani was drinking dragen blood.
Leilani opened her eyes and they glowed silver, but she couldn’t see a thing. In desperation, she sought out Jaggar.
They time-traveled many times that night, finding clues to who they really were, until they ended up in Rhen’s Meadow—both of them healed and whole.
The catamount guardian sent Leilani back in time to choose to speak up at a time when she’d once chosen to stay silent.
That last time fixed enough of their problems so that they could be together.
When Jaggar finally claimed Leilani, his cougar-half left him, tearing Leilani’s time-travel clock out of her mind and taking it to the Meadow, leaving both Jaggar and Leilani healed and whole and happy.
Jaggar’s cougar-half, Tabias, is now the mate of the catamount guardian of the Meadow.
~
A month later, Trent was still missing, but Troy instinctively knew he was fine and didn’t worry about him. Troy met his mate, Reed, at a cop bar where she worked, and pursued her with a single-minded lack of finesse that lost Reed two jobs and one apartment.
Sage had been working at that same bar for many months when Reed started working there. They became fast friends, both of them feeling like they’d met a long-lost sister.
For the first time, several KSRT officers came to Mugshots, and they brought powerful females with them.
Sage paid close attention, recording every detail for the Vvyndicate.
When she heard Troy Burbank’s name, she was shocked.
She’d been taught in school that Troy Burbank was an impot, unable to shift, but there he was, shifted into a man and lusting after her friend, Reed.
Sage notified the Vvyndicate, but they already knew.
Later, when Sage learned that Troy had claimed Reed, Sage didn’t share that with the Vvyndicate.
She couldn't bring herself to tell, even if it felt like a betrayal to the foxen. She reasoned that the Vvyndicate already knew, or that it wasn’t important.
All foxen knew of the wolven One True Mate prophecy, and all foxen knew the mates were being found.
Unbeknownst to the wolves, Conri took Sage on a few dates. They got along well, but there was never any real love connection between them and so they’ve cooled things way down, but the wolves don’t know anything about Sage.
In Serenity, while Troy was pursuing Reed, the ground shook several times, and during one of these ‘Khainquakes’ Blake, a wolven patrol officer, fell into a coma. During another his heart flatlined, but he was resuscitated. To this day, Blake has not regained consciousness.
Troy revealed that Blake is part-foxen.
A kit statue appeared next to the catamount statue at the west end of town.
In the Pravus, the demon ordered Grey to use Cerise’s pendant to kill the angel, and then Grey was given his wish—to work for the demon. Later, Grey discovered that when he held his hand in the position of the killing blow, the pendant appeared in it.
Khain ordered his team to ‘bring him the wolf in the coma’, which turned into a big fight up the bluff, which the KSRT won.
Troy won Reed’s heart and Reed joined the team, bringing her ability to talk to plants.
Secretly during this time, Khain came to the Ula repeatedly and stole every foxen he could find, until all area foxen were on the alert.
The Van Crimsons went into hiding, and Abigail White called her family into lockdown up at the Morning Wood Inn and she hid the entire place with a giant magic bubble.
Sage’s phone was taken from her car with magic as she drove through the gate, so she’s had no way to contact the Vvyndicate, or Reed, or her job for the last several days.
~
Reed came to live at VF, and she told the wolves that Sage, a friend she worked with at Mugshots, must be a One True Mate, and so Trevor sent a team out to find Sage, but the team has only discovered that she’s missing.
Trent completed his mission in the other world, helping an alternate version of his mate who lived in that world forgive an alternate version of himself for something stupid he’d done. Trent was then catapulted home, helped along by his team and his family at home, and by the hot portal.
And now we join them.
…