Chapter 73 – Like She Belonged
Sage sat next to Canyon, feeling suddenly shy. Last time they’d been together, his brother hadn’t been around. Canyon smiled at her and motioned at the door. She nodded. He stood and offered her his hand and they walked out together, holding hands.
Timber stood near the couch. When he saw them holding hands, he grinned knowingly. Sage sensed ruhi passing back and forth between the brothers.
“You're talking about me!” she shouted, yanking her hand away from Canyon's.
Instead of denying it, Canyon said, “Yeah, but if you don't like it, we’ll stop.”
Sage calmed down. “What did you say?”
Timber spoke up. “I said, ‘That was quick.’”
Canyon held up his hands. “And I said, “Nothing happened.”
Sage looked between the two of them. Did she believe them? She did. She took Canyon's hand and said, “A little happened.”
Timber grinned then clapped his hands together, saying, “Alright, things are getting interesting. Gimme some more.” He pointed at Canyon. “Mate reaction?”
“Well…”
Timber interrupted. “A hard-on is not a mate reaction.”
Sage snorted laughter.
“I'm clear on that,” Canyon said.
Timber raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”
Canyon rolled his eyes and said, “No mate reaction.”
Timber held up his hands. “No judgement here.”
He switched to Sage. “How about you? Mate reaction?”
Sage shook her head and dropped Canyon's hand. “Do you really think I have a mate out there? Because this shouldn’t be happening if I do.”
Canyon took her hand again, winding their fingers together and pulling her to him. “Come ‘ere, female. Let’s consider things. Logic says your nana doesn't want us together.”
“Abigail White,” Timber said. “She's powerful.”
“What do you know about her?” Sage asked.
“Some, some,” Timber said. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re mates.”
Sage's head spun. Canyon being her mate made sense, but could it be true? Oh, how she wanted it to be true, and at the same time, she didn’t want it to be true.
The complexities of vod-foxen relations stretched out before her, making her speak without considering the entire situation.
“Wait, wait, we’re forgetting you're a vod. I'm half-foxen, half-human. We don’t belong together.”
“Half-angel actually,” Timber said. “Only a quarter-foxen and a quarter-human.”
Sage staggered at the thought. She refused to believe she was only a quarter-foxen. She shook her head defiantly. She was half-foxen, half-human.
“You don't believe,” Canyon said.
She clenched her fists and raised her chin. “I don't.”
“Perfect.” Canyon lowered his voice and moved closer to her, “Want to go somewhere we can be alone?”
Sage smiled and nodded.
Canyon looked at Timber. “She's not a One True Mate. I'm going to escort her home. Cover for me?”
Timber laughed, then held up his hand. “Sit the fuck down, hero.
She is a One True Mate, and you're not going anywhere without me.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, pointing the screen at them, then he gestured out the window at the road past the yard.
“We might want to get out of here, though.
Trevor's called me a dozen times and there's sirens close by. They're looking for us.”
Sage freaked out, squeezing Canyon’s hand and looking out the windows up the driveway. More vod were going to show up?!
“Unless you'll go in with us?” Timber said.
Sage shook her head, fear filling her belly. She couldn’t go to the police station. There would be so many vod.
“Where should we go then? Our place?” Timber said.
“No,” Sage squeaked. “Someplace… neutral.”
“Chicago?”
Sage shook her head again, overwhelmed. She couldn’t go to Chicago, but more than that, it was hard for her to believe how they were treating her.
Canyon and Timber were willing to defy their boss for her.
They were asking for her input and respecting her wishes.
Most of her own family didn’t even do that.
Canyon shook his head. “Sage can't leave Serenity.” He looked to her for confirmation. “Right? You’re Tethered?”
Sage looked at him, dumbfounded, nodding her head slightly. She didn’t know what to admit to and she didn’t realize the vod even knew what a Tether was.
“Right, right.” Timber said, scratching his chin. “Where can we go in town?”
He snapped his fingers. “I know the perfect place.”
***
Sage stared out the window of Canyon’s truck.
She was in the back where the windows were tinted so she couldn’t be seen, and she liked that.
Canyon drove and Timber sat in the passenger seat.
Sage felt safe, but confused. They’d left House A, driving through the yard to a farm road, then taken back roads and pastures into Serenity, then they’d gone to Big Bad Burgers, a fast-food restaurant on the south edge of town that she’d never been to before.
Timber had gone in for takeout, and now the bags of food were on the floor near Sage, smelling delicious.
Next to Sage, strapped in with the seatbelt, was the robot—a wolf’s head silhouette spinning lazily on the screen.
Now they were heading toward downtown Serenity with Timber giving directions. Sage didn’t care where they were going, as long as there were no vod and no foxen there.
“What’re we going to do if we're spotted? Timber asked.
“That's up to Sage,” Canyon said.
Timber looked at him, incredulously. “You'd run?”
“Hell yeah, who's gonna catch me? Mac?”
“Pffft, nope. Jaggar, maybe.”
“Jaggar would act like he was chasing but run interference for us.”
“Ha,” Timber snorted. “I hope we get spotted.” He rolled down his window.
“No, no,” Sage said. “No high-speed chase, please. If my family saw me...” She shut her mouth with a snap.
Timber gave her a knowing glance and rolled his window back up.
Canyon put his free hand over his shoulder, waggling his fingers.
She smiled, threading her fingers through his, just feeling so…
. right with them. She hadn’t told them anything and they hadn’t asked, and they were treating her…
not like a princess, not like a prisoner, but like she belonged with them.
Canyon pulled her hand forward so he could kiss her fingers, then he released her. She sat back in her seat. Canyon smiled at her in the rearview mirror, then hooked his thumb over his shoulder at her, but talking to Timber. “Me ‘n’ Sage met before,” he said. “But I don’t remember.”
“I remember,” Timber said.
“What?!” Sage squeaked.
“You what?!” Canyon roared. Timber started to explain but Canyon stopped him. “Wait.” He pulled over to the side of the road, then drove off into the grass and cut the engine. He twisted in his seat and turned to stare at Timber. “Go,” he said.
“I remember her scent. It was five or six years ago, right?”
“Yeah,” Sage said, relief flooding her. She had her proof. “You moved my car.”
“To Renway Parking Garage.”
Sage nodded. “Yes! YES! See?”
Canyon looked shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what? You didn’t come home one night, and you didn’t show up at work the next day, but you called me and said you met this hot chick and you’re hanging out with her, and you asked me to move her car.
I did it, then I didn’t hear from you again for a couple days.
I was covering for your ass right and left.
I called you to come in to work and you said I should meet the hot chick—you even asked me if I’d ever consider mating a human. ”
Sage gasped, staring at him, butterflies in her stomach. “You’re making that up,” she said.
Timber turned to her, his face open and honest. He held up his hand. “Swear on Rhen’s life.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Canyon repeated.
“There wasn’t anything to tell. You said you’d be in at noon but you didn’t show up till that night.
I was still covering for you. When you got home you didn’t talk at all, and you went straight in the shower.
When I asked you about the hot chick you said there wasn’t one, then you went to bed. I thought she broke your heart.”
Sage flung half her body over the seat and hugged Canyon around the neck, then kissed him square on the mouth.
“You did like me,” she said, releasing her hold on him and sitting back, but still running her fingers over his arms.
“What’s not to like?” he said, winking at her.
Sage smiled. Next to her, an alarm on the robot chimed.
:4 p.m. Time for Timber’s 2nd Foxglove application—
“Thanks Wulf,” Timber said. He looked at Sage. “Can we do it in the truck?”
“Sure.” Sage said, smiling at Canyon. She reached into her purse for the paste and the first aid kit, while Timber lay his arm over the seat for her.
“The robot’s name is Wulf?” she asked.
:I am Wulf—
Sage noticed the spelling. “Oh, like the Meadow guardian!”
Canyon and Timber looked at each other with confused looks on their faces.
“You don’t know about Wulf the Meadow guardian?”
Canyon started the truck and pulled back out onto the road, saying, “Maybe I heard the name before.”
Sage shook her head, finding it hard to believe they didn’t know the name of their own representative guardian in Rhen’s Meadow, but maybe it made some sense since they hadn’t had a mom.
All foxen knew the story of Canyon and Timber Wheeling.
The poisoning that’d killed the vod’s females had taken their mother when Timber had been five and Canyon, only a few days old.
Timber’d kept Canyon alive for a week, until the vod found them, and then they’d gone to live with Burton Risson, the vod’s moonstruck Chief of Police.
They pulled into a small apartment building. Sage found an SPD cap in the back of the truck and she put it on, tucking her hair up into it.
“Park over there,” Timber said, pointing to a private stall.
Canyon parked and they got out. Timber unbuckled the robot and put it on the ground.
Canyon got out and opened Sage’s door, helping her out, then grabbed the food.
Sage grabbed her purse and the bag she’d packed before they left, and they followed Timber, even the robot.
Timber went to a door and fished a key out of his pocket, then let them inside.
Just across the entrance was a bathroom.
Down the short hallway was a living room with two old couches.
One couch was blue, the other was gray. A tv sat on a shelf across the room.
There were no hangings on the walls and no houseplants.
She didn’t ask whose place it was, but if she had to guess, she would say the apartment belonged to a human female.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Timber said. “A friend of mine owns this place, but she lives in Chicago and only comes here once a month.”
Sage peeked into the kitchen and saw a table with wooden benches for seats, plus a bland kitchen.
“There's no bedroom,” she said.
Timber pointed to the far end of the kitchen. “A bed folds down from that wall.” He gestured to himself and Canyon. “We'll sleep on the couches.”
Canyon set the bags of food on the table and began pulling out containers.
“I’m ah, going to the bathroom,” Sage said, backing out of the kitchen, not waiting for a response.
She needed privacy.