Chapter 89 Challenge Extended
Canyon looked up through the tent skylight to the stars, feeling disturbed. He took Sage’s hand, his mind working through the situation. He’d been so certain Sage was a One True Mate, and completely positive he would see wings when he bit her.
Had he fucked up royally? Should he tell his brother?
From outside, a whistling noise caught his attention, then a rope of light streamed into the tent like a laser beam and hit him upside the head. He clapped a hand to his ear, crying out, his brains scrambling.
Sage leaned over him, her voice trembling. “Canyon?”
Memories fell into his head: Seeing a sexy female at the meat section in the grocery store, being unable to take his eyes from her.
Reaching for a steak at the same time and then flirting with her.
Taking her to the restaurant. Kissing her.
Driving her to the hotel. Taking her to the penthouse.
Devouring her in the bedroom and savoring her outside of it.
She’d been fun and funny and sweet. He’d thought she was human, and he hadn’t cared.
He’d never enjoyed a female’s company so much.
“I remember you,” he said, grabbing for her, and searching her tearstained amber eyes. She touched the side of his face gently. He knelt, pulling Sage up with him. He kissed her hard, smashing his mouth and body against hers and growling so loud the rough sound split the quiet of the starlit night.
MINE, he growled in ruhi, then again out loud, then he took his female’s mouth, roughly, kissing her for the first time, with full knowing that she was his mate.
She cupped his face and broke the kiss to search his eyes. “You—"
A yip-yip-yip sound split the night. They both looked up sharply.
A translucent, winged fox galloped in through the tent’s skylight, aiming for Sage, almost too fast for Canyon to track.
He grabbed it out of the air and caught only its tail, which scattered like embers of a flame.
It pounced, muzzle first, onto the back of Sage’s head, disappearing as it met her skull.
Sage’s body jerked and her head flopped over.
“Sage!” Canyon shouted, turning her over, supporting her neck. He caressed her cheek, staring into her eyes, his heart hammering, feeling like something amazing was about to happen.
Sage’s spine arched and emerald-green wings shot out of her back, encircling the two of them, lifting them in the air, high in the sky, the tent rising with them.
Light shot up, through Sage, through Canyon, blinding him, filling him with living energy, while the wings drew the two of them tightly together, then jerked them upright, so their heads were pointing to the sky.
Canyon hugged Sage, laughing, his eyes squinted shut against the blinding light.
“I am a One True Mate!” Sage yelled, chest to chest with him, her head thrown back against her wings.
They seemed to be spinning, centrifugal force pressing his head back as well. Canyon squeezed her. “I’ve never been so glad to be wrong in my life!” he shouted up into the stream of light.
The spinning slowed and the light dimmed, then shimmered out.
Canyon opened his eyes to see Sage grinning looking so beautiful.
He kissed her on while they floated back to the concrete slab, then were deposited gently, tent and all, laying down on their sides facing each other.
Sage’s wings retreated and dissolved, like they’d never been.
“I’m blind!” Timber shouted from somewhere outside the tent. Something clattered to the ground. “What the fuck was that? Aliens? Oh shit, I can’t see!”
Canyon moved off of Sage and threw the sleeping bag flap wide. Sage sat up and wiped her eyes. She touched her upper back. “Wings!” she whispered. “I saw them—they wrapped around us and lifted us up.”
“I saw,” Canyon said. “Rhen’s blessing, too.” He cupped her cheek, taking a strong sniff of her deliciously deepened scent, then kissed her on the tip of her pretty nose. “My beautiful foxen mate and I were blessed by the goddess.”
“I wonder if my family saw,” she whispered.
***
Sage lifted her head and closed her eyes, waiting for a kiss from her mate.
She was the mate of a vod and a One True Mate.
She was the vixie of sign 742, and her claiming had been blessed by Rhen.
She had taken her rightful place with this vod.
Her sweet and handsome vod stroked her cheek and smiled sweetly, and love flooded her chest, making her feel everything was right and good.
You’re hot, he said in her mind.
You ain’t hurtin’ my eyes, she said in his mind.
His mouth dropped open. You speak ruhi.
I DO!
Sage shot to her feet heading for the tent flap and Canyon caught her hand, a grin on his face, saying, Don’t run off naked, vixie.
Sage kissed her mate, but more realizations were assaulting her. She could speak ruhi and she could shift, too, but someone had been holding her prisoner every month. Someone had stolen her pendant from her. Someone had knocked her upside the head with magic and knocked her right the fuck out.
Abigail White, her own magical, hateful, hurtful, controlling, flesh and blood.
Sage’s body furled in on itself, and she shifted in freedom, arms and legs shortening, body compacting, tail growing, nose lengthening into muzzle, orange fur growing, great excitement surging inside her. She temporarily set thoughts of Abigail aside.
I can shift! she shouted, racing around the inside of the tent like a cartoon coyote.
Canyon grinned and shifted into his beautiful wolf, his back bending, his legs angling, his face extending to muzzle.
She sniffed him, all up and down his torso and legs, then pounced on his back.
He rolled over, grinning. She gnawed on his muzzle gently, yipping and gekkering her absolute delight, and then she jumped on his back and took a sniff of his renqua, confirming a deep, desperate desire she’d never had the courage to give voice too.
The orange fur that marked his comet scented clearly of fox. Hope flew wild inside her.
Rhen, she said. You’re one wily vixen, you know that?
Sage didn’t hear a reply, if there was one, because her mate’s voice cut through her head, deep and strong.
You’re beautiful.
That stopped her cold. She stared into his amber-colored, almond-shaped eyes.
She yipped and chewed gently on one of his ears, then could hold still no longer.
She ran so fast she tore a hole right through the side of the tent with her claws.
She poked her nose through and ran out, across the concrete bunker at top speed.
Timber stood near the firepit, his hands covering his eyes.
Sage bounded off the bunker and ran around the campsite, taking a giant leap right onto Timber’s shoulder.
He ducked and leapt to the side. “What the hell is that?” he shouted. “Help me, Canyon! I don’t wanna be probed!”
Sage jumped at the nearest tree and grabbed onto the lowest branch, steadying herself. She yip-yip-yipped.
It’s me, she told them in ruhi. Abigail White stole my animal essence to hide me from the demon and she kept it in the fox pelt she wears, but it escaped! It’s back! I’m whole!
Canyon loped close to the base of the tree. Sage yipped and jumped off the branch landing on Canyon’s back. She leapt off just and spun in a circle, her thoughts going to the demon.
He’d taken Paisley. How dare he.
Thick rage swirled her. Khain! She shouted in private ruhi, forgetting where she was and who she was with, and even forgetting her destiny. At that moment, all she knew was that Khain had taken her child and… he would pay.
She was a One True Mate. She had power she could use to hurt the demon, even if she didn’t know how yet. She crept close to the ground, scenting the air, knowing the only thing she would ever be happy with was Khain’s death.
Khain! she shouted in ruhi again, dimly aware of Canyon and Timber staring at her.
Come and get me, demon,” she snarled, losing control of her private ruhi in her anger, projecting wildly.
I'm just a little girl! I’m barely five feet two inches—little and weak and easy to enslave! Come on, I’m right HERE!
Sage listened for a response and heard nothing. She nurtured her anger, recalling how it had felt to hear that Paisley had been stolen by the demon. She pulled forth all those memories and steeped herself in the despair of that night, then she twisted the despair into cold, hard rage.
She stalked close to the edge of the bluff and looked over, her whiskers twitching, calling power to her from all over, feeling it come, hearing it expand and increase her mental voice.
Come on, you baby-stealer! Come on, you monster! Come on, you gross disgusting excuse for flesh! You want to steal foxen?! Here I am, demon! Come steal me—I'm ready for your nASTY ass!
Mentally, she honed in on him, feeling where he hid—up Morning Bluff; under it somehow.
He was listening to her, hearing her, but not coming for her.
She would go to him! She scrambled over the edge of the bluff and used her claws to keep her footing, hopping from rock to rock, sometimes sliding in a spray of rocks, heading for the bottom.
Vixie, Canyon called.
She stopped and looked up to see his black-furred face staring at her over the bluff’s edge.
I’m with you, he said.
I know you are, she told him, her love for him strong, but secondary in that moment.
Come on, you big scary demon! Sage turned her focus back to her scramble down the bluff face, anger an anchor inside her. I’m just a little foxen, just a little FEMALE, defenseless against your evil ass! Let's go baby killeR! How many babies have you killed? I’ll make you suffer for each one!
Sage listened, expecting to hear the demon responding to her, maybe ripping his way into the Ula, but she heard… nothing.
Have you lost your nerve?! Are you just a big coward? A big waste of DEMON MEAT?!
Sage drew close to the bottom of the bluff face, moving faster now.
Two of her claws caught on a rock and ripped.
She partially shifted only that foreleg, driven by instinct, sliding all the while.
The leg healed with the shift. She reached the bottom and ran across grass, eyeballing the river, measuring whether she should swim across.
She decided against it and ran alongside instead, heading for the closest bridge.