Chapter 93 Come to Me, What is Mine
Sage cried and her mate held her. He didn’t say a word, as she cried out at centuries of injustice, betrayal, and unfairness.
He kissed her head and stroked her hair.
He moved her through the house and growled at anyone who got too close to them.
He took her outside, near his truck, and he held her tightly.
After what felt like forever, Sage’s tears dried up. She wiped her eyes on her mate’s shirt, her brain foggy. He provided a tissue and she blew her nose. She rested her head on his chest, hearing vod talk in the distance, their tones aggressive.
She heard something else as well, coming from a great distance.
Sage, it is time. Sage, I am here. Sage, it is time. Sage, come and retrieve me.
“My pendant,” Sage said, looking up at Canyon. “It’s calling me. I need it.”
“Let’s go,” he said, taking her hand.
Timber came across the yard and Canyon pointed him to the truck.
“Wait,” Timber said. “Eventine wants to know if Sage has the power.”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Sage said. Did she feel different?
No. She concentrated on her inner self, holding Canyon’s hand tightly and closing her eyes.
She checked with her fox and her fox stood aside, tail wrapped around its feet, its muzzle pointed towards Sage’s heart.
Sage followed where her fox pointed and found the power inside her, locked up tight inside an energetic ball situated in the center of her chest.
Could I use it? she wondered.
Not without madness, her fox replied clearly.
Sage opened her eyes. She pressed a hand to her sternum and nodded at Timber. “Yes,” she breathed. “Right here.”
His brows drew down. “Okay then.” He ran back to the house.
Canyon opened Sage’s door for her and she climbed in. He went around and climbed into the driver’s seat, then maneuvered them out onto the driveway. Timber came out of the house and climbed in, muttering, ‘’Sup’ to Wulf.
Canyon drove away. Sage twisted in her seat to watch the house, feeling like time had slowed down, tears still leaking from her eyes.
Dying in the Ula had been better than dying in the Pravus, but Boeson should have been at home, surrounded by family and well-wishers, surrounded by people who loved him and knew how he had sacrificed his life for the good of foxen.
She carefully set to memory the way he had looked and everything he’d said, so that she could share with anyone who asked what Boeson’s lasts moments had been like.
She dropped her head in her hands and cried again. Canyon rubbed her neck. Timber patted her on the shoulder.
“He was good,” she wailed. “He might’ve had to do bad things, but he was good.”
“To Boeson,” Timber said, popping the top off of something carbonated in the back. He rolled his window down and poured the entire drink out on the road.
“To Boeson,” Canyon said, taking a drink out of the center console and pouring it out his window as he drove. “A good foxen and a true hero.”
Wulf’s screen flared with color. :To Boeson, a foxen hero to be remembered—
“A good foxen,” Sage whispered sadly. “And a true hero.”
Canyon sped up, and the chilly air streaming in the windows helped to dry Sage’s tears. Her pendant called her steadily, filling her with determination.
Sage, Sage, Sage, Sage, come to me, Sage, Sage, Sage, it is time, Sage, Sage, Sage.
She stared out the window, steeling herself. She would have time to mourn Boeson later.
After several minutes of driving the winding road, the Morning Wood Inn sign came up on their right.
Timber shivered. “That sign gives me the heebies.”
“It's heebie-jeebies,” Canyon said.
Timber snorted. “I'm pretty sure it's heebies.”
Canyon only laughed. Sage did as well, feeling better. Her thoughts turned to her renqua. “Why didn’t you tell me I had a star renqua?” she asked, turning in her seat to face the males.
Canyon shrugged. “I thought you knew.”
Sage touched her shoulder, then twisted to look at her renqua in the mirror on the visor. It was still a star. She really was a Citlali. Her life was completely changed, again.
She shook her head slowly. “I only used to see it once a month. Abigail did some crazy shit, stealing my animal from me. She must have disguised it or made me think it was a flower.”
The flagpole and cabins came up on their right. Sage pointed out the road to the passageway, but Canyon pointed out a small blue flag stuck to a tree just past it.
“That’s a police marker. Let’s follow it.”
He drove on, taking the next right, following blue markers like breadcrumbs.
Sage craned her neck, not certain where this road went.
It ended, but they drove on over recent tire tracks.
Soon they would be above Abigail’s cavern, Sage realized.
She scented vod from the open window, and saw floodlights, and harnesses tied to trees, along with a hole in the ground, showing flashes of the cavern below.
Canyon drove through carefully and parked next to an SPD truck.
To their right, a door lay on the ground, where it had been flung open, and an opening in the ground led to concrete steps. Sage recognized it from when she’d fought Abigail inside the cavern. The fake boulder had been cut away and moved to the side.
Movement in the cavern caught her eye. A vod in dress uniform came up the steps, his eyes on her, his lip curling. Wade Lombard.
“You don’t belong here,” he snarled. “This is police business.”
Sage moved away from him, closer to the harnesses and the new hole in the ground.
“Now hold on,” Canyon said on hand up, heading Wade off. “Are you paying attention, old wolf?”
“It’s ok, mate,” Sage said, moving sideways, heading for a boulder.
“He’ll see soon enough.” She scrambled to the top of the boulder, using the height to get a different vantage inside the cavern.
The metal box still hung mid-air, exactly as she’d last seen it. What was inside called to her steadily.
Sage shot Wade a look, then thrust her arm above her head and shouted, “COME TO ME, WHAT IS MINE!”
Canyon moved away from Wade and to the boulder, grabbing hold of her slack hand.
From inside the templum, lights flashed, and the smell of scorched metal wafted out of the hole, bisected by something small and gold, moving at high speed.
It was her pendant, angel on one side, wolf on the other—with a gold chain dangling from it.
It zipped out the hole and flew right into Sage’s hand.
She smiled and laughed in triumph, turning to Wade with wild eyes.
Canyon helped her jump off the boulder, her arm still above her head, the chain dangling.
“It’s fine if you don’t trust me!” she yelled to Wade. “I’ve got my mate, and his brother, and now I’ve got my pendant, and that’s all I need!”
She turned back to the boulder, whipping her pendant out to hold it by the very end of its long chain, and at the same time, flipping over the boulder.
She landed and slammed the pendant to the ground where it glanced off the boulder, then ripped through the forest floor.
Ancient rock sheared and fused with metal and dirt, exploding—creating a cacophony of light and sound which shot upward into the sky, exploding into metal fireworks, then falling to the ground like smoke.
A nucleus of white and orange puffed up like a mushroom bomb, sending smoke in all directions.
Sage only stared, dust and dirt falling all around her. Through the clouds of smoke, Sage could see her male standing strong, shielding his eyes against the blast.
Timber swore. “Are you kidding me? I'm fucking blind again!”
Sage waved the smoke away, realizing… the boulder was gone, and in its place stood—
“The bofox,” Sage whispered.
A fox statue sat proudly, its tail wrapped around its feet, bigger than a normal fox. It was seemingly made from orange-hued rock, with twists of dark gemstone lining the eyes, ears, nose, and shadowed areas.
Sage touched the statue with confident fingers. A chime sounded and a gold hue shimmered across the rock for just a moment.
A voice rang through the forest:
‘I am the Bofox, the newest meadow guardian. Never again shall the demon Khain enslave our kind. I decree it! I break the Tether forever and for ALL. We are FREE.’
Sage’s body jerked as her Tether released with a painful SNAP. She put her hands out for balance, then stood on her tiptoes and balanced on one foot, feeling as light as a sparrow.
‘Well-done, my grandniece. Well-done, my sister. Well-done, my foxren. Well-met, wolven of Serenity. We have much work yet to do.’
Tingles danced over Sage’s scalp as the words faded away to nothing.
She turned to look at Wade, and he was staring into the sky, his mouth open.
He realized she was looking and composed himself, then stared at her, no longer challenging, but not welcoming either.
He crossed the grass, got into a vehicle, and drove away through the trees.
Sage watched him go, then turned to Canyon, unable to give Wade another thought, because her heart was bursting with joy. Canyon smiled widely, reaching for her hands.
Trucks and SPD vehicles flooded the small lane. An older vod stuck his head out of one of the trucks yelling, “What was that ruckus!?”
Timber pointed at the statue. “Meet the Bofox, the newest meadow guardian.”
Smiling, Sage moved closer to the forest, scenting fox and foxen but seeing no one. They were hiding. “Come out,” she whispered. “The Bofox is here and we’re all free.”
Foxes chittered and laughed and jumped over each other in the shadows, but none made a move to leave the trees. Sage moved closer to Canyon’s truck as more vehicles and more vod filled the area. She rubbed what was left of her pendant between her thumb and forefinger. It felt so small.
She looked at it, her breath hitching in her throat.
It was sheared away to nothing! Well, almost nothing.
She ran her fingers over the small gold piece that was left—just a bit of an ear and wolf’s head on one side, and a bit of angel wing and face on the other.
It looked like a wolf’s head silhouette, which jogged a memory of something she hadn’t thought of in forever.
She held up what was left of the pendant, showing it to Canyon. “Look at this.”
He took it and twisted it in the light. “I bought you something…”
“I threw it in the hole,” Sage said, suddenly sick to her stomach.
A mechanical arm waved from Canyon’s open truck window. Timber went over and grabbed Wulf and put him on the ground. He rolled over to Sage and opened his drawer, reaching in to draw something out.
:Kiki took good care of it, Miss Sage—
Sage sank to her knees and took the choker necklace from Wulf.
“Thank you, Wulf,” she said, looking up at Canyon, smiling. She kissed Wulf on his tablet screen. She unhooked the chain clasp, then pulled the small bit of the pendant that was left free of the chain.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, then pressed the tiny bit of her pendant into the fissure.
It fit perfectly, snapping neatly into place. The fissure and stone shone with light, appearing to meld together in a wave of heat. All fell quiet and normal again. Sage unclasped the choker and put it to her neck.
Canyon fastened it. Sexy as hell, he said, grinning.
A bit of red caught her attention at the tree line. She turned that way. It was Mina, in fox form. Mina spoke in ruhi.
Sage, your mom called. Something’s happened—Paisley’s fine, I saw her with my own eyes, on the video call, but they want you to pick her up at Blue Cut Park now.
Sage swallowed hard, holding on to Canyon, looking into his eyes. “I need… I need a vod escort to Blue Cut State Park.”
“I’m your vod,” he said, taking her hand and walking with her to the truck, waving Timber and Wulf inside. They all got in their seats and drove out.
“Hey, Canyon,” Troy yelled from a truck.
Canyon stopped. “What?”
“So, what did the fox say?”
Laughter rang out from all the vehicles. Timber laughed and Canyon snorted. He flipped Troy off, then turned his siren on and sped out of there.
Excitement built inside Sage.
Blue Cut State Park was outside of Serenity.
She’d never been outside of Serenity before.