36 - Puppy See, Puppy Chew
Harlan blinked. Looked up. He was in his small room at the back of the farmhouse.
What the hell happened, Nowl?
Ah, well, see, you, ah, you fainted, old hoss.
Harlan burned with shame. He would never live it down. Those males he worked with would not be able to resist dragging him up and down the coal filled with razor blades for the next 30 years. Shit. Kill him now. Aren’t you supposed to come forward when that happens?
I did.
Oh... Then why am I in bed?
You’re in a bad way, H
Harlan waited for Nowl to finish the thought. Until he realized Nowl had.
The door to the hallway opened and Mac pushed into the small room, with the small bed, no pictures on the walls, a desk in the corner, and that was it. Mac looked around and bobbed his head. “I like your decorating choices, Harlan. Early 1800s simplicity. Very boho-chic-hip.” Rogue came in right behind him and didn’t even look around before she said, “We’ve got to move you to a real bedroom, Harry.” Harlan sat up, interested, a little. A Harry Potter reference from Rogue? Was she a closet reader? Did Mac know? Harlan was sure Mac hadn’t read a book since Green Eggs and Ham had traumatized him. Too many big words.
Harlan pushed to his feet. He’d just woken up and he was ready for bed. “Who’s all here?” he asked, hearing the murmur of a lot of people from out on the living room of the big farmhouse he shared with Burton.
“Everyone, mostly. Graeme’s coming as soon as he can.”
“For what?”
“To explain time travel.”
Perfect. Rewind time 3 seconds and say that stupid shit again so I can be sure I heard it right. “For what?”
“So we can make an informed decision.”
Harlan pulled on a shirt. “Mhmm. Keep talking.”
“You know, we’re trying to decide if we’re going to ask Leilani to go back in time to get Evie’s body for you, or not, if she’s ever able.”
Holy shit. Harlan grabbed onto the dresser. Who in the fuck was running this show that going back in time was even an option? They needed approval, surely. Memos. Had someone talked to Rhen? The Light? The President? Maybe some Prime Ministers or something? The alien overlords? Should they really be fucking with time?
Oh shit, but his prophecy.
Mac nodded, his face worried, like Harlan was gonna throw something again. He backed up, out of the room. “Just come out and say hi. Everyone is worried about you.”
Worried? Harlan finished dressing, tucked his shirt in, laced his boots, spent some time in front of the mirror… Beard trimmed. Check. Hair perfect. Check. Teeth brushed. Check. Uniform tight. Check. Nothing left to do but leave his room. Go see what was what.
Burton was at the kitchen table, looking happier than he had in decades. He had baby Track in his arms already, hooked in one elbow while Track bounced up and down, using Burton’s leg for leverage. Track looked like he had crawling down and was ready to put in some serious baby hours on walking. What was he, five weeks old? Six? Phew. Wolven pups aged at the same rate as humans, and the one true mates also had aged “normally”, so this accelerated maturity was new. Kendra also, and they were all trying to figure out at what age a child would understand reasoning, so they knew how soon they could explain to her that Conri hadn’t hurt Heather, and risk Conri being close to her. So far, she hadn’t displayed any sort of “power,” except body heat that could flare to the temperature of fire.
Track hooked his naked baby toes into the crease of Burton’s leg, one arm slung companionably around Burton’s neck, babbling, “Ah ah ah.”
“You ready?” Ella asked Burton.
He nodded, joy in his eyes, eagerness in every line of his face. “Give her here. I love her already.”
“You asked for it. Don’t let them touch each other.” She lowered baby Treena into Burton’s other arm. Treena grabbed onto his shirt and hoisted herself up, shifting as she went, grabbing onto his ear with her little teeth and using her claws to pull herself along his shirt, to her brother.
“Oh!” Ella cried, reaching for Treena, but Burton already had her by the scruff of the neck, lifting her away from her brother. Ella’s knees buckled. “Oh no, we don’t really hold her like that, I mean, I’ve talked to Trevor and he agrees with me that we have hands for a re—”
But Burton was chuckling. He dropped Treena into his elbow crook again and put his face up close to hers, crooning to her in his deep voice. “Puppy see, puppy do, puppy bite and puppy chew. Puppy pink and puppy blue, puppy sing and puppy grew, puppy won’t you listen to, puppy what you know is true.”
Treena stared at him, awestruck, shifting smoothly in his arms from lean wolf pup to pudgy baby with a shock of dark hair like both mommy and daddy, raising one pudgy arm to touch Burton’s lips wonderingly. From the other side of Burton, Track had also stopped moving and babbling and was staring at Burton, big baby eyes wide and focused on Burton’s face.
“That means you should listen to your momma,” Burton told Treena. “She has your best interests at heart.” Burton pulled Treena’s onesie over her head one-handed, snapping it, still talking to them in that sing-song voice. Harlan was spellbound at the way the young stared at him, touching his face softly, their faces transforming from giggling to fascinated again and again as they listened to his words and his singing way of speaking to them and how they never ever ended and he made his voice dance. That was one male that fate fucked over when it stole his grandpups.
Harlan’s eyes watered and his vision blurred. He hadn’t noticed who else was in the room before he went all watery. A lot of people though. Everyone it seemed. “Harlan! Look, it’s Harlan,” someone said. Dahlia, he thought. Wade and Lorna were there. Mac, Rogue, Burton, the young, Ella, Trevor, Crew, Dahlia, and Bruin and Willow were on facetime on an iPad at the windowsill.
Harlan grabbed Mac by the shirt. “Who is with Leilani!” Perfect reaction. Quite reasonable, really.
Mac growled and Harlan narrowed his eyes but did not let go. Mac growled again.
“Cut the bullshit, you two,” Rogue said, getting in between them, cranking Harlan’s hands off of Mac’s shirt. She got in Harlan’s face. “Don’t worry. She’s well taken care of. Mac agonized over who you would think was adequate guard for her. It took him all morning, and you thank him by grabbing him?” Harlan stepped back, head down, properly chastised, and still she listed off who was there. He was glad. She counted off on her fingers. “Troy and Trent, they are on either side of the bed. Beckett, he’s there, in the room. Cerise, too. Blake, he’s the rover. A couple of patrol officers out the window. Canyon and Timber on lookout on the second floor. Lillian and her mother are in the living room, Bruin’s brothers, the ones that don’t look like him are there, and oh, Graeme and Heather are circling the house with their adorably murderous baby candle. Graeme’s gonna come talk time travel in a bit, but before he does, ten more patrol officers are going to show up, plus some felen and more bearen. We’ve got Leilani on facetime.” She pulled a phone out of her pocket and pointed it at him. He could see Leilani. Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful, and well-guarded.
Rogue poked him. “Don’t you think you owe Mac an apology?”
“Sorry, Mac.” Rote.
Ella came to him and pulled him over to the table by the elbow. “Would you like to hold Track or Treena?” All those faces peering up at him. They were worried about him. Pitying him. He was so sick of pity. But then Treena was coming toward him and he had to curl his arms to catch her. She jumped from Burton’s arms to his. Licking his face. Pup breath. Adorable. Best smell in the world. Like all the pups ate was chocolate. He smiled. A small one, but it was there. Treena was wriggly and soft and fuzzy and so happy to see him. He tried not to hug her too tight.
A few soft murmurs. “Hi Harlan.” “Hey wolf, how you doing?” “I was worried about you, Harlan.” No one asked him if he tripped over the line he drew in the sand or how it felt when he hit the ground. No one accused him of being a few wolves short of a pack. Concern, genuine concern came at him, even from the males. It felt good. He blocked it out.
Wade raised his hands, quieting everyone, “Listen up. You all know why we’re here. Harlan’s mate could be returned to him. It’s improbable, but we have to believe it’s possible, and that means we have to make a decision about whether to move forward with it as a group. This decision must be made together.”
Harlan swallowed hard, glad Mac had warned him this was what they were there for, otherwise, he might have keeled over again at that little speech. His gaze shot to Burton. How was the male taking this news about his daughter? He seemed not to have heard, was playing with Track, counting his pudgy baby fingers one at a time, holding them up for Track to babble over.
One. Two. Three.
Uh ooh ee.
Graeme appeared outside the dining room window as a dragon, startling Harlan. Just as swiftly, he transformed into a tall, neat male, holding Kendra, dressed in dark clothing he was somehow keeping from melting. The air shimmered around father and daughter, showing the heat radius around them was three-ish feet. Good to know.
Harlan handed Treena back to Ella. Burton motioned for her greedily. Harlan headed outside. The farmhouse was 56 years old, all wood, no way Kendra coming inside was a good idea. In his mind, he replayed his walk through Trevor’s house a few days ago. After Jaggar had taken off. The surreality of it. The, this-can’t-be-happening-ness. Again, he felt it. This can’t be happening. This can’t. Be happening. I am not walking outside to discuss time travel with Graeme like it’s a perfectly normal thing to be thinking about. No one has ever suggested to me that I go back in time and retrieve my dead mate’s body so that …. So, what? Why are we even thinking about this again?
They knotted around Graeme in a group. A loose, surreal knot. No, not a knot. A throng, walking with Graeme and Kendra in the yard, around the range, around the house, past the cornfields, past Precious Goat’s empty pasture.
Wade was the first to speak as they walked, laying out the situation so that everyone present knew exactly what they were talking about. Harlan was abreast with Graeme on one side, four feet away, Wade was on the other, also a safe distance from Kendra’s heat, and the rest of the pack trailed behind, except for Ella and Burton and the twins, who had stayed inside.
“Here’s the situation as we know it,” Wade said. “Leilani is at Trevor’s house, incapacitated. She can speak, or she has spoken, but most of the time she seems like her mental function is depressed. She is most likely Jaggar’s mate.” Harlan stared at the ground. Fisted his hands and shoved them in his pockets. Jaggar. Wade kept talking. “Somehow, she may also be able to communicate the consciousness of Eventine Mundelein, Harlan’s mate, a former Serenity P.D. Sergeant.” That had been Burton’s only official act after Evie had died. To sign her Serenity P.D hiring papers posthumously, then promote her to Sergeant. “Eventine died when our females died, but according to Crew, she has not retired to The Haven, and has instead been in Rhen’s Meadow for the last 29 years. This is the hard part. Crew says that she says that she already lived a year into our future and-” His voice faltered. “It isn’t pretty. She hasn’t shared many details, but she says Khain won. He came into the Ula with an army, wiped out the KSRT first, then all of the wolven, then the bearen, and he was hunting down felen when she discovered a One True Mate in The Roosevelt who had not been found by us. Leilani. She went to Leilani with the purpose of getting her to—” his voice cracked again and he did not bother trying to hide it. “To the KSRT who were left, but she discovered Leilani’s power was time travel. She planned to go back in time to the incident in Chicago where Soren the foxen was marked by Khain, and stop that from happening, but Graeme told her it was too far back in time, so she revised her plan and instead showed up at Bruin’s house last week and stopped him from—” Wade looked up at Mac who had the iPad with Bruin and Willow on facetime clutched in his hands. “From dying.” Mac’s jaw twitched. “So the question now, the one we are faced with today, is what direction would we lean in if we were given the opportunity to go back in time and retrieve Eventine Mundelein’s body, and bring it back here to the present, and try to save it, try to save her.”
Rogue shook her head. “What if she dies again and Harlan has to watch it again?”
Harlan’s heart seized. He hadn’t even considered that. He forced himself to walk. Walk. Walk, keep putting one foot in front of the other. He knew time travel had sounded like a bad idea.
“Could she even do it?” Dahlia asked from behind them. “Could she go back in time and bring a body back here?”
Graeme, Kendra curled in one arm, bright eyes watching everything, said, “She could. She would need someone to go with her who could carry the body.”
Harlan only wanted to know one thing. “Can we ever go back in time and not have been there the first time…. It … time… happened?”
Graeme stared at him with hard eyes, assessing him. Graeme knew exactly what he was thinking. Harlan held his breath. Graeme finally nodded. “That is a question only the Troya can answer.”
“Troya?”
“A natural born Time Traveler.”
Of course.
Graeme nodded. “In all the centuries I’ve been alive, she’s only the second Troya I’ve seen. The first was killed by our tribe because of his plans. Time travel really is that dangerous, can be that unstable. One misstep, and they create an infinite loop that will effectively destroy the world, and not even they seem to know the exact process by which they do what they do.”
No one spoke for several minutes, so Harlan said what needed to be said. Asked the question that no one else would. He didn’t bother to lace his words with sarcasm, because the question was so preposterous it had to make everyone see that what they were discussing was just that preposterous also. “Why don’t we just ask her to go back in time and fix everything? Not just save Evie, but all the females.”