Chapter Nine
Caylan pulled his blue Ford F-150 into a parking spot in front of the Serenity Police Department and looked over at Tansy with a pit in his stomach. He wasn’t ready to share her with the KSRT when he was just getting to know her, but he knew that the more that Crew could find out about her, the better off all the shiften would be. Still, the idea of another shiften getting to claim her as their own didn’t sit right with him. Chalking it up to envy, he gave an encouraging smile to her before opening his door and walking around to the passenger side to open her door.
“So remind me, why we are at the police station? Last I checked, this is the exact opposite of being off the grid,” Tansy said, sliding out of the truck as she did so.
“We need to talk to Crew. From what Jedrek has told me, Crew has some omniscient power about him. He can see things that have happened or that will happen, and he can also read people in a way.”
“So he’s a fortune teller?” Tansy asked, walking towards the door with Caylan.
“In a way, I guess. Don’t let anyone else hear you call him that though,” Caylan laughed.
“Whatever,” Tansy said, rolling her eyes as Caylan opened the door for her.
Walking down the short hallway to the front desk, Caylan could feel his body buzzing from the dominance in the building. So many different dominant shifters in one place, it was kind of refreshing in a way. As they approached the front desk, Caylan tried not to laugh at the man that was sitting leaned back in the chair with his boots on the desk, crooning at the tops of his lungs.
“Lips taste like Saaaangrriiiaaaaa,” the man screeched off tune.
Tansy shot Caylan a bewildered look, “Are you sure we walked into the right building?”
Caylan held his finger to his lips before looping his finger around one of the cords that was attached to an ear bud in the officer’s ear. The man, Oswego, his name tag read, startled and sat up quickly.
“How long have you been standing there?” Officer Oswego asked, turning five shades of red.
“Long enough to be tortured by your terrible pipes,” Tansy said, rubbing her ears for effect.
“How rude. My voice is one of a kind. My girl says so.”
“Just don’t quit your day job,” Tansy teased.
“We’re here to see Crew Arcoal. Can you point us in his direction?” Caylan interjected, trying to stave off the oncoming argument between the two.
“Why would Crew, my best friend in the whole world who I know everything about, be meeting with a foxen?” Officer Oswego narrowed his eyes at him.
Caylan took a deep breath to make sure he controlled his temper before gesturing to Tansy, “I think he needs to meet her. I think she might be a...you know.”
Officer Oswego grabbed his radio, “Hey Wade?”
“No Beckett, I don’t want to guess what song you’re going to sing to the rest of the station next,” a tired sounding Wade replied over the radio.
“No, that’s not it this time. Although it was going to probably be something from Journey. Bitches love Journey.”
“Get to the point please, Beckett.”
“I’ve got a foxen and a blonde woman who looks like she could kick my ass standing at the Receiving Desk asking to see Crew,” Beckett replied.
There was radio silence for a few minutes and Caylan exchanged a look with Tansy. He had anticipated that there would be some resistance to his presence at the station, but he hadn’t expected this much effort would need put in to get a meeting with Crew.
“Bring them back to my office please,” Wade instructed.
“Do I need to pat them down?”
“Crew says they can be trusted and that he was expecting them. Pat downs won’t be necessary.”
“He didn’t think he should mention it to me?” Beckett pouted, getting up from the desk.
“Beckett.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming,” Beckett said before clicking his radio off and waving for them to follow him.
They walked past more desks, occupied by officers that stopped to stare at him and at Tansy, especially at Tansy. Caylan felt a snarl crawling up his throat and tried to stuff it back down. Tansy wasn’t here for them; she was here for answers. He wasn’t about to tolerate all of these men pining for her attention.
What if one of them is her mate though? I don’t like thinking about it, but I’ve got to remember that she’s not for me.
A choked growl escaped as he was guided into a room that he had to assume was Wade’s office.
“Careful there, son. I just welcomed into you into my office. My territory, my rules. Let’s play nice, shall we?” A man with silver hair suggested from behind the desk at the front of the room.
Caylan studied the man briefly, taking in his demeanor. The man sat in a chair, hands folded on the desk, slight wrinkles surrounding his wise eyes. From what Jedrek had been telling him about the wolven at the KSRT, Caylan knew this must be Wade Lombard.
Nodding, Caylan took a seat in front of Wade’s desk, Tansy to his right, “Thank you for seeing us.”
“Did you know that a few months ago a group of foxen met with a member of the KSRT demanding One True Mates for themselves?” Wade asked coolly, watching Caylan as though he was trying to get a read on him.
“I did. My friend, Jedrek, his father was the asshole that was the leader of that protest. I found out it happened after the fact or I would’ve been here to put them in their place.” Caylan said as he remembered back on Jedrek explaining the protest to him.
“What do you make of the situation?”
Caylan felt Tansy’s eyes on him as he responded, “I feel that the OTMs have a free will and it should be their right to choose who they’re mated to.”
“Even if there is a suitor that’s interested in her and she’s not interested in him?” Wade asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
“Yes. It’s their choice to make,” Caylan replied without missing a beat.
“Very good. Beckett, you’re free to return to… Whatever you were doing.” Wade said, dismissing Beckett from the room as another man entered it.
From the dark hair and the beard, Caylan guessed this was just who they were looking for.
“Crew here says you’re trustworthy. I’m intrigued to hear what he has to say about you. From talking to you, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Maybe that’s the bearen in you that helps you be that way.”
“Not all of us are the conniving, dishonest bastards that you take us for. Jedrek is all foxen and doesn’t approve of their behavior. There’s also lots of us here, outside of the Pravus, hiding from Khain so he can’t use the blood bond to control us.” Caylan smiled with pride as he thought of how many foxen there truly were that wanted nothing to do with Khain.
“He’s right Wade. The foxen that caused all the problems a few months ago were Khain’s most loyal. Which is kind of sick, because I’ve seen what he did to the females that were mated to the foxen men. I don’t know how they’ve managed to stay loyal to him,” Crew said, giving a sympathetic smile to Caylan.
Caylan shrugged, “I think some of it is loyalty and some of it is fear of the unknown. Regardless, I agree with you.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” Crew said, turning towards Tansy and taking her hand in a polite gesture, “I’m Crew. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”
Tansy gave Caylan an uncomfortable glance as she shook Crew’s hand back, “Tansy. This is Caylan.”
Caylan nodded at Tansy encouragingly, trying to communicate to her that Crew was someone she could trust.
“So what brings the two of you to our station today?” Wade asked as Crew crossed to sit in an empty chair against the wall of the office.
“I wanted Crew to read her. I think Tansy is an OTM and I wanted to hear what he thought about it. I also thought maybe you guys explaining what an OTM is to Tansy would help, since the wolven have more information than the foxen do at this point,” Caylan explained to the two, watching for either one of them to disagree with what he was saying.
As Crew opened his mouth to speak, the door to the office opened and a blonde officer poked his head through the door. Caylan took note of the two wolven flanking him in wolf form and assumed this was Trevor from the stories Jedrek had told him about Trevor and his brothers.
“Why the fuck is Beckett singing at the top of his lungs about a foxen in your office?” the man asked.
Wade gestured to Caylan and Tansy, “Because Caylan here is a foxen-bearen hybrid, and because he brought this young lady here for Crew to determine if she’s a One True Mate or not. We were just about to find out before you interrupted.”
“How did you-” Caylan asked, eyes going wide with shock that Wade had known that without Caylan having said anything about it first.
Wade pointed at his nose, “Let’s just say I’ve got a good sniffer. That’s the easiest way to sum it up.”
Caylan nodded in acknowledgement, trying to ignore the uneasiness he was feeling from a stranger knowing something so personal by simply sniffing him.
Trevor narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Caylan, “How do we know he’s trustworthy?”
“Because I’ve seen him in visions,” Crew said matter of factly.
“Details, Crew, details,” Trevor said, inviting himself and the wolves into the office.
“There is a prophecy about the one foxen who will lead a rebellion against Khain when the time is right. A foxen that is larger in fox form than any other foxen to date. I’ve had visions of Caylan holding meetings with the other foxen on this side of the Pravus. He lives out in the middle of the woods, farther out than our cabins are. He moved out there to be close to us in case he found himself in need of help. His meetings always consist of what Khain knows about the Mates and what little things are going on in the Pravus.
“Plus he brought Tansy here knowing that if he tried to hurt her or violate her in any way, that we would put a stop to it. Don’t you think that would be a little risky just to confirm a suspicion about a woman being a One True Mate for him to take as his own?” Crew asked pointedly at Trevor.
“Good points, but still, how do we know he isn’t really a spy for Khain?” Trevor asked.
Caylan felt his anger boiling over as he stood up, walked over to Trevor, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. Ignoring the wolves growling on either side of him, Caylan lifted Trevor in the air.
“Khain killed my mother in front of me twenty-five years ago, you ass. Have you ever watched someone you love incinerated in front of you? No? Okay then. If I was working for Khain, I would already know what I need to know about Tansy and I would’ve taken her to him instead of bringing her here to Crew and the rest of your KSRT,” Caylan growled at him before setting him back on the floor and going back to his chair.
There was an awkwardly charged silence for a moment or two before Tansy stood up and walked over to Crew, “I never knew my father. My mother always said he looked like a cross between a young Clint Eastwood and a young George Strait. I’ve always felt invisible and that paid off when I joined the military because I was quick and quiet. I’ve killed one man with my bare hands to save a woman in an alley from being raped. I killed even more when I was in the military. I’m always on the run; my mother told me all the time to run like the devil was on my heels. What else do you need to know to get the answers you need?”
Crew smiled at her tenacity, “You forgot to mention you’re passionate about what you believe in. From what I can tell, you’re passionate about Caylan’s thoughts on you. You also forgot to mention that you seem like someone that is slow to trust, so can you explain to me why you would trust Caylan with this information, let alone a stranger like me?”
“You’re right, I trust no one. I keep on the move and never make friends because having ties can get you killed or the people you love hurt. I think I’m trusting you with this information because I’m proving that Caylan is being honest with all of you about what his intentions are.” Tansy nodded affirmatively at the thought.
“Here’s my only concern,” Crew said, looking at the other men in the room before looking back at Tansy, “I can’t read anything from you. When you touched me, there wasn’t even a glimmer of what you could be. I don’t believe you’re only human, because I would at least be able to tell that. So for now, before I confirm what I’m assuming about you, I need to ask you one more question.”
“Apparently I’m an open book. What else do you need to know?” Tansy asked.
“Do you by chance have a gold pendant in the shape of an animal?”
Tansy’s eyes grew round, and Caylan could tell she was debating with herself about what she was willing to reveal about herself now. He watched as she hesitantly reached in her pocket and withdrew a single chain necklace with something gold glinting from the bottom.
“How did you know about the pendant?” Tansy asked Crew, holding it out to his open hand.
“Each of your half-sisters have had a pendant, with the exception of Cerise, in the shape of the shiften that she was intended for by the Angel Azerbaizan. From what I can tell, during the forty nights that he was here, laying with the women he was bedding, he was leaving behind a gold pendant for each of them. Now here’s the interesting part, none of us have been able to tell which shiften would be gifted with One True Mates. At first we assumed it would only be the wolven that would have them. Then Heather and Graeme mated, and he’s a dragen. Now Willow and Bruin -- he’s bearen -- are mated. One could only assume that would mean that the felen will have their own Mates to claim when the time comes. The foxen have been the only one in question. The other shiften were created by Rhen herself. The foxen were a result of tragedy when Khain forced wolven women to lie with him.
“Now that being said, obviously we were mistaken to assume that Azer didn’t have a plan in store for the foxen too,” Crew said, holding the pendant up off of his palm to show the rest of the room, “Because you, Tansy, were meant to mate a foxen.”