Page 85 of Fae Devoted
“Maybe not a horse.” He grinned, twisting the fabric at Tucker’s waist to maintain the wards vital for stealth. “More like a seriously overgrown pony.”
“Why are we stopping?” He growled the question at the witch, the void in his chest gnawing at his already strained composure. He didn’t think anything could be worse than a blocked bond. He’d been wrong.
Tucker needed to find Jo—now.
Samuel had wanted to accompany him on the search, feeling a keen responsibility to Jo as her Alpha. But they required Ethan’s unique skillset to get them in and out of this initial reconnaissance mission undetected. And no matter how often Lady Rose protested she could take care of herself, someone had to stay behind with the queen.
The witch’s smile dropped as he gestured with his chin to a single sugar maple. The tree was speckled with the bright reds and golds of the changing season and stood out amid a copse of evergreens. “I recognize this section of the forest.”
“How?” Tucker trusted the male as much as he trusted anyone outside the Walker Pack but had to wonder why a professed city slicker would have visited the area enough times to have memorized the landscape.
“I’ve been having the same vivid dream since we arrived in town,” Ethan explained, turning his head and studying the area as if through new eyes. “I’m a bird…a falcon, perched on the Crane of the Sault statue in front of the County Courthouse. I have no control of the falcon’s body. I’m just a passenger, but I can see through the bird’s eyes.” Ethan’s lips quirked. “A real bird’s-eye view. Anyway, I could feel the stretch in her chest muscles as she launched skyward, the wind tearing at her wings as we spiraled and glided on the air currents.”
“She?”
“Yeah, the falcon is female.” He chuckled. “I have no idea how I know that, but I do. The route she takes is always identical, flying predominately west before cutting north. I had the weirdest sense of déjà vu as we drove here today, and now I realize why.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Lord Daimhín?” he asked, barely resisting the desire to immediately convert. His senses were slightly diminished in his human persona, and if the Fae were nearby, he wanted to be at his best. At his most deadly.
“I didn’t sense a threat. If anything, the falcon gave me a benevolent vibe. I would bet my favorite pair of leather pants the magic used was as feminine as the bird.” Ethan dragged his free hand through his hair, his grip on Tucker’s shirt never loosening. “I didn’t understand what the dream was trying to tell me until I saw this particular grove.”
“Anwyll magic then?”
“Perhaps, but I’ve never heard of a spell that can invade a person’s sleep and manipulate a subconscious to that degree. It was so real.” His attention fixed on the old maple, eyes unblinking. “Imagine the possibilities.”
“The dreams started before Jo went missing?” Tucker tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. “Thisbenefactressmay have been trying to lead us to this spot from the beginning.”
But who and why?
“And used my dreams as a fucking Google map.” Ethan drew in a deep breath, gaze alert and refocused.
“What direction did your falcon fly next?”
“We crossed a shallow stream just beyond those trees.” He pointed toward the same path Jo—and Jeremiah took a few hours ago. “Then flew another hundred yards or so northwest before landing,” he continued, scanning the terrain ahead. “It could be a trap.”
“But you don’t believe that.” The image of Jo anywhere near his brother, or what he was convinced was the facility’s location, made his tone deep and guttural. His control rapidly thinned, and although the mating bond didn’t break, it’d been strangled to the point of asphyxiation. He didn’t know how his Ferwyn brothers coped with the loss of a Ca’anam.
In the past, Tucker believed going Glaofin after the death of a truemate was as much a choice as an unmated male choosing the same path at the end of their lives. He’d been wrong again. Dead wrong. There wasn’t a choice at all.
“No, I don’t. I sensed the falcon’s frustration at the end of each flight. The feeling that I woke up too soon and missed something important. Something she desperately wanted me to see.”
“What?” They needed to get moving.
“The facility? Your brother’s hidey-hole? A Fae stable of pink unicorns? Who the hell knows, but—”
Tucker converted into his gray and crouched low, a snarl curling his lips. The awareness of an approaching presence raised his hackles, his wolf confused by the lack of a preceding smell.
Ethan’s hand shot straight out in front of him in reaction to his wolf’s aggressive stance, the symbols on his forearm and knuckles glowing white. He contorted his dancer body and swept the silent forest behind them looking for a target. Covering their backs without dropping the complicated wards or the grip on his fur.
The scent hit him as if released by design, and Tucker burst into human form, ignoring the magical sting of another quick conversion. He removed Ethan’s hand from his shirt, breaking the ward. He might need to move fast if attacked.
“What is it, lieutenant? What do you see?” Ethan spoke low, scouring their surroundings with both arms blazing bright with symbols while spinning in a slow circle.
“Who, not what,” Jeremiah stepped into the open, his hands raised in surrender. The gesture didn’t make the ex-Alpha any less dangerous.
James Reed had discovered Jeremiah’s startling ability to mask his scent during a stint undercover with the ex-Alpha’s outcast pack. If the magic used to accomplish the troubling feat was tied to his brother’s connection with Daimhín, did it mean he hadn’t broken free of the bastard’s control after all?
“Holy shit,” Ethan said, turning toward Tucker’s twin but not lowering his arms or deactivating his tattoos. “If not for the scar—”
