Page 47 of Fae Devoted
“He’ll assume we did too.” Johnnie hopped into the front seat, the door swinging open with ease. Russo’s people had repaired the crushed side panel during the day, but there wasn’t time to do more than bump out the dents the rogues made when they crashed into them and check the engine for damage. The truck started on the first try, and she waited for Jacob to reach the main road before asking, “We could find a hotel near the airport to wait on the Alpha?”
“Too easy to track our location.”
“A less reputable place wouldn’t ask for a credit card or identification.”
“Daimhín’s people will be checking every low rent motel and bed and breakfast within a hundred miles of here for that very reason. If he finds us and sends in a larger group of his vampires,” Jacob’s jaw flexed, “I might not be able to protect you.”
“And a local pack is out of the question.” She couldn’t hide Jacob among shifters in tight quarters for two full days. Evenshewasn’t that good. “Okay, well, we could find an empty campsite and sleep in the truck? Not the most comfortable option, but if you go wolf, that’d leave me the backseat,” she grinned, “and the only blanket.”
Jacob tapped his tanned fingers on the steering wheel, brow creasing in thought, or indecision. “I may have another option.”
“I’m all ears, or is that your line now,Bunny?” She grinned, hoping to lighten the mood by teasing him with the ridiculous pet name. Jacob’s lips didn’t even twitch, and her own smile fell. “What’s the idea?”
“A former clanmate recently settled in this area.”
“Clan Walker or a McCoy outcast?”Like you were once.
“Walker.” His hands curled around the wheel, and the leather creaked. “He joined a small pack near Mackinaw City six months ago.”
“And he’ll keep our arrival a secret?” Not an easy decision for any shifter to make, especially one who swore a blood oath to a new Alpha not long ago. If caught harboring an illegal Ferwyn from an outside Clan, his punishment for breaking what the Untouched population would callprobationwould be swift and harsh.
“The male has kept in contact with Samuel since he left the ESC.” Jacob hesitated. “He’s trustworthy.”
Upon acceptance into another Clan, a shifter’s slate was wiped clean, but achieving redemption and unquestioned loyalty from new clanmates took time. In cases where a Ferwynchoseto leave their home territory—an occurrence so rare only outcasting a she-wolf happened less often—integration was more straight-forward. Whatever this male did or didn’t do to warrant his prior outcast status, if Samuel and Jacob trusted him, then so would she.
“But it doesn’t seem right to ask him to risk being outcast again for us.” She knew Jacob wouldn’t feel any more comfortable dragging someone else into their problems than Johnnie did.
“It won’t come to that.”
“Okay, then.” She leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. “Let’s go ask our old clanmate for a place to crash.”
Johnnie snapped uprightwhen her head flopped forward for the hundredth time in the past two hours, startled from another light doze. The truck hit a rut in the dirt road and bounced. When had they left the interstate? She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 1:42 am.
“Are we there yet?” she asked, digging inside the purse at her feet for a piece of gum while yearning for a large latte and a toothbrush. Not necessarily in that order.
“Almost.” He drove one-handed, his posture less rigid now that they were miles away from civilization and the immediate threat of another vampire attack.
Unwrapping her peppermint gum, Johnnie popped it into her mouth, chewed, and counted silently to ten before repeatingin the whiny voice that drove her older brothers crazy on family trips, “Are we there yet?”
Unlike earlier, Jacob’s lips curved up at her silliness.
“Whereis there, exactly?” Squinting into the night shadows, Johnnie made out the blurred shapes of trees and more trees. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep again.
“We’re on the outskirts of the Wilderness State Park where Kincaid has a cabin.” He reached across the center console, laced their fingers together, and rested their joined hands on the top of her thigh. “You’ll be safe there.”
Her gaze dropped to where Jacob’s sun-kissed fingers were entwined with her paler ones and knew there was no safer place to be. He separated their hands without untwining their fingers and stroked the center of her palm with his thumb. The familiar butterflies in her stomach took flight—then crash-landed in a pile of broken wings when his words registered in her sleep-deprived brain.
“Kincaid?”
“Our ex-clanmate. Dylan Kincaid.”
“Dylan…Kincaid?” Johnnie’s heart thump so hard the blood whooshed in her ears.
“You know him?” Jacob swung her a questioning look.
Ninety-nine percent of the world’s population was human. The magical community was minuscule in comparison, yet there were still tens of thousands of Fae Touched residing within the borders of the ESC’s four states. The odds of crossing paths with a particular unmated Ferwyn male from outside Johnnie’s pack should have been extremely low, even after attending one of the few undergraduate schools available to shifters in the region. She would have bet against it and lost.
“We were…friends a long time ago. Like way, way back.” Johnnie’s attention returned to her lap and their linked hands. “Ages ago.”
