Page 31 of Fae Devoted (Fae Touched #3)

T he brown wolf circled the massive gray, dashing in and darting out, snapping at his opponent’s shoulders and flanks, searching for a weakness Tucker knew the young Ferwyn warrior wouldn’t find. “Be patient, Fitzgerald,” he yelled in encouragement. “Wait for an opening.”

The pair inside the dirt ring had been sparring for over an hour.

The smaller clanmate’s limbs were shaking from exhaustion, and his tail was beginning to droop.

In a last-ditch effort to take down the more dominant wolf in the fight, Fitzgerald lunged at his competitor’s throat instead of first crippling him by slicing his hamstrings as he’d been trained to do.

The gray easily avoided the clumsy attack, twisting aside at the last moment with incredible agility for a wolf the size of a large grizzly.

Fitzgerald scrambled to regain his feet, paws digging into the churned earth to halt his graceless slide.

The gray nipped at his nose like he was a misbehaving pup instead of a grown warrior a decade past his majority, then turned to pad away, signaling the practice session was over.

Humiliated by the trouncing observed by several members of his pack, Fitzgerald leaped at the retreating wolf’s hind end and sank his teeth into its thick haunches.

What happened next was as much a blur in Tucker’s memories as in his reoccurring nightmares.

The gray whipped round, the violent motion of his hips breaking the weaker wolf’s hold with a spray of blood and clump of fur.

Seizing the brown’s muzzle in his vise-like jaws, the infuriated shifter tossed him to the ground as if Fitzgerald were a rag doll and not a seven-hundred-pound Ferwyn wolf.

If the smaller male had been in his human form, the throw would have broken his neck.

But the gray wasn’t done with the offending shifter, pouncing on Fitzgerald, his canines ripping into his exposed throat, his sharp claws shredding the smaller wolf’s chest muscles.

Clanmates watched in stunned silence, unable to process what they were witnessing.

Tucker finally shook himself free of his stupor and shouted, “Jeremiah, stop!”

His brother didn’t stop, spitting the gore from his mouth before baring his teeth and ripping another chunk of flesh from the helpless male’s gullet.

Tucker converted to his wolf, his gray a carbon copy of his twin’s, and bounded over the circle’s rubber barriers.

He plowed into his Alpha’s flank, knocking him off their gurgling clanmate.

The other warriors came out of their daze and jumped in to drag Fitzgerald’s torn body away from the battling siblings.

After grappling for several minutes with neither gaining the upper hand, Tucker allowed Jeremiah to place him on his back, gambling his brother wouldn’t seriously harm his own littermate. Then he shifted to human form and plunged his hands into the red, sticky fur of his Alpha’s ruff.

“Brother, stop,” he gritted out, the muscles in his arms bulging as he fought to keep his twin’s fangs from his naked throat. Jeremiah’s yellow gaze was wild and unfocused, his muzzle covered in blood, his growls vicious—his savage visage the stuff of human nightmares.

Awareness slowly returned to Jeremiah’s eyes, but Tucker didn’t relax his grip until his brother removed his front paws from his chest and stepped away.

The Alpha didn’t convert, choosing to stay in wolf form as the pack bond vibrated with a mixture of his anger, righteousness, and confusion.

By the letter of Ferwyn law, Fitzgerald’s surprise attack could be construed as a blood challenge, in which case Jeremiah’s violent reaction could be justified, if not warranted.

The Alpha’s life had never been in danger, the difference in their dominance levels astronomical. So why did he attack the foolish warrior as if it were a battle to the death? Tucker knew his brother wouldn’t have sensed any true malice from Fitzgerald, only embarrassment and frustration.

“Beta Grayson?” one of his warriors called to him, arms wrapped tightly around their pack healer’s waist. The Ferwyn must have raced to his nearby home to retrieve his mate, then carried her back at top speed.

The frantic female strained against her Ca’anam’s protective hold, tears running down her cheeks as Fitzgerald struggled to breathe through what was left of the bloody pulp of his throat.

“Go to him, Cassandra,” Tucker said in a soothing tone, remaining flat on his back. The submissive posture of the sole male present who could match Jeremiah in strength meant to appease the agitated Alpha’s wolf. “But move slowly.”

“Yes, beta,” the witch replied in a shaky voice, stepping gingerly into the ring with her truemate glued to her side. Two other shifters followed on her heels; the males careful not to meet their Alpha’s eyes.

Jeremiah growled at their approach and then shook his head hard, scarlet-tinged spittle flying in every direction.

He repeated the action before sitting on his haunches and staring at Cassandra.

The Anwyll knelt at Fitzgerald’s side, her glowing hands shaking above his ravaged throat.

Tucker tensed as the Alpha huffed through his nose, the spicy anise of activated witch magic and the coppery smell of blood a sickening combination to most shifters.

His brother didn’t move again, sitting still as a statue while she worked feverishly to repair the extensive damage done to Fitzgerald’s neck and chest. Although a Ferwyn’s natural healing ability would prevent death by almost any violent means short of beheading or removing the heart, an injury acquired by a shifter’s fangs or claws was slower to mend.

If not for Cassandra’s aid, he would needlessly suffer the excruciating pain of his devastating wounds for hours instead of minutes.

As the Anwyll’s magic knit his flesh together, Fitzgerald’s breathing became less labored, his mental distress easing until he was able to concentrate enough to convert into his human body. Cassandra cooed soothing words and brushed the male’s hair from his forehead.

As Tucker looked on, the dream sequence changed.

Fitzgerald’s short, dark locks morphed into a long braid the color of burnt sienna, its auburn tip sticking to the blood-saturated material of a bright blue blouse covered with orange blossoms. The shifter’s head turned to address the Alpha, and a smattering of freckles now marred with jagged furrows made by Jeremiah’s teeth appeared on a familiar cheek.

“I’m…sorry. Forgive…me, Alpha,” came from Jo’s half-healed throat and not Fitzgerald’s.

Tucker’s heart hammered as the customary fog appeared right on cue, freezing his body in place.

It rolled in like a gentle wave, obscuring the ring’s outer edges in a cloud of grayish-white.

The hazy mist surged and thickened, enveloping the healer and his warriors until only Jeremiah and now Jo remained.

Tucker thrashed against his invisible bonds, helpless as his brother thrust his neck up and stretched it forward, his nose wrinkling with a series of loud snarls in response to what should have been Fitzgerald’s pleas for mercy, not Jo’s.

Jeremiah stalked past Tucker, swiping his forepaw at this face in a rebuke of his earlier interference.

Incapable of protecting himself, Jeremiah’s claws raked his jawline and cut him to the bone.

But outside the dreamscape, the brutal reprimand from this brother came later that night.

Jeremiah paused, his low growl switching to a sad whine. He circled back to Tucker and lowered his muzzle, licking the blood from his chin. His ministrations came to an abrupt halt, and with a renewed growl, Jeremiah whirled toward Jo.

The cry trapped inside Tucker’s head threatened to shatter his skull, his voice as paralyzed as his body.

Somewhere in his subconscious, he understood it wasn’t his she-wolf laying alone in the dirt, broken and vulnerable.

But his panicked soul insisted it was real.

Insisted he couldn’t stop Jeremiah from killing Jo now, just as it always insisted he hadn’t stopped his brother from taking Fitzgerald’s life in a fit of insanity in the past, though he had.

The illusion was so real Tucker reached for his bond with Jeremiah, transmitting his hopelessness and desperation.

His Alpha didn’t listen, and the familiar, guilt-ridden dream turned into his worst nightmare.

Tucker fought the force holding him with everything he had, though he’d learned from experience it was a losing battle. Jeremiah’s angry snarls intensified, and Tucker couldn’t breathe, knowing what was coming next. Unable to stop it. Unable to wake up.

The screams came as they always did in the dream, but this time the pitch was high and feminine. Tucker stared at his brother, refusing to close his eyes though the huge wolf blocked most of Jo from view.

“Jacob, wake up.”

His stomach roiled at the sound of crunching bone, and he swallowed, choking on bitter bile.

“Jacob.”

Tucker reacted on instinct. Not yet completely awake, he grabbed the person poised above him by the waist and rolled, pinning them to the mattress. He’d already retracted his claws by the time Jo squealed, the well-known smell of sunny citrus and rose hitting his nose mid-tumble.

“Jo,” he said in a raw whisper. The lingering taste of fear burned his throat.

“I didn’t mean to startle—”

Jo gasped as he ripped open the top buttons on her nightshirt and inspected every inch of her neck and upper chest’s pristine skin. Fingers trembling, he combed her unbound hair away from her face, soaking in the smooth expanse of her cheek and chin with relief. “You’re not hurt.”

It wasn’t real.

“I’m fine.” Jo’s voice was soft and soothing. “It was just a bad dream.”

A fucking nightmare.

They hadn’t been asleep long, and the bedroom was dark, the cabin quiet. Kincaid was called away during the night by tourists who’d insisted they’d heard the cries of a baby in the woods near their campsite, and he hadn’t yet returned.

“Were you dreaming about the Fae?” Jo stroked his flank with her palm, the bond strumming with curiosity and concern, her touch gentle and reassuring. Always in tune with his emotions, her natural affinity for sensing precisely what Tucker needed had only enhanced since starting the Dance.

“No, my brother,” he said, throat dry and scratchy, the twisted nightmare fresh in his mind. The image of Jo being mauled rocking him to the core.

“We’ll find him, Jacob.”

“He drank the Fae’s blood. It…changed him.” And Tucker hadn’t seen it. He’d walked away, leaving his littermate to suffer the Sídhe’s tyranny alone.

“But he got away,” she reminded him, cradling the back of his neck as he hovered above her. “You told me he fought against the Fae the last time you saw him. That has to mean something.”

“I’m not sure what’s left of my brother’s mind,” he admitted, sliding his nose beneath her ear and breathing her in. Her scent filled his lungs, reminding him she was whole and safe—for now.

“Everything will work out. I know it will.”

Jo’s resolute faith in a happy outcome was unshakeable. Her unwavering optimism for most things in life one of the many reasons he loved her.

Tucker was captivated by the pretty she-wolf the first time she called him Jacob.

She’d said it with a mischievous grin, her gorgeous eyes twinkling as if daring him to forbid it.

He hadn’t. Instead, he’d shortened Johnnie to Jo, giving as good as he got.

She’d laughed at the nickname in delight and sealed his fate for eternity.

He grunted in response to Jo’s confidence, his own not nearly as high.

Jeremiah could already be a lost cause as the Fae’s vile roots might be buried too deep to be ripped out cleanly.

Even with the bond of an Alpha as strong as Samuel.

But Tucker had to try. Had to know if Jeremiah had broken free from the Elven Lord’s thrall or if he was too far gone to save.

Because how could he condemn his twin to perdition when Tucker had found heaven?

Dropping his mouth to the Mating Mark above her collarbone, he caressed it with his lips and moved from straddling Jo’s thighs to lying in between them.

He lowered until his naked torso blanketed her from breasts to hips, needing to feel her warmth.

The rise and fall of her chest. The beat of her heart.

Safe. She’s safe.

“Jo,” he rasped, using part of his weight to press her deeper into the mattress when he should be rolling away.

Jeremiah’s dire circumstances hadn’t changed. The Fae still walked Earth’s realm. His minions were still out there, and Jo was in more danger now than ever. But he didn’t want to leave her. Never wanted to leave her.

Raising his head, he took Jo’s mouth in a kiss that jeopardized all his honorable intentions.

Jo’s long legs wrapped around his hips, and his poorly designed plan to wait until things were resolved one way or the other with his brother went up in flames.

His cock stiffened. The loose jersey pants he wore while sharing a bed with her did little to hide his arousal.

The fingers clasping his neck tightened as he pressed his hard length into her thigh, the heady scent of her desire melding with his own.

Snarling, he deepened the kiss. He’d hurt his she-wolf by denying them both for too damn long.

Tucker belonged to Jo. He knew it in his bones. And no matter what happened tomorrow, it was time he proved it.