Page 44 of Fae Devoted (Fae Touched #3)

Oh, and don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Really. I’ve stayed far enough behind Jeremiah that he shouldn’t notice me, but if he does, I’ll turn around and come back.

Okay, okay. Of course you’re gonna worry, but just…don’t worry too much. And tell the Alpha not to worry either. I’m fine. Ugh, I said that already, didn’t I?

But Jacob, try to understand. If there’s even a chance I can find where Jeremiah’s staying, then I have to take it. If we lose him now, who knows how long it’ll be before we catch up with him again?

Long pause.

I know how much you love your brother, and I won’t let you down. I promise. And, um…just in case I get abducted by aliens or something, I wanted to tell you that I forgive you for being a boneheaded Ferwyn male, and I’m sorry for shutting you out. And, well…I love you, Jacob.

A soft laugh.

Wow, I just told you I loved you for the first time on voicemail. I know you already knew. I mean, how could you not? I’m pretty sure everyone did. My family, Noah, Abby, Penny…the entire Walker Pack. And after the Dance started, the bond pretty much outed me big time, huh?

Anyhoo, I’m going to try to contact the Guard next. Maybe I can persuade them to interrupt your meeting. I’m not sure what I will say to convince them, but I’ll think of something.

I’ll update you again soon…bye.

Tucker tore the phone from his ear. He’d listened to Jo’s message so many times in the past hour he had it memorized.

“Anything,” he barked at Commander Baxter’s head tech. The Anwyll went by Garath, although Tucker got the impression it was his handle and not his actual name.

“It seems the GPS tracker on your vehicle is damaged,” the witch said without irritation, as if it were a part of his job description to be snapped at on a daily basis.

He tapped on his keyboard and studied the moving data on the largest of a trio of desktop monitors, ignoring Tucker’s bad attitude and the three males crammed into his small office.

“My beta’s truck was in a recent accident,” Samuel explained.

“Where is she?” Tucker’s voice sounded rough and mean, his chest tight with a visceral fear he struggled to hide, afraid the intensity of his emotion might distract Jo at a crucial moment during her self-imposed mission.

I know how much you love your brother, and I won’t let you down.

Didn’t Jo realize how much he loved her ? More than his own life—more than his twin’s life if it came down to that terrible choice.

“Where. Is. She?” Tucker repeated, pivoting on his heel and doing another sporadic circuit of the cramped space, hand scrubbing his nape raw as he paced. He couldn’t stand still while his she-wolf was out there all alone; Jo had driven too far away for him to sense if she were scared or in danger.

Mater Russo’s people hadn’t been given enough time to do more than a quick patch job on the truck after the rogues’ attack. They could have been on the road and his mate’s tail an hour ago if he’d thought to take it in for repairs at any point this past week. Instead, he was stuck here imagining—

“Lieutenant,” Ethan said smoothly, the queen’s personal bodyguard sprawled on the office’s worn couch. “Dude’s good. He’s got this.”

“I’m better than good, dude .” Garath didn’t look anything like a stereotypical computer geek.

He was built like a professional bodybuilder, the standard uniform t-shirt of the ENC Guard stretched to the max across his wide chest, his thighs straining the seams of his green cargos.

“I used offline software and highjacked GPS satellite signals to triangulate your female’s cellphone to within twenty meters of her last known location. ”

“Show us.” Samuel leaned on one side of the witch, Tucker moving to hover menacingly over his shoulder.

“I should be able to get a near-time footage within four or five meters since she’s on foot—”

“What?” Tucker felt his heart stop beating then race like a runaway freight train. Why would Jo leave the safety of the truck? Samuel’s palm landed on his upper back, the Alpha’s touch and his bond compelling him to remain calm.

“This area here,” the tech said, using the eraser on a pencil to point to the screen and the blinking icon on the map, “is too densely forested for a vehicle as large as your pickup to navigate.”

“Zoom in so we can see her.” Tucker made it sound like a demand, which it absolutely was. He needed to verify Jo was unharmed before he lost his shit. Again.

“Now, that’s what’s strange,” Garath said, the scent of his frustration infiltrating the air like a bad cologne. “As I was saying, I should be capable of obtaining recent images of your she-wolf, but there’s something messing with the satellite feed.”

“Messing with it how?” Ethan came over and joined them, his placating attitude of a moment ago gone.

“I don’t know. I haven’t come across anything like it before.” Garath used his mouse to zoom in. “See here?”

“What are we supposed to be looking for besides trees?” Samuel asked, all four males staring at the aerial view on the monitor.

“Your female should be here , Lieutenant Tucker.” His pencil tapped on the teardrop-shaped symbol. “But she’s…not.”

“Could Johnnie have dropped her phone?” Samuel squinted at the screen.

“Not unless it grew legs and learned to walk. The signal is moving, albeit slowly.” Gareth shook his bald head. “It has to be a camera malfunction, but—”

“But what,” Tucker snapped, his patience gone.

“It’s like…she’s hiding under an umbrella painted to mimic the forest.” He scraped his palm over his smooth head in obvious frustration. “If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d say we are looking at a gigantic—”

“Concealment ward.” The curse under Ethan’s breath was long and vicious.

“I want the coordinates of the area with the…anomaly.”

Samuel spoke when Tucker could not, his mouth full of sharp canines. Dread for what Jo may have stumbled upon overrode his control.

“Of course, sir.” Gareth clicked and the office printer whirred to life.

“Thank you for your help. I’ll let Commander Baxter know—”

The icon winked out, and the mating bond snapped.

Tucker’s legs buckled, howling in agony before his knees hit the floor.

Hours later, Tucker’s wolf lifted his muzzle, sustaining a steady trot through the wooded terrain with his mouth slightly open so he could breathe and follow Jo’s scent at the same time.

“Lieutenant, stop,” Ethan called, retaining a fistful of Tucker’s fur as he kept pace beside him.

The battle witch employed the dual wards of concealment and privacy while they ran, making lowering his voice unnecessary.

No one could hear or see them as long as Ethan maintained the casts, and they stayed in physical contact.

But Tucker couldn’t stop until Jo was in his arms, and the mating bond once again throbbed in his chest.

The shock of the perceived severed connection had triggered an instant conversion, his wolf destroying Garath’s office in a fit of mindless rage and grief.

It’d taken the full brunt of Samuel’s dominant influence and Ethan trapping him in a confinement spell to bring him back from the brink.

Once he could think clearly again, Tucker realized Jo wasn’t dead, and neither was their bond.

It had been abruptly smothered. A lit candle placed under a dome of glass.

But unlike a flame that would eventually extinguish from lack of oxygen, nothing could truly snuff the secondary bond except death or an extended time apart.

And no way in hell was he allowing either of those things to happen.

Tucker was getting Jo back, or he’d die trying.

“Whoa, big boy.” Ethan tugged hard on his gray’s thick ruff. “Whoa, there.”

Tucker snarled as he came to a disgruntled stop, then converted to his human form.

“I am not a damn horse, Hall.” A shifted Ferwyn could carry two grown males without effort, but by using a combination of activated Anwyll tattoos, Ethan didn’t need the ride to keep up—and Tucker wasn’t offering.

“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?”