Page 45 of Fae Devoted (Fae Touched #3)
“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. “This benefactress may 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—”
“Or is it whom?” Jeremiah frowned, the creases around his mouth and eyes far deeper than the last time Tucker saw him. “Never could keep it straight.”
“Where is she?” Tucker’s emotions swung wildly between joy and agony. The uncertainty that his brother might be involved in Jo’s disappearance tore at his soul. It felt somehow disloyal to suspect Jeremiah would hurt a female— any female—regardless of his past betrayals.
“Well, hello to you too, brother.” He tilted his head, nostrils flaring. “The she-wolf is yours then.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Do you know where she is or not?” Ethan asked, white electricity forming a ball in his hand. He snaked the visible current between his fingers, then rolled it over his knuckles like a slick coin trick.
“Your female can track.” Jeremiah didn’t flinch at the battle witch’s flagrant threat. Instead, he shook his head and chuckled. “I didn’t realize she was following me until it was too late. I tried to warn her—”
Jeremiah barely had time to lower his hands before Tucker placed him flat on his back and rammed his forearm beneath his brother’s chin. He dug his knees into the forest floor, thighs clamped on either side of Jeremiah’s waist as he used his strength and weight to hold his brother down.
“Too late for what?” he roared in his face, canines exploding from his gums, claws completely extended.
Jeremiah didn’t struggle, his mirror image showing zero fear. Eyes identical to his own clouded with abject sorrow, then dulled to acceptance. His skin flushed a dusky hue from lack of oxygen, yet his arms remained placid at his sides, his powerful body limp.
“Let him go, lieutenant.” Ethan’s hand squeezed his shoulder, his voice level, pitched low to soothe. “He can’t breathe.”
Tucker forced his fingers to open, his blind rage dissipating in slow degrees, replaced quickly by horror. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from his wheezing brother. Tucker’s teeth retracted, followed by his claws as he ran his palms over his skull. “Shit, Jeremiah. I didn’t—”
“Brother,” Jeremiah coughed, struggling to sit up, “Do not.” He rubbed at his bruised throat. “I deserve your anger. I deserve far worse.”
“Tell me what happened.” Tucker kneaded at the ache in his sternum. Butting against the suffocated bond provided a modicum of comfort, the proof of life the thin cord keeping him tied to his human skin.
“I didn’t touch your female. I do not harm…
” The color of his brother’s eyes flickered to gold, his stare going blind.
One heartbeat passed, then two before Ferwyn brown resurfaced.
Jeremiah’s jaw bunched, and the scar on his cheek puckered.
“I do not harm females, but Lord Daimhín is not so discriminatory. And neither is the facility.”
Tucker’s blood went cold, the small hope there was another explanation for Jo’s disappearance and the near loss of their bond died at the declaration.
“Is the Fae there now?” Ethan’s tattoos lit up like the night sky on the Fourth of July as though expecting the pureblood to appear from the trees at any moment.
“No.” Jeremiah scrubbed at the brand Daimhín burned into his nape, the deep red marks Tucker left on the front of his brother’s throat already healed. “I would know.”
“He still controls you then?” Besides losing Jo, it was his worst fear.
Tucker attempted to focus on the bond he held with his littermate, searching for evidence of Daimhín’s magic in the connection forged in their mother’s womb. There was a taint in the link, but one Tucker couldn’t define. It felt more like an illness than Fae corruption.
“No. I don’t know. My wolf is…confused.” Jeremiah sat among the dead leaves and lifted his hands in front of his face.
Thin streaks of sunlight wove through his spread fingers as he rotated his palms over and back, over and back.
“His blood still runs in my veins. Sometimes I hear a voice in my head, but…” Without warning, he jumped to his feet, a wide grin splitting his face.
“I can resist it. I will resist it, brother. At least until we rescue your she-wolf and my vow of honor is fulfilled.”
The startling reversal put Tucker’s wolf on edge, his fur bristling beneath his skin.
“What vow?” Ethan asked with a wariness that matched his own.
Jeremiah tilted his head as if puzzled by the Anwyll’s question. “To save the child, of course. What else?”