Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(14)

But, like Hester, Charles was bothered that they had been getting flyovers. Mostly because if it had been someone just randomly flying over the camp, they would probably have passed over Aspen Creek, too. And Charles would have noticed if there had been an unusually high amount of air traffic over town.

There was a certain amount of drug traffic that tried to get through to Canada via the back roads of Montana. Sometimes that engendered a few unexpected flights over their territory. But Charles kept track of such things and hadn’t heard any chatter from his contacts at the DEA since they broke up a drug-trafficking ring out of Spokane two years ago. There were a few pot farmers, but that was legal in the state now—and no one was currently hounding them.

“Helicopters or airplanes?” he asked Jonesy.

“Flying things,” said Jonesy, sounding stressed. “I don’t know ‘helicopter’ or ‘airplane.’”

“Okay,” Anna said, and Brother Wolf wanted to roll over and bask in the wave of comfort and quiet she sent out. “That’s okay.”

He didn’t think she meant to direct it at him. Anna was still working on controlling that aspect of her Omega powers. There were times when Charles needed Brother Wolf to be alert, especially when his mate was standing so close to Jonesy.

When she got worried about someone, she tended to soothe them whether she wanted to or not. Even nonwerewolves felt the effects if they got too close to her.

Jonesy’s face lost the lines that had gathered around his eyes, and the monster inside him became less ferocious.

“How long has Hester been worried about the flying things?” Charles asked.

“Fortnight,” Jonesy said. “No more than that.”

Two weeks. About the time his father had left.

“So what happened?” Anna asked. “Where is Hester?”

Jonesy’s face was suddenly twisted and inhuman, and the monster who lived inside the innocent said in a voice that could have come from the throat of a mountain, “WE LEFT HER. WE COULD HAVE STOPPED THEM. STOPPED ALL OF THEM, AND SHE SENT US AWAY.”

Jonesy dropped to all fours, and Charles thought that perhaps his real fae form was something with four feet. On Hester’s mate, that posture was a position of strength.

Anna was too used to living with monsters to do more than flinch at Jonesy’s volume, and even that had been very slight. The spirits that had been slowly gathering closer as Anna and Jonesy spoke vanished, frightened by the monster’s raw appearance.

Charles didn’t move, though he felt the vibrations of that voice rising from the ground beneath his feet. Jonesy was too close to Anna, and even Brother Wolf knew better than to increase Jonesy’s stress when she was vulnerable.

“Hester sent you home?” said Anna in a soft voice. “That’s rough. We need to go help her, right? You need to tell us the rest, so we can do that.”

And just as quickly as it had come, the beast left Jonesy’s face.

He nodded and rose to his feet ungracefully. When he spoke, it was a half mumble. “She said, ‘Go home, Jonesy. Go home. Call Bran. No, he’s gone. Call his number and tell whoever answers to come up here. Then you wait behind your glamour for them to come. You go, Jonesy.’”

Charles was aware, because Bran had told him, that Hester could talk to her mate when she was in wolf form. What he found most interesting was that her words—he had no doubt he’d been given what she said word for word—didn’t sound like a wolf who had gone feral after she’d killed a bunch of intruders who had invaded her territory.

“Why couldn’t she come?” asked Anna. She was still sending waves of comfort—it would take awhile before she could get it under control again.

Charles had learned to deal with that. Her power made Brother Wolf rest, leaving the human part of him completely in charge. Sometimes it was wonderful. Sometimes, like when he was in the middle of a fight, it was very inconvenient. But it was no longer enough to throw him for a loop. He wondered if she was helping Jonesy’s control, wondered what would have happened if Charles had come here without his mate.

Jonesy rubbed his upper arms as if he were cold, then he took a step closer to Anna and relaxed a little. Brother Wolf didn’t like the change in proximity. Not at all.

“She was in a cage,” Jonesy said. “An iron-and-silver cage. She couldn’t break the silver, and I couldn’t break the iron. A trap. They didn’t see me.” He whispered, “She sent me home.”

Jonesy was fae, and whatever kind of fae he was, was powerful. Charles was willing to believe that if Jonesy didn’t want someone to see him, they wouldn’t be able to. He also believed he could have stopped a bunch of people who caged Hester.

“Where?” asked Charles.

Jonesy pointed to the far side of the valley. “There. Up on the mountain. About two miles from here as the crow flies.” He turned to look up into Charles’s face, his own bearing an expression of sorrow. “She said I was to wait here because under no circumstances could I be captured.”

He looked at them, and said in a whisper, “I could destroy them, you see. But to do it I would have to break my word.”

Dangerous, said Brother Wolf, again.

“We made a bargain, she and I. A bargain with your father. A home here in return for never using my power for harm.”