Page 61 of Growl Me, Maybe

“You can’t be sure it was Ezra?—”

“Iamsure. I smelled his magic and scent myself.” Jace stalked forward, slamming a map onto the table. “His trail ends at the edge of the southern wards, where the scent disappears into shielding. We don’t have hours to debate. We have minutes—if that.”

Logan stepped up beside him without hesitation, voice steady. “Ezra’s made his move. We don’t know if it’s just Lyra he wants or if this is a play against Moonfang Keep itself. We also know that he has been wanting to destroy the Moonlit Pact to cause chaos and fear to his advantage. Either way, we mobilize. Now.”

Jace’s gaze swept the room. “I will not sit idle while my mate is hunted. I will not ask permission to save her. You want to file complaints with the High Circle later? Be my guest. But if you try to stop me now, I’ll consider it treason.”

No one moved.

Good.

Because he wasn’t bluffing.

Not this time.

He was outside prepping the first search teams when he heard the gravel crunch behind him. His head snapped up—and there was Calla, breathless, wild-eyed, and barefoot in a long shirt and leggings like she’d run straight from bed.

“You know, there are nicer ways to wake a girl up than by shattering the Keep’s ward alarms,” she huffed.

Jace didn’t pause. “You’ve seen Lyra?”

“No. Which is why I came running. She hasn’t been home. And when her bond thread felt weird this morning—off, faint—I panicked.” Her eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“She was at the Keep. Heard me say something she misunderstood. She ran. Ezra’s men took her.”

Calla’s breath caught, and her expression darkened.

"We're organizing a full sweep," Jace continued, checking his watch with a sharp, impatient movement. His fingers tapped a restless rhythm against his thigh as he surveyed the gathering search teams. "I have Logan on route checking westward lines, but we need more coverage. The longer she's out there with Ezra's men—" He couldn't finish the sentence, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle jumped beneath his skin.

"I can find her."

That got his attention. Jace's head snapped up, storm-grey eyes locking onto Calla with sudden, laser-like focus.

Calla dug into the worn leather satchel slung across her chest, pushing aside various charms and herbs until her fingers closed around what she sought. She pulled out a polished obsidian pendant, its surface catching the early morning light with an almost hungry gleam. "I've got the remnants of her scent from her pillow. And I've got her blood from a hair she enchanted last week by accident—don't ask." She shook her head, a brief flicker of fondness crossing her face. "One minute she was trying to charm her split ends away, the next minute her entire hairbrush was floating around her apartment like some possessed beauty salon nightmare."

She positioned herself in the center of the clearing, feet planted firmly apart, and crushed the obsidian in her palm with surprising strength. Magic flared between her fingers—bright lavender and soft teal strands intertwining like living things—and then swirled down into the ground, seeping into the moss and stone beneath their feet. The energy pulsed outward in concentric circles, leaving faint luminous traces that faded almost as quickly as they appeared.

The airshifted. The wind changed direction, suddenly blowing from the south instead of the east, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something older, something primal. Jace's nostrils flared, his senses heightening in response.

Calla's eyes went silver, all color bleeding away until they resembled polished mercury coins. Her pupils dilated, becoming thin vertical slits as she stared unseeing at something only she could detect.

"She's in Echo Woods."

Jace stilled, his entire body going rigid. Every muscle in his broad frame tensed as if preparing for impact.

Echo Woods was deep.

Ancient. And dangerous.

The kind of place where the trees grew so densely they blocked out the sun even at midday, where the ground was perpetually shrouded in mist, and where the boundary between worlds was said to thin to nothing on certain nights. The kind of place even shifters avoided at night, where compasses failed and GPS signals disappeared into nothing.

"South quadrant," Calla muttered, her voice taking on a hollow, distant quality as her fingers traced invisible patterns in the air. "Old foundation. Stone walls. Hidden by glamour." She blinked rapidly, the silver gradually receding from her eyes. "Ezra's using old magic to mask their presence, but Lyra's chaos signature is... leaking through the cracks. Like sunshine through a broken window."

Jace’s growl rumbled deep in his chest.

He turned to Logan, who’d returned just in time to catch the tail end of the spell. “Form two teams. One with me, one flanking. We follow her magic.”

Logan nodded, already issuing orders.

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