by K. F. Breene
Magical Midlife Love
K.F. Breene
Copyright © 2021 by K.F. Breene
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Try Sin & Chocolate
Also by K.F. Breene
About the Author
One
Who was coming to stab me?
I stood stock-still next to the newly closed winery tasting room at the end of the town’s main street, wrapping my gargoyle magic around me like Jasper had taught me, trying to blend into the building. Hard-eyed men and women walked down the sidewalk on the other side of the street, their movements full of lethal grace. It didn’t take a genius to know they were part of Austin’s budding pack.
Was one of them wielding the knife?
An older woman walked down the sidewalk my way, and I controlled my breathing and sucked in my gut, pushing against the wall. Neither of those things were necessary for the gargoyle magic to kick in, but given I couldn’t get the hang of disappearing, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
The strap of her purse slung across her full breasts and rested on the side of her soft stomach. Each relaxed hand was empty. No weapons were strapped to her thighs or her back. Not like that was a normal thing in the middle of town, but still…
Out of shape, older, no weapons—she didn’t look dangerous. Which made her exactly the sort of person Jasper would hand a knife to and set on my trail. The rules I’d created for this particular training exercise were brutal. If whomever Jasper had set on me found me, I’d have to just stand there like an idiot while they jabbed me in a spot my magic could heal. I’d had Jasper pick the assailant so I wouldn’t be able to cheat and hide if I saw them coming.
The two people he’d chosen for the previous weeks had found me, and their apologies hadn’t meant much when the knife was going in. This was my third attempt.
I would do it this time, I could feel it!
The woman paused two buildings down. I concentrated a little harder on blending into my surroundings. My stomach churned.
Jasper had said I’d get a feeling in my gut—was this it? Or was I just anxious about getting stabbed?
She bent to a half wine barrel filled with blooming zinnias, marigolds, and morning glories; bright pops of color. Spring was moving into O’Briens, soft and sweet and lovely. Spring break was next week, and my son was coming to stay.
I hadn’t seen Jimmy in person in over six months. A wave of excitement rolled through me, but I squashed it down, trying to focus.
“Well, well, well…”
I snapped my head away from the woman, only to see my nemesis approaching.
Sasquatch, whose real name I had forgotten in favor of the name I’d given him, had shaggy, greasy hair sticking out at all angles, a scraggly beard reaching down past his neck, and clothes covered in stains. He stopped near me, and the smell of feet wafted up from his well-worn black boots.
We’d been at odds since my first night in town—he’d made a disparaging comment to me at the bar, and Austin had punched him clear off his stool. The pattern had repeated itself plenty of times since.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Get out of here. I’m busy.”
“Busy with what? Standing around looking useless? You do that all the time; why is now any different?” His eyes darted to the older woman down the way, just straightening up.
Was Sasquatch in the know? Jasper usually picked my opponents from the bar, which was Sasquatch’s second home. Since no one willingly talked to him, he listened in on everyone else’s conversations. Maybe he’d heard Jasper hire the woman…
Regardless, I clearly needed to find a new place and try again. If this idiot could see me, the whole town could.
I stepped away from the wall. “Get out of my way.”
He stepped with me, a smug grin on his face.
My world drained of color as he reached around to his rear jeans pocket. His muscles loosened and then contracted, a pocketknife coming around in his stubby fingers. He pulled out the blade.
“Oh no,” I breathed, freezing. “No…”
I could magically blast him like a bug. I could unravel his skin from his bones and let his blood leak down onto the sidewalk. I’d been afraid of him once, but now that I’d mastered (most of) my Ivy House magic, he was nothing more than a nuisance.
Still, there were rules. I couldn’t retaliate.
A jack-o’-lantern grin slid across his face. “Oh yes. Yes.”
His knuckles whitened on the hilt.
“Why’d he pick you?” I asked through numb lips, looking between that knife, the blade a bit dirty and rusted, and his awful smile.
“Right place at the right time.” His eyes twinkled with malice.
“You’ll pay for this,” I seethed.
“No I won’t. I accepted an approved job.”
The older woman passed us by, her pleasant smile turning to a look of alarm when she noticed the knife. I’d picked a terrible location to fail at my magic. With any luck she was magical, and the only person she’d tattle to was Austin. I didn’t feel like lying to the police. Again.
“If you hit back, it’ll be against town law, and the alpha will have to put you in your place. He’s made it very clear he doesn’t play favorites. He won’t ruin his reputation by ignoring an attack on one of his people…” Sasquatch’s smile was triumphant. “Not even for you.”
I gritted my teeth. With hard work, plus help from Austin and Edgar—gardener, vampire, amateur doily maker, and interpreter of Ivy House’s magical books—I had turned the tide in my magical ability. Austin and I were now about even in power. If he tried to cow me for knocking this dirty butthead around, it would be a well-matched battle.
I didn’t want to put Austin in that position, though. His pack was barely contained chaos right now. Or so Niamh had told me. He had said he needed space from our friendship, which kept skirting the line of something more, and although we trained together every day, we hadn’t had a conversation that wasn’t directly related to training in a month and a half. Niamh, on the other hand, still visited his bar nearly every night, and she kept me up to date on the latest goings-on. Everyone had heard rumors of the great Austin Steele, the fierce polar bear shifter alpha, and shifters were flocking to O’Briens from all
over the U.S. and Canada—some even came from other continents. They came to bask in his power, to (hopefully) share in his prestige. And some of them simply came to satisfy their curiosity, wondering if the rumors were true. Wondering if he couldn’t be beaten.
Whenever someone challenged Austin Steele, that curiosity was quickly sated.
His primary objective in securing this territory was to protect me. He was building a castle around my keep. I would not spit in his face by going against the laws that he needed to uphold to run this town. He was my alpha here, just as I was his alpha on Ivy House soil.
“You may not pay for this now, but you will pay for it,” I ground out, fisting my hands, bracing myself. “I’ll find a way that doesn’t violate the town law.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever.”
Terror constricted my chest as he shifted his weight and poised. His muscles bunched and that knife sped toward me, choking me up. The point pierced my side, a momentary flare of bright white pain before I snubbed out the feeling with magic. The blade squelched as he drove it all the way in, the hilt bumping against the circle of crimson quickly expanding on my white shirt.
There he paused, his glinting eyes connecting with mine. I distantly felt Austin drawing nearer, walking up the street, but the usual fluttering of my stomach was absent. Because I had a blade embedded in it.
“Well?” I asked quietly, anger flowering in my middle. “Do you plan to pull it out, or are you trying to give me rust poisoning?”
“That’s not even a thing for magical people, Jane.” He let go of the hilt and pulled his hand back, joy soaking into his features even as blood soaked my shirt. He clearly didn’t intend on pulling the knife out himself.
I didn’t feel the blade, and I was already working on damage control with my healing magic, but that didn’t stop the primal part of me from cringing in dread. A deep part of me still connected a stabbing with a grave. My mind edged into survival mode, each second that dangerous weapon stayed lodged in my flesh pumping out another wave of adrenaline.
I could easily pull it out, sure. I wouldn’t feel it. But half the time it didn’t hurt to work out splinters, either, and digging those out with a sewing needle had always been beyond me.
“Pull it out,” I said through clenched teeth, my hands shaking, not daring to look down at it again. “There’s nothing in the rules about you getting to leave the knife in.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing in the rules about leaving the knife in…or pulling it out, either.” Sasquatch just looked at me with that awful smile, enjoying my turmoil.
“The game is over.” Austin’s deep, rich baritone washed over me. I’d lost track of his approach.
Sasquatch jolted as though struck, his spine snapping ramrod straight, his beer belly popping out. He hadn’t noticed Austin coming at all. A moment later, he bent like a dying reed, drooping over and reaching for the knife.
“No, no!” I slapped his hand away, my reflexes faster than they’d ever been. My body stronger, too. Austin wasn’t just training me in magic. “Careful!”
Sasquatch staggered to the side before lunging back at me. “Alpha said the thing is done. Give me my knife!”
“Don’t grab like that. You’ll make it worse.” I slapped his hand away again and sent a tiny blast of magic to shove him back.
He flew off his feet and sailed ass over end toward the building, his back hitting first, his head pointed toward the ground. My power kept growing, and every time I thought I had a handle on my range, I went and blasted someone across the room. Or down the sidewalk, as the case may be. Oh well. It probably wasn’t the first time he’d been dropped on his head.
“Oops. Too much power,” I said.
Sasquatch struggled to his feet, hand to his cranium. He pointed a finger at me. “You saw her, alpha. She assaulted me. Aggressively! She broke the law. Punish her.”
Austin stepped back into the gutter. Power throbbed off his robust body. Hard eyes surveyed us from a harder face. This was Austin the alpha, not my friend and trainer. He was hearing a complaint from someone in his territory and discerning its merit before he reached a verdict. He was police, judge, and jury in this town, and he couldn’t afford to let someone upset the extremely precarious balance right now.
But then…I wasn’t in the habit of letting people beat me up, either.
This might be bad.
Two
“She has a knife sticking out of her body and she worried you’d do further damage by carelessly yanking it out.” Austin’s eyes sparked with danger. “Every magical person in town is aware of her power situation. You should’ve known how your fumbling would be received. This matter is over.”
The commanding tone had Sasquatch stepping back, uncertainty and fear on his face. “Okay, but…”
Austin looked down on him, unblinking. His power throbbed once, twice, daring Sasquatch to push back. Darkness bubbled just under the surface of his eyes.
“It’s just…” Sasquatch pointed at the knife lamely, reminding me it was still there. Reminding me that a knife was lodged in my stomach and blood was seeping down my side. “I need my knife back.”
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and currently it’s in her possession,” Austin replied.
“Finders keepers,” I muttered miserably, looking at the hilt with my hands spread to the sides. My mind swam. I wasn’t sure if it was from blood loss or the prolonged dumping of adrenaline into my blood, or maybe my mind was convincing my body that it should be in shock.
“Go,” Austin growled, and Sasquatch took off running, grabbing the waist of his pants as he did so, apparently worried they’d slip down and show his cheeks.
“Except I still have a knife sticking out of me.” I swayed.
Austin quickly stepped closer, and his warm hand grasped my shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he crooned, his tone soft and comforting, a complete one-eighty from a moment ago. “I got it.”
I met his eyes, soaking in that beautiful cobalt blue.
“I didn’t mean to retaliate against him,” I said, holding his shoulders for stability. It was like gripping two large boulders. “I was trying to get him to step back.”
“You seem to forget that I’ve been on the other end of that sort of accident a few times.”
“It’s just…I know you’re under a lot of pressure to keep everyone from killing each other here. I didn’t mean to add to that.”
His gaze dipped to my tongue sliding across my lower lip. “Jess, you don’t have to apologize. I know exactly what happened. I watched the whole thing. I was at the other end of the street when he first caught sight of you. If I weren’t officially alpha now, I would’ve told him to get lost. Being the alpha, I had to at least appear to weigh both sides.”
“I thought you didn’t play favorites.”
“I don’t. But I also don’t listen to whiners who delight in stabbing beautiful women.”
I smiled at him, my heart warming.
“Does it hurt?” he asked softly, his hand near the knife, getting ready to pull it out.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t accidentally look down and see. Unlike with a splinter, you couldn’t just leave the knife in until it worked itself out.
“No. I think I’ve mastered my healing magic. It’s just…” I blew out a breath. “My brain is bleating in panic every time I think about it. I have a knife sticking in me, man! For forty years I’ve lived with the idea that being stabbed is a potentially life-threatening situation. It’s hard to ignore that just because I don’t feel the wound. It’s hard to get used to. People in shock don’t feel things either. Shock means something very bad has happened to you. I can’t—”
“I’ll handle it, okay?” His breath dusted my face, spearmint and something sweet.
“Did you eat cake? I could use a slice of cake. I haven’t had cake in…” I trailed away, wondering what the hell was taking him so long. Just yank it out, already!
I flinch
ed at the thought.
“Listen,” he said, his voice still so soft, so comforting. “I wanted to talk to you about the winery.”
As in the winery he’d asked me to buy and run with him. The arrangements had already been made, but what if he’d changed his mind? Did he think it was a bad idea for us to work together?
A wave of worry washed through me, and I blinked my eyes open to see his expression.
His hand moved so fast that I didn’t register it. He grabbed the hilt and yanked.
I cried out, bending in anticipation of a pain I didn’t feel.
A gush of warmth soaked my shirt and then dribbled onto the lip of my jeans. Deep crimson coated the blade in Austin’s hand before he dropped it to the ground and pressed his palm against my wound, bracing his other hand against my back, using pressure to stanch the blood flow. Shifters healed fast, and I healed faster—when I was on my game—but for a handful of heartbeats, magical people bled like anyone else.
“Sorry, I just mentioned the winery for distraction purposes.” Austin grimaced at me, and his smell permeated my world, clean cotton and sweet spice.
“I’m good.” I touched the corded muscle of his bare forearm. “The worst is over.” I glanced down at the knife. “Do you really tell people about my magic?”
“Absolutely. Everyone is warned. I make it very clear that I can’t control you any more than you can control yourself. People are instructed to leave you alone, and if they don’t, they must take what comes. They also know that your property is not part of my territory, and if they trespass, I cannot help them.”