by K. F. Breene
“When’s he supposed to get here?” Austin asked, his hand slipping down to the small of my back.
“Tomorrow. That’s why I canceled training. I’ll probably be sitting in the front room, pretending I’m not anxiously looking out the window every second.”
“Well…” Austin stopped near the No Outlet sign at the corner of my street. “If you need anything, call me.”
“Are we…” I pointed at him as he made to turn back. “Are we back to being friends, then?”
He didn’t smile at my teasing. “You’re one of the most important people in my life, Jess. We’ll always be friends. I’ll make sure nothing gets in the way of that.”
“You need to lighten up.”
“I’m the alpha. I don’t lighten up.” He winked at me, which I appreciated all the more because I knew it couldn’t be on the approved list of social interactions.
“Can I ask a favor?” he said.
“Sure.”
“I’ll need to run some training exercises with the new pack members, see what I’m working with, and I wondered if I could use the Ivy House woods. I can feel people on the grounds better now, and it would be helpful to—”
“Of course. Just make sure to enter the grounds before the others so she knows not to harm them. And don’t allow any stragglers. Ivy House is very moody lately, and she often acts before I can defuse the situation.”
“How do you defuse the situation?”
“By taking control of the arsenal. It’s like grabbing a plastic sword out of a child’s hand so the kid doesn’t thwap someone.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.”
“It is once the heir has enough power and control.”
Something glinted in his eyes, and I found myself tapping into our connection. His pride beamed through it, making my face heat. “Any idea how much power you have yet to…inherit?”
“I don’t know how much is eventually coming, no. Edgar thinks I’m over halfway there because we’ve made it through the first book.”
Austin’s eyes crinkled, and that feeling of pride almost overwhelmed me. “I’ll have to work hard to create a castle that is worthy of your keep.”
I shrugged, my embarrassment flaring higher, although I wasn’t sure why. “I need more instruction, though. The books only have so much. The instructions are literal, and there’s not much room for reinterpretation or tweaking. I need a powerful teacher who can help me with nuances.”
“It’ll happen.” He nodded to me. “You sent out that summons. The right mage will come.” He took a step back, and his muscles popped once again. He gritted his teeth. “Hands in pockets,” he murmured, taking another step back. “I have to get going. Text me when your son is around. I’d like to meet him. See if he’s as crazy as his mother.”
He gave me a brief smile before turning, clearly willing to beat up a few more people to give me a proper goodbye.
“He’s conflicted about—”
Sensing another presence, I cut myself off and spun around, ballooning my magic around me even as I sent out a wave of power with a “Hah,” chopping my hand through the empty air for emphasis. Once that would’ve been a ridiculous karate chop; now it was an unnecessary flourish.
Austin turned just in time to see Jasper go sailing, up over the stop sign and into the trees, catching halfway up before tumbling down, hitting a dozen or so branches before he splatted onto the dirt.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” I rushed to Jasper as Austin kept going, probably figuring it was just another day when dealing with me. He was right.
Jasper lay with his hands spread out to the sides, wheezing. “Sorry!” I said, sending a prod of magic to make sure nothing was broken or punctured. Finding he was just bruised, I quickly repaired the damage. “Are you okay?”
“You’ve taken away the pain. I am okay. Just…dazed.”
“Okay.” I rested my forearms on my knees as I looked down at him. He didn’t make a move to rise. “Do you…” I bit my lip. “Should I help you up, or…”
He struggled to his side before pushing up onto his knees. “Was that punishment for using the hairy shifter in your training?”
I grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. “No. I was just distracted and didn’t hear you creeping closer.”
“Why use ears? You can feel me.”
“Oh no—I could’ve sworn I told you, sorry. I usually block the links to give us all some privacy.”
He braced his hands on his lower back and arched back, trying to stretch it out even though he couldn’t feel the pain anymore. It gave me a little validation for my reaction to the stab wound.
“You’ve said you block it, yes.” He nodded, dropping his arms. “But since it has never been blocked, I assumed I was still on trial.”
I blinked at him for a moment. “What do you mean it isn’t blocked? I’m blocking it right now. You shouldn’t be able to feel my presence or emotions or anything. I can’t feel yours…”
His dark eyebrows drew in. “I can still feel your presence and…confusion.”
I blinked at him. He stared at me.
I pulled the block away, his confusion and wariness immediately rushing in. “Is that any different?” I asked.
“Is what any different?”
Frustration boiled within me, and his wariness grew.
“You feel my emotions all the time?” I demanded.
He stiffened, and I could sense his anxiety through the link. He was stopping himself from stepping backward in the face of my anger. “Yes.”
“Do you always feel it at the same strength? The feelings through the link never dim or anything?”
“I can’t feel emotions when you’re asleep, just your location or proximity. When you startle awake, it wakes me.”
The heat drained from my face. “What about when…” I cleared my throat. “What about after I go to bed, but before I actually go to sleep. Like…late at night…”
“When you pleasure yourself? Yes, I feel that.”
I could do nothing but stare. In mute horror.
Whatever he felt through the link got the words flowing.
“At first that confused me,” he said, “since you did not express interest in bedding me. Then I thought maybe you were trying to pleasure me through the link. Only, it was just the feeling of pleasure and not actual pleasure, if that makes sense?” My expression clearly insinuated that it didn’t. “I could sense you were feeling pleasure, but it wasn’t directly manifesting into my pleasure. So I finally realized the link was like a two-way radio, and each person controlled the volume from their side.”
This was the most he’d ever talked in my presence. He rarely said a couple of sentences jammed together, let alone a whole paragraph. This wasn’t the subject I’d have chosen for him to find his voice.
“Please tell me you started turning the radio down during those times?” I whispered.
Wariness crowded the link now, so heavy that I felt like I was drowning in it.
“I didn’t know I should,” he responded. “Gargoyles are sexual beings. We share it freely. I thought…”
His words ceased at the shaking of my head, at the continued horror that was surely on my face. Not that he’d need the cue. He could apparently feel it.
I turned and headed for the house, my mind whirring.
“Do you know if it’s the same with Ulric?” I asked.
“I have not asked,” he said, falling in behind me.
It occurred to me that one or the other, Jasper or Ulric, was always out in the halls whenever I got up from a nightmare, a frequent occurrence lately. Almost as if they knew what was happening. And then there was Mr. Tom, who was always one step ahead of me when it came to getting up in the morning, either waiting by my bed or getting coffee ready to bring up. He could accurately predict my hunger and had a sixth sense about what I needed before I asked for it.
Because he’d been feeling my emotions the whole time.
We n
eared Ivy House, its massive shape cloaked in dark shadows that matched my mood. Niamh sat on her porch across the street, a rock in hand. She was watching a man who’d stalled in front of Ivy House. He reached into the satchel hanging at his side, probably to grab a newly created potion. Given she hadn’t thrown the rock yet, she knew he wasn’t a tourist. Now she was watching to see if he’d become my next professor.
I had my mind on other things. Mainly, the fact that Mr. Tom and the gargoyles were not the only people who’d been lying to me.
Austin had been able to feel me all this time as well. He’d randomly called when I was upset for some reason or other, or in danger, to check in. The “coincidence” had always been welcomed. But now I realized those calls hadn’t been random. He’d been responding to my distress.
He hadn’t turned the volume down on his side. At least, he didn’t all the time.
In this time of peace, did he still feel everything I felt even though I was giving him the privacy I thought he wanted?
My gut pinched in anger and I started forward again, Jasper shadowing me, back to silence. He hadn’t apologized, and why should he? He hadn’t known any better.
Austin did.
The man in front of Ivy House upended a bottle of yellow potion into his mouth before putting it away.
“Not enough power,” I murmured. The color was wrong for that potion, which meant the creation wasn’t powerful enough to mask him from Ivy House.
I quickly crossed the street onto the sidewalk, passing in front of Niamh’s house, Jasper following suit.
The mage stepped onto the walkway leading to my front door. One hesitant step, two… Picking up the pace now, four steps, five…
He reached the magical panel Edgar had installed in the sidewalk. I’d covered it with a simple masking spell, blending its look and characteristics with the landscape around it. A good mage should have been able to recognize the spell—fuzzy edges and a slight sheen gave it away.
The panel popped up with a loud snap.
The man didn’t have time to swear. The vial flew out of his hand. His body soared up into the air, the spelled and spring-loaded panel flinging him in an arch.
He windmilled his arms as he rotated. “Whoooooooaaaaaaa.”
He smacked down onto the pavement in the street, his arms splaying out and his satchel half under him.
Niamh cackled, leaning back in her rocking chair and holding her stomach with one hand.
“What the…” The man flailed like a turtle on its back. “Why…”
“Here ye go, a participation medal.” Niamh pushed to her feet and hurtled a rock at the man. It pelted his chest.
“Hey!” The man jerked, flailing harder now.
Niamh doubled over, guffawing. She loved that new ejection cord, as she called it. She also loved sending the failed candidates running.
She scooped up another rock and threw it, cracking him in the side of the head. “Have’ta be stronger than ye are. Now off ye get.” She threw another. “No time to waste.”
The man cried out, finally making it onto his feet. The satchel dragged at him as he stood, anger tightening his limbs. He faced Niamh down, his power surely building, probably readying a spell.
I hurried forward to intercept, but I needn’t have bothered.
“Oh, so ye want to play cops ’n’ dinguses, do ye?” Niamh stripped out of her clothes like a woman on speed, her movements that of someone half her age, her deftness and strength compliments of Ivy House. (The magic would have made us all young too, but I’d accepted only some of the perks. I’d earned my age, and I wasn’t ashamed of it.)
The man lifted his hands to fire off a spell, but she’d already changed into her nightmare alicorn form, with ink-black scales and a flaring golden mane, her golden hooves drumming against the ground as she charged at him. She lowered her head, pointing her crystalline horn at his chest.
“Holy—” He fired off the spell, the blast going wide, before scrambling out of the way. “A puca?” he choked out, panic riding his words.
Niamh ran past him, narrowly missing an impaling strike. The man would have no way of knowing she’d aimed badly on purpose. She wasn’t on Ivy House soil—she knew better than to kill someone, unprovoked, in Austin’s territory. She had a very, very short list of things she feared, and he was high on that list.
I ignored her antics, my mood souring further. Yet another mage had failed the tests, and I had to wonder if anyone appropriate would show up. I walked past the mock battle in the street and magically reaffixed the trap panel before pushing into Ivy House a moment later.
Mr. Tom was walking down the hall toward me, his tuxedo wrinkle-free in opposition to his lined face. His wings looked like a cape, brushing the backs of his legs. A sandwich waited atop a silver tray next to brown liquid in a crystal glass. Iced tea, no doubt.
“Good afternoon, miss,” he said, his voice stuffy. “Would you be taking lunch in…your room, perhaps? Maybe overlooking the gardens?”
That spot always calmed me. He knew that. Given what he could sense through the link, he knew I needed it.
I clenched and unclenched my fists. “Why didn’t you tell me it doesn’t do squat on your end when I block my magical link to you?”
Mr. Tom stooped in front of me, and his snobby butler’s facade slipped. “Ah. You clued in to the real nature of the link, I see.”
My anger burned brighter. “Yes, I did. You’ve all been keeping a very important piece of information from me.”
“It’s been a collective effort of sorts, yes, miss. We had sound reasoning to do it.”
“That right?” I glanced back at Jasper. “You may go.” Those words made it sound like he was a servant, which I didn’t love, but it was the nicest way I’d found to politely tell people to get lost. Otherwise there would be a four-letter word involved.
“Of course, miss,” Jasper mumbled, and regret curled through the link. He’d realized, belatedly, that the others had been purposefully keeping the link thing a secret.
“And what sort of sound reasoning would that be, Mr. Tom? What sort of sound reasoning would excuse anyone—everyone—for refusing to give me the same privacy I’ve given all of you?”
Niamh let herself into the house, having clearly scared off the mage.
“Let’s sit and talk about it, miss.” Mr. Tom gestured toward the front sitting room.
“I don’t want to sit and talk about it, Mr. Tom. I want to hear your very sound reasoning, and then I want to…do something horrible. Do you have CDs? I kind of want to scratch all your CDs.”
“Your honesty is refreshing, miss.” Mr. Tom sniffed. “But no, I have moved into the modern times digitally. You’ll have to find something else to ruin, I’m afraid.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Niamh asked.
Mr. Tom set the tray down on the side table further in the entryway, pushing aside an antique vase crawling with mustard leaves and tangerine thorns. “Miss has recently learned that she can only block her side of the magical link.”
“Ah.” Niamh backed up and leaned against the wall.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I demanded, magic roiling within me. “Why? I look like an absolute fool! Jasper thought I was trying to pleasure him through the link, of all things. Can you even fathom how embarrassing that is?”
“No. What sort of eejit would think you’d give someone like him the time of day?” Niamh said, grossly missing the point.
Edgar opened the front door and popped his head in. “Is everything okay?”
I rounded on him. Before I could get a word out, his eyes widened and he ducked back out, slamming the door on himself to get away. Clearly he’d felt my anger.
I barely stopped myself from magically ripping the door open and dragging him back in with invisible hands just so I could yell at him, too. I was that mad. No, it wasn’t just anger. I felt embarrassed, betrayed. I’d been lied to this entire time by people I trusted. People I cared about. They’d co
llectively kept something big from me, and here I stood on the outside looking in, vulnerable.
“You’ve uncovered a grave error on my part, miss.” Mr. Tom bowed his head solemnly. “I did not take the new recruits—Jasper and Ulric—aside and explain how and when to deaden the link. They can set it up so the link automatically muffles when you’re engaged in certain activities, such as…personal time…” My face heated. I knew what he meant. “Locations can also deaden the link, like the bathroom. Ulric did mention that he’d figured out how to quiet the link for a little peace of mind. I can easily train them in ways to increase your privacy. You see? It isn’t as bad as you thought.”
Anger blistered and power boiled.
“It’s not up to you to decide when you peek on me and when you don’t need to,” I ground out. “I will not tolerate having no control over my privacy. I don’t want Jasper listening in when I’m…otherwise occupied. And what if I start dating? It’ll be like having a bunch of voyeurs.”
“In fairness, we haven’t any privacy either,” Niamh said, unconcerned with my anger. “You control when to use the link and when not to.”
“I keep it blocked unless it’s an emergency,” I replied.
“As do we. Well…most of us, anyway.” She side-eyed Mr. Tom. “Some of us are like mother hens.”
“My job is to look after her,” he said. “The link helps me do that. Which is why there is a link in the first place.”
“Did you tell Austin how and when to deaden the link?” I asked.
Mr. Tom pursed his lips. “No, I did not. An oversight I will happily remedy—”
“He knows how,” Niamh cut in. “Maybe not automatically, which he’ll be happy to learn, I imagine, but he knows how to deaden it when he wants to. Doubt he does very often—he can’t be around, so he has to keep an eye on ye in other ways, Jessie. It’s his job. It’s all of our jobs. This is what we signed on fer. Ye have to let us watch over you.”
“I let you watch over me,” I said. “I let you tag along, barge into my room, keep tabs on my location—I’ve been pretty lenient with all this. In return, you lied to me. Don’t you see? It isn’t just that I am incredibly embarrassed that my…private time was spied on, or guilty that every time I wake up and wander around the house, all of you wake up, too. It isn’t even my frustration that I can’t have a moment alone—totally alone—to miss my son or feel sorry for myself in other ways. It’s all of that plus the deception. Austin made a big deal about wanting out of this magic—about wanting privacy—and I gave that to him, only to find out he’s been emotionally watching me. That sucks.”