Magical Midlife Love: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Leveling Up Book 4)

by K. F. Breene

  I clasped my hands as Jimmy took a much-too-large bite of the sandwich, filling his cheeks to the extent that he could barely close his mouth. He’d relaxed a few of his manners at college, that was clear.

  “So…there’ve been some changes with me,” I started. “It all started with this house…”

  “I know.” He struggled to swallow before taking a sip of the freshly opened can of Coke to wash it down. “You look really good, Mom. You finally had time to exercise and stuff, huh? You always wanted to get in shape.”

  “I wanted to be in shape, not get in shape, but…no. This house—”

  “This house is rad. It’s creepy as hell.” He bobbed his head as he looked around. “It’s huge.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Mr. Tom finished washing up. “I assume I will stay behind to watch the young master when you visit the bar?”

  Jimmy’s eyes rounded, but he didn’t comment. There was no telling what, precisely, he was reacting to.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind. The others are already there, not to mention Austin.” Anger flash-boiled my blood. I pushed it aside. “I’ll have plenty of cover.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Tom walked from the room with a straight back, raised nose, and grossly overdone stuffy English butler vibe. He did like to put on a show.

  “You have your own butler?” Jimmy asked with a grin, his right cheek puffed out with food. “That is so fucking awesome.”

  I frowned at him. “When you are in this house, you will not curse. Have respect for me and your surroundings.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, and finished off the first sandwich.

  “I do have a butler of sorts, yes. He kinda…came with the house. He was employed here when I came. So was the gardener.”

  “Yeah, you have a huge yard.” He shook his head. “Dad’s house is big, but it doesn’t even compare to this one. He lives in a ritzy spot, but he certainly doesn’t have the money for a butler!”

  “You went to his house first?” I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face. It was petty, but some things couldn’t be helped.

  “Yeah. I thought you knew? He kept pushing and pushing, and all the guilt trips…” He sighed, picking up the second sandwich. “Same ol’ Dad. He hasn’t relaxed with the new setup.”

  “So then…why are you early? I wasn’t expecting you for another day.”

  “I could not handle Camila for one more second. She’s too…nice! She was always around, smiling and chatting and wanting to get to know me.” He shivered. “Dad was working like he always does, so it was mostly just me and her. I mean, she’s great, don’t get me wrong, but…” He shook his head and then took a bite.

  “So…how long are you here? I’d thought you were going to leave from here to go there.”

  “The week, if that’s okay? I fly out on Monday. After Easter.”

  I smiled and quickly walked around to wrap my arms around his shoulders and squeeze him. “Of course! We have plenty of room. But…” I sat at a stool next to him. “Like I was saying, there have been some changes.”

  “You found someone new?”

  “What? No, not that. You see, I didn’t actually pay for this house. It kind of…chose me.”

  His eyes narrowed, not out of suspicion, but like he was trying really hard to get my words to make more sense.

  “Gargoyles are actually real,” I said. “Magic is real. I didn’t believe it at first, but… Well.”

  “Are you on meds? Is it for the depression? Dad said you were depressed.”

  My eyebrows crawled up my forehead, and a new flash of anger blistered through me. “Your father never bothered…” I pushed away the desire to talk smack, taking a deep breath. “I’m not depressed, no. I’m actually happier now than I’ve ever been. But the world as you know it isn’t actually the whole story.” I twisted my lips to the side, thinking. “Right, okay. Finish up. I’ll show you. I didn’t actually believe any of it until I saw proof.”

  “What kind of proof?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Miss, are you sure this is the best idea?” Mr. Tom stood in the large entryway, awaiting further instruction. “The game box is all cued up with his favorite game. Wouldn’t he rather do that? Remember how your parents reacted?”

  Edgar stood beside Mr. Tom with a supportive smile. He had no problem showing his supernatural abilities to a non-magical person.

  “This is the only way, Mr. Tom, or Ivy House will just rattle him. You know she will.” I pointed up at the panel arching above the entryway, bridging the gap between large, curving staircases. A lovely tableau of a meadow was etched into the wood, spring flowers covering the rolling hillside.

  “Mom, you’re starting to make me nervous,” Jimmy said softly, and my heart squished because it was clear he was worried about me. He cared.

  “You’re stealing all of my fun,” Ivy House said to me in our magical way of speaking. “I wanted to see if I could make him wonder if he was going crazy, like your father.”

  “Which is exactly why I am telling him now,” I replied. “I want him to be happy here. To be comfortable. I want him to come back.”

  The house was quiet for a beat. “Ten-four.” An affirmative.

  The flowers engraved on the panel swayed as if caught in a gust of wind, the carvings so lifelike that I could almost smell the floral aroma. I found myself assigning colors to them: buttery yellow speckled with loud fuchsia. Violet dotting the way.

  A memory stirred, of sitting on a rock shelf above such a meadow, a similar array of flowers stretching away into the soft afternoon sun. Austin had sat beside me, easy and comfortable, a feast of meats and fruits and cheeses displayed in front of us, a crate of wine to one side. He’d given me the perfect date, as he’d set out to do.

  “You’re choosing his side,” I said to Ivy House. Usually her wooden carvings were of battle and death and heads on spikes or, if she was feeling less vicious, magical creatures in fantastical situations. She’d never displayed such a pretty, mundane scene. She always, however, liked to poke the bear and create images that would mess with me in some way.

  “Yes.”

  Understanding dawned. “You knew this was going on, and you didn’t mention it…”

  “Obviously. I’ve been dormant for much too long. All of the guardians have. I need you alive, and the magical link gives them the ability to keep you safe. This was always in your best interest. Any magical person would’ve known that.”

  “Which I’ve acknowledged. My arrangement with Austin was a bit different, though. I trusted him to be honest, and he purposely deceived me. I have every right to be pissed.”

  “By all means. Kick his head in. Just don’t kill him. I need him. He’s the best chance you have at long-term survival. Above all others, above the mage that came earlier today, Austin is the man that I need the most. That you need. So give him hell, but let him explain. Unless his explanation is bad. Then let him use his mouth in other ways that will be much more enjoyable than talking.”

  I frowned at her. She was entirely too focused on getting me laid.

  “I will get to the root of that link so I control it from my end.”

  “I don’t doubt you. Ultimately, that power is yours above mine. Above theirs. If you’d just put your big-girl pants on and do the blood oath, you’d realize that the links you share are as much for them as they are for you. If they are ever in trouble, you will need those links to find them. To save them. You are a team, and you are stronger together.”

  “I don’t need to give blood to want to save my crew if they are in trouble. That’s a given.”

  “Then why are you so hesitant to take the oath?”

  A wave of unease washed through me, the price tag of forever weighing on me heavily. When Ivy House started making chicken sounds—“bawk, bawk, bawwwwwk”—I cut off the communication. She could be insufferable.

  Reemerging into reality, I realized Edgar was talking, and likely had been the whole t
ime I was communicating with the house.

  “Yes, a real vampire. I’m one of the oldest alive.” He smiled, his canines long and gruesome. “Usually when a vampire is turned out of their clan for being too old, they are hunted for sport and killed for fun. I found Ivy House, though. They don’t think I’m great sport for some reason.”

  “Probably because you keep asking to be retired,” Mr. Tom said. “It’s no fun when the prey asks for it.”

  Retired meant killed permanently. Every time Edgar made a mistake, which was pretty often, he insisted that I kill him. It would’ve been a running joke if he didn’t actually mean it.

  “What was in that soda?” Jimmy asked softly. “I feel like I’m on acid or something.” He rubbed his eyes, watching the wooden tableau move and shift, less like wooden carvings and more like a TV screen.

  “Shall we?” Mr. Tom put his fingers on the buttons of his jacket, awaiting my directions. “I want to bring in Master Jimmy’s things and get his room set up.”

  “Just call him Jimmy, Mr. Tom. And yes, that’s fine. Edgar…” I motioned for him.

  Edgar puffed into a swarm of insects.

  “Holy—” Jimmy staggered backward. “What just happened? Seriously, was there something in that soda? Did I take an edible and not know it?”

  So my son had tried edibles and hallucinogens—that was something I could’ve gone my whole life happily not knowing.

  After a deep breath, I motioned for Mr. Tom to hurry up.

  A hidden door popped open down the way, Ivy House wanting to show off her stuff as well.

  “No, no. Why is he dropping trou?” Jimmy asked, backed against the door.

  “Hold off,” I told Ivy House. “Let’s give him a second to adjust. Show him the hidden tunnels and whatever else after he’s gotten used to the idea. He’ll like it better by then.”

  The hidden door down the way clicked shut again. For once, she agreed with me.

  The sound of boulders moving and scraping against each other filled the space. Mr. Tom, in his birthday suit, bent slowly, his skin mottling from pasty white to a deep coal as it hardened into a tough hide. His wings rose behind his back, taking shape and stretching out before he pulled them back in, something he could do even while changing forms. Large teeth protruded from his pronounced jaw, and his ears rose to points within his growing black hair.

  “What in the…” Jimmy’s breath went out of him. His mouth hung open and his wide eyes took in the slow transformation from man to gargoyle.

  For a moment, Mr. Tom crouched on the floor, utterly still, hard stone. Then he straightened to his full height of nearly eight feet, propelled into action by my need for him to show his gargoyle form. Otherwise, if I didn’t have the need, he would stay stone until naturally emerging, the time that took dependent on his age. Given Mr. Tom’s age, that would take a very long time.

  “He looks like the gargoyles from the cartoon,” Jimmy whispered. “Am I really seeing this? Am I tripping?”

  “It’s magic.” I held out my hand, palm up. A foot from my skin, a collection of sparks popped and fizzed. “Edgar, change back.”

  The swarm of insects changed back into the stooped vampire with long fingers and nails and pronounced canines.

  “My magic came from the house, but magic exists all through the world—they are proof.” I magically extinguished the sparks and lowered my hand. “I didn’t believe all this either, at first. Someone I know turned into a large rat in front of me.”

  “A shapeshifter,” Jimmy murmured.

  “That’s right.”

  “They usually turn into predators,” he said through a slack jaw. “I’ve never heard of a rat shifter.”

  “Who wants to write a story about a shape-shifting rat, you know?” Edgar chuckled. “But vampires do drink blood, so you had that right. See? You were already looking for magic in your reading. Now you’ve found it.”

  Jimmy looked at me with dazed eyes, completely gobsmacked, his mind in overdrive and ready to shut down.

  The scene of a winery tasting room appeared in the wood on the archway, and I narrowed my eyes at it. Austin had told me about magic at a wine tasting. My mind had been in overdrive too. It had tried to shut down. Austin had been there to help me through it. He’d essentially held my hand, kept me level. He’d guarded my back while I learned about a whole new world.

  When Ivy House picked sides, she really rubbed it in.

  Six

  Magical people crowded in the bar, unusually packed for a Sunday night. Austin pulled out two beers and flipped the caps off before setting them down in front of two women in their mid-twenties with roaming eyes and simpering smiles.

  “Ten bucks.” He knocked on the bar and moved on, knowing Paul or Donna would follow along behind him and grab the payment. Austin wasn’t so much a bartender as the owner and peacekeeper. Tending bar helped him keep an eye on things without having to mingle within the crowd.

  “Austin Steele.” Down the bar, Niamh raised her empty glass, seated between one of the support beams and a guy in his early thirties with pale eyes.

  Niamh still refused to call Austin alpha. If it had been anyone else, he might’ve pushed the issue and asked for the respect he was due, but he knew it was her way of honoring Jess. Of showing her pride in the Ivy House mistress, and maybe making a subtle statement that she thought Jess was the mightier of the two.

  The sentiment probably should’ve enraged him, but it warmed him instead.

  Austin refilled the ice in Niamh’s cup, placed a bottle of cider in front of her, and then braced his hands against the edge of the bar in front of the mage, meeting that flat, watchful stare.

  “If you’re going to park here, you have to buy a drink,” he said, which wasn’t even remotely true. This mage was here on business, waiting for Jess. He could sit at the bar all night if he wanted to. Normally Austin would make sure he wasn’t disturbed while he did it.

  But something about the mage’s cool demeanor set him on edge. Austin was typically an excellent judge of character, but he couldn’t get an accurate read on this guy. He was dangerous, that was clear. The tang of his power, recently used, tweaked Austin’s nose. He didn’t show the usual swagger or overblown ego of high-powered mages—of high-powered anyone—but he had the power to back it up.

  What really set Austin on edge, though, was the way the mage had been watching his every move, every interaction. He didn’t glance away when Austin caught him, or lower his gaze in response to the look. There was no hostility, but there was also no fear.

  This guy either had incredible confidence, or he hadn’t ever dealt with an alpha shifter.

  Austin certainly hadn’t dealt with a magical person like this mage. Then again, he wasn’t exactly worldly when it came to powerful mages. Shifters and mages didn’t usually mix.

  “Scotch. On the rocks,” the man said.

  “That’s on Ivy House.” Niamh poured her cider over the ice cubes.

  “Any particular brand?” Austin asked as Donna bustled by behind him.

  “Glenfiddich. Please.”

  Austin held the man’s stare for a beat, but he didn’t sense a challenge. He wondered if the mage was simply inquisitive, like a child examining a colorful bug that he didn’t realize was poisonous.

  Whatever his purpose, the mage was treading a fine line. The staring had a time limit, and it was fast approaching.

  Austin felt Jess winding her way closer to the bar. She’d started the trip by herself, but Jasper, who’d been outside the bar, blending in to the stone façade, had peeled away in his gargoyle form and flown to meet her.

  In the beginning, Austin had only really felt a magical connection with Jess, but he could now keep tabs on the whole crew, something that helped him gauge Jess’s level of safety. Her anger earlier in the day, for example, had been met with Jasper’s confusion and wariness instead of alarm. Whatever she had reacted to, it wasn’t a potential threat.

  Austin set the glass down
in front of the mage, meeting his gaze again. Increasing the weight of his stare, pouring power into it, Austin tried to force a reaction.

  “Thank you,” the mage said, but didn’t reach for the glass. He didn’t look away.

  No spike of adrenaline came, no hint of challenge. No fear. No expression at all. Nothing!

  This mage was an enigma, and in Austin’s experience, enigmas were dangerous.

  Niamh watched Austin Steele as he walked away to help someone else, his eyes lingering on the stranger as he moved away. That was odd. It seemed like the alpha couldn’t figure out what to make of their new friend, and neither could she, truth be told. She’d yet to meet anyone else who could hold eye contact with Austin Steele like that. Besides Jessie.

  She grunted and took a sip of her cider.

  “What do ye think of the town?” she asked.

  “It’s…” The mage took a sip of his drink, watching Austin Steele go about his business. “This territory should be in its infancy, right? Isn’t he a new alpha?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  He shook his head. “Looks like he’s been running this town all his life.”

  “He’s basically been running it since he got here, just without the title.” She felt Jessie winding closer and wrestled a delighted smile off her lips. Niamh hadn’t told Austin Steele why Jessie was so pissed off earlier. It would be a wonderful and probably extremely violent surprise.

  “I don’t know anything about shifter territories other than what I’ve read, but this place seems like a well-run magical town.”

  “Well-run? Do ye hear him?” she exclaimed.

  “Who?”

  He clearly wasn’t familiar with that turn of phrase.

  “The new people have made a right bags of this town—”

  “A right what?”

  “It’s a fecking shitshow, so it is. Pure chaos. There are lads running all over the place with their willies in their hands, lookin’ to fight. It’s madness. Well…” She took a sip of her drink. “It’s fun, don’t get me wrong. It’s like a game of Whac-A-Mole, but you have’ta play behind Austin Steele’s back or things get ugly. When I’m in a mood, I can always find someone to pound on. It’s great craic.”