by K. F. Breene
“I don’t know. You meet that guy, and you expect to be told what to do, and you just know you’re going to do it. I wouldn’t even be pissed to do it—I’d just get it done and get out of his way, know what I mean?”
“She doesn’t, young master. She has no clue what you mean,” Mr. Tom said solemnly. “She barely knows how to get out of her own way.”
I rolled my eyes, making my way out of the kitchen and into the front yard. Two dozen men and women waited on the street, dressed in sweats and loose shirts, standing in clusters and murmuring softly, clearly waiting. Austin turned to me when I stepped outside, his gaze sweeping my body before burning into my eyes.
I braced myself, not sure what he was going to say, how I’d react to whatever it was.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking. I might have an…unorthodox solution to our problem.” He turned his back on his waiting people, facing me.
I wasn’t sure which problem he was talking about. “Oh?”
He shook his head a little, flexed, and gritted his teeth.
Despite myself, a smile crept onto my face.
“Run your fingers through your hair?” I guessed. “Was that what you stopped yourself from doing?”
He looked down at me, mirth sparkling in those beautiful eyes. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “I was going to brace my hands on my hips. This is a bit…” He shook his head, the humor fleeting. “The mage who sent that invitation might not be significant, but I think we ought to host him sooner rather than later. If we can grab him as an ally, great. If not, we need to make a statement, to rattle him to the point that his allies and competitors don’t want to mess with us. We have to be prepared in case of the latter.”
I let out a shaky breath. He didn’t plan to bring up last night. At least not right now.
Why was I so relieved about that? Why was I so nervous?
“That all sounds great, but don’t we lack the power to make a statement?” I asked.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I wondered… What would you say to pushing that meeting out a month so I can bring in some temporary help to fill my ranks? I’ll have the people on the ground even if you don’t have everyone you need in the air yet. When we’ve made our point, we can disband them.”
“Do they have that? Shifter temps?”
He swallowed, his eyes creasing at the corners. I finally opened the link, feeling the discomfort pouring from him. “I was thinking about calling in a favor to my brother.”
Ten
The words tasted sour on Austin’s tongue, but he couldn’t see any other way to make this work. Even to get this mage as an ally, they’d need a show of power. They’d need to show they were someone worth knowing.
But if things went wrong and Austin didn’t squish that threat immediately, it would be open season. Shifters from all over would think him weak, coming to test him, to invade his territory—more so than the normal startup growing pains. Much more so.
That wasn’t the biggest concern, though. If Jess showed off her power—and she would as soon as she did a spell—that mage would know what a powerhouse she was. He’d soon also realize how inexperienced she was. How magically naïve. How great she’d be to train up and force into a position on his staff.
It ultimately didn’t matter which way the meeting went. Austin needed experience and power on his side. He needed a steady, reliable, strong defense. He needed to guard Jess in case the worst happened, and with mages, there was usually a high probability of that.
“Would he be okay letting you pull rank?” Jess asked, her deep hazel eyes full of concern.
He wanted to run his thumb across her chin, then her lips. Given she wasn’t his mate, and his pack was standing behind him, he did neither.
“I can’t say for sure, but I’d bet a million dollars that he would. He isn’t like me. He doesn’t push for dominance without meaning to. He’s logical and balanced. And helpful. He never turns his back on someone in need.”
“Then yes, if you think it’ll work.”
He very nearly reached forward to grab her hand.
“Fingers through your hair?” she asked with a devilish grin.
He barely stopped himself from smiling. “You’re not great at guessing my reactions. What’s the schedule for your training? With the weird mage?”
“Oh.” The word rode a release of breath. “I want to spend some time with my shell-shocked son, who met you for only a couple minutes and thinks the sun shines out of your butt. I hoped to show him the town, or maybe take him to see the basajaun.”
A shock of fear coursed through him. He played it cool, though he couldn’t hide the growl. “Why don’t you wait until I can go with you for the basajaun? The basajaun can be unpredictable with strangers, and you don’t know enough magic to both combat him and protect your son at the same time. Just in case, I’d like to be there.”
She shrugged with one shoulder. “It’s pretty far anyway, not to mention we’d have to fly, and I’m not so sure he’s ready to be carried by a gargoyle yet. He is quickly coming around to magic, but that might be pushing it. So maybe we’ll do the town today and hit that tomorrow or the next day?”
He fell into that open gaze. She was so easy to work with. She wasn’t stubborn when someone suggested a change in plan, but would push for all she was worth if she knew her plan was better. He respected that. He respected her.
Which was why he’d unwittingly grown close to her over the past half-year. She’d slipped under his defenses and wound herself through his very person, touching heart and soul. He’d tried to put distance between them to cool things off, but the damage had been done, something that had become incredibly apparent last night when he’d lost himself to blind rage. Hearing that clown speak about her like that…
Rage kindled down deep, barely controlled, threatening to rise.
Mine.
“You okay?” she asked.
She’d pulled him out of it last night. She hadn’t goaded him on like his ex, Destiny, would’ve done. She hadn’t watched it happen in horror, either, too scared to intervene. She hadn’t even forced his hand, which she could’ve. She’d kept her composure, cleared the room, and brought him out of the darkness. She’d known exactly how to handle it, and she’d even helped him deal with the fallout.
The situation last night had left little doubt of what he had to do next. But he didn’t trust himself. Not when he’d made such poor decisions in the past. He needed a second opinion. He needed to know if it was safe to continue down this road, or if he was putting Jess and everyone in this territory at risk.
There were few things in the world he dreaded more than asking his brother to help him with that. But Kingsley was the person best poised to help.
“I’m good,” Austin said. “Let me know what time you want to train with the mage. I’m curious to see what he can do.”
“I’ll text you.”
“And I’ll let you know about my brother. Depending on his answer and his schedule, you’ll have a better idea for that RSVP.”
She bobbed her head, her eyes tightening again. Nervousness flared through the link. She was probably wondering if he’d mention last night.
His answering hunger made her gasp.
He about-faced and walked away. Safer to keep those things at a distance until Kingsley arrived. He had always been the logical one, preferring to think things through rather than rushing in headfirst.
Of course, it remained to be seen whether he would come at all, given the way Austin had left.
Eleven
“Okay, ready?” I asked Austin, who stood across the clearing in the woods behind Ivy House with a knife in hand.
My son, tired from touring the town and surrounding nature on foot, had been content to play his video games for a while, so I’d snuck away to train. I wasn’t ready for him to see me bumbling around with magic. It would strip my new “rad mom” tag right off.
“Go for it.” Austin flared his arms from his sides a
little, ready for my pounding.
“Now, Jessie, remember what the book said.” Edgar hunched over the large volume of the second training book, tracing the lines he’d recently translated. The spells in this book were much easier for him to read than the ones in the first volume. “It’s a spell meant to disarm. Too much power and you’ll literally rip an arm off. We’re starting to get into the big leagues now.”
“She’ll have this one just fine,” Niamh said, standing to the side with Jasper and Ulric. Mr. Tom stood behind Edgar, peering over his shoulder. “She has no problem following directions. It’s when she tries to change the spells that everything goes tits up.”
“Yes, thank you for that lesson on what we already know,” Mr. Tom said.
“If he knew it, why’d he say that?” she snapped.
I flexed my fingers, chancing a glance at Sebastian, who sat to my left on a log, placidly watching us. He’d suggested that I train as usual—he wanted to gauge where I was, magically speaking, before he gave any suggestions.
“You sure you’re ready?” I asked Austin, licking my lips. I hated this part. He was my human guinea pig, and most of the spells I tried out caused him pain or discomfort.
He nodded, and nothing but expectation and support swirled through the link.
Why did the connection feel so completely different now than it had last night? It had almost felt like his actual hands were cupping my breasts, and his slow thrusting—
“Where did yer mind go?” Niamh shouted, bracing her hands on her hips. “This isn’t the time to think dirty thoughts, girl. Keep yer head in the game!”
My face flared with heat and lust blasted through the connection from Austin.
“I made it different. I know how to control the link, and you don’t,” Ivy House said. I’d apparently broadcast my internal debate to her. I occasionally did that without realizing it. It was like talking to myself, but with an audience. “You’ve been a prude for far too long.”
I formed the spell without thought. Niamh was right—I could always perfectly execute the spells in the book. The act of Edgar reading them planted them in my brain as if they’d always been there, waiting to be released.
“You know how to alter the link?” I asked as I released the spell.
“You don’t?”
I frowned at her as the spell reached Austin. It swirled around his body. The knife fell out of a suddenly limp hand. His expression didn’t change, but pain bled through the link. He sank to his knees, his muscles popping, straining his tight white T-shirt and pushing at his sweats. Trembling, he struggled to stand.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my focus narrowing in on him as I jogged over. “What’s it doing? I thought it was supposed to just disarm him.”
“He’s a shifter,” Sebastian said. “His animal is a weapon.”
“But…” I looked at Edgar. “What’s it doing to him?” I shouted.
“Let me just…” Edgar’s finger moved faster over the book.
“I’m…good…” Austin wheezed, on his hands and knees, head bowed. Pain drowned me through the connection.
I could fix his pain. I could numb him. But I worried that if I did, he’d stop fighting against whatever the spell was doing. If I numbed the sensations, I worried the spell might kill him.
Fear ate at me as Edgar said, “Here’s the counter-spell.”
“No—”
A flash of blistering heat and a blinding light cut off Austin’s voice. Fur erupted from him as his body shot up and out, his animal form taking over. Suddenly, a massive polar bear stood in the clearing, much bigger than its counterparts in the natural world. His shoulder was at about the level of my head.
His roar thundered through the woods. The pain fizzled before dying, shed from him like a snake shed its skin. He shook himself before standing on his hind legs, a second roar shaking my bones and jittering my nerves.
Yesterday, I’d thought I could tango with this massive beast. Clearly it had been too long since I’d seen him in his animal form. Raw power pulsed into the clearing, squeezing something inside me left over from my ancestors. The fight-or-flight response to danger in the wild. Right now, it was screaming at me to run.
He lowered back down to all fours before huffing, the clearing dead quiet. A moment later, the heat and light made me flinch, and there was Austin again, his ripped and ruined clothes at his feet, his robust, muscular body on full display.
I was too frazzled to take notice.
“Wow.” Sebastian ran his fingers through his messy hair. “That was…” A cockeyed grin spread across his face. “Very cool. I am literally shaking right now.” He held up this hand. “I am so scared that I am literally shaking. I honestly do not know if I could magically fight that monster.” He paused for a beat. “No offense intended, sir. Just… Wow.”
“Take a number.” I blew out a breath. “Someone run and get him some new sweats. Try to find something other than purple, if you can. He hates the purple ones.”
“I have gray for him, in the laundry room with the others,” Mr. Tom said as Ulric straightened out of a crouch and took off jogging. “Mind the size. I ordered the wrong size the first time around. Get the larger ones. He’s bigger than you—”
“He’s already gone; he can’t hear ye anymore,” Niamh said, waving her hand to quiet Mr. Tom. “Austin, what happened there, then?”
“The spell was trying to cut out my ability to shift,” Austin replied. “Fighting it…hurt.”
“Saying it hurt is a severe understatement,” I said, bracing my hands on my hips. “I didn’t want to numb you and possibly cut out your resistance. Was that a good idea or bad idea?”
“Numbing the pain would’ve made me submit to the spell. It was working through my limbs to my middle. If I hadn’t been able to feel it, I wouldn’t have known how to fight it.”
“Why fight it at all?” Sebastian asked. “It would have kept you from shifting, sure, but the effects would have been nullified by the counter-spell.”
Austin studied him for a moment. “I don’t like being controlled. I would succumb if Jess explicitly asked me to, but she is the only person in the world I would allow to have that much control over me.”
“So if I tried that spell on you?”
“I would not stand still to fight it like I just did. I would fight it as I ripped your throat out.”
Sebastian shivered. “Jesus, you’re intense.” He draped his arms across his thighs. “She said you were in incredible pain. I couldn’t tell.”
“Thanks for the update.” Austin looked back at me. “What’s next?”
“Are all shifters this selfless?” Sebastian asked. “Allowing someone to magically experiment on them even though it causes them great pain? I assume this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”
“To be an alpha is to sacrifice,” Austin replied. “If I can help Jess by undergoing something so trivial as pain, then it’s an easy decision.”
“Many shifters will tolerate a great deal to help their packs,” Niamh said. “Most successful alphas will sacrifice a great deal more, like he said. But only one in a million could endure the sort of magical treatment Jessie throws at this great lummox, and still he comes back for more. Some of the spells are brutal. Sometimes I wonder if he’s touched in the head.”
“That started out so promising,” Mr. Tom mused. “But I see you quickly slid back into your trough of bad manners and name-calling.”
“Ye are much too sensitive, ye donkey,” she replied.
“Yes, that’s the ticket, double down on the bad behavior. Fantastic. I do so enjoy your company.”
“Yer about’ta enjoy my foot up your hole in a minute.”
That crooked grin worked at Sebastian’s lips as he watched them argue.
“Right.” I took a deep breath and shook out my fingers. Now for the hard part. “While Edgar translates the next spell, I should probably work on tweaking this spell so I can use it for smaller stuff. L
ike knocking away your knife without taking away your ability to change. Or”—I snapped—“I know. It would be really good to quickly know what sort of dangers a person is hiding. This spell, if tweaked just a little, should be able to tell me that.”
Austin nodded and looked down at the knife. “I don’t have anywhere to put this at the moment. Maybe we should wait until Ulric is back with the sweats so I can hide it on my person?”
“Well…ye do have somewhere to put it. It just won’t be entirely comfortable.” Niamh’s eyes flicked down and then back up.
“I’m not going to make him put a knife up his keister, Niamh.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Sebastian, this would be a great time for you to instruct me so Austin doesn’t get hit with something ugly.”
“I want to see how you problem-solve. I don’t want to teach you spells; I want to teach you how to create spells. How to figure them out. You’ll be able to make your own, improve others’, and tear them down.”
“Give a man a trout, fill his belly for a night,” Edgar muttered, still looking at the book. “Teach a man about trout, fill him for a lifetime.”
“Something like that, sure.” Sebastian chuckled.
I dragged my teeth across my lip as I faced Austin again, his emotions expectant and patient, with a trickle of leftover heat worming through. The goal was not to hurt him, obviously. Instead of knocking away his weapons, I just wanted to see which ones he had. This was informational, that was all. And sure, I hadn’t waited for the sweats, and I could literally see what he was packing—all of it—but that shouldn’t matter.
“Here we go,” I said, breaking out in a sweat, reminding myself of the trickle of power I needed. That was it, just a trickle. Anything more would turn the spell into something dangerous.
Spell ready, I reduced the power a little more, just in case, and let fly.
The spell hit a magical wall three feet from Austin. Sparks fizzed and sputtered. Fire flared before purple smoke curled into the air.
“You were really going to let her hit you with that?” Sebastian said to Austin, awestruck. “She cannot control her power, she just made up an intricate spell, willy-nilly, and you were going to let her fry off patches of your skin?”