by K. F. Breene
“What do you say we duck out of here early and I make you dinner?” Austin asked her, reaching behind the bar to grab Niamh a cider.
“Get two,” Niamh said. “Who knows when the other yuk-ups will make their way down here again.”
He pulled out another without looking, his eyes on Jessie as she smiled. “That sounds amazing,” she said to Austin. “Do you mind if I have a glass of wine first? I’ve had a day.”
“Of course. I’ll come around and join you.” He pulled out a bottle of Merlot and poured two glasses then pushed them across the bar and winked. “Be right there.”
Jessie frowned again, watching him go. “He winked.”
“Did ye fall on a rock and hit yer head? Why are ye so slow all of a sudden?” Niamh stared at her glass for a moment. He hadn’t freshened up her ice. What a balls. They needed to get this mating thing out of the way so they could go back to being functioning adults. Watery cider was just ridiculous.
“No, but”—Jessie picked up her glass of wine—“alphas don’t show that kind of emotion. It invites challenges.”
No one in their right mind would challenge either of them after Jessie’s show of power. It was quite prestigious for anyone to land an alpha, but everyone in this bar was quickly realizing that it was just as prestigious to land a female gargoyle.
That would’ve filled Niamh with pride if the heir’s magic hadn’t just given her a good rattle, and if she didn’t now have watery cider. The joy of her position had gone out of her. She just hoped those Janes at the end of the bar kept their wandering eyes and especially their hands to themselves until Jessie and Austin Steele got out of there. Niamh liked seeing fireworks, but she didn’t like being blown up by them.
Four
I slouched against the chair and sipped my wine, happy for the background noise of other people chattering. Mr. Tom had been doing my head in, quizzing me on various spells, randomly trying to attack me to see if I could defend myself, going over various clothing options for the trip, and asking if I might want to take Nathanial or a gargoyle in town for a sexual spin for comparison reasons. I think the pressure was getting to the guy. His grip on reality was starting to fray.
After all that, he’d had the gall to ask if I’d “finally” gotten around to deciding how I wanted to reoutfit the house.
I didn’t care about home décor! I was about to stumble my way into an impossible situation, and I was starting to lose sleep thinking about the danger I was putting everyone in. It would be better if I went alone, took a magical kill shot at Elliot, and hoped for the best. End of story. If someone went down, it should be me and only me.
“You good?”
Austin’s rough voice washed over me in the best of ways. I closed my eyes as his hand touched down on my shoulder and drifted across my back, dropping to rest on the back of the chair. I turned a little, dipping my fingers into his pocket and resting my hand there, pulling him a little closer until his side was pressed flush to my shoulder.
“Yeah. You?” I asked, looking up at his handsome face.
“Very. Should I grab a chair?”
He was asking how long we’d be.
My stomach flipped as I thought of him cooking dinner for me. Of what would absolutely happen once we were finished eating.
“No. Just one drink, I think.”
He nodded and reached around me to grab his glass. “So. You took down the phoenix, huh?”
My mood darkened. I scowled at Niamh. “I didn’t have much choice. It was that or die.”
“Bollocks,” Niamh said. “She was fartin’ around the whole time until she finally got her head out of her arse and finished things up.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t bother to comment. I’d already yelled as much as I cared to. She hadn’t backed down then, and I knew she wasn’t likely to have a sudden change of heart.
“One shot?” Austin said, swishing my hair across my shoulders. He stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes and savored the sensation, my heart leaping, his heart beating right beside mine in my chest.
“Mhm,” I murmured.
“You did better than I did,” he said.
I laughed, my eyes fluttering open again. “Hardly. I didn’t get the shot off until after she nearly choked me to death.”
“That Cyra is tough, boy,” Niamh said. “Jessie raked her across the middle, nearly tore her throat out, and battered her around—she just held on until she couldn’t anymore. Everyone knows female phoenixes have more power than the males, but Hollace says she’s also one of the oldest and most vicious of the females. Her soul has been around for ages.”
The link with Austin sparkled with pride. “And now both of the alphas of this territory have taken her down.”
“I’m not so sure I could do it again,” I said.
“Ah, would ye schtawp.” Niamh gave the ceiling a long-suffering look.
“Was that English?” I asked with a grin.
“Janie Mack, ye’re driven me mental, so ye are. Go have dinner. Austin Steele, if ye’re goin’ta have all these people in this bar all the time, ye’re gonna need more bartenders.”
A woman in her early twenties staggered a little as she climbed the steps from the lower area with the pool table and the bathrooms to the main bar area, from which the pool table had been removed a while ago to create space for the crowds. Been there, done that. She was one of the Janes and definitely a tourist.
I sipped my wine, nearly finished, losing sight of her within the throng of people.
“Are you over capacity?” I asked, pulling my fingers from Austin’s pocket and tracing them up his hard side.
He glanced around, taking in the crowd. I caught sight of the woman again, all hips and breasts, her miniskirt barely covering her crotch and her tube top covering just a strip of her middle. Her jewelry glittered, layered on her chest. I watched, transfixed like a magpie, an effect of my exhaustion. I could think of at least three outfits I had that would look great with that collection of jewelry. If only it was in vogue to steal so I wouldn’t have to go shopping.
It didn’t dawn on me that she had drifted a little too close until Austin stiffened, curling his hand around my far shoulder and turning, using body language to advertise that he was with me. I looked at her face; her makeup was a bit smeared from heavy drinking and her lips twisted in a hungry though taunting sort of way.
“Mmm, I like me an older man,” she purred, slowing.
I could feel my eyebrows lowering and wondered if she thought that was a flattering thing to say, calling Austin an older man. Didn’t men take that as the insult women had been taught to?
But when her gaze roamed his broad shoulders, dipped to his defined chest, evident even through his nondescript cotton top, and settled on his package, the logical part of my brain dimmed. Rage as hot as Cyra’s magma bubbled up out of nowhere. My whole being throbbed with it, pulsing with power.
My scope of vision reduced down to the woman, turning a little as she slunk by, her fingertips trailing across her cleavage, tinkling those stylish necklaces. Her predatory gaze darted to me.
She had no idea what a predator really was.
She had no idea who she was challenging.
I pushed Austin away and stood from my seat, power pumping, ballooning out. That distant part of me, the logical part, screamed at me to stop. To control the magic. To reel it back in.
I shouldn’t reveal my power to so many innocent bystanders, and I definitely couldn’t go after a Jane!
But none of that would register.
My wings itched at my back, my gargoyle threatening to claw its way out, and a pinkish-purple sheen vibrated into being around my body, trailing my movements.
I could have sworn a bell rang in the distance. A death knell. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination, or if Ivy House was fueling the fire, telling me to protect what was mine.
Mine.
A stocky woman with white-blonde hair—Isabelle—stepped forward sudden
ly and rammed into the younger woman, knocking her sideways into a crowd of male shifters watching the scene with grim faces. She screamed as she tried to correct on four-inch stilettos, but the excessive alcohol hindered her movements. She scrabbled at one of the shifters as she fell, trying to grasp an arm or a hand.
The man, a newer guy I’d seen patrolling the streets in jeans and a white shirt, pulled his hands away and stepped back, getting out of her way. The others followed suit, letting her fall.
“Oh my God, what the hell?” the woman demanded, fighting with her long, wavy blonde hair as she tried to look around.
“He’s taken,” Isabelle said, looking down on her.
“You bitch,” the woman yelled, pushing to her knees, but Isabelle was already walking away, her message delivered.
The newer guy looked down at the woman, his face impassive. “If you’re smart, you’ll never look at him again, not even when he’s talking to you. Best to take the warning.”
“Oh my God, Brittany, what happened?” Two other women descended, having heard their friend’s cries, and pushed through the crowd to get to her. “Who did this to you?”
“Hold my earrings. I’ll deal with this,” said one of them, a girl with short red hair and big hoop earrings.
“That big bitch that just walked out.” The first woman let her friends haul her to her feet, all of them swaying like new sailors on a boat in stormy seas. “Forget her. It’s not worth it.” Isabelle might have been the one who’d shoved her—and I knew exactly how that felt—but the woman had clearly sensed something from me, even if she didn’t understand it. She speared me with a glance, hatred burning deep in her red-rimmed eyes. “Whore.”
She spun and let her friends help her away, but they weren’t agitated enough to leave the bar—they just headed back to their seats. The loud guys I’d heard earlier were probably waiting for them.
“Those Dicks down there are going to take offense for their friend,” Niamh murmured, then took a sip of her drink. “They’ll probably start a row.”
“Nah.” Austin had hardly moved, watching me with hunger plain in his eyes. “They aren’t friends; they’re just trying to get laid. They’re cowards. If they don’t convince the girls to leave, I’ll have someone escort them out before things…escalate.”
I stared after the three women, expecting to feel bad for my outburst. Or embarrassed. Or even fearful. A swell of possessiveness had taken over my better judgment, and I’d almost used magic to strike down a Jane. And although I wasn’t even sure what spell would have zipped out at her, I sensed that it would have been a bad one. Maybe bad enough that I wouldn’t have been able to heal her.
But I didn’t feel either of those things.
I stared after them for a moment longer, that pinkish-purple light still shimmering around me, and Austin’s heartbeat felt just a little more powerful in my chest. His presence comforted and soothed me, helping me back down.
“I’m going crazy, that’s what this is,” I said softly, bracing a hand on the back of my seat. “This magic, or the bond, or my gargoyle is making me go crazy.”
“Edgar is crazy,” Niamh said. “That fool Mr. Tom is crazy, naming weapons based on their ‘personality.’ The basajaun might just be nuts, as well. The ruling is out on him. Ye aren’t crazy, though. Ye’re owning yer space, that’s all. That trollop pushed into yer space, trying to get a rise out of you, and if Austin’s people weren’t here to keep the bar in one piece, ye would’ve pushed her right back out. That’s within reason. Sure she started it! How is that yer fault?”
I shook my head and finished my wine.
“Your reaction is expected for a shifter,” Austin said, putting his empty glass on the bar. He set his hand on the small of my back. “It was definitely within reason for an alpha sliding toward the mating bond.”
“I’m not a shifter.”
Austin looked down at me, his cobalt eyes taking on a sheen from the sparkly light still shedding from my skin. “No, you are not. And not a single shifter in the world would hold that against you.” He bent down and kissed me softly. “Let’s go get some dinner. You’ll need sustenance for what I’m going to do to you later.”
I smiled at him. “I’m going to hold you to that promise.”
Five
Austin couldn’t help but smile back. Jess wasn’t his mate yet, so it was slightly unorthodox for an alpha to be so openly affectionate in public, but he felt like a little kid at Christmas. Jess had just given her beast the wheel, and his people had needed to step in to calm things down. They knew the score: Austin would have been powerless to stop her.
Mating bonds were tricky. When a shifter saw that his future mate was defending his claim on her, there wasn’t a hope in hell that he’d intervene. Even if his own bar came tumbling down around them.
“I’d never break a promise to you,” he said, running the pad of his thumb down the front of her throat.
Her eyes fluttered and she shivered, a shadow crossing her eyes. “I think I understand a little more of what it means to let someone trace down the jugular like that,” she said, but didn’t pull away.
“Oh yeah?”
“There was a moment today,” she said, “when the shifters got me down, and I had a blast of terror that they’d go for my throat. It felt like death was coming.”
He noticed Kace, his beta, threading through the crowd. When he neared, Kace clasped his hands behind his back and turned his eyes downward. He wanted Austin’s attention but knew better than to interrupt. Wise. Even a small intrusion wouldn’t sit well just now. It was why he needed to get her out of here. Get them both out of here.
This thing with Elliot Graves couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Excuse me,” he said to Jess, then looked at Kace. “Yes?”
“Sir, the Janes are getting all riled up. The Dicks they’re with clearly don’t want to get involved, but it could get…ugly.”
“Get the Janes out of here. The Dicks will surely follow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I did that,” Jess murmured, glancing down the bar. “I made them feel that way.”
Austin walked toward the door, sweeping her along with him. They exited the bar into the early evening, the light dwindling.
“Other way around, actually,” Austin said. “That Jane got you all riled up. On purpose, I believe. I didn’t use to know much about women, but I’ve learned a lot from an insightful and amazing woman I met last fall. A woman who shamed me into realizing I was a selfish jackass—”
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what I was saying…”
“—but I’m no expert. Still, I doubt she would’ve been so vocal about her desire for me if you weren’t sitting right there.”
Jess stiffened and sucked in a breath. She squeezed her eyes closed, and her steps faltered. “Please don’t talk about other women desiring you. I am…not well.”
“What are you, in a Jane Austen movie? You are ‘not well’?”
Her smile was grim. “That’s the only way I can describe it without sounding like a jealous teen. Jealousy stems from a lack of trust, but I trust you implicitly. A beautiful woman could crawl into your lap, and I would trust that you—” She stopped, hands balled up in fists, teeth gritted. “I’d lose my ever-loving mind, is what I would do. ” She breathed deeply. “What’s worse, I’d enjoy it. I would enjoy ripping her off you and beating her to a senseless, bloody pulp. I wouldn’t even feel guilty. I’d feel vindicated.” She shrugged him off and started walking again, heading to the parking lot out back. “I hate that I feel that way. It’s not right. That sort of possessiveness is abusive behavior.”
“Everything you’ve learned in a lifetime as a Jane is warring with your primal knowledge of yourself as a female gargoyle. It’ll take time to get used to it.”
She shook her head but didn’t say anything, clearly at war with her emotions.
“I’m tired,” she finally said as they reached his dirty Jeep wit
h mud sprayed up the side. “My guard is slipping.”
“Your guard against what?”
“Reality? I don’t know. Just let me say things and pretend they make sense.”
He laughed and opened the door for her. “Ten-four.”
“It would’ve been disastrous if I’d attacked that Jane,” she murmured as he got in and started the Jeep. “She wasn’t my equal, and she wouldn’t have healed like a magical person. It would have been like a man hitting a woman.”
“I would like to see what happened if a man hit you.”
“Yeah, right. You’d lose your mind.”
“Not if he hit you, no. Only if he pinched your bottom.” He grinned at her, feeling a rush of adrenaline. In the past, he would have shut it down forcefully, worrying where it might lead, but this time he didn’t.
Austin had always worried he’d lose himself to his beast. That he’d become like his abusive, no-good father. They had the same animal form, after all, and he’d feared he’d fail in the same ways. But giving in to his feelings for Jess had actually made him stronger. And now, watching her wrestle with her own fear and uncertainty, he felt closer to her than ever. Because he’d been there. And seeing her in the thick of the same struggle actually made him less judgmental of his own floundering.
They were meant for each other; he truly believed that. She made him a better man, and he was uniquely qualified to help her cope with the violence of her creature. He’d lived with that darkness all his life.
“What do you want for dinner?” he asked, driving up the narrow mountain road to his home overlooking the valley.
“Anything. I’m easy.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Who?” She frowned at him, then her expression cleared and she gave him a dopey grin. “Ha-ha.” She rolled her eyes, then shook her head. “I’m slow tonight.”
“You’re too wound up.”