by K. F. Breene
Another scream, closer now and higher. Jess was in the air, and it didn’t sound like it was going well. His range of motion restricted by his animal form, he could not yet see her. Pushing harder, he burst out through the trees lining the cultivated area of Ivy House, circling the flowerbeds that bloomed despite the winter chill. He ran along the maze made of tall bushes and shrubbery until he could see her, way up in the sky, free-falling.
A sound like a sail snapping in the wind caught his attention. A shape with a large wingspan descended out of the clouds, spiraling through the air with incredible speed. The gargoyle angled his flight at the last second and scooped Jess out of the sky, cradling her gently and fondly within his shining gray arms.
Damarion.
Earl in gargoyle form hovered closer to the ground, watching what went on above him. He was the safety net in case Damarion or one of the others didn’t catch Jess. Earl had shown he could pull her out of dire straits in the nick of time.
A bright pink gargoyle swooped around Damarion. In a move that stopped Austin’s heart, Damarion tilted and launched Jess into the air. She kicked her arms and legs, screaming again, and was grabbed by Ulric. Another gargoyle swooped low, and she was tossed again, and again to another. They were playing catch with her in midair, her screams sounding with each hurtle.
Rage bubbled up through Austin, not pushing away the fear. Not watering down his desperation to pluck her out of the sky and deposit her safely on the ground.
A comforting feeling sifted down over him and tried to worm its way inside. A feeling of acceptance and confidence.
Ivy House, trying to tell him how to feel.
He gritted his teeth and forced it away, turning toward the house. He couldn’t watch what was going on in the air, not if he wasn’t ready to give in to the urge to charge the large gargoyle the second he touched down. Niamh, Edgar, and Earl had always done right by Jacinta—they’d always done what was best—and Earl knew what it was to be a gargoyle. If they had put their rubber stamp on this atrocity, he’d let it go. It wasn’t his call.
He didn’t have to watch, though.
Nearer the house, he shifted into human form, hoping the return to two legs would soften a few of those screams. His hearing wasn’t that different across forms, truth be told, but maybe…
“Help! Please, help!”
He spun, eyes searching the sky, seeing Jess falling again, head pointed toward the ground. A shock of adrenaline nearly had him sprinting toward her. He’d never make it in time, not even in animal form, but seeing her in danger strummed at every protective instinct he possessed. He couldn’t reason. He couldn’t focus…
Damarion once again burst through the low cloud cover and thick haze of the frigid day, grabbing her before she reached Earl, and then snapped his wings, stopping nearly in midair. She jostled within his grip and fell free. Her ragged scream cut off as he beat his wings once, grabbing her again and regaining his position. His hold was possessive, declaring to everyone that she was his.
He would claim her as a mate the second she’d allow it, Austin had no doubt. And why wouldn’t he? Jacinta was the complete package. She was witty and smart and fun and beautiful. She knew her own mind, got her way when she needed to, and happily went with the flow otherwise. Her company was easy to keep, and her smiles made any hardship worth the effort.
A lead weight settled in Austin’s gut, and he turned away again. It had been four days since her first date with the gargoyle, and apparently they’d gone out to dinner a second time, to the restaurant in town. Austin had promised Niamh he’d leave them be, and Jess had promised she wouldn’t make the mistake of taking Damarion to Austin’s bar again.
This town wasn’t big enough for the both of them, though. A visiting alpha not appealing to the territory holder for right of passage was…
It was a challenge, or at the very least, a flagrant disregard for how things were done. In any other situation, Damarion’s behavior would demand retaliation. Jess didn’t know that, of course, but the gargoyle understood the line he was walking. He was taking advantage of the fact that Austin would not risk hurting Jess, physically or emotionally, to make a point.
One of them would have to leave in the end, and that decision would come down to Jess. If she needed that big male, or wanted him, Austin would find greener pastures. There could be no other option. If the situation went on for too long, Austin and Damarion would have a run-in, and the tougher alpha would have to be decided. Austin wasn’t sure if the fight would be to the death, but given what he knew about gargoyles, he assumed it would be.
“Would ye put that thing away? Jaysus, Mary…” Niamh met him at the back door, holding one of the dolls from upstairs. It flailed in her left hand and she pointed at his crotch with her right. “If you swing that thing around, yer liable to take out the whole house.”
“I need some sweats.”
“Well, all we’ve got are the white ones, and every single spare pair has an old bloodstain on it. Edgar keeps switching them out and thinking we won’t notice, and that gobshite Earl won’t buy another color.”
“Why don’t you buy another color?”
“I hate shopping. It’s much easier to bitch about it.”
She led him back into the house, the closed door thankfully cutting out the echoes of Jess falling.
“What’s with the doll?” he asked, following Niamh into the laundry room.
“It was thumping down the stairs and teetering around the place. It got on my nerves. I was about to rip off its head and drop-kick it outside when I saw you. No idea why Ivy House let the thing out.”
“Me, probably. Last time I was here, it communicated with me through one of the dolls. They’re creepy.”
“They’re just dolls, for heaven’s sakes. They’re tiny. Even if they’ve got a knife, you just give ’em a kick and go about your day. Look up, though. Some of them know how to climb. They drop down on you when you least expect it.”
He jerked his head up to hunt the ceiling.
Niamh smirked as she slapped a pair of sweatpants on his chest. “We don’t have a sweatshirt your size. Earl can find you a T-shirt.”
He slipped into the sweatpants. “What’s with all the screaming?” He tried not to take a tone, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.
“Eh.” Niamh chucked the doll in the dryer, shut the door, and turned it on. “See how you like that.”
“Isn’t that going to melt the plastic?”
Niamh checked her watch. “Not before Earl comes in to rescue it. They’re almost done. Want a beer?”
“No, thanks.”
“Will ye have a cuppa?”
“No, I’m—”
“Ah sure, ye might as well.” She led the way to the kitchen for some tea. “The screaming, yeah. The goal is to get Jessie acclimated to all parts of flight, including having no control when something goes wrong and you’re falling. The fact that she hasn’t gotten over the screaming is…troubling.”
“There’s a difference between adjusting your strategy because something’s gone wrong and having no control from start to finish. She clearly doesn’t trust them. If she trusted them, she wouldn’t be so obviously terrified something could go wrong.”
Niamh flicked on the tea kettle. “Ye’ve got a point there, so ye do, but I don’t know that these guys know another way. Most of them learned by being pushed off something high and then figuring it out.”
“Maybe they should work on helping her change into her other form.” He paused, considering, then asked, “Does she change into another form?”
“Not like yer thinking. Her skin texture and color will change when she extends her wings, but just a wee bit. She’ll look like a human sprite or something, they say. Her power is in her magic, not in another form. She’s stronger and faster than a human, but she’s no match physically for the males or a shifter or something like that.”
“Are they at least teaching her how to fly—what to do?”
“O’course.
Damarion does that in the beginning, then he speeds up, then they toss her around. Every time the same. Every time you’d think she’d get a little more used to it. Nope. They’re starting to wonder if she’s got wings at all.”
He shook his head, frustrated on Jess’s behalf. Clearly this method wasn’t working. Maybe the problem was that she still thought like a Jane—the idea of flying was fantastical to her, and it was a huge leap of faith to believe she could fly without having ever seen her wings.
“She needs to believe she can do it before she’s dropped,” he said, hearing talking from the direction of the back door. “She needed to see Donna change to believe magic was real. She should work on extracting those wings before she takes to the sky, and she needs to trust the people who bring her up there. Throwing her around like a doll isn’t going to establish that trust.”
Niamh poured water into the teapot. “I’ll mention it to Earl. He doesn’t have much sway with Damarion when it comes to flight, for obvious reasons, but he can appeal to her. What she says goes with that crew.”
“Oh, hey, stranger.”
He looked up at the familiar voice, something in his middle leaping, and then the world went dizzy. He saw red.
“Who did this to you?”
Niamh jerked with the drastic change in Austin Steele’s voice, a rough growl lacing his words. Power whipped around the room and pressure bore down. Her small hairs stood on end, warning her that danger was at hand, a predator in her midst.
Austin Steele stalked forward, his bare torso ripped with muscle. His grace and fluidity of movement did nothing to hide the brute strength contained within that robust frame, coiled power ready to be unleashed. Jacinta’s eyes widened as he bore down, one of them half swollen shut from a hard punch not long before, a glimmer of fear sparkling in their depths competing with her obvious excitement.
Only a lunatic would be excited by this beast coming at them. If he put his mind to it, he could be the thunder of a god.
Then again, Jacinta must know, or at least sense, that he would never hurt her. This hardhearted alpha had wrapped her in a blanket of his protection, and he would become the devil unleashed if harm ever came to her.
Which made this situation dicey at best. Niamh wasn’t directly responsible for the bruises blotching Jessie’s face, her swollen lip, the lump on her head, or the scrape on her neck—those were the results of her training session with Damarion and the other gargoyles—but she’d allowed it to happen. Even urged Jessie to continue with the rough training. Austin Steele could very easily blame Niamh for letting harm come to Jessie. If there was one person in the world Niamh didn’t want to go toe to toe with, it was the uncrowned alpha.
“She’s okay,” Niamh said from right where she stood, not daring to go any closer. “It looks worse than it is.”
He stopped in front of Jessie, the muscles flaring across his back. His voice reduced to a low, rough, barely contained growl. “Who did this to you?” he repeated.
Niamh edged around the kitchen island, keeping that big block of wood between her and Austin Steele while she tried to gauge the situation.
He grazed the fingertips of one hand across Jessie’s black-and-blue cheek, and used the other to lightly trace her eyebrow, a cut marring its perfect arch. She flinched when he reached her discolored temple, and a shock of power bled through the room, his rage clearly on a very, very loose leash.
Despite that, Jessie’s eyes fluttered closed and a slow exhale tumbled out of her open lips, like she was relaxing within his touch. In contrast, Niamh’s knuckles had turned white as she gripped the edge of the island.
“We were training. It’s fine,” Jessie said, bringing up her hands to rest on his popping biceps. Her eyes opened slowly, hooded and lazy. The woman had no idea how much danger the rest of the house was in. “Austin, I swear, he gets it way worse, trust me. The guy is a saint for what he has to put up with. I’m getting better every day.”
“Damarion.” It was more of a growl than a word.
As if on cue, Niamh felt Damarion enter through the back door, followed by Earl. The rest of them would be filtering in after that, winding their way past the kitchen and heading to the showers. They might not stop in, but it wouldn’t matter—Austin would be able to see them through the arched kitchen entryway.
In this situation, one glance at Damarion would be all it took.
For both of them.
“It looks worse than it is,” Niamh said again. “He’s allowing her to all but cripple him. He’s conscious of her pain.”
His body tensed. She’d just aligned herself with the bad guys.
Bollocks.
“He is incredibly restrained until she hits him with the very worst of it.” Niamh thought about edging around the island a little more, getting closer so as to give her words a personal, comforting touch, or maybe even pat his arm, but she decided against it. His responding personal touch might be to crack her in the head. “The rest of them are joining in now, trying to help him fight her. She heals within hours. It really does look worse than it is.”
“Being flung around like a plaything in the air might look worse than it is, but this…” He turned slowly, his icy blue stare cutting right through her, making her bowels watery. This might get a whole lot worse before it got any better. “You’re calling this restrained? Has he so little control that mere pain prompts him to batter a beginner?”
“It really does look worse than it is—”
“She needs real-life lessons, Austin Steele,” Niamh cut in. “She needs to learn how to get back up after she’s been struck down.”
Austin Steele swung those meaty shoulders around, facing her now, his intensity and size daunting, even for her. His power sent nervous tremors through her body.
Maybe it was good Damarion was steadily walking closer, drawing ever nearer—it would take some of the heat off her.
“This is training, Niamh. She is a beginner. You don’t toss beginners around without protection. You’re treating her like you would an advanced fighter. Besides, if she’s used to getting physically knocked around every time she lands a good blow, she may flinch or hesitate at the worst possible moment. That could kill the element of surprise she gets from her magic. It could make her lose. And all because a sad-sack excuse for an alpha couldn’t handle pain when it really mattered.”
“I don’t think you understand what kind of pain we’re talking about—”
“I don’t give a shit what kind of pain we’re talking about,” he barked. “Ensuring her safety is worth handling whatever she can dish out. We heal, Niamh. We all heal, especially on Ivy House soil. If we black out from the pain, then we come to and start again. That’s the job.”
“Ah, but it isn’t your job, is it now, Austin Steele? Ivy House chose Damarion to draw out her power, not you. He has become instrumental in unlocking what is inside of her—slaps, air drops, tosses, and all.” Niamh noticed his shoulders slumping, just a little. Was that regret? She pushed her advantage, feeling Damarion walking down the hall, just about ready to turn the corner and come into full view. She had a chance to deflate Austin Steele’s sails a little before that happened. “Ye won’t set foot in the Council Room, but he is desperate to be accepted in it. Ye dislike that Ivy House gave you the magic and keeps summoning you, but he is eager for the chance to be a part of the team. This is his job, Austin Steele, not yours. When ye walked away, he stepped in to take yer place. You can’t lead while sitting in the back seat.”
Damarion turned the corner, not a scratch on him, already having healed from his training with Jessie. Whether it was true or not, and Niamh didn’t know, it looked like Damarion was inflicting more pain than he was taking. That wouldn’t go well.
Niamh kept from flicking her eyes that way, hoping she could keep Austin Steele’s focus on her.
“More importantly, Ivy House chose him because it must know Jessie can handle it. And she is. She isn’t flinching. In point of fact, getting return
fire, so to speak, seems to surprise her every time. That’s probably not ideal either, but at least—”
Damarion stopped in the wide hall just off the kitchen entryway. “What’s he doing here?”
Niamh didn’t have time to answer the fool gargoyle.
Austin Steele spun on a dime, a blast of power rocking the room. He charged toward Damarion, all that rage and coiled power exploding outward.
Jessie’s eyes turned as big as the world; she was shocked out of whatever stupor she’d settled into. Earl had already reacted, though, diving between the two alphas and slamming into Jessie, forcing her out of the way.
“No, waaait—” Jessie yelled, falling to the side.
“Don’t let them at each other, Ivy House,” Niamh roared, grabbing a kitchen knife off the counter and dashing forward. If she had to poke holes in them to get them to slow down so Jessie could pull them apart, she would. With glee.
A white door flew out of the wall, closing off the kitchen from the hall. All these years, and Niamh hadn’t even known the door existed. It slammed home just as Austin Steele barreled into it. Any other door would’ve split beneath the onslaught, but this one didn’t even splinter. A dull thunk said Damarion had reached the other side and was trying to get through just as fiercely.
Light flared, followed by a shock of air. Austin Steele flew back, lifted off his feet by invisible hands and thrown. He crashed into the island, punching through the wood and cracking the tiles. Pots and pans contained within it clattered as he rolled out of the debris.
“Get him out of here,” Earl yelled, bracing himself over Jessie with his bony arm out, trying to protect her in case the fight moved her way. “This isn’t the place for him right now. Get him out!”
“Austin!” Jessie scrambled up, out from under Earl. Earl grabbed her arm to keep her put, ripping her back much too aggressively for the situation.
A pat on the back was probably too aggressive for the situation.
“No, Earl, don’t touch her—” Niamh started.
Austin Steele was there in a flash, grabbing Earl by the front of his sweatshirt and almost lazily flinging him away. Earl flew across the large room and onto the table, busting it beneath him and sending a table leg skittering across the floor.
