by K. F. Breene
Magical Midlife Meeting
K.F. Breene
Copyright © 2021 by K.F. Breene
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Try Sin & Chocolate
Also by K.F. Breene
About the Author
One
A round face loomed over me and I screamed, clutching the bed covers and yanking them up to my chin. My magic boiled within me, nearly releasing. If I’d lost control, it would’ve blasted the intruder across the room.
“Good morning, Miss Ironheart.” Cyra, the mythical phoenix who lived in Ivy House but wasn’t officially a member of the team yet, clearly hadn’t learned the rules of personal space. She smiled down on me, her silky black bob shining within the soft light from the windows, giving her hair a slightly blue sheen. It struck me that the light didn’t reflect off the thick-rimmed glasses over her jade-green eyes.
I lifted my head and squinted at her. “Do you have any lenses in those glasses?”
She laughed and straightened up. Fire curled into the air from her shoulders and something like liquid magma dripped from her fingers onto the bed and floor.
“Oh, whoa.” I scooted away, only then noticing the presence at the end of my king-sized bed, its little body standing on the corner of the mattress, its painted-on baby face turned down in sorrow. It held a glass of water. “No!” I kicked at the doll, but the bed was too long for me to reach. I scooted down and tried again. “No dolls on my bed. No dolls—”
A spot on my comforter blackened before a tendril of smoke rose into the air. Small thuds sounded across the floor, more dolls rushing forward. The one at the end of my bed skittered toward me.
Fear quickened my heart. I threw out a hand to blast it away, but it tossed the water at me before I could, glass and all. Water slapped my face, and the glass thunked down onto my ribcage. More liquid splashed up from the floor, hitting me crossways.
“I’m not the one on fire!” I hollered, patting at my bed, snuffing out the little flames the dolls had missed. My comforter slipped down, and I quickly hauled it back up to my chin. “Cyra, away. How many times have I told you not to come wake me up? Mr. Tom gets special privileges because he brings me coffee.”
“Yes.” She gestured to the nightstand beside the bed. “I have brought you coffee. It is scalding hot, just like you like it.”
“No…” I groaned.
“What’s going on?” Hollace sauntered through the open bedroom door, but at least he had the good grace to step to the side rather than approach the bed. Leaning against the wall, he crossed his large arms over his chest, the darkness of his skin contrasting with a crisp white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular forearms. He was another new addition, the third being a gargoyle and the last being dead.
A pang hit my heart as I thought about Sebastian, the odd mage who’d taught me so much in such a short period of time. Before Elliot Graves had killed him.
I pushed the thought away before any of the attached rage or guilt could drag me under. Elliot had only killed Sebastian because of me, something I couldn’t seem to get past. Then, not long after, he’d amended his causal invite to meet for a drink. I was now invited to his residence, the exact location to come later, along with a collection of other mages, the number of total attendees and who they were not disclosed, to compete for his attention like some sort of dating show. The invite had been vague at best, and now Niamh was scrambling to find out more information, uncovering only bits and pieces at a time. For example, she’d found out that the residence seemed to be some sort of collection of tunnels within a mountain, possibly with limited entrances and escapes, but nothing beyond. To say I was on edge about it was a vast understatement.
Hollace kicked out, an almost lazy movement, clipping a doll and sending it rolling across the floor.
I smiled despite myself, the expression melting away immediately, not unlike the bedroom rug probably would beneath Cyra’s lava-dripping elbows. “Cyra, stop shedding fire!”
“Oops.” She laughed again and yanked her arms in tighter. Little droplets of fire sprayed out.
The doll on the bed ran for the glass next to my ribs.
“Gross, get—” I kicked, connecting with it this time and knocking it to the floor with a thunk. They were helpful when it came to Cyra’s unconscious droplets of fire, but they were still animated murder dolls. I hated having them around all the time, especially when I first woke up.
The rest of the dolls ran to the bathroom with their glasses, going for more water.
“What’s going on?” Ulric jogged in, his pink and blue hair spiked and his lithe frame shirtless. “We having a meeting? Oops. Those dolls are failing in their duty. Look at this—five spots of fire.” He stamped on the nearest. “We’re going to have to get the floor redone at this rate.”
Hollace pushed forward, his focus on the ground, snuffing out another spot. “The miss needs to learn the spell for canceling fire so we can lock up the dolls.”
“I know, I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I just can’t seem to get the elemental spells right. The root spell is super complex. It’s at the very top of my power scale and there is literally no room for failure. I need help…”
The room fell silent, and I looked out the window, feeling a stronger rush of sadness chased by rage. Sure, Sebastian had been Elliot’s employee, something I hadn’t known until the end, but Elliot hadn’t needed to kill him.
“Maybe send out another summons?” Ulric asked, stomping at the ground.
“And potentially get someone else killed?” I shook my head.
“If he could not defend himself, he wasn’t good enough for this team anyway,” Cyra said, something she repeated often. She wasn’t just trying to make me feel better—she was speaking the truth as she knew it, and most of the team agreed with her. The magical world was cutthroat, and I was starting to wonder if I had what it took.
Not like it mattered. I’d taken a blood oath to protect this hous
e and these people, and there would be no takebacks. I was in it to win/lose it regardless of what I might want.
“It’s fine,” I said, nearly sitting up before I remembered what I was wearing. I had put on a see-through lacy number last night, hoping Austin would eventually make it over. He hadn’t, unfortunately, still kept insanely busy by his ever-growing pack. “I’ll figure it out. Can you all leave now so that I can get up?”
“My, my. Busy morning, isn’t it?” Mr. Tom bustled in carrying a silver tray laden with a steaming white mug, a thin white porcelain vase containing one red rose, and a plate with fruit and biscuits. His tuxedo was freshly pressed, his nose high, back straight, and loose jowls wobbling as he made his way to the table by the window. He’d clearly thought I’d want to take breakfast in my room, usually done in silence and with the door locked. Given everything I’d been pummeled with within minutes of waking up, he was correct. “To what do we owe the pleasure of so many loud personalities so early in the morning?” A question I hadn’t thought to ask after the invasion of the dolls.
I reached over and tapped the screen of my phone. Half past nine, not early for Dicks and Janes—the non-magical—but an hour or so before I usually got up.
“I’ve been thinking…” Cyra scratched her eye through the rim of her glasses.
“What happened to the lenses?” I asked, bewildered.
“They made my vision blurry,” she replied.
“So why wear glasses at all?”
“It makes me look more human.”
“Our faces make us look human,” Hollace drawled, back to leaning against the wall. “Our bodies. That’s why we inhabit them.”
I squinted my eyes and bit my lip, still struggling to understand the natures of our new houseguests—Cyra a phoenix and Hollace a thunderbird. Their souls lived on from body to body, through the eras, which wasn’t like me, obviously. But they both had a magical shape, like a shifter or gargoyle (like me), and a human form. They looked human, at any rate. Yet they didn’t think of themselves as human. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Was I not human anymore? Were any of us?
“It is too early for an existential crisis,” I groaned, closing my eyes.
“If I may prompt the next phase of this conversation…” Mr. Tom transferred the coffee to the table, shooting a withering look at the cup on my nightstand, which had blackened fingerprints along the rim, before straightening up. “What is it you were thinking, Cyra?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “When you practice, Miss Ironheart, you batter us with your magic, and you stab at us, but you are doing so against the protective shield you have on us.”
“Otherwise I’d kill you,” I said, eyes still closed, willing patience.
“And you also keep a layer of defense over yourself, since the defensive spells applied to us reflect magic in some cases.”
“Yep.”
“So that’s not good.”
I peeled an eye open, trying to read her face. The supportive expression didn’t relay any additional meaning.
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I see.” Hollace nodded. “If she’s wasting all that energy trying to keep us and her safe, she’s not putting all her power into the kill shots.”
Cyra bobbed her head. “When this Elliot Graves accepts your rose and is finally in your sights”—she’d watched one too many episodes of The Bachelor—"you won’t be accustomed to working with full power, and you will hold back. It might make the difference between success and failure.”
“Right, except I can’t practice kill shots on people who aren’t protected from them.” I finally sat up, holding the sheets over my chest. “I feel like that’s pretty obvious.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Tom said, crossing behind Cyra and lifting the still-simmering cup of coffee. “We only have two weeks before we go to Elliot’s…residence, or tunnels, or whatever he calls his lair. The time for experimentation is over, if there ever was one. Instead of waking the miss for these types of musings, maybe your time would be better spent harassing the rock-throwing old crone next door into learning more about Elliot’s dwelling. Surely she should’ve uncovered something useful by now.”
I pulled up my knees and dropped my forehead onto them. “Mr. Tom, leave Niamh alone. She has to learn a few decades’ worth of magical politics in a month. She’s doing the best she can. We know roughly the type of…dwelling we’re going into.”
“The inside of a mountain isn’t a great place for a team of fliers,” Hollace said.
“Which is likely the point,” I replied. “As Niamh pointed out. But it’s fine. We’ll bring some of Austin’s people. We’ll be fine.”
“Ah yes, the dreaded fine.” Mr. Tom stepped away. “We will be fine.”
What else was I supposed to say? We’re almost certainly heading to our doom because I’ll only get one chance to take out Elliot, and it’s not going to work because he has decades more experience with just as much or more power. “Fine” would have to do.
“For the first part of training, you should practice your magic on us like usual,” Cyra said. “You’ll need that ability to protect us in battles with mages.” She stepped back. In the process, her boot heel clunked against a glass of water held by a doll with porcelain hands. The doll, knocked off balance, fumbled and spilled the water down its side. More fire shed from Cyra, liquid magma plopping onto the doll’s head. Its plastic brown hair started to melt before its whole head caught fire. It squealed, something I hadn’t known they could do, and then tottered around the floor, flailing its hands.
Great. The last thing I’d needed was more nightmare fuel.
Hollace kicked out as the doll ran by, catching its melting head and sending it rolling across the floor. The rest of the dolls chased after it, water glasses full, slopping most of the water onto themselves before they saved the half of a head it had left.
“This has been a very bad start to the day,” I murmured.
“When you are nearing the end of your training,” Cyra continued, not at all bothered by the pandemonium she had caused, “you will strip all your defenses and attack me with everything you have. You will not give me any kind of alert before you do this. You will attempt to kill me.”
I rubbed my face with my palms. “Except Elliot might be able to block my magic, and then he’ll fight back with power I probably can’t defend against. So it still won’t be like the real thing.”
“I can likely consume a dose of your magic without falling, and my self-preservation instincts will kick in. I will fight back just as fiercely as Elliot Graves would. Either you will be burned half to death before I relent, or I will die.”
“Oh no, Cyra, you mustn’t ask the miss to kill you.” Mr. Tom shook his head gravely. “If Edgar catches wind of this, he’ll start asking her to retire him again. Though after that sunflower debacle last week, I think she should’ve finally given in and shown him mercy.”
“Shown him mercy?” Ulric said with a laugh. “He gave consciousness to a giant sunflower with razor-sharp leaves. Which would have been great if he’d bothered to teach it the difference between friend and foe. That thing cut me up something good. Thank all that could fly that the basajaun was on hand and hungry. I’m not up for messing with weaponized plants. Killing Edgar would’ve been a mercy to us.”
“Yes,” Mr. Tom said. “That has always been a given.”
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I glanced over and caught Austin’s name on the screen.
A thrill of excitement stole my breath.
“Get out,” I said, reaching for it. “Everyone get out of here!”
People and dolls alike spun and headed for the door. They knew the score. I was officially dating the town’s alpha, and the taking-it-slow act was just that: an act. I felt like I was going to combust every time I so much as heard his name.
I was pretty sure the only person I was fooling was myself.
I snatched the phone up like a grinning fool, waited long enough fo
r Mr. Tom to close the door behind him, and swiped to answer the phone.
“Hey,” I said with a gush of breath, my stomach flipping.
“Hey, babe,” he responded, his tone smooth and deep and the term of endearment completely nonchalant. Which was a little crazy considering the guy had planned on being a bachelor for the rest of his life. He’d even resisted the growing attraction between us in the beginning.
But he’d pulled a complete one-eighty one day, and now he had no doubt that forever was knocking on his door. There was no more resisting. No anxiety. He hadn’t had a single freak-out!
He probably figured I’d have enough of them for the both of us.
The shifters were convinced Austin and I were sliding into mating, a sort of permanent bond that magically connected two people, somewhat like the one I had with Ivy House but deeper. And they were probably onto something: with each passing day, my depth of feeling for him increased, my desire ballooned, and my happiness grew.
But I was newly divorced, dang it! New to magic, new to solo home ownership, and new to being the reluctant master of creepy dolls. I couldn’t just hop into another lifelong romantic commitment willy-nilly. I hadn’t even played the field! Austin was technically a rebound, for criminy’s sake. I had to approach all of this logically, which required at least a little freaking out. It required brakes, and if I had to bear down on them for a while, so be it. His infallible confidence could take it. He’d said as much a few times over.
Take as long as you need, Jess. I’ll wait. You will be mine.
