by K. F. Breene
“That’s not healthy, Austin,” I said, shifting away from the display of luxury to look at him. “One day he’ll snap.”
“Yes, he will,” he said, his eyes full of fire. “And so help me God, I will arrange it. I will get him into a room with that mage, flip the lock, and let Brochan have his vengeance. No one should be allowed to get away with what that mage did. He created an altercation where there wasn’t one, he wouldn’t back down when he should’ve—when he was in the wrong—and he mass-murdered innocents. Children! If the Mages’ Guild allowed something like that to happen—if this is what it looks like when they ‘police’ their own—then I’ll take matters into my own hands and police them myself. Sebastian was right. No one comes together like shifters do.”
The limo stopped in front of the red carpet, my door perfectly aligned with it.
“Oh my God,” I muttered, “this is my best life and worst nightmare, all wrapped up in the same day. Why can’t I just have normal good things going on without the crap that always seems to go with it?” I pushed out a breath, trying to still my excitement. Trying to force down the swell of anxiety. But neither emotion cooperated.
The limo driver opened my door, and I tried to remain calm. I took his hand and stepped out in my long, swishy black dress and my neck full of jewels. I’d nearly forgotten I was wearing all of that.
“So what you’re saying is…” I stepped to the side, waiting for Austin to get out on his side and come around. Apparently, the old slide across wasn’t in vogue.
The rest of the limos were stopping behind us, lining up for their turn on the red carpet.
“Oh my God,” I said again, butterflies fluttering through my stomach. “I hope there are, like, little baskets of goodies and chocolates and stuff on the plane. That would really make this amazing.”
Austin dropped his hand to the small of my back and guided me toward the steps.
“What you’re saying,” I started again, “is that you will build a castle around my keep, manage the very powerful creatures I have called in, and also create some sort of massive shifter organization that sticks it to the Mages’ Guild and Momar?”
Austin paused as I grabbed the railing and started climbing the stairs in black three-inch stilettos. I should’ve worn flats.
“Yeah,” he said, following me up. “Might as well, right? Beyond the initial meet-and-greets, your people don’t seem to need much muscling around. I might as well look for a bigger challenge.”
I laughed and stopped on the stairs, stepping down one so my back connected with his front. He placed a hand on my hip, and I paused for a moment.
“You’re a good person, Austin Steele. I’ll help you claim vengeance for him, and for every other shifter they’ve wronged. If I live, obviously.”
“Of course you’re going to live,” he said softly, waiting for me to keep going. “You’ll be the heir that lives forever.”
Shivers covered my body and lead filled my stomach. I hoped those weren’t his famous last words.
Eleven
A fleet of limos awaited the Ivy House crew at a nondescript landing strip at the base of a mountain range in Colorado. White peaks rose with jagged edges into the sapphire blue above, the air scrubbed clean by the dense trees surrounding them. A single tower rose into the sky behind the woods.
A prickling of warning moved across Austin’s skin, prompting his animal to grow restless, urging him to shed his skin and slip into those trees, to scout the area. Brochan stepped up next to him, his body tense, his eyes distant.
“Do you feel that, sir?” he asked, in a submissive way to alert Austin to the danger. If Austin had needed it, here was further proof the shifter had no problem relinquishing his alpha mantle, even in pressurized situations.
“Yes.” Austin watched the basajaun descend the stairs and then strut off into the trees, disappearing immediately. “The basajaun can speak to trees. He’ll assess the danger.”
“I wondered how that other one up north knew I was in its territory,” Brochan said softly, scanning the area. “I was roaming when I caught its scent. I didn’t feel like circling around, so I changed my direction to downwind and hightailed it. It got around and in front of me. That thing was not fun to deal with. I hoped never to see one again.”
“Please tell me you didn’t kill it.”
“Are you kidding, sir? I’m not that stupid. No, I fought it until I could prove I was a risky challenge, and then I bartered with it. I didn’t know they could talk to the woods. I’ve always heard they’re prickly to deal with and they don’t often bother with anyone but the basajaunak.”
“Usually that’s true, yes. Until Jess charmed this one, I’d given him a large berth. He’s downright placid when it comes to her. It seems he thinks their fates are intertwined.”
“Ah yeah. Fate. Tricky bitch.”
“Yes. Very. But this basajaun has been incredibly helpful to have around.”
“It’s magic.” Jess stopped next to the open limo door, the driver waiting beside it in a tux similar to Mr. Tom’s. “What you’re all sensing is magic. It’s everywhere around here—on the runway, draped between the trees, on the ground… It’s basically an elaborate tripwire system, but I don’t sense anything terribly dangerous. Roam at will.”
“In other words, they think anyone sneaking into the area will be using an airplane,” Hollace said, following her.
“Yes.” Jess checked her watch. “We need to get going. Basajaun!” she called. “Come on. You can check things out when we get closer.”
The basajaun emerged from the trees, his hair sticking up from his shoulders and his bow tie absolutely ridiculous. He was taking a page out of Mr. Tom’s book, apparently.
“There is nothing around this area. No watchers,” he said.
“Magic is doing the watching. They don’t need people.” Jess gave the jet a final, forlorn look before ducking into the last limo. Her team would arrive right before her and spread out around her for cover so as to give her a grander entrance.
“Yes, miss, I know you are severely disappointed.” Mr. Tom walked closer, frazzled, his arms braced on his hips and his wings rustling behind him. Niamh and Edgar walked behind him. “But how was I supposed to know they wouldn’t stock the jets with snacks and drinks? Really, all that expense and they only provide water and ice? I think they cut corners for magical people, that’s what I think.”
“I think they expected magical people to read the fine print when that is their job,” Niamh berated as Jasper descended from the jet. He immediately turned to monitor the service staff carrying down the luggage.
“I looked over the fine print, I thought,” Mr. Tom murmured, turning and walking back toward Jasper, scanning the luggage as it was brought down and put in a neat pile to be divided up between the limos.
“Beautiful.” Cyra sauntered in front of Austin and spread her arms, gazing at the mountains around them. Fire ballooned up around her like wings. “I would love to take a moment for flight.”
“No time,” Austin responded. “We’ll make sure to take advantage of the area before we leave.”
“If we aren’t being chased out.” Edgar scratched his head, and little white flakes drifted to the ground.
Nathanial stopped with Austin and Brochan. “Barring any unforeseen challenges, the gargoyles from town should arrive tonight,” Nathanial said. “I haven’t heard of any problems, so I assume they are on track. They have been instructed to touch down a ways from the entrance. Hopefully there’ll be a place to land that is hard for non-fliers to reach. They’ll turn to stone until needed. I don’t know if we’ll be able to use them, but if we can, they’ll be on hand.”
Austin nodded as Cyra neared the trees, fire swirling out around her.
“Why didn’t we fly them in, sir?” Kace asked, joining their gathering. Brochan stepped back and out of the way, deferring to Kace’s higher standing in the pack. Isabelle stood just beyond him.
“Here, miss.” Mr
. Tom jogged back to Jess’s limo with a paper bag in one hand and a white plastic medicine bottle in the other. “Look at this! I completely forgot about this! A few chocolates for the car ride.”
“Ye should’ve given them to her when she was looking for snacks on the plane.” Niamh started forward. “Ye ruined her whole experience.”
“Ah, but look!” Mr. Tom jiggled the bag, more flustered and panicked than Austin had ever seen him. The way he was carrying on, one might assume he’d made a critical error that would cost lives. “Chocolates, miss! They are only slightly melted. Well, not melted now, per se, but melted at one time and reformed into…rather lovely…artistic shapes. You won’t even taste the difference. A little whitened, but that’s okay. It’s still chocolate. I know how chocolate calms you. It’s like catnip for Jane women, right?”
“No thanks,” Jess said. “Let’s just get on the road. I’m sure they’ll have food for us when we get there.”
“Or, look…” Mr. Tom held out the white medicinal bottle. “Chocolate-flavored stool softener. It will taste good and maybe loosen up the bowels. I know you’ve been nervous. Stress can cause lots of problems for the body. This will keep you regular and fulfill that chocolate craving you were clearly having on the plane.”
All the shifters turned to stare, their expressions flat but their poise and body language screaming their utter bewilderment. Austin thought about reassuring them that they would eventually get used to Mr. Tom’s antics, but he didn’t want to lie. Apparently, when he got flustered, Mr. Tom not only got weirder, but he started making very questionable decisions.
Austin turned away from Mr. Tom, shifting his focus back to Kace’s question. “The jet needed to have a manifest of passengers, which we suspected Elliot Graves would be able to access. We don’t want him knowing we have backup.” The basajaun bounded back from the woods, shaking his head. “Basajaun, take the second-to-last limo.” He’d be a spectacle. Better for him to get out toward the end so he wouldn’t take much focus away from Jessie.
“Mages don’t think about the wild lands other than to hunt and collect supplies for their craft,” Brochan said, his tone flat, emotionless. “Even to do that, they distance themselves from nature. They use vehicles whenever they can, guns, metal traps—they are more similar to Dicks and Janes than shifters when it comes to nature. It won’t occur to them that anyone might sneak in through the trees. They might not even realize there’s a threat of fliers showing up. The roads leading in and out are probably closely monitored, along with this landing strip and the entrances and exits for the lair. But mages are shortsighted. Extremely powerful but narrow-minded in their thinking. Hard to combat them unless you have a magic wielder, though.”
“Which we do,” Edgar said, still standing off to the side. Austin had nearly forgotten he was there. “We have the most powerful magic wielder in the world, actually. She can fight face-to-face combat, and we can rush in from the sides and behind.”
Austin nodded, because that was exactly right. They could handle mages—the battle with Kinsella had made that entirely clear.
“Load up.” Austin made a circle with his finger. “Let’s get to it before Mr. Tom convinces Jess she needs some Ex-Lax.”
“Hopefully the miss isn’t so nervous that she allows that to happen,” Edgar murmured, watching Mr. Tom straighten up and glance back. “Maybe he’s the one who should be asking for retirement.”
Niamh laughed, getting into a limo near the front.
“Brochan, check in with Jasper and make sure everything is coming along.” Austin broke away from the others and found Jess in the interior of the limo staring down at her hands. “Mr. Tom failed you again, huh?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “He found those chocolates in the bottom of his toiletry bag, did you hear that part? Who puts chocolates in a toiletry bag and how long have they been in there? He’s been at Ivy House for…years. When was the last time he traveled? Because looking at them, there was no way he recently packed those things.”
“I thought you always said never to question Mr. Tom?”
Her eyebrows flared and she looked out the window. “This is true. Did the basajaun feel anything? I couldn’t hear over the growling of my stomach.”
He slipped his fingers between hers and bumped her leg with his knee, knowing she was trying not to focus on her extreme discomfort with what they were doing. He played into it, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to try to convince her that they would pull through this. That he would make sure she made it out one way or another, with or without him.
“No, all is quiet. Listen, I think I have some caramels in my sock. Want me to dig around for them?”
This time a real smile peeked through. After a moment she said, “I did get my hopes up that there would be a big spread in the jet. I thought that was kind of a standard thing. You got, like, an air hostess and some…awesome little nibbles, or…I don’t know… Something.”
He laughed as the limo got underway. “My brother always has those things when he flies in a private jet, yes, but he has an experienced staff to handle stocking it.”
“Hmm.”
The narrow two-lane road led away from the landing strip. It didn’t take long for them to start climbing into the mountain range, the limos slowing down to take turns that would have been better suited to different cars.
“We didn’t hire these limos,” she whispered, now chewing on her nail. “We’re already in his power.”
Austin stroked her thumb with his, holding her hand tightly. “We are never in someone else’s power. When you were in a cage hanging above spikes without access to your wings, you still weren’t in anyone else’s power. You were just…put out for a moment.”
“We could be ambushed.”
“What a horrible surprise for them, trying to ambush a basajaun.”
“We might get out of the limo and be killed immediately.”
“That’s why Cyra will be getting out first, because she comes back to life.”
“He might finally succeed in capturing me, his sole goal all this time.”
“That has hardly been his sole goal. I’m sure he has much more sinister plans, like trying to make you fall in love with him so he can steal your magic, like what happened with the past heirs. Good thing you don’t want to fall in love, huh? He’s got his work cut out for him.”
“That’s not true. I lo—” She gritted her teeth, her whole body tightening up.
She’d been just about to say that she loved him, Austin knew. He could see it in her body language. He could feel it in his gut.
He breathed out slowly, everything in him pounding, wanting to take her right then, right there, feeling how close they were to completing the mating bond. Something was stopping her, and he would bet anything it was her beast. The female gargoyle was not sated. It wanted something more.
Austin just wished he knew what it was. He wished Jess did.
After this was all over, he was going to cheat and ask Ulric to tell him what it would take to impress her beast. Whatever it was, he’d do it. He’d claim his mate.
He just had to wait until they had a week or so to explore their new bond. That wasn’t something he wanted to happen in enemy territory.
“It’s the unknown that is giving me hell,” she said after a while, the limo winding higher into the mountains. “I hate the unknown. Whenever I went on vacation in the past, I had the itinerary all laid out. I knew where we would be staying, how we’d get there, places in the area where we could eat, places to avoid…”
“I think we’re headed into a place to avoid.”
“Yes, we are. And it isn’t just a bad neighborhood—it’s a bunch of caves closed into a mountain and filled with cutthroat, homicidal magical people.” She met his gaze and then looked away. “This isn’t your average work trip. We might not survive, Austin. I could be responsible for all these people dying.”
He touched his palm to her jaw, guiding her face back to
him. When she was looking at him, he kissed her lips gently, and said, “I know this is playing hell on your nerves, and nothing any of us say will ease this burden for you. It feels different when you’re walking into danger instead of defending your home against it. But Elliot Graves left you no choice. He’s caused a lot of problems and a lot of bloodshed, and someone needs to end it. You are the only one who can. The people who joined you today want to be here. They want to fight. Please remember that when the guilt pulls you down.”
She blinked her glassy eyes, looking up at him with a wide-open gaze. A tear slipped out and rolled down her cheek.
“What would I do without you?” she asked quietly.
“Probably go on more internet dates that would end badly.”
She huffed out a laugh and pulled him in for a kiss, lingering for a moment. When she pulled back, he wrapped her in his arms and held her close.
“We both know that as soon as you get there,” he said into her ear, “you’ll go into overdrive, and you’ll handle whatever comes at you. You will dazzle them with your weird team—”
“Eccentric.”
“—and you will show them that you are not someone to trifle with.”
“Or I will hear someone make a snide comment about you, go absolutely crazy, and start a war.”
“An enemy’s lair isn’t the most romantic place to spend the week with a new mate, but we can make it work if we must.”
“Especially if Mr. Tom is in charge of the snacks, am I right?” She released a breath. “I almost wish I’d taken some of that chocolate. That’s how unsettled I am. I’m so off-kilter that I would eat some old chocolate Mr. Tom randomly found in his toiletry bag.”
“As long as you don’t reach for the chocolate stool softener. What could he possibly have been thinking?”
She shook with laughter in his arms. “Yeah, well… Honestly, there are no words. There just aren’t.”
