Magical Midlife Meeting: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Leveling Up Book 5)

by K. F. Breene

  “We’ve battled mages in hairy conditions,” he said softly as we danced. “We’ve always been the underdog. We’ve always been inexperienced or way outnumbered. And yet we’ve come out on top time after time. With or without Ivy House. Keep the faith, love.”

  Warmth filtered through me at the term of endearment. He’d said he loved me once, but not since. I knew he was waiting for me to go first before he said it again. He clearly wasn’t planning on hiding his regard, though.

  My heart squished and I leaned in a little closer.

  “The other heirs went for bad men,” I said as he turned me. “Men who ultimately killed them. Why did the gargoyle magic let that happen if it won’t let us finish the mating slide?

  “You have no idea how those men started. Power corrupts.” Cyra had a refreshed dessert, clearly having asked for more. “Regardless, I suspect your gargoyle is feeding off your own hesitation. You are a woman of strong character, Jacinta Ironheart. You know what happened to the other heirs, and to your own first marriage. You know what’s riding on this—your future. Your safety. You are feeding that gargoyle, I think, and that’s why it’s holding back. It’s looking for more validation that he is worthy of you. That’s a guess, of course, but it stands to reason. You will be the greatest heir of all. Or…if not the greatest, then at least the one that lasts the longest.”

  “Well.” I resisted Austin’s leading enough to get it across that I wanted to slow down. He wrapped his arms around my waist and the music slowed. I looped my arms around his shoulders. “Why haven’t you proved it, then?”

  His eyes flashed. His kiss stole my breath. He didn’t respond, but I knew he felt the challenge. I knew he would rise to the occasion and answer it. Somehow.

  The next afternoon, I led my team down the halls and to one of the exits in the smaller tunnels. We’d gotten the schedule earlier that morning. As Elliot had promised, we were going first. I was glad for it. I’d never been good at hanging around, waiting for something to happen.

  The large wooden door over the exit was thrown wide, but there wasn’t a hole in the mountain face on the other side, as I’d expected. Another tunnel, darker than the one we’d been traveling, curved away and out of sight.

  “Good thing we didn’t try to break out this way,” Niamh murmured as I stepped into the rougher-hewn tunnel and followed it away left.

  Austin stayed by my side, in sweats and a T-shirt, face hard and power brimming.

  “I wonder if they’re all like this,” Ulric said from the middle of the pack.

  “Quite the fire hazard,” Edgar said.

  “When you’re trapped in a mountain with a bunch of mages,” Mr. Tom said, “fire is the least of your worries.”

  “You say that now,” Edgar replied. “Just wait until you’re also trapped with fire.”

  The tunnel sloped up and bent around left, the space closing down.

  “I forgot to mention—I’m not the best in small, confined spaces,” Hollace said, his voice strangely muted.

  “Just think about if you were trapped with a fire in a small, confined space,” Edgar replied.

  “What is wrong with ye?” came Niamh’s voice.

  “Oh. Quite a lot, I think,” he replied. “I just keep trucking on and hoping for the best.”

  “Jaysus,” Niamh muttered, and Cyra started laughing.

  “Basajaun,” I called back as air fanned across my face. We were getting somewhere.

  “Yes, Miss Jessie.”

  “You good? The ceiling is a bit low. Are you hanging in there?”

  “I do not have a problem with caves or tunnels. It will be a while before my back starts to ache from bending over.”

  “Just don’t fart,” Ulric said. “My face is much too close to your butt. My view is not great.”

  “You weren’t thinking when you let me go first,” the basajaun replied.

  “This isn’t how normal people walk into battle.” I smoothed my hair back.

  “Yes, it is,” Nathanial replied. “It is exactly how people walk into battle. Confident people. People who know that victory is at hand, and losing is not an option.”

  “Hear, hear,” Jasper intoned.

  But I knew they were just trying to bolster me.

  Light filtered through the dimness as the tunnel bent right, still sloping upward. We were reaching the end of the tunnel.

  “Good news,” Hollace whispered.

  No door barred the way this time. Little green shoots led to the tunnel opening and patches of lush grass grew beside the entrance. The intensity of the sun blinded me at first, and I screwed up my face and blocked the rays. An electric blue sky looked down on us, not one cloud to mar its beauty.

  “Wow.” Ulric stepped up beside me, hands braced on hips, and I had to agree. Gorgeous.

  Stone steps led down to another tunnel, disappearing into a grassy berm. On the other side, the land flattened out into a huge meadow high off the ground between the peaks. All around us the land dropped away steeply, giving way to the mountain face. The horizon stretched out before us, peeking around distant snow-capped peaks. The view was breathtaking, the air impossibly clear and fresh.

  “We’ll be able to fly,” Hollace said as I started down.

  “No.” I pointed at the shallow magical dome straddling the path we currently walked, keeping people put, and then the larger dome encompassing the meadow. “Well, not you, at any rate. Ulric probably could. Maybe Jasper. Cyra. The rest of you would be hindered. It would be like the basajaun in that tunnel.”

  “I was fine in the tunnel,” the basajaun said gruffly.

  “I mean, the way you had to bend over—”

  “I could have fought easily. Called on the mountain to help. It senses the violence within it. It will have its share of blood.”

  “I just meant that you had to bend over—”

  “I am fine outside or inside the mountain. It is my birthright.”

  I gave up.

  As the basajaun muttered away, we entered the berm, the lighting once again dim. A sign pointed my team away right, and we walked into what could only be described as a locker room. There were flat benches and little cubbies, plus a big pile of rusty swords and various other weapons next to the door leading outside. The meadow, I’d noticed, had been stripped of grasses and flowers. Sand had taken its place, clearly having been brought in. It didn’t look natural to the area. This kind of preparation didn’t happen overnight…

  Elliot had definitely planned all of this way in advance. But how far in advance? When had he hatched his plan to get me here?

  “Really?” Ulric took a half-cleaved helmet out of a cubby and showed it to Broken Sue. “This yours?”

  “Intimidation tactics,” Austin said, stripping off his shirt. “I don’t smell blood in here, or see it on any of those weapons. These are just props. They’re not meant for people like us.”

  “Speak for yerself,” Niamh said. “I think they’re good craic. Look at this one.” She held up a breastplate. The strap over the left shoulder was broken and the whole left side was bent in, suggesting the person in it had been crushed by something. “Or look.” She grabbed a metal shin guard, twisted so badly that any leg inside of it would have been hanging on by a thread. “Here, Jessie, wear this one.” She grabbed a woman’s breastplate, shining bronze, the breasts large and ending in points. “Go on, wear it. Go on, ye might as well.”

  I shook my head and plucked at my muumuu, nothing but a thin bit of fabric that could easily be pulled off before a change.

  “Missed opportunity, that,” Niamh said.

  “I will.” Cyra took hold of it and affixed it to her middle. “I’ll try to boob-ram someone. That’ll hurt worse than my fire.”

  Edgar stepped out from behind another set of cubbies with a bicycle helmet a size too big and catcher’s gear. “Look, they have something like what I first wore when Jessie started learning. It almost fits.”

  Niamh stared at him blankly. “It’
s not funny when ye do it.”

  “It is.” Cyra held her stomach and laughed. “It is funny when he does it! Hollace, you put something on, too.”

  “They couldn’t possibly take this less seriously,” I said to Austin.

  “It won’t detract from how they perform,” he replied.

  “Girl’s plate or guy’s plate?” Hollace asked.

  Cyra held up a plate for the groin with a very detailed metal casing of male genitalia. “Take your pants off. See if it fits.”

  Hollace took it from her and stepped into it. “Don’t know if I can run in this.”

  “No, no, pants off. There’s a place to—”

  “Miss Ironheart.” A woman in a red coat stepped into the room. She blinked at Hollace, who had frozen halfway through pulling up his metal penis. “Please assemble your team and follow me. It is time to fight.”

  Nineteen

  Sebastian rubbed his hands together, sitting above the arena in a cushioned fold-out chair midway up the side of the plateau. A rock wall ran in front of him, keeping him from pitching over the side and falling ten feet to the grandstands, where the other mages and some of their people had filed in to watch. He’d made sure they were all invited.

  “Your girl could get her ass handed to her right now, and you’re excited?” Nessa shook her head and consulted her watch.

  “She won’t. You’ll see.”

  “I didn’t know you liked blood sport this much.” She pushed forward and looked over the side. “I still don’t see Burke.”

  “I’m sure he’s skulking around the tunnels, trying to find my residence. He has no idea there are two separate tunnel systems.”

  “He’s a fool. You shouldn’t have bothered to bring him.”

  “And rob me of the fun of watching him try to kill me? Poppycock.”

  “He doesn’t have any hope of even getting near you. You know that.”

  “Not unless I let him stumble into me, no. Which I will, just for giggles. But I want to see this competition first. I want everyone to see it. After these games, Jacinta will no longer be a pitiful Jane with a bunch of animals. She will be recognized as the most powerful mage in the world, with the second most powerful mage at her back. She will be a rising star. These games won’t only give her status—they’ll give her connections.”

  “Won’t it be a grand joke if you have done all this to help her, only to be killed by her in a few days.”

  “Not the kind of joke that would make me laugh, but certainly the kind of cosmic joke that would be par for the course with my life experience.” He sucked in a breath. “Here we go. Shh-shh.”

  “It was sweet the way the shifter stayed to dance with her last night,” Nessa whispered as Jessie’s crew was led out of the holding area. “Holy crap, are they naked?” Nessa leaned forward, squinting, then reached down to grab her binoculars.

  “Sure, now you’re interested,” he murmured, using his own binoculars to check on Jessie. She looked nervous, with tight shoulders and fisted hands. He felt bad for her, continually being thrown in the deep end, but trial by fire was the only sort that worked in the magical world.

  Her big alpha was as experienced with the nuances of body language as she was naïve, thankfully. He walked by her side but a step or two behind her, giving her the head position while making it clear he would not hesitate to protect her.

  “This is like Christmas,” Sebastian said, giddy. “You have no idea how powerful she is, Nessa. She learns fast, too.”

  “You’ve said, yes. I can’t believe so many of them are walking out naked. And look at those others. They’re actually wearing that ridiculous armor you put in there.” She looked over the wall at the mages gathered below. When she sat back down, she said, “Some clearly think this is a joke, and others are disgusted.”

  Noah and his group of mages walked out next, led by another of Sebastian’s people. They walked in a cluster. A couple of stragglers in the back seemed less sure of themselves—those were the smart ones—but most of the mages strutted right alongside Noah, who clearly thought this was a waste of his time. The group stopped at the other end of the meadow in their mages’ robes, hands by their sides, silently broadcasting their assurance of victory.

  “They have no idea what they just walked into,” Sebastian murmured, looking at Noah’s smug face through his binoculars.

  “A bunch of naked guys, that’s what they just walked into. Why did you put the magical ceiling so low over the arena if they fly?”

  “I wanted to let the shifters shine on this one.”

  “You need to get over your love affair with shifters.”

  “I don’t love them. I’m terrified of them. It’s nice to feel a strong emotion again after Jala died, even if it is fear.”

  They fell silent as the two red-clad staffers met in the middle of the meadow. Kiki, the brunette with a very pleasant way about her, worked a spell to broadcast her voice.

  “This tournament will continue until one party yields. At that time, the winner is decided. Do not kill. This is not a fight to the death. If you kill, you will be gravely penalized. When we leave the field, you may commence.”

  His people walked to the little protective alcove at the side of the field. The second they were gone, Noah blasted out a spell from way, way too far away. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to make any impact with it. He clearly thought Jessie was nothing.

  As expected, she brushed it away as though it were a spider web and then started working her hands. Magic coalesced and took form, wrapping around her and her people.

  “Is she trying to protect them all?” Nessa asked.

  “She’s the only mage on her team. If she wants them magically defended, she has to do it herself.”

  “That’s going to put her at a severe disadvantage.”

  Noah and his people walked forward now, their robes rustling around their feet. Jessie’s people still hadn’t moved. Sebastian sat forward on the edge of his seat anxiously, wondering what was taking them so long.

  “Good,” Jessie said, her voice barely audible from where he sat. “Good, good. Go. I’ll cover you.”

  “She’s playing defense?” Nessa asked.

  He shook his head slowly. It wasn’t like her to stay out of the fight. Unless she was worried about her control. Perhaps she feared she’d accidentally kill someone.

  “She needs training in a bad way,” he said as the first gargoyle—still in human form—lowered to a crouch. He was the one with the colorful hair, but Sebastian was blanking on his name. Niamh reduced down into her little gremlin creature, black as night and with a mouthful of teeth. Blasts of light erupted from the shifters as the attacking mages bore down on them, shooting off paltry spells meant to toy with them, the spells barely missing. It was the equivalent of shooting bullets at someone’s feet to scare them.

  Two huge wolves emerged from the light, followed by an enormous silverback gorilla that quickened Sebastian’s heart.

  “Holy crap, Broken Sue turns into a bad mama jama,” Nessa said, her voice reduced to a whisper.

  The huge polar bear was the last to emerge, down on all fours and no less massive for it. Nessa’s jaw dropped.

  “Here we go,” Sebastian said.

  Austin reared up on his hind legs, topping the basajaun in height by three feet, and let out a roar that thundered through the air. It soaked into Sebastian’s blood, turning his bowels to jelly. He shivered even as Nessa did, but the display had only just begun. The basajaun was next, his great arms wide and his hair puffed up. The silverback followed, roaring as he beat his arms against his chest, white scars knifing through his leathery black skin. The wolves growled, heads down and hackles raised, working around the outside of the mage group, flanking them.

  The little gremlin creature shot forward, skittering on hands and feet, fast and agile and creepy as hell. The shifters and basajaun surged forward next, all rage and raw power and incredible speed and force, cutting down the distance between
them and the mages in no time.

  The mages cowered on instinct. Confident and full of swagger one minute, they were stooped and frozen solid the next. Not all shifters were created equal, and they’d clearly never seen any like this.

  Austin reached Noah before Noah even straightened up, but instead of engaging him, he plowed into the man directly next to him, clamping those great jaws on the man’s shoulder before ripping to the side.

  The mage screamed and tumbled like a rag doll, hitting the ground ten feet away and rolling. Blood smeared the sand. The basajaun got the mage on the other side of Noah, grabbing him by the feet, lifting, spinning, and then throwing him. The mage smashed into the barrier wall, what should have been an impossible distance for a throw like that, and crumpled into a heap.

  “Don’t kill!” Jessie yelled.

  “Good God, Sebastian,” Nessa said, her mouth still hanging open, staring.

  The silverback took a shock of magic. It vibrated within the protective spell Jessie had placed on him, gaining power, and then shot back at the mage who’d fired it off, smacking him in the middle moments before the silverback was on him, knocking him to the ground and clubbing him.

  Cyra took a hit and then turned. The spell shot off to the side rather than rebounding directly like the others. Sebastian had never seen that happen. The meaning became clear when she turned back and grabbed her attacker and another mage, hugging them to her strange armor. She hadn’t wanted the return fire of the spell to spoil her fun. From their screams, it sounded like they were being tortured. And honestly…they were. Sebastian remembered what that phoenix could do.

  “Sebastian,” Nessa said, reaching out. “If you want them to live, you should stop this.”

  The pink-blue gargoyle rose into the sky, able to just barely navigate within the available space. The other gargoyles couldn’t do much, their wing spans too mighty for them to take off. They tucked in their wings and crowded in around Jessie, on protective detail.