Chapter 17
Austin
He knew of every single alpha at this meeting.
He’d sought out Drex specifically because he had the ear of these shifters.
They were tough, they were vicious, and they clawed their way toward prosperity.
They were the muscle—the packs that could pivot on a dime and were used to hard times.
None of these men and women had been handed anything.
They’d all started with nothing, unlike Austin himself. Unlike Jess.
They also wanted Austin to prove himself, and they’d be hard judges.
Fine. He’d show them the side of him that he tried to keep buttoned up when in the presence of generational alphas with their trust funds and their sprawling, largely peaceful packs.
He’d show them what had earned him the bad reputation while also showing them how he would overcome it.
He wouldn’t have guessed this just two days ago, but going into this meeting and expecting violence, he was in his element.
He didn’t have to hide who he was, the wildness that lurked within.
He could display the way he came to have a pack and how he’d keep it moving forward without hesitation.
He’d show them how he could protect them all.
By the time Austin arrived, orderly lines of hard-eyed shifters waited outside of Drex’s house, and at the head of each waited an alpha, he or she facing the inlet of the street.
As before, Drex stood on his porch, his upper tiered enforcers spread out on either side.
Just like at the meetup with Kingsley, these packs wanted to see Austin’s arsenal.
Austin parked the Jeep at the curb. His people followed suit.
He got out first and crossed in front of the vehicle, stopping at Jess’s door.
He opened it and waited for her to get out before taking her hand.
He showered her with his full attention and kissed the inside of her wrist, a show of devotion for his mate and co-leader.
It was also a warning.
These alphas should know the rules of a meeting like this, but that didn’t mean they always followed them. If they broke code and endangered her in any way, he’d kill them without hesitation or remorse. Now they knew.
Her wariness crept through the bonds. She read his mood and sensed the danger.
“Treat this as you have past meetups,” he said as he walked her to the center of the street. “As you did Kingsley’s. If anything kicks off, react however you need to, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll handle whatever comes.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
She squeezed his hand. “I love you, too.”
His people separated into their lines, gargoyles on one side and shifters on the other.
Shadows curled around Tristan’s large frame, and Brochan walked with his shoulders rolled forward, as though headed toward a brawl.
Their lines created a V, in the middle of which flocked Jess’s crew.
Surprisingly, however, they didn’t form a loose hoard like at the last meetup.
This time, they walked in a mostly straight line until everyone as a group stopped, and then they jostled into a few uneven rows. Indigo didn’t even trip.
“Alpha Steele.” Drex inclined his head in greeting. To Jessie, he allowed a tiny smile before putting out his hands. “No muumuu? I wore mine.”
She returned his smile, albeit nervously. “I confess, I didn’t know it was an option. While we’re talking about dress code, I don’t think flip-flops would go amiss.”
Drex glanced at her feet. “Then how would we pretend we’re so tough by walking on the rocky ground?” He looked around at the other alphas. “Let me make introductions.”
He gave the alpha’s names, the age of their packs, and their various locations. He also mentioned what they’d started with—very little—and what their townships were like now. For each one, Jess showed how impressed she was with the growth and nodded with each point.
“And this is Jessie Ironheart and Austin Steele, original alphas of the Dusky Ridge Convocation. The convocation is nearly a year old, incredibly new, but already the size of three towns and growing. They reside in the Sierra foothills, where I will look into moving my pack. I must confess, however, I don’t have the details of what they started with. ”
Except he did, knowing that Austin had inherited a fortune from his generational family. He was allowing Austin to define his wealth. Or maybe wondering if Austin would make light of it to better fit in.
He had nothing to hide, and he’d never fit in. He’d made peace with that after visiting Kingsley’s territory following the long time away.
“I showed up in O’Briens with a large inheritance and no desire to use it,” he said, getting that out there right off the bat.
“I started a business, a bar, and used the proceeds to buy some land and build a home. It wasn’t until I decided to officially take the title of alpha and build up my territory in a hurry, that I dug my hand into my deep pockets. ”
“Why did you need to build a territory in a hurry?” Rhea asked, a woman on the shorter side with dark skin and deep brown, piercing eyes. She’d started with debt and now had the most prosperous territory of this group. She seemed like a helluva businesswoman.
“Because Jess took the magic of Ivy House and needed a strong force to protect her,” he replied. “She’s been a target since day one. I decided I would be the castle guarding her keep.”
All eyes turned to Jess.
“And you, Alpha Ironheart?” Drex said.
“Oh.” She seemed surprised that they should care.
“I was a Jane who’d just gotten divorced and didn’t want to live with my parents.
I thought I was getting a job as a caretaker of an old house.
Instead, I became magical, took a blood oath to tie me to the house and its magic, and got an absolute shitload of money.
Just a ridiculous amount of money, along with a whole lot of danger that might kill me before I can enjoy it.
I don’t know anything about running a territory or creating businesses from scratch because I’m too busy learning this tidal wave of magic and putting together an army that Austin and I need to co-lead to stay alive.
I’m going from battle to battle, challenge to challenge, fight to fight while desperately trying to shake some sense into shifters who are too scared or stupid or both to realize the very real danger you are all in.
While also trying to find the mages who are very aware of the danger they are in and so are trying to hide in plain sight so they won’t be killed by the incredibly cunning and powerful mage organization that is threatening the entire magical world.
I know we have to prove ourselves, and theoretically that makes sense, but honestly, this feels like just handing Momar a bunch of time that he will wisely use to create a plan to kill me when I least expect it.
Sebastian and I are currently the only thing keeping him from systematically killing all the shifters, and he knows it.
Without magical power, you’re all dead. Don’t bother trying to organize, there’s no point.
So, every moment I spend meeting alphas is a moment I’m not meeting mages that can help me magically stand up to Momar’s people. ”
The torrent of words cut off, her eyes widened, and she clicked her mouth shut.
Her body language did the equivalent of finding a hole and crawling inside.
Her stress and anxiety with their whole situation had finally boiled over and honestly, there couldn’t have been a better time.
There could be no doubt that she was genuine, as well.
Edgar tsked. “Jessie,” he whispered, “that is not how we make friends.”
“I do not love that I agree with that vampire,” Ulric murmured.
“Truth,” Jasper quietly responded.
“Well, then.” Fenric, a barrel of a man with a straggly red beard stepped out of his pack’s line.
“Not that any of us doubted Drex, but if we did, we can plainly see Alpha Steele has the power we’ve heard of and a certain something else to go with it.
I understand now why he makes people nervous.
The beta with the power of an alpha checks out, too.
The massive gargoyle, the basajaun, all that power there in the middle. ”
“Which are the mages?” Barek asked, in his early thirties with a wiry body. Despite the almost slender frame, Austin had heard this guy was serious trouble in a fight.
Jess turned and pointed. Sebastian and Nessa stepped out.
“I’m not magically powerful,” Nessa said. “My uses are more in-line with espionage and strategy.”
“I’m powerful,” Sebastian said without emphasis.
“You’re Elliot Graves, is that right?” Rhea asked.
“Correct, though that is a secret that Momar almost certainly knows but is not sharing in the magical world. We’re not sure why.”
“And why aren’t you sharing it?” Drex asked.
It was Niamh that spoke up. “Because they are the bad cops, and we are the good cops. They will attract the mages that don’t mind breaking the rules and getting their hands dirty, and we will attract the opposite.
We’ll reveal our joint venture when it will do the most good, and hopefully before Momar does.
I just need to figure out why Momar is keeping it to himself still.
He’s a cunning one. I can’t quite get a handle on him yet. ”
Drex asked Jessie to introduce her people. When she’d finished, they asked if they could get a demonstration of Cyra and Hollace. Their expressions didn’t change when the great thunderbird rolled his sonic boom across the sky and then zapped lightning down the street.
Cyra didn’t play things so safely.
The phoenix swooped down toward them and opened her beak. A thin stream of fire burned a line into the concrete, tracking straight for Fenric.
Two feet away, Jess stepped forward, her hands out, and looked up. “Take it easy,” she called up at Cyra.