Chapter 18
Austin
Tristan was correctly reading the situation.
Jess lowered until she was just beyond jumping distance and then let loose. She slammed down a spell. It hit the panther and knocked him flat. She hit him with another, and another, firing them as fast as she ever had in battle. She was practicing.
How had he ever felt fear on her behalf?
The panther cried out as slashes opened on his skin, red cutting through the black. He fought through it, pushing through the tumult and the pain.
“How do we know that mage is really shielding him?” Fenric asked, but one look at Sebastian was all he needed.
Sebastian’s face had gone red with exertion. Sweat dripped down his temples. His whole body was tense with determination, and his hands were moving quickly.
The magic changed. Now flares of color erupted against the panther. It coated the furry body in places, outlining the magic surrounding him. Ask and you shall receive.
“How are you keeping up the strength for all these spells?” Sebastian called to her.
“They’re too powerful for a battle. You don’t need all this to kill.
It’s a waste of your energy. You need to go for less energy spells to keep up your endurance.
I barely lasted through the battle at Kingsley’s, and I was being very mindful about my energy. ”
Jess didn’t relent, smashing down more spells, clearly trying to go faster.
“She practices at this level until exertion, and then she moves on to the less powerful spells until she can barely stand,” Tristan told him.
“She’s been training like that since you left specifically for a battle like Kingsley’s.
She is purposefully working on her endurance with the more powerful spells, and she’s found plenty of those in the Ivy House books.
Hence, her worry about accidentally killing this dude.
Good practice, though. We haven’t had anyone to shield us, so she hasn’t been able to practice on a person. ”
The panther growled, still attempting to stand. He’d only gotten as far as his belly. His head was low, and he was fighting against the tide of pain. Burn marks appeared in places, more cuts, lumps of flesh taken out.
“This isn’t a challenge,” Barek said, his eyes tight and his body tense with wariness. “This is too one-sided for a challenge, even if that mage wasn’t doing anything at all to help. Derrick is just enduring it. He’s not fighting back.”
“He can’t fight back,” Drex said, his smile gone. “That’s the point I was trying to make.”
The magic stopped, and the damage on the panther started to heal over.
“She’s healing him,” Austin said, so they would know what was happening. “That is not a mage trait, that is a trait exclusive to a female gargoyle, who is a sorceress. She’s more powerful, she can connect with her people through battle bonds, and she can heal.”
“Among other things,” Tristan murmured.
Sebastian was breathing heavily but didn’t step back. He watched Jess closely as she did a circle around the panther and then slowly lowered to the ground.
“Apparently, I need to work on my endurance, as well,” Sebastian said. “She doesn’t even look winded.”
The moment Jess landed, the panther lunged. Austin stepped forward in a rush, but Tristan and Brochan grabbed him, holding him in place.
“Let her handle it,” Tristan said under his breath. “She doesn’t need our help. That panther does.”
“Not ours,” Brochan said. “Sebastian’s.”
The panther hit a magical wall. A great buzzing echoed against the house. The panther howled in pain and flew backwards from the force of the magic.
Jess shifted into her human form. Where before her expression held worry and unease, now she was stoic and calm, watching him with calculating eyes. The gargoyle had emerged and with it, her battle sense.
The panther rose again and stalked toward her slowly, sizing her up.
“A mage wouldn’t wait around for a shifter to engage,” she said, her eyes hard as she surveyed him. “A mage would be firing or running, and I am losing patience.”
Her hands thrust forward. The panther jumped and burst through a sudden wall of magic.
Flame covered his fur. She calmly got out of the way as he landed and started to roll.
She sapped the magic away, now on the other side of him.
He turned and ran at her, snarling, lips pulled away from long white teeth.
Jess didn’t move this time. She held her position and started hammering him.
The first spell hit, and he endured. Then the second, the third—she blasted him until he was cowering on the concrete, shaking with the onslaught, unable to fight through the magic.
The most powerful shifters might be able to, handling the pain, but he wasn’t one of them.
Or maybe he just didn’t have the experience of enduring something like this. He didn’t have experience with mages.
“He’s done.” Sebastian jogged forward and threw his own spell, hitting her square in the chest.
She shuffled backward and bent, her hand coming up to palm her solar plexus. “Ouch.” When she straightened, her eyes were alight.
“Damn it,” Sebastian mumbled.
“Derrick, stand down,” Drex called as the panther struggled to right himself. He’d lost. There was no point in continuing with this.
Jess zinged another spell Sebastian’s way. “Use your strongest shield. I’m going to up the power.”
“I hate when you do this,” Sebastian said, firing faster than Jess could. She’d done a lot of practice, but he had decades of experience and was at the top of his class. “I’m going to do the same, though apparently I won’t last as long.”
“He missed training with her.” Nessa wandered closer. “He might be grumbling, but he loves this. We haven’t had much training time since we’ve been back. Not in any real way. He missed teaching her magic and watching her blossom.”
It showed in his little smile as he dueled with her, hitting her with a spell, and then spinning away from her answering magic.
“I’ve found that if you create a moving target,” Sebastian told her, “classically trained mages get caught up. It messes up their spell work.”
Jess didn’t bother moving, instead using the time to gather a stronger spell and blasting him with it.
“Okay, well…” Sebastian grunted, flinching at the onslaught. “Obviously, you are not one of them.”
“I’ve never practiced on a stationary target,” she said, walking a little closer and hitting him with another spell. He answered with one of his own, forcing her to step back and shake her head in pain. “Ouch. That was a good one.”
“Yeah. Lower on power but should hurt like hell.”
“It does.”
“You’re a liar, though.” He walked to the side and hit her with two spells to her one.
“Austin stood there and took it when you were learning, remember that? You tore him all up, and he just readied for the next. Or like, got off the ground and climbed back to standing to take the next one. I’ll never forget that.
I thought you two were joking when you were about to unleash that one spell on him. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” Jess grunted. Her face was screwed up in pain and annoyance. “Say uncle.”
“What—crap.” Sebastian’s hands started moving faster as Jess’s new spells hit him. “Jesus, Jessie. What—shit.”
Jessie walked toward him, her eyes sparkling with viciousness, her gargoyle peeking through. The pain had triggered the darkness, and she was letting it consume her.
“Get ready,” Austin said to Tristan and Brochan. “Tristan, shift. Sometimes, it’s easier than others to pull her out of it. Take Sebastian out of here if she gets to be too much.”
Sebastian had stopped talking, his expression determined once more.
His face once again turned red. He walked left and right, taking her spells and then throwing them back.
She walked straight at him, like an animal cornering its prey.
Blood seeped down her skin from a dozen or so wounds, but she didn’t let it slow her.
Sebastian’s clothes were ripped and charred and sticky with blood in places.
“Damn it, what are these spells?” Sebastian muttered to himself. “Think it through. Think it through…”
His knees started to buckle. Still, she bore down on him. His breath came fast.
“Uncle,” Sebastian said, staggering backwards. “Uncle!”
“Take him out,” Austin barked.
Tristan snapped his wings and hop-stepped forward, snatching Sebastian out of harm’s way as Jessie hit him with a spell.
A sheet of skin ripped from Tristan’s arm where it wrapped around Sebastian.
He growled with the pain but didn’t recoil.
Blood immediately started running down his arm.
He bent and then rocketed into the sky, his wings jetting him high in a blink.
“Hey.” Austin took Sebastian’s place with his arms out in surrender. “Back down now. Come back to me. The challenge—both challenges—are over.”
Jess stopped, her eyes flickering with uncertainty, lost in the viciousness of her gargoyle, and then they cleared.
She took a deep breath. “I’m tired,” she finally said as Nessa bounded over with her pink dress. “Indigo, Tristan is going to need healing. He gets surly when he’s hurt.”
“I don’t mind putting my hands on that gargoyle,” Indigo replied from somewhere in the back of their people.
“Uh, Jessie?” Drex still stood on his porch, a grin peeking through his expression. “You’ve got a rogue vampire on the loose.”
Two tense shifters on the porch made a show of staying perfectly still. Standing too close to their backs, as though trying to push into their line, Edgar waited with that strange simpering smile. As Austin watched him, one eye blinked before the other.
She sighed. “Edgar, go into the backyard and check out Drex’s flowers, would you? I love his layout. I’d love something like that for Ivy House.”
“Oh. That sounds like the perfect use of my time.” He stepped through the line of shifters, bumping them out of the way. “Everything is going smoothly up here, in case you were wondering.”
“She wasn’t,” Niamh drawled. “Is it just me, or has he gotten worse?”
“You both have,” Mr. Tom intoned.
Jess slipped on her dress as Tristan landed with Sebastian.
Indigo stepped forward immediately, waiting long enough for Tristan to shift back into his human form, then pushed in close and put both hands on his chest. She smiled up at him in silent laughter.
It was clear she was joking about how much she enjoyed their proximity, and just as clear he didn’t care either way.
That spell had obviously hurt something awful.
Austin put his arm around Jess’s shoulders and walked them to the front of their crew again. He faced the other alphas and their people, letting his posture ask if anyone else wanted to step up.
“I do so love to say, ‘I told you so’,” Drex said, grinning.
And just like that, all the alphas relaxed.
“I feel like a sacrificial lamb,” Derrick said, huffing with a smile. “If she wasn’t so intense, I’d be embarrassed. I didn’t do much more than pavement surf.”
“You let her hit you with those spells?” Rhea asked Austin.
“That gargoyle took one,” Selene said.
“She didn’t have all her power when she was practicing on me.
” Austin squeezed Jess a little closer. She’d shown incredibly well, and she’d been in no danger, but he still hated that she’d had to endure the challenge.
It was one thing when gargoyles went after her, being of her people, but for some reason, it really unsettled him when alpha shifters did.
“But they were still grisly. We didn’t have much choice. Not if she wanted to get better.”
“It would blow your mind what he endured to help her.” Sebastian shook his head. “Though I don’t feel much better at the moment. Jessie, do you have the energy to heal me?”
“‘Course.” She leaned her head against Austin, utterly spent. She didn’t have the energy, but she wouldn’t admit it.
“I’m in.” Fenric grunted. “I want in the convocation. I want to be part of this legend in the making.”
“Me, too.” Selene nodded. “I’m all the way in.”
“In,” Derrick said. “But I don’t ever want to challenge her again.”
“I’m in,” Barek said.
A little hollow of silence descended as everyone waited for Rhea.
“I’m in,” she finally said. “Now I understand that speech Alpha Ironheart gave. She is wasting her time traveling to meet shifters. I agree. We can obviously take mages physically, but what does that matter if we can’t get close enough to make use of our strength and power?”
“Alpha Steele’s power is a gut-punch, though,” Derrick said.
“His team of shifters and gargoyles and everyone in between is eye-opening. Stories and rumors, even if you believe them, don’t do this show of strength justice.
I’d pay admission to see that phoenix, alone. She had ol’ Fenny crapping his pants.”
“Yes, she did.” Fenric tightened his lips and bent his head forward. “I doubt you would’ve stayed in place so long.”
Austin couldn’t believe how loose these alphas were in front of their people, and especially strangers.
They were carrying on more like gargoyles than shifters.
It was clear they were also good friends.
Austin had heard Drex had their ears, but he hadn’t realized they were so close. That was fortunate.
“We have some problem solving to do. That is”—Drex appealed to Austin and Jess— “if you’ll allow us to help?”
Austin scooped Jess up into his arms and hugged her close. “Absolutely. We’ve been granted an extra couple days by a gargoyle cairn. Let me take my mate home so she can heal and recover, and then I’ll meet back.”
“Here, I better be in on that meeting.” Niamh raised a finger. “After seeing these bunch of lummoxes, I’ve got some ideas.”
“Is that a challenge or a salutation?” Derrick looked between the other alphas. “I can’t tell.”
“I wouldn’t bother me arse to challenge ya,” Niamh replied. “I’d have to chase ya around the street trying to get ye on yer feet. Waste of time.”
Drex burst out laughing and turned to open the door. “Austin, just walk in when you return from securing your mate. Jessie, we’ll see you when you’re ready.”