Chapter 13
Austin
Day one. All these many months of preparation, and he still wasn’t sure he was completely ready. Wasn’t sure they could be completely ready.
The procession of SUV limos wound up the mountain to the community center at the top.
It had ample space for the large dinner hosting all the pack and cairn leaders.
Food trucks would service their people, the outside set up with picnic tables and areas to chat.
It also had a stage, where Austin would introduce his convocation.
Everyone always wanted proof of his setup. He planned to give it to them early.
“No reason to be nervous,” Aljoe said, currently wearing a bit of magic over his face so that he wouldn’t be recognized until his identity was unveiled.
Tristan and Sue rode with them, with Jess next to him at the rear.
Jess’s fingers were entwined with his, a sure and steady grip. She wasn’t nervous. Not at all. And that meant she thought of this like she was going into battle.
“I’m not,” Austin said, and it wasn’t a lie. They were going into battle.
Shifters could be territorial, ego driven, and uncomfortable without a firmly set hierarchy.
It was how their world was set up. Now, with all the other packs and alphas in close proximity, some would quickly get power drunk.
They’d start spinning, reacting to and creating animosity that would set others off, producing a chain effect that resulted in mayhem.
Mimi had explained the phenomenon at length.
But just like when he’d first shown up in this town, Austin planned to define the limits and defend them with blood and sweat. He had a lot of experience keeping the peace, more so than any generational pack leaders here. He was about to prove it.
“Just me, then?” Aljoe glanced around with a grin, the magic on his face wobbling a little. You weren’t supposed to show expressions, or the magic couldn’t hold firm.
Tristan smirked. “None of us are coming back from the dead. Well…except him, maybe.”
He glanced at Sue, who grunted and said, “I’m not a celebrity.”
“The gargoyles are going to incite a lot of challenges,” Jess said, looking out the window. “The visiting cairns have been trying really hard to mind their manners after we talked to them, and our resident shifters are fine, but they are used to gargoyles. The incoming packs won’t be.”
“If they step out of line, they’ll get put down.
” Austin didn’t leave room for debate, not that any of his crew would.
He planned to start how he’d continue. Hard lines.
Concrete boundaries. Everyone living by the same rules, with no favoritism or exception.
Some of the generational alphas would take great offense to that. Austin didn’t care.
“We’re all going to get challenges,” Aljoe said. “We’re more expressive than any alphas here. We’re going to do things differently than the shifters know or expect. It’ll make some of them unsure, and to hide it, it’ll make them aggressive. They’ll lash out.”
“And they will get put down,” Austin repeated.
Tristan grinned. “Maybe I’ll finally get to play in the sandbox with you guys.”
“You said everyone is here, right?” Jess asked, her thumb stroking across Austin’s finger.
“Yes. Armendale was the last to arrive.” A thread of annoyance curled through him. “He was greeted with his usual fanfare. His groupies think this is a joke, I hear.”
“Let them,” Jess said. “It’ll be more fun that way.”
She was definitely ready for battle.
“Aljoe,” she said, her tone lightening, “how do your sisters look, do you know?”
The first two had stayed for two weeks, both lovely ladies.
They were strong, smart, and worked incredibly well together.
Better than he and Jess ever would. Austin had actually learned a few things.
The third was supposed to come out at a later date but had to cancel last minute because of an injury with her firstborn.
They’d all be here, dressed to impress and forcing themselves to show off.
“No,” Aljoe replied, and the magic on his face wobbled again. “I didn’t think to ask.”
His sisters had understood the difference in dressing to impress and doing the bare minimum. Poor Jess had driven that point home that first night. Her attire was fine for most situations, but when compared to the style of the rest of them, she stuck out. With alphas, it would be in a very bad way.
And just like Jess, the sisters needed help choosing outfits. They cared about the final outcome just as little as Jess usually did.
“Has Niamh made any progress with the make and model of the vehicle that keeps leaving tracks near the territory limits?” Tristan asked.
Jess sighed. “Yes, but she tells me not to ‘worry me arse.’ It’s a midsized sedan with standard tires.
Any Honda or Toyota or whatever might have them.
No eyewitnesses and no cars matching that description happened to pass any cameras around town during the possible time frames.
But you know Niamh—she finds clues out of thin air. ”
“She doesn’t have much to offer for the conclave,” Sue said. “She has the availability and innate ability to handle this. We need to let her so that we can do other things.”
“Tristan mentioned that,” Jess said. “I just…worry, that’s all. It feels like Momar is starting to close in. He gathers information, and then he strikes. He’s clearly gathering information now, and if the people on our side are actually working for him…”
Austin squeezed her hand. “Niamh will figure it out, and Fred has been grinding away to help her. We have no choice but to focus on the conclave, and then we’ll put all our attention on Momar and the mages, okay? One more hurdle.”
Well…two.
The time to take the Ivy House magic was drawing near, he could feel it.
He had to enter this fight for real. He just wasn’t sure how that would turn out.
He had more than a little volatility within him.
If the magic made him worse—made him spiral—he wouldn’t be fit for society.
He’d nearly killed his brother in his youth, and that was because of a girlfriend whispering in his ear.
Those were just words. This was magic—potentially dark, corrosive magic he’d have to internalize.
It might control him, and he was not the sort of person to let off the leash. His past had confirmed that.
Jess didn’t know him at all if she thought he’d take her down with him.
That was never an option. He had to make this conclave a success.
If he had a structured system in place, then his brother could keep that together, his betas could keep the castle together, and Jess would still be safe in her keep.
She was the most important thing in his life, and part of protecting her was creating a plan in case he became a danger to her.
He stared out the window as uncertainty pooled in his gut.
“Hey.” Jess’s thumb moved across his skin. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate on the half-truth.
The vehicle rolled around the last curve in the road.
People spanned out across the flat area ahead of them, the gargoyles and shifters keeping their distance for the most part, and the shifters separated into various cliques.
That was the shifter mentality of sticking only with what they knew. He’d need to break that wariness down.
“Here we go.” Austin sat forward a bit so that he could scan faces and body posture as they passed.
“A lot of curiosity,” Sue said.
“This feels like the setup for an infomercial,” Austin murmured, seeing his brother within his clique and Drex standing within his. “We’re about to go on and sell our wares.”
“Damn fine value, if you ask me,” Aljoe said, his wolfish grin wobbling the magic again.
If Austin didn’t know better, it seemed like Aljoe was excited to re-emerge into the shifter world.
This time, he didn’t have the solo responsibility of holding things together.
He’d get to work in a team to break things apart…
with a wrecking ball. And he’d get to be splashy while he did it.
The limos parked at the edge of the grass. Austin waited for a beat before glancing over at Jess. She pushed open the door at the same time he did. His team would match. This was a time to show his organizational abilities.
He met her at the back of the limo, and they stepped farther away together, forming the tip of their power pyramid.
Sue took the lead in the line of the most powerful shifters they had, not including any of the rogues.
Tristan did the same with the gargoyles, most of these gargoyles newer and massive. The job here was to show strength.
Jess’s crew filed in the middle, bumping and jostling each other, murmuring and shoving.
He’d long ago stopped caring. That was not a group of creatures anyone wanted to pick apart.
The naysayer would get his body broken in half for the trouble, and then likely burned to a crisp.
Dave wasn’t with them. No basajaunak were. They’d show themselves later.
Aljoe formed a line with his rogues, Aurora second in command.
Both of them postured like alphas. Some of the rogues did, too.
The latter wanted to make a statement to various packs in attendance that had turned them away for being too powerful.
They’d found a place that wasn’t concerned. In other words, they’d leveled up.
“We almost nailed it,” Edgar said from their middle. “A few more tries and this line will sing.”
“We’re in a cluster of confusion,” Ulric whispered, with Jess’s crew for now so they didn’t get left out. They weren’t big enough for the guardian lineup. “This is hardly almost nailing it.”
“Like the perfect doily, it just takes years and years of practice,” Edgar replied.
“Shhh,” someone said.
Jess took a deep breath but didn’t apologize. There really was no point.