Chapter 19 #3
“But I mean…” I shrugged, hating to turn people away. “If you’re calm and can get along with others, I can do a BBQ in the back? Maybe we can say a few words for the deceased. I didn’t know him, but it might be nice for the shifters who did.”
“Can I come?” One of the other eavesdroppers turned toward us.
“Sure, yeah, invite yer mum while ye’re at it.” Niamh watched the challengers on the field limping away.
“I mean…sure?” I said hesitantly. This was probably incredibly random, but…
they were shifters and they’d asked. It couldn’t be against the rules.
I’d allow the grieving pack to use the interior of Ivy House, and all the lonely hearts could head outside.
“But this is a very calm, everyone-gets-along, zero-problems situation.”
Rhett put up his hands in surrender. “I am not about to mess around. It’d just be nice to relax a little. Everyone is so amped.”
“Jessie.” Sue jerked his head toward the field. “Sebastian is up.”
I pulled my hand away from Aljoe. “Hang out here, Aljoe. Take a break.”
“There she is.” Nessa was at Sebastian’s side, her arm looped through his. He hunched, dragging his feet.
“Hey.” I gave him an encouraging upper-arm squeeze. “You’re good. I’ll be right here, okay? No sweat.”
“He’s going to try to kill me,” Sebastian grumbled.
“Yes, he is,” Nessa chirped with a smile, “but that’s fine, because he won’t be able to. Remember? You’ve endured Austin. You’ve helped with Cyra. You’ve routinely battled Jessie. This is not a stretch for you.”
He gave me a wary glance. A sheepish smile peeked out. “Remember when I couldn’t feel anything at all, and I was suddenly in this territory with a bunch of terrifying shifters?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t enjoy feeling anymore.”
I laughed and hugged him. “I think you’re just tired and overworked.”
“Yeah,” he said glumly. “The garhettes haven’t even used the spells I made. They keep resorting to violence or cake. I think the randomness of their decisions confuses everyone, and then people stop acting up.”
“It’s only day two, Sebastian. We’ll get to those spells.”
I shouldn’t have said that. It didn’t cheer him up.
He took his place on the field. Sue stood beside me. He kept randomly glancing down at me as though I might run into battle without him.
“He’s a mage. I don’t need to engage,” I told him.
“I didn’t say a word.”
“I’m sure you did with your body.”
“Doesn’t count when you can’t read it.”
A man of about thirty-five strutted onto the field as though he owned the place. He wore loose sweats and no shirt, showing off rippling muscles. His stature, well over six feet, and breadth of shoulder made the wilting Sebastian look small and insignificant.
The big shifter stared Sebastian down, his gaze somewhat manic, his beast already peeking through.
“You got this, Sabby,” Nessa said from just behind Sue. “He is not even remotely as scary as the basajaunak.”
“True,” Sebastian muttered.
The shifter ripped off his tearaway sweats.
“You gonna wear that?” he asked Sebastian.
Sebastian looked down at his Ivy House sweats. They were from back in the days when we wore purple, and they’d shrunk in the wash. I had no idea why he’d chosen those.
“Yes?” He shrugged.
“I got challenged, too,” Nessa said as the shifter strutted around the space, smirking and talking smack about the coming battle. Was this professional wrestling?
Sue started and turned to her. Aggression lit up his body.
She patted his arm. “I told the shifter—one of Armendale’s—that I don’t have much magic, so I had no choice but to submit to him.
He called me weak, and some choice names, so naturally I’m going to ruin his life.
His mate will find out he’s been unfaithful in about”—she checked her phone—“oh, a half-hour or so. This fight is starting early. They bumped Sabby up. Fred helped me empty the shifter’s bank accounts.
That money will go to his mate—only if she leaves him—and a child he pretends doesn’t exist. Well…
” She tilted her head. “Except for the money I used to buy billboards in his hometown. In about a week, everyone will know his private browser search history, a few photos he really should’ve destroyed, and some illegal activity that Armendale likely won’t be too pleased about. ”
Sue stared at her for a long, silent moment, before turning back to the shifter wasting time by strutting around the space. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to psych Sebastian out or psych himself up.
“If I accepted his challenge, Sue, he’d kill me,” she said quietly. “I know you don’t like how I go about things—”
He held up his hand. “I never understood how you went about things, Nessa. I never fully understood why, and that’s because I didn’t understand the world you were forced to survive in.
Now I do. You’re like Robin Hood. Can’t begrudge your looking after his mate and his child, no matter the way you do it.
He didn’t do the right thing. You will.”
She teared up as a small smile crossed her face. “Thank you,” she whispered.
A couple shifters pushed to the front at the other side of the field, stepping into the reffing roles. They’d watch their guy, and we’d watch ours.
They looked at both Sue and me, their eyes alight with violence. Their hungry gazes swiveled to Sebastian.
“Sebastian is going to have an accident,” I murmured, like this was some kind of Mafia TV show. “How does that work? They let it get close and they help the struggling shifter die? Or mage, in this case.”
“Yeah, typically,” Sue said. “They get in the way of the other party, if there is one, and a fatality accidentally happens.”
“They really don’t understand mages.”
“A lot of the shifters at this thing don’t.”
“Well. If they try to do something stupid, there will be nothing accidental about their fatality.”
He huffed, his version of a laugh. “I thought you weren’t going to engage?”
“I’m not going to rush in to engage. I can do it from way back here.”
The challenging shifter, finally ready, turned into a jaguar. He walked at an angle to Sebastian at first, and then directly at him.
“You can go at any time,” I told Sebastian. “He shifted. You’re fighting.”
“Oh.” He straightened and squared his body and started rapid-firing spells like he was in the middle of a battle.
The first two hit the shifter and he jerked, as though not having expected that. He attempted a roar, tried for a leap or a lunge, and got two more spells. He yowled, dodged to the side, then to the other side, no escape. No cover.
Head lowered, his friends losing their cheerleading spirit, the shifter struggled on. His body shook. Blood ran down his sides and dripped onto the ground. It was a visible effort not to succumb to Sebastian’s magic.
“I lied.” I jogged forward so I could see the shifter. I wanted him to feel it in the worst of ways. To brush up against the line between living and death before the magical barrage stopped. That required watching him closely.
“Keep going?” Sebastian asked, not having broken a sweat.
“Yeah. Maybe lighten the power so our friend here, with all his strutting and bullshit, can learn how a mage really works. They seemed to think mages use knives to kill people. They need an education.”
“What is this?” one of the cheerleaders asked aggressively. “Are you helping him?”
“Your pal? Yes, I am. I am keeping the mage he challenged from killing him.” I straightened. “Or I could just let Sebastian end it now? I don’t like death on these mock battlefields, but for you, I’ll make an exception.” I winked at him.
He tensed and took a step forward.
I smirked, because that really enraged mad shifters.
“I’ll give you two more steps, and then I’ll let Sebastian kill your friend, and I will kill you.
Spoiler alert, I don’t have to move from my location, either.
I only ride my friends like a pony. You, I’ll kill in glorious fashion.
The audience will bathe in your blood.” I shrugged. “Up to you, bro.”
He paused, suddenly wary.
I didn’t look away from him. “A few more hard ones, Sebastian, and then let his friends drag him out of here.”
“Hard, like…painful, or hard like ‘nearly kill him’?”
“Both?”
“Yep.”
Sebastian paused for a beat, letting the other shifter struggle to his feet before delivering four more spells. He didn’t put any bravado into it. Didn’t grunt or show any effort. Simply delivered his magic and then ran his fingers through his hair.
He looked around. “Now what?”
“We go home, I think?” I turned back to Sue with raised eyebrows.
“Cyra’s challenger backed out,” he said, “so yes, you’re done for the day.”
“Oh.” Sebastian shrugged. “This wasn’t bad. I was expecting Austin’s caliber of attack. This was just…” He turned his lips downward. “This would’ve made me feel bad if that guy wasn’t a horrible person.”
It was now very clear what Niamh had been saying about being offensive. Too bad it was the truth. I guess they were learning the hard way.