Chapter 22
Nessa
It took six older basajaunak to wrestle the Elder into a docile position in the field.
It took a dozen more to snarl and rage and run out all the gnomes still trying to cut her down.
Cyra alone managed to scare the rest away from Jessie, and only because she blasted them with fire and threatened to bring in the garhettes.
Dave and Phil sat on either side of Jessie as Indigo finished up her wings.
“Indigo.” Tristan stalked from the Elder to the others.
He was bare-bodied and beautiful, full of fire and command and a protective instinct his position and Jessie had brought out of him.
He didn’t glance Nessa’s way as he passed by—not even a flick of acknowledgment that she stood there—even though her energy reached for him.
Because she wanted to reach for him.
He must’ve noticed. He always noticed. But since their first real night together, and especially since the night he’d pulled her away from the gathering of alphas, he’d ignored her. Their connection. Her desire. Everything.
Had he moved on?
Would she blame him if he had?
No.
The answer was immediate. Maybe she’d even be grateful.
No.
She took a deep breath. Time to be honest with herself.
She wouldn’t be grateful at all. She’d be crestfallen.
Miserable. She’d know she had missed out on someone that captivated her, that valued her, and that had helped her more than anyone in the world ever had.
Someone who lit a fire in her—to be better, to have a future…
to just be herself. With him, more than anyone else, she could just be herself.
Her fear was getting in the way. But what was she afraid of, really? Loving and losing? One of those things was already happening. She had to admit that, along with everything else. And if she kept him at a distance—like this, without any games or banter or fun or touching—she’d lose him too.
He could hurt her, but not being with him was hurting her. Losing their friendship and their love/hate relationship already hurt. These past days and months felt like a hole inside of her, and she was at the point that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She couldn’t stand what all this had turned into.
And she was the one to blame. He was just doing what she’d asked.
“Finish with Jessie’s wings and then go over to the Elder,” Tristan told Indigo, standing over Jessie while her wings mended. “She’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Well, she was the one who lost her head and went against her word.” Indigo didn’t bother looking over at him. “She deserves what she gets.”
“Jessie was also supposed to keep from killing the Elder.”
“The Elder will live.”
“Are we sure?”
“Do we care?” Indigo was so sweet…until her personal moral compass got in the way.
Jessie grunted something out in a messy collection of syllables. She wouldn’t want the Elder to go without care.
“I got it.” Nessa put up her hand and stepped forward. “She just needs to connect with the woods again.” The Elder drew energy that she turned into power somehow. Hopefully, she’d calm down and want to share her secrets. “I can help.”
Tristan looked at her, assessing. He nodded and then leaned closer to Jessie to inspect her wings.
Pain filled that hole she’d developed. She put on a smile to cover it up and headed over to help. Maybe helping direct the energy could clue her in on the Elder’s strange form of magic. Worst case, it gave her something to do.
“So, I didn’t actually win at all.” Jessie sat under a cabana on the grass in the backyard of Ivy House with a glass of wine and lunch.
All manner of people littered the area, sitting on the grass or standing or trying not to be noticed so they wouldn’t get kicked out for sneaking into the challenge in the first place.
Instead, they were served leftovers from the BBQ and whatever drinks Mr. Tom told them they were allowed based on what was left.
Nessa lay out in a bra and panties, soaking in the rays.
It covered the same amount as a bathing suit, and no one cared about nudity anyway.
She didn’t have anything else to do right now.
Later on, she’d head downtown and slink around in the shadows looking for breadcrumbs left by mages who’d snuck in undetected.
It would be easy to do with all the chaos.
“You did.” Austin lounged beside her, bare-chested and wearing sweats low on his hips. “She admitted it when you both hobbled out of the clearing.”
“Winning on a technicality is not winning.”
“She tried to kill you when she said she wouldn’t. You didn’t try to kill her. Therefore, you won.”
“I only barely didn’t try to kill her. I doubt I could have. I used some hairy spells, but they didn’t penetrate until I was right on top of her. Harder spells would’ve just hurt her more.”
“And maybe she would’ve tapped out.”
“There is no way she would’ve tapped out and you know it. If no one had pulled her off, she would’ve kept going until I was a meat sandwich.”
“And that is why you will never accept a challenge from her again. Ever.” His voice was light…if a growl that froze Nessa’s heart could be considered light. The command was evident. Just as evident as his determination not to take any crap from Jessie on this subject.
In the end, he’d been pushed up right next to the fight, braced and ready to jump in.
The others were right there with him, very clearly wary of the power and brutality of the Elder, but ready to help Jessie anyway.
Finally, though, it was the basajaunak who’d pushed through the shifters.
That had started the mad dash to tear them apart.
Jessie didn’t say anything for a long moment. Her jaw set stubbornly. “Never say never.”
“Fine. But I also said ever. I mean it, Jess. I have my limits when it concerns our mateship. That battle defined a hard limit. There is danger, and then there is needless danger. That was the latter, and I cannot—” He cut off, tensed, fighting emotion.
She sighed but clenched her jaw again. “If I can’t, you can’t.”
“Great. Thank you for the excuse not to try. I can’t take her. I know my limits, and you need to start learning yours.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “She was cheating. She was drawing power from nature somehow. I asked June about it. She makes the wood feel nice, but she clammed up. She knows something. Hell, Nessa knows something—”
“Do not bring me into this,” Nessa said.
Jessie scoffed but didn’t say anything more. Nessa never would’ve known she was a sore loser, even when she technically won. It was strangely endearing.
“The good news is”—Drex walked up with a glass of champagne—“no one, and I mean no one, is willing to mess with the basajaunak now.”
“No one ever did,” Austin said.
“There is a difference between minding your manners,” Drex replied, “which only most did, and sending your enforcers home so they can’t pick a fight with the wrong basajaunak, even if they accidentally drink too much brew.”
Austin rolled his head on the lounge chair to look at Drex.
Drex nodded. “They’re in, those packs, without question, and they want to talk details.
They don’t want their enforcers muddying the waters.
Your people have made a strong showing in challenges.
Jessie’s leadership and yours have shown impeccably.
The rumors are true, and you have very powerful allies.
What more is there to debate? They’re clearing their people out and trusting their safety to you and your team. That’s a damn fine vote of confidence.”
“How many?” Austin asked.
Drex laughed. “Half so far. Anyone not directly in your camp. There’s a couple holdouts, but their stance is weakening. Either they’ll quietly leave and not join right now, or they’ll hang around and hope to be convinced. Obviously there are a few who adamantly won’t join…”
“Armendale,” Austin said dismissively.
“And his fiercest allies, yes. They haven’t left yet.”
“I’ve given them until the end of the day. All of them. We have no use for them. We were never going to convince him.”
“It’s for the best.”
“It is.”
Drex looked at Jessie. “Well done, Miss Ivy House. My God, that was a terrifying battle. It made me feel insignificant, and I don’t care about admitting it. It makes me not sweat the small stuff, like the power of other shifters. I had no idea the Ivy House grounds could do all that.”
“It wasn’t enough,” she said without inflection.
Nessa laughed.
“It was more than plenty.” Drex shook his head, his smile wider.
“Thanks to your social media manager, the spectacular nature of that challenge doesn’t have to rely on word of mouth.
Shifters think you have lost your mind, to accept a challenge from that elder.
Gargoyles think you showed your grit. They have a new term.
” He paused for a beat. “’Coptering. It’s like sailing, but you get airborne by being swung by your ankles. ”
Jessie huffed out a laugh as she rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. Patty had one of the gargoyles filming.”
“Are you kidding? No way. She wouldn’t trust a gargoyle with something as important as that. At least, that’s what I heard she said. She and Aunt Florence were flown around, live-streaming. She’s now working on an edit of the highlights and boosting the images from when it went dark for a while.”
“This is karma,” Jessie said, “for attempting to ride Aljoe like a pony.”
Aljoe was sunning in a lounge chair outside the cabana. He held up a fist. “Vindicated.”
Drex turned to Nessa. “How’s Sebastian?”
She couldn’t help smiling. “He was dragged out of the house by dolls and then had a mini-battle against those and some skeletons on the back lawn before Ivy House let him be. He’s a little shaken.”
Drex threw his head back and laughed.
Nessa laughed, too. “Poor Sabby. He has barricaded himself in the library with a bunch of wards, since we have an alpha in our house.”
“He thinks those will save him?” Jessie asked.