Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Jessie and Austin, however, never walk away from someone in need. Unfortunately, they’re racing against the clock.
Evan, the new gargoyle cairn leader, has asked to meet the Mistress of Ivy House.
What should be straightforward quickly spirals out of control…because nothing is ever simple when Niamh is behind the wheel.
Soon, Jessie’s crew is juggling a volatile rogue and a growing mob of furious gargoyles who don’t appreciate being taunted on their home turf.
As always with this crew, chaos isn’t just possible…it’s inevitable
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
Jessie
“Are you sure this is wise?” Kingsley asked over the cell phone loudspeaker. The phone was sitting on a particle board coffee table in front of a faded green couch with suspicious brown stains.
Austin slouched in a faux leather chair with glued-on patches. He rubbed the stubble on his face and hunched over, his eyes losing focus as he considered the implications.
“Sure, what choice do we have?” Niamh asked. She leaned against a tobacco yellow wall that had probably started out white a few decades ago. This was the best room available in this ramshackle motel on the outskirts of nowhere. Only a few wayward truckers stopped along this route, servicing a collection of towns that people were born in and then moved away from. At least, that’s what the thriving shifter population would have Dicks and Janes think.
This tiny town was the last stop before the paved country road turned into a gravel lane that led into the deep woods. Haunted woods, if the urban legends could be believed. And of course, they couldn’t.
In actuality, the woods were a buffer between the Dick world and a shifter territory run by one of the most ruthless original alphas anyone had heard of, an alpha so volatile he was said to kill visitors who looked at him crosswise. He cut down travelers that darkened his doorstep unannounced and populated the alpha rumor mill with threats about what would happen to anyone who even thought about coming for his territory, now nearly a decade old.
“He’s had positive fitness reports from anyone who has checked out his territory,” Austin said, dropping his arms to his knees and leaning over. “His people seem happy. The territory has grown and appears to be thriving.”
I stood by the window, looking out at the lush green foliage on the other side of the road. The dense canopy of trees shifted and swayed in the wind, charged with electric energy in dark gray skies. Despite the threatening late-April storm, the air hung hot and heavy in a way I wasn’t used to.
“This place doesn’t have tornados, right?” I murmured.
“Of course not, miss,” Mr. Tom told me, handing me a cup of what I could only assume was instant coffee. The town didn’t give us a lot of options. “Someone would’ve warned us if we were traveling into Doppler doom.”
“The people checking out the validity and safety of his pack have not been alphas nor necessarily powerful,” Kingsley said. “He is wary of other alphas.”
“He’s wary of other alphas that want to take over his pack and cash in on his hard work,” Niamh said. “Austin Steele does not.”
“What does that mean, about the fitness reports?” I asked, turning from the window and heading to the couch.
“Miss, no!” Mr. Tom hollered.
I started to sit down and froze. Austin’s head snapped up in alarm.
“What is it?” Kingsley asked through the phone, his voice louder now. He must’ve been leaning closer. “What happened?”
“Don’t you dare sit on that horror show of a couch without something under you!” Mr. Tom admonished, bringing me a blanket. “Have you no self-preservation? It looks like people have bled out on that fabric. You’d be lucky to only get a staph infection. People have likely gotten gangrene from less. With a couch like that, one open wound and you’re a goner.”
I rolled my eyes but waited for him to drape the blanket on the couch, then plopped down as he half-shoved me on top of it.
“Ye nearly made me spill me tea, ya donkey,” Niamh groused.
“Now you I wouldn’t mind sitting on that couch,” he countered. “I’ll even give you the wound to get you started.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Mr. Tom spun across the room to admit Tristan and Broken Sue.
“Tristan.” Mr. Tom brought himself up to his full height. “I regret to inform you that I do not have any decent coffee, only the instant dredge we were able to procure from the Quickie Mart at our last stop.”
“That’ll be fine, Mr. Tom, thanks,” Tristan replied.
“We’d need to be knocking down a wall to fit in all this muscle, like,” Niamh murmured. “Jaysus, mind yer elbows.”
Broken Sue glared at her as he passed by, taking my spot by the window.
Tristan looked down at the empty cushion next to me on the couch. “Got another blanket?”
“There. See?” Mr. Tom brought one over. “He has sense.”
“More than I can say for ye,” Niamh told Mr. Tom.
“Fitness reports are the shifter way of ensuring a pack is doing things properly,” Austin told me. “Pack standing in the shifter world is a little like the gargoyle world. Any alpha who wants a place with their peers will be concerned about the wellbeing of their people. A thriving pack should be a nice place to live, with prospering businesses, safety for children, education—everything a well-run town boasts. To prove their pack has these things, and that they are an upstanding alpha in the community, they will allow others in the shifter community to check in on them.”