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)
Sebastian and Nessa didn’t file in with the Ivy House crew, standing to one side instead, posh, poised, and sophisticatedly unimpressed. It was their call to arms, and they were ready for battle.
My stomach fluttered as I motioned my crew in line. I could feel the basajaunak hovering around the large house, probably blending into the trees and ready to sprint to our aid at a moment’s notice.
“They seem awfully keyed up this trip,” I said.
“Who?” Cyra asked, swinging her arms in boredom.
“The basajaunak. I get rushing into a fight, but they usually relax after they’ve accepted an all-clear.”
“They think the mountain is unsettled,” Niamh said, for once without a cooler or even a libation. “Nature or the trees or whatever is not happy. They get a bad feeling from this place.”
Right. We’d talked about that, and then all the other issues with this trip had taken precedence, including the discovery that mages were coming here to look for Tilda. That needed to be addressed with Drex today. We didn’t know when those mages might come through. Their force wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t handle, but we had a full travel schedule—we wouldn’t always be here. If those mages came in without us, Drex’s pack wouldn’t have a prayer. We had some things to figure out, and the first was whether we’d help them at all.
Two lines of town shifters filed down the street in orderly rows. As they neared us, they spread out and formed a semi-circle, closing us in.
The door opened behind us, and I turned to find Drex’s shifters filing out of the house in loose garments. Dan came out and went right, and Vessa went left, heading up the crisp lines.
Drex exited last, as was usual for these types of meetings. He took the focal point in the middle, the door open behind him, a purple muumuu covering his body. This time it wasn’t to see my reaction. His stern face and flashing eyes said he was ready for battle, and that muumuu would be torn off at a moment’s notice.
“Alphas, we meet—“ Drex cut off.
More shifters entered the street now. Ours. Austin had prepared for hostility, and our people had been watching. They came in four lines before stopping in formation to block Drex’s shifters. Basajaunak stepped out of the trees, all around us. Gargoyles lowered in the sky.
Drex’s expression turned to granite. “Alphas, we meet again.”
“Under similar circumstances, it seems,” Austin replied.
“So it seems. Forgive my tardiness. And my extra personnel. You’ve created an unsafe environment for some of our residents, and so I had to fortify my defenses.”
My jaw went slack, and I struggled for words. We created an unsafe environment? We hadn’t staged an attack in the middle of town or created an ambush in the trees and then kept a bunch of secrets.
Austin laid his hand on my back, ready to take the lead. That was probably wise, given that my anger level had just shot sky-high.
“Which of your residents feels threatened?” Austin asked.
Drex paused for a moment. “The mages. They are in the house. I’d hoped to clear the air about yesterday, but it seems Mirelda was correct. That was—is—Elliot Graves, and he has brought the Captain.”
“Mirelda?” Austin asked.
“The mage you met yesterday. You must understand my position, Alpha Steele, having started a similar situation yourself. I have provided a safe haven for these people. I gave my word, and I will provide that service until my dying breath, which I realize might come very soon. I would not have invited you here had I known the risks you would pose. This is the first time I took a chance, and it turned out to be the wrong decision. I’ll lay down my life to try and make that right. It’s my job as an alpha.”
I put my hands on my hips. That sounded incredibly sincere. Shifters. When would they yank their heads out of the sand and stop being so naive? He was woefully unprepared for the likes of the Guild.
“Mirelda is actually Tilda Grange, correct?” Austin asked. “I want to make sure we’re talking about the same person.”
Drex hesitated, his gaze flicking to Sebastian.
“Our mages didn’t recognize her,” Austin said. “One of them took a picture of her yesterday and our technical person looked her up. Tilda is well known in the mage community. About as well-known as Elliot Graves, or so I’m given to understand. What our mages didn’t know, however, was that Tilda is still alive. They also didn’t know about the five-million-dollar price on her head, or that the Guild was hunting her. They certainly didn’t know, and maybe you don’t either, that the Guild has narrowed down the search to one rural mountain where their operatives keep disappearing.”
More than one shifter adjusted their positions, showing their unease. It was clear they did not know that.