Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
But it was all just acting. Now, and in the cairn—believable acting. In the end, she was still isolating herself. She didn’t know how to cross the bridge. She didn’t know how to emotionally reach for happiness.
She took a deep breath, trusted in her team, and turned away. They had it handled.
9
Jessie
I reached for my wine, only a sip left in it.
“Movement,” Fred murmured into her coffee mug. “They’re abandoning their efforts. Headed north. I’m locked in and tracking. Let’s see where our little rat hides.”
I sent that info into the connection. For a while nothing else happened, and then a connection lit up faintly. And another. The gargoyle and shifter that were reporting didn’t seem sure, though. If I hadn’t kept them on the lookout, they probably wouldn’t have reported anything at all. Whoever this was, they seemed to know what areas of town to slip through to raise the least amount of awareness.
That wasn’t good.
“Thoughts?” Austin asked, now outside the soundproof bubble. We could hear him, but he couldn’t hear us.
He’d been keeping up conversation with Aljoe and his sisters, looking normal, while I leaned against him and did a terrible job doing two things at once. Thankfully, Niamh, still within the bubble so I could speak to Fred privately, had been doing her best to keep up pretenses.
“Hmm?” I turned and blinked up at him while monitoring the connections of Ulric and Jasper “helping” Tristan away from the street. Nessa was nearly to Ivy House, Edgar having met back up with her to walk her there. Two more shifters waited to secure the empty street.
Sebastian pulled down the soundproofing. He coughed into his fist.
“Clear,” he whispered to Austin.
“We were thinking about getting some dessert at Ivy House before Aljoe and his sisters turned in,” Austin said.
“What kind?” Fred turned away from her computer. Numbers and text scrolled across a little window at the bottom. Nothing else was pulled up. If someone was passing by, they’d have to be just as skilled as she to know what she was doing. Probably. Like I knew anything about computers.
“Chocolate?” Austin said hesitantly. He shrugged. “Whatever Mr. Tom made. He usually makes at least one chocolate thing for Jess.”
“I’m in.” Fred snapped down the laptop. “I love chocolate.”
“Oh.” Austin showed surprise. “O-kay.”
I chuckled. Anyone at the bar would assume she’d just invited herself. Which…she had, but he wasn’t actually surprised by that fact. We needed a place to talk in private.
“What, are we all leavin’ so soon?” Niamh looked around the bar. “Where is Phil, anyway?”
“He’s up with Dave on Dave’s mountain.” I slid off my seat and got out of the way for Austin to put cash on the bar. “They’re preparing for the extended family. An elder from up north is going to arrive in a couple months, same as Gerard and Evan and a couple of the cairns they assured us want to be a part of the convocation.”
“Right, right.” Niamh nodded, putting her own cash on the bar. “Then the newcomer gargoyles arrive a week before this conclave rabble starts up.”
My heart beat faster. We’d known mages would sniff around eventually. And hell, maybe they already had. But for them to do it when we were busy with a bunch of aggressive, powerful shifters and gargoyles and very prickly basajaunak…
It wasn’t the first time I wondered what Austin had been thinking. What I had been thinking, going along with it.
Annoyed, scared, frustrated, I turned to the door only to find a wall of people. Without thinking, just wanting to be home, I sent out a blast of magic.
Aljoe
Zara and Nina stepped backward, reacting to the command within the magic, before freezing. Their jaws set firmly and their muscles tensed, refusing to take another step. That didn’t stop the surprise from showing, though. They looked at him in disbelief at the level of power.
“That’s nothing,” Aljoe murmured as Austin followed Jessie out.
Fred dropped her laptop into her satchel before gesturing Aljoe and his sisters on. “Come on! Dessert. You won’t want to miss it. Mr. Tom is a fairly good cook if you’re not terribly picky.”
She was utterly serious, and his sisters could not hide their bewilderment. Aljoe chuckled as Fred exited the bar, Niamh and Sebastian in tow.
Sue stopped beside Aljoe, his body language asking if Aljoe was going to Ivy House.
“Go ahead.” Aljoe motioned him on. He wouldn’t be worried about powerful shifters at his back. If anything happened, Jessie would sort it out without breaking a sweat.
Aljoe’s sisters, however, hadn’t expected Sue’s level of power. They’d heard “beta with alpha-level power” and figured that just meant “powerful beta.” Apparently, most people thought the same.
There was a lot about this conclave that was going to blow people’s minds. For the first time in a very long time, Aljoe was looking forward to seeing some demonstrations. No one would anticipate what Austin and Jessie were bringing to the table.