Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“Then what is the point of ye lookin’ like that? Go on, in ye git. Go on, ye might as well. Go on.”
“Just go,” I told Mr. Tom. “How about a doll, too?” I asked Niamh. “Or a homicidal gnome? We already look crazy, why not extend ourselves a bit?”
She nodded at me. “If them things wouldn’t have killed us in the car ride over, I would’ve. Now, Jessie, listen here. I shouldn’t have to tell ya that the mage in there is a very bad man. He brings people in to be beat up or tortured. Probably both. The people he works for are the most cutthroat magical people ye’ll hopefully never meet. These people would sell Edgar to vampire hunters for sport. They’d rip off the gargoyles’ wings. They’d try to burn down Ivy House and surely burn down the town without a care. People like them are the reason the name Broken Sue fits the man. Are ye with me so far?”
She waited for me to nod.
“Now, I’d wager Sebastian is goin’ta ask you to use that nightmare spell we tried on Edgar. The one that still makes him randomly hide in the bushes, remember?”
I grimaced. It was hard to forget that spell. Poor Edgar. He’d volunteered, knowing what it was supposed to do, but I didn’t think any of us had been prepared for its potency.
She continued with a very direct stare. “If ye are only goin’ta scare this mage, then ye need to give him the shock of his life. Of his entire life. A shock that will never wear away. And ye can do it with that nightmare spell. That room now has all our weirdest people in it. They’d make a mage wary on a normal day. Add the intensity of alpha shifters and an actual shift or two, and we should have this. But make no mistake, this is the first battle in what will likely be a nasty war. Just like yesterday, ye need to show strong. The entire territory is on the line if ye fail.”
My magic pounded in time with my heart. I could feel my gargoyle moving within me, demanding action.
“Let the gargoyle speak,” Niamh said softly. “Let her out to play. This is her arena. Ye need to honor that.” She held my gaze for another moment, nodded, took the chair from Austin’s guy, who’d just run in, and went into the room, saying, “Ulric, get me a beer. I want to watch the show in comfort.”
Austin moved to the door and waited for me to go through first. “I’ll be here if you need me,” he said softly, resting his hand on my upper back while his thumb stroked across the base of my neck.
His magic swirled with mine, comforting and invigorating and delicious. But I could sense that he agreed with Niamh—he was letting his animal take the lead, accepting all the vicious darkness the beast would bring forth. He was inviting me to play with him…and my gargoyle was stretching forward to do just that.
“I hate this,” I said as my stomach churned. “I hate that I couldn’t just be magical and still be chill and left alone.”
“So do a lot of magical people,” he replied. “And that’s why we’re going to work toward giving peace to others before taking it for ourselves. We’ll get there, though. Eventually, we’ll find our paradise. I know we will.”
I breathed deeply and nodded. He was right. I had the power to protect people, mages as well as shifters. If we didn’t stand against the people abusing their power, who would? Who could?
“Okay,” I said, mostly to myself.
Low light greeted me, and bodies moved out of the way as I entered. A man sat in the center of the space on a wooden chair. His hands were secured behind his back, and his legs were tied to the chair. Even seated, he clearly had some girth to him, strong shoulders and thick thighs. He was the muscle, all right. He could easily beat someone into submission if his magic didn’t do the trick.
Edgar waited just behind him, his hands held at the height of the man’s shoulders and his fingers draping a bit, like he was a vampire in an old movie about to prey on his victim. “You can weaponize flowers if you are very good,” he was saying. “I, myself, am not yet that good. It’s a tricky business. You have to sing to them, you see, and some of my peers have hinted that I have a voice like a croaking frog. But Hollace has a lovely voice, and of course, the alpha is an exquisite singer. Sometimes, I just sit in the flowers—deep in the shadows so I’m not seen, of course—and listen to him sing and play for Miss Jessie. What a treat. It is well worth my newfound fear of flesh-eating crickets. Isn’t it amazing what the mind conjures up when trapped in a magical spell?”