“Please, Jessie, how did you know about our ambush?” Drex asked. He wanted the challenge, but he wanted information more. This alpha was highly intelligent. “I haven’t heard of that kind of magic.”
Jess tilted her head at him and then glanced back at Sebastian again. She was probably wondering what kind of shifter knew enough about magic to catalog spells. Even Austin didn’t know what was, and what was not, possible. He left that to Jess.
“I have a lot of power, as does my mage friend. Wedohave the magic to suss out hidden figures. Many powerful mages do—most, in fact, I’d wager. When I got closer, I would’ve known you were there.”
“But you didn’t get closer.”
“No, because I am also a gargoyle, and sometimes…” She glanced back the way they’d come. “I don’t know, I just get a feeling. There’s no explanation. I’d thought I was jumping at shadows there for a moment.”
Drex assessed her for a long moment. A grin played at his lips, the first break in his alpha persona since they’d met.
“Very honest, indeed,” he said. “I’d heard gargoyles were expressive. You don’t disappoint. You’ll find my pack is, too, when we allow ourselves to be. Please, Jessie, call me Drex.” His grin fell away. “Listen, there is a reason we haven’t allowed strong shifters into our fold, why the people who enter these woods without permission disappear. There is a reason we’re hidden away. And there aretworeasons we admitted your faction, but before we discuss that, we should resolve the present issue.”
“The overuse of eloquent linguistics in mundane conversations?” she said, probably without thinking.
His smile grew and faltered, and his gaze swung back to Austin. Drex’s beast nearly jumped out of his skin, and wildness swirled in his eyes.
“My people might not be able to pull us apart,” Drex said, glancing at Brochan and Tristan. Everyone discounted Jess, even people who had apparently done their homework. Then again, shifters discounted mages in general. It was why shifters were in this situation in the first place.
“Remember how we’ve practiced monitoring challenges?” Austin asked Jess, loud enough for Drex to hear.
“Wait…” She yanked his hand on impulse, her magic pulsing at her sudden confusion and unease. “What do you mean? I thought we were all getting along fine. He complimented you. You’re not here for his pack or his people or to push your weight around. Can’t we address this like we did with Kingsley and his friends?”
He turned to face her. Leaning down into her space, he offered her confidence and comfort. “This is a shifter thing. His beast won’t back down until he is forced to. It’s built into him. Neither will mine. Even if he could control it, and I could ignore it, our situation will always have the push and pull of our beasts until we handle this. You need to mitigate it. Remember what we’ve gone over? Remember what you did for Aurora’s challenge?”
Her brows knitted together, and determination steeled her expression. “I hate this.”
“I know. But you knew this would happen eventually. When you need to break us apart, do it. Do not give a warning, and do not try to coach either of us out of the darkness. You break it apart, hard and brutal, and start healing immediately, okay?”
The breath left her in a gush. “I really hate this.”
“I know.” He squeezed her upper arms as Tristan and Brochan stepped closer. He lowered his voice, for their ears only,as Drex conferred with his people. “I have more power, but he has a lot of access to his beast. He’ll lean in hard and lose himself quickly, but I won’t be far behind. It’ll probably be a grisly battle. Jess, remember what we talked about. You need to let it go long enough for there to be a victor but not until death. This one might be close, and it is going to take all your power to tear us apart. You need to allow enough time to do that. Remember?”
Her power started to pump, blanketing the wood and everyone in it. The resident shifters all stiffened and looked over. Jess didn’t notice. Her focus was on Austin. She stepped back without a word and shifted into her gargoyle. If she needed to get physical while she applied her magic, she’d be hardier in that form.
Austin turned and exploded into his polar bear form.
4
Sebastian
“Anyone need a beer?”Niamh called, bringing out the ugliest cooler he’d seen in a while. It was a vintage model from the seventies and showing its age. From all appearances, it had been kicked around for decades.
“What do I do?” Sebastian asked in sudden panic as Drex handed his muumuu to the man at his side. There was a burst of light and heat, and Drex shifted into the largest Kodiak bear Sebastian had ever seen, slightly shorter than Austin’s polar bear but more muscled, similar to their natural counterparts. Austin would be taller when on his hindlegs, but not enough to make a difference. This beast would give Austin trouble.
Laying a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, Broken Sue stepped to his side. “Stay close to Jessie, if you can,” he told Sebastian. “Follow her lead. If she has trouble separating them with magic, jump in and help but do what you can to prevent her from physically engaging in the fight.”
“I’m not going to be sucked in and have to fight her after this, am I?” he asked, allowing Broken Sue to herd him closer to thecircle being formed by the resident pack. They’d all shifted into human form, dwarfed by the two huge bears.
“No, this is between the alphas.”
Well, that was good news, at least.
“I’m Vessa, the beta of the Stonefang pack,” the woman wearing a sleek pantsuit and large diamond earrings said from the other side of the circle. “I, with the help of Dan”—she nodded to the man in the tailored suit— “usually shift to help end the fight, often with help from others. We’ve never overseen a fight of this magnitude, however, or with powerful magical workers waiting in the wings. We don’t wish to cause alarm by shifting or give the impression that we’re attacking, but we need to provide the protection our alpha is accustomed to.”
“Shift, if you like,” Broken Sue growled, “but Jessie will handle it.”
He didn’t offer any other information or give the other beta further notice, a huge slight in the mage world. Then again, Broken Sue never really cared about such things or spared the feelings of anyone outside his circle.
