which meant she must have gotten one of Austin’s whip cracks of power (I’d yet to find anything else that would silence her). Her expression crumpled into a scowl.
“Okay, I realize you mean magically,” I told Austin, “but for the record, I’m still not clear on what’s happening. I don’t know why it’s my job.”
He braced himself against the edge of the bar, his arms flaring with muscle and his eyes fixed on me. “A wave of power swept the bar, urging—no, commanding—everyone to scatter. A magic unlike any I have ever felt called me to arms beside you. Called Niamh. Why Mr. Tom— Damn it.” A vein in his jaw flared as he gritted his teeth. “Why Earl hasn’t come barging in, I don’t know—maybe you kept it localized. It didn’t seem to reach the people on the outskirts of the bar area. Whatever you did, Jess, you had everyone fleeing this space faster than I ever have in my life. They are waiting out there because that is where you put them—out of harm’s way. Out of the action. There they will probably stay until you release your hold.”
The world spun. My head felt light. I blinked into that steady cobalt gaze more than was natural. It was hard to believe him, because I hadn’t felt anything, not a single thing. If I’d used that much magic, wouldn’t I know? A strange pulse had come with the summons.
And then a memory surfaced of my fingers tingling. That was all I’d felt, just anger and tingling fingers. The implications were troubling—if I could pull off magic like that without even trying, without even knowing I was doing anything, what else could I do by mistake?
“Are you positive it was me?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” he said, just as quietly, comforting. “We’re probably in the most dangerous time for you. I hope we are, at any rate. Unlike mages or shifters or most other magical beings, you didn’t have the benefit of growing slowly into your magic—of learning it by trial and error in relative safety. Instead, you were given a large dose of magic upfront, are steadily working into a huge dose that will possibly trump all other magics in the world, and have zero instruction.”
“She has plenty of instruction—we were talking about this earlier,” Niamh said. “She has a senile vampire who found a magical book among the petunias that he can barely decipher. I’d say that’s her sorted.”
“You are reacting to your surroundings, as you always have,” Austin said, “but now your feelings are manifesting magically. Thankfully, you have a shining character and a good heart, because you sent everyone to safety while you handled what you deemed a threat against you. It’s what I would’ve done. Actually, this situation provided you with some good, low-stakes practice. A greater threat would have yielded a stronger reaction, and given you are not in direct control…”
“Anything could have happened, and we might not have been enough to set it to rights,” Niamh finished.
“And here I was worried about dealing with annoying old dudes and wearing sexy disco-ball dresses,” I murmured.
“You shouldn’t worry about either of those things. One you handled just fine, and the other…” That vein flared again, and Austin pushed back from the bar, his eyes intense.
“Would look absolutely lovely on ye,” Niamh said. “That, or it’d look like a clown suit. But sure, I can see you pulling that off, too. Ye have the jokes for it, like.”
I gave her a flat look. “Thanks.”
“Let them back in, Jess, and we’ll talk about it.” Austin jerked his head at the pool room.
“Sure, yeah, except I have no idea how.”
“Remember how you call Earl when he’s in his stone form?” Austin said. “You just think about what you want from him, right?”
“Ye’ve gotten good at that one.” Niamh pushed her empty glass forward for a refill. “That gobshite is changing in and out all the time these days, wantin’ to fly for this and that. He’s a little too excited, if ye ask me. It’s gone straight to his head and corroded what’s left of his brain.”
“Give them the all-clear, Jess,” Austin said, magic riding his words, a command hidden in their depths.
Instead of wanting to resist, like earlier, I fell into his power and command, letting him guide me. He might not have officially signed up for the alpha role, but he was a master at leading the people in this town. He could curb their behavior or