“That’ll feel nice when you finally take off that chastity belt.” She winked at me.
“I just have no idea how he does it. Mine keep getting rougher and rougher as I work with the weapons. I hope he doesn’t care…”
“If yer hands are in the right place, he won’t even notice.” Niamh chuckled.
As I took a sip from my glass, I finally noticed Sasquatch to my right, hunched over his beer and half turned away from the bar, showing me a little of his back.
“A glutton for punishment, huh?” I asked Niamh, ignoring him.
“He’s making a statement, the eejit. He’s putting his faith in Austin to protect him—meaning he’s declaring Austin as the stronger alpha. He doesn’t realize that we don’t need to resort to violence to make him regret waking up this morning.”
“He’s been through plenty tonight. We’ll leave him alone.”
“Sure, say that now when yer on the sober side of that bottle. Once yer a fan of the el’ gargles, your tune will change.”
Donna, the cute twenty-something who worked in a wine-tasting room on the main strip and who turned into a rather gross rat, practically danced down the inside of the bar, a big smile on her pretty face. “Hiya, Jessie.” She waved as she hustled by. “Quite a night, huh?”
From right behind me I heard, “Hey.”
I jumped, spun, and blasted out a pulse of magic. The room at large groaned, someone shrieked, and the chatter died away. Everyone doubled over, as though a bomb had gone off and they were dropping for cover.
Everyone except for Austin. He didn’t flinch, but every muscle on his very impressive body was clenched, including his jaw.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head. I lifted my voice. “Sorry! Austin startled me. My bad.”
After a silent beat, movement and chatter picked back up again, and Austin rolled his shoulders. “Ouch.”
“Why would anyone in their right mind want to attack her?” someone said into the din, everyone straightening up.
A little glow infused my middle. That was a nice thing to say—it meant I was getting better.
“I didn’t even feel it.” Niamh took a sip. “It’s good to be on the inside, Austin Steele. You should try it. Then she’ll protect you instead of battering you around. She’s getting stronger. That el’ gargoyle is doing his job.”
“Sorry,” I repeated, trying to scoot over to make some room and bumping into Sasquatch. He scowled but didn’t budge.
“It’s fine, I’ll stand.” Austin pushed in a little closer.
“Hey, listen, sorry about what happened earlier,” I said, wanting to clear the air. “I didn’t realize about you and Damarion. You know, the whole alpha thing. I didn’t know he’d cause a problem.”
“It’s not your fault. Thanks for giving me a good reason not to destroy my bar.”
“What reason was that?”
“No one would begrudge me for granting a beautiful woman her request, now would they?” He smiled at me, and his hard exterior thawed. “I can’t have him coming in here anymore, though. If we have Ivy House or town issues to discuss and you need your whole team there, we’ll have to do it on Ivy House soil.”
“Sure, yeah. No problem.”
His gaze flicked to my lips and then he looked away, his jaw clenching. “You still have some lipstick…” He pointed to his upper lip. “In case you want to fix it.”
“Of course I want to—” I grabbed another bar napkin. “Really, Niamh? You couldn’t let a friend know that she looked like a clown?”
“Oh sorry, I wasn’t payin’ attention.” She put an empty bottle at the edge of the bar. Donna swept it up as she passed by, then dropped it in the recycling bin, delivered a drink, and grabbed an order—all with quick economy.
“Hire that woman full time,” Niamh said. “Fire that donkey that works on Wednesdays and hire her.”
“Listen, Jess…” Austin moved in a little closer still, his side bumping my shoulder, heat shivering through my body. The gravity of his voice set me on edge. “I’m one hundred percent positive those mages yesterday were trying to capture you. They wanted to get rid of your team and make the grab when Ivy House couldn’t protect you. The mage I caught was shocked as hell I was there, meaning they didn’t expect any ground interference, and I’m sure they didn’t expect the gargoyles to show up—”
“Speaking of gargoyles showing up…” I recognized Ulric’s chipper voice. “We’re directly behind you, alpha. Thought you should know. We’re here to watch the miss.”