Magical Midlife Invasion (Leveling Up #3) - K.F. Breene
One
“The early spring is really helping, Jessie. Yes, I think the grounds will make a full recovery.” Edgar hooked his long thumbs, complete with out-of-control nails, into the band of his bright purple sweatpants.
Mr. Tom, the butler/property manager/misguided life coach, had finally gotten tired of buying bleach and changed the color of our house sweats from white to purple, an ode to my gargoyle form, and also a color that didn’t show bloodstains as well. Why Edgar needed sweats at all was beyond me. He rarely changed form, and even when he did, he became a swarm of insects and his clothes magically changed with him. But I’d learned the hard way not to question the logic of the original Ivy House team. Their answers were likely to give you brain bubbles.
I surveyed the colorful blooming flowers from my position at the back corner of the yard. They were everywhere—crowding the side of the house, pushing up to the edges of the vivid green grass, lining the hedge maze Edgar kept insisting I wander into for a few hours of “fun,” and now popping up between the trees at the edge of the woods. I knew there were just as many flowers on the other side of the house and scores of them swarming the front. Even if he hadn’t insisted I take a tour with him to check out the grounds, the sheer volume was hard to miss.
“Yes, they are really coming along.” I nodded dutifully, then chose my next words carefully. Edgar didn’t take criticism well. A couple of months ago he’d let a dangerous person onto the grounds unwittingly, and now he kept suggesting that I retire him every time he made a tiny misstep. Retirement for a vampire was death. The guy kept trying to get me to kill him. “Did you buy out the flower store, or…”
“Oh no, Jessie, don’t be silly. I don’t buy flowers—I grow them. I did buy out their seeds, though. I wanted to make sure I had enough.”
I nearly made the mistake of mentioning the basajaun, the violent, long-winded, hairy creature who’d helped me escape a group of mages in exchange for access to Edgar’s precious flowerbeds. He’d wiped them out, and Edgar had not taken it well. Clearly he worried the situation wouldn’t be a one-time deal.
“Ah. I think you do. Have enough, that is,” I said.
“Yes, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.” He pulled his thumbs out from the band of his sweats and clasped them behind his back. “I wanted to work on my preparedness. You know, prevent another goldfish situation.” He hung his head a little.
“The goldfish was depressed anyway, Edgar…probably, and no one blames you for accidentally killing it. Granted, yes, when you were changing the water, you probably should’ve known to take the fish out of the sink before pulling up the drain stopper, but mistakes happen. You didn’t need to get me the fish in the first place.” Sometimes it wasn’t easy to keep from criticizing.
“Well, be that as it may…” He paused, his eyes drifting across the many types and colors of flowers, seemingly planted with no rhyme or reason as to overall yard design. “I’m not one to point fingers, and I am a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty, but I wonder…” He ran a fang across his bottom lip. He’d stopped retracting them altogether. We had no idea why, but I’d had to forbid him from going into town where non-magical people might see him and freak out. If they didn’t believe in vampires before seeing him, they’d be forced to change their tune. “I’ve noticed a few…discrepancies in my flower design.”
Ah. So he had been thinking about design, he was just bad at it.
“What kind of discrepancies?” I asked as I felt a familiar foot step down on the walkway leading to Ivy House’s front door.
It was Austin, the enormous, vicious polar bear shifter who’d recently accepted the number one position on the Ivy House council. He’d also finally staked his claim as alpha of our immediate town and two of those surrounding us, a job he’d been doing without the credit for years. He’d only held the new post for a matter of months, and already crime was down by seventy-five percent in the new towns he had a presence in. No one wanted to mess with him, which made me that much happier he was on my side.