Magical Midlife Love (Leveling Up #4) - K.F. Breene Page 0,73

up ahead.

He scooped me up and threw me over his shoulder, not the most comfortable of holds, especially since his hard-as-rocks shoulder was digging into my full and fragile stomach. I tried to perch on his back to no avail, and then just worked on not throwing up.

“Ivy House, how do you heal drunk?” I asked, Sebastian still on the phone. I lifted it to my ear.

“Jessie? Jacinta!”

He actually sounded worried.

“Are you sure? I can’t make you drunk again—you’d have to start all over.”

“Just do it.”

“I’m fine,” I said between wheezes, my stomach rolling. If Ivy House really did have a cure, it wasn’t helping fast enough. To be fair, its power was much stronger on the actual property. “Shifters are…running through my property…followed by the basajaun. I don’t know…what they did, but if I don’t get to them before…he does, there won’t be…anything—ow—left to question.”

“The basajaun from the mountain?” Kingsley asked, not even out of breath. He’d been drinking all night as well, beer for beer with me. It hadn’t affected him even a little, just like his brother.

“I’ll be right there,” Sebastian said, and the line went dead.

He’d be too late. We might all be too late.

“Ivy House, slow that basajaun down, but—”

“You’re talking to me again,” Kingsley said.

“Damn it!” I switched gears. “Ivy House, slow that basajaun down, but don’t hurt him. I want him to stay on my side.”

The house glowed like a beacon in the shadows ahead, all the lights on. A lone figure waited out front, and I could feel that it was Edgar. Swooping down from above came the nightmare alicorn with wings of inky darkness. I felt Ulric and Jasper on their way.

Those shifters were halfway through the woods now, coming fast. They were cutting through the property at a diagonal, which would dump them out to the left of the house.

It might not be an attack on me, specifically, but they’d clearly planned to crash into Austin’s territory. I knew that wasn’t how things were done around here. They’d snuck over the mountain, aggravating the basajaun in the process, and instead of making amends, they’d continued their preplanned journey with a lot more haste. These fellers were in a no-win situation.

“Put me down.” I tapped Kingsley’s shoulder. A moment later, half sober, I touched down on the sidewalk before Ivy House. “Thank you.”

I ran onto the property, the alcohol in my blood draining quickly now. My mind raced for a strategy.

“Jacinta.”

Sebastian’s voice was magically amplified. A beat-up old VW Beetle rolled down the street, silent as the grave. I couldn’t tell if he was propelling it by magic or if he’d magically cut out the sound. No lights announced its entrance.

“Can you trust him?” Kingsley asked. He stood beside me, loose and ready for battle, power pumping out of him.

“Doesn’t matter either way. Not on Ivy House soil.” I turned to Mr. Tom, coming out of the house, as Niamh touched down. “Get into the air with the other fliers so you can help Ivy House respectfully slow the basajaun down. Treat him with kid gloves. If he kills a few of the shifters, fine, but try to keep him from killing everyone.”

Mr. Tom nodded and immediately started to change. Niamh lifted into the sky again, Ulric and Jasper showing up. I gestured for them to join the others.

“What do you need?” Sebastian jogged over from his car, his shirt and pants rumpled and his hair mostly standing on end.

“I need to make a wall to keep those shifters from getting out.”

“You know how to do that.”

“Yeah. Right, yes I do. I also need to keep the basajaun from gruesomely killing everyone.”

“I sure hope you know how to do that, too, because I’m at a loss. I’ve only heard disturbing things about those creatures.”

“Yeah. Dang. The things you’ve heard are mostly true, I’d bet.” I ran toward the spot where the shifters would intersect, magically draping a wall over the property line.

“They might scatter once they hit the wall. Our best bet is to keep them contained. What if you magically redirect them?” Sebastian said, running beside me. Kingsley followed us, and Edgar puffed into insects, zooming ahead. “Create a mind confusion spell, or maybe an illusion to make them go where you want them.”

“Yeah. Genius. I don’t know how.”

“Okay. I’ll walk you through it. We’ll do it together.”

It wasn’t easy to learn on the run, but with Sebastian teaching me, it was manageable. Kinda. By the time those shifters hit