Excerpt: Magical Midlife Love

Chapter 1

Who was coming to stab me?

I stood stock-still next to the newly closed winery tasting room at the end of the town’s main street, wrapping my gargoyle magic around me like Jasper had taught me, trying to blend into the building. Hard-eyed men and women walked down the sidewalk on the other side of the street, their movements full of lethal grace. It didn’t take a genius to know they were part of Austin’s budding pack.

Was one of them wielding the knife?

An older woman walked down the sidewalk my way, and I controlled my breathing and sucked in my gut, pushing against the wall. Neither of those things were necessary for the gargoyle magic to kick in, but given I couldn’t get the hang of disappearing, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

The strap of her purse slung across her full breasts and rested on the side of her soft stomach. Each relaxed hand was empty. No weapons were strapped to her thighs or her back. Not like that was a normal thing in the middle of town, but still…

Out of shape, older, no weapons—she didn’t look dangerous. Which made her exactly the sort of person Jasper would hand a knife to and set on my trail. The rules I’d created for this particular training exercise were brutal. If whomever Jasper had set on me found me, I’d have to just stand there like an idiot while they jabbed me in a spot my magic could heal. I’d had Jasper pick the assailant so I wouldn’t be able to cheat and hide if I saw them coming.

The two people he’d chosen for the previous weeks had found me, and their apologies hadn’t meant much when the knife was going in. This was my third attempt.

I would do it this time, I could feel it!

The woman paused two buildings down. I concentrated a little harder on blending into my surroundings. My stomach churned.

Jasper had said I’d get a feeling in my gut—was this it? Or was I just anxious about getting stabbed?

She bent to a half wine barrel filled with blooming zinnias, marigolds, and morning glories; bright pops of color. Spring was moving into O’Briens, soft and sweet and lovely. Spring break was next week, and my son was coming to stay.

I hadn’t seen Jimmy in person in over six months. A wave of excitement rolled through me, but I squashed it down, trying to focus.

“Well, well, well…”

I snapped my head away from the woman, only to see my nemesis approaching.

Sasquatch, whose real name I had forgotten in favor of the name I’d given him, had shaggy, greasy hair sticking out at all angles, a scraggly beard reaching down past his neck, and clothes covered in stains. He stopped near me, and the smell of feet wafted up from his well-worn black boots.

We’d been at odds since my first night in town—he’d made a disparaging comment to me at the bar, and Austin had punched him clear off his stool. The pattern had repeated itself plenty of times since.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Get out of here. I’m busy.”

“Busy with what? Standing around looking useless? You do that all the time; why is now any different?” His eyes darted to the older woman down the way, just straightening up.

Was Sasquatch in the know? Jasper usually picked my opponents from the bar, which was Sasquatch’s second home. Since no one willingly talked to him, he listened in on everyone else’s conversations. Maybe he’d heard Jasper hire the woman…

Regardless, I clearly needed to find a new place and try again. If this idiot could see me, the whole town could.

I stepped away from the wall. “Get out of my way.”

He stepped with me, a smug grin on his face.

My world drained of color as he reached around to his rear jeans pocket. His muscles loosened and then contracted, a pocketknife coming around in his stubby fingers. He pulled out the blade.

“Oh no,” I breathed, freezing. “No…”

I could magically blast him like a bug. I could unravel his skin from his bones and let his blood leak down onto the sidewalk. I’d been afraid of him once, but now that I’d mastered (most of) my Ivy House magic, he was nothing more than a nuisance.

Still, there were rules. I couldn’t retaliate.

A jack-o’-lantern grin slid across his face. “Oh yes. Yes.”

His knuckles whitened on the hilt.

“Why’d he pick you?” I asked through numb lips, looking between that knife, the blade a bit dirty and rusted, and his awful smile.

“Right place at the right time.” His eyes twinkled with malice.

“You’ll pay for this,” I seethed.

“No I won’t. I accepted an approved job.”

The older woman passed us by, her pleasant smile turning to a look of alarm when she noticed the knife. I’d picked a terrible location to fail at my magic. With any luck she was magical, and the only person she’d tattle to was Austin. I didn’t feel like lying to the police. Again.

“If you hit back, it’ll be against town law, and the alpha will have to put you in your place. He’s made it very clear he doesn’t play favorites. He won’t ruin his reputation by ignoring an attack on one of his people…” Sasquatch’s smile was triumphant. “Not even for you.”

I gritted my teeth. With hard work, plus help from Austin and Edgar—gardener, vampire, amateur doily maker, and interpreter of Ivy House’s magical books—I had turned the tide in my magical ability. Austin and I were now about even in power. If he tried to cow me for knocking this dirty butthead around, it would be a well-matched battle.

I didn’t want to put Austin in that position, though. His pack was barely contained chaos right now. Or so Niamh had told me. He had said he needed space from our friendship, which kept skirting the line of something more, and although we trained together every day, we hadn’t had a conversation that wasn’t directly related to training in a month and a half. Niamh, on the other hand, still visited his bar nearly every night, and she kept me up to date on the latest goings-on. Everyone had heard rumors of the great Austin Steele, the fierce polar bear shifter alpha, and shifters were flocking to O’Briens from all over the U.S. and Canada—some even came from other continents. They came to bask in his power, to (hopefully) share in his prestige. And some of them simply came to satisfy their curiosity, wondering if the rumors were true. Wondering if he couldn’t be beaten.

Whenever someone challenged Austin Steele, that curiosity was quickly sated.

His primary objective in securing this territory was to protect me. He was building a castle around my keep. I would not spit in his face by going against the laws that he needed to uphold to run this town. He was my alpha here, just as I was his alpha on Ivy House soil.

“You may not pay for this now, but you will pay for it,” I ground out, fisting my hands, bracing myself. “I’ll find a way that doesn’t violate the town law.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever.”

Terror constricted my chest as he shifted his weight and poised. His muscles bunched and that knife sped toward me, choking me up. The point pierced my side, a momentary flare of bright white pain before I snubbed out the feeling with magic. The blade squelched as he drove it all the way in, the hilt bumping against the circle of crimson quickly expanding on my white shirt.

There he paused, his glinting eyes connecting with mine. I distantly felt Austin drawing nearer, walking up the street, but the usual fluttering of my stomach was absent. Because I had a blade embedded it.

“Well?” I asked quietly, anger flowering in my middle. “Do you plan to pull it out, or are you trying to give me rust poisoning?”

“That’s not even a thing for magical people, Jane.” He let go of the hilt and pulled his hand back, joy soaking into his features even as blood soaked my shirt. He clearly didn’t intend on pulling the knife out himself.

I didn’t feel the blade, and I was already working on damage control with my healing magic, but that didn’t stop the primal part of me from cringing in dread. A deep part of me still connected a stabbing with a grave. My mind edged into survival mode, each second that dangerous weapon stayed lodged in my flesh pumping out another wave of adrenaline.

I could easily pull it out, sure. I wouldn’t feel it. But half the time it didn’t hurt to work out splinters, either, and digging those out with a sewing needle had always been beyond me.

“Pull it out,” I said through clenched teeth, my hands shaking, not daring to look down at it again. “There’s nothing in the rules about you getting to leave the knife in.”

“Exactly. There’s nothing in the rules about leaving the knife in…or pulling it out, either.” Sasquatch just looked at me with that awful smile, enjoying my turmoil.

“The game is over.” Austin’s deep, rich baritone washed over me. I’d lost track of his approach.

Sasquatch jolted as though struck, his spine snapping ramrod straight, his beer belly popping out. He hadn’t noticed Austin coming at all. A moment later, he bent like a dying reed, drooping over and reaching for the knife.

“No, no!” I slapped his hand away, my reflexes faster than they’d ever been. My body stronger, too. Austin wasn’t just training me in magic. “Careful!”

Sasquatch staggered to the side before lunging back at me. “Alpha said the thing is done. Give me my knife!”

“Don’t grab like that. You’ll make it worse.” I slapped his hand away again and sent a tiny blast of magic to shove him back.

He flew off his feet and sailed ass over end toward the building, his back hitting first, his head pointed toward the ground. My power kept growing, and every time I thought I had a handle on my range, I went and blasted someone across the room. Or down the sidewalk, as the case may be. Oh well. It probably wasn’t the first time he’d been dropped on his head.

“Oops. Too much power,” I said.

Sasquatch struggled to his feet, hand to his cranium. He pointed a finger at me. “You saw her, alpha. She assaulted me. Aggressively! She broke the law. Punish her.”

Austin stepped back into the gutter. Power throbbed off his robust body. Hard eyes surveyed us from a harder face. This was Austin the alpha, not my friend and trainer. He was hearing a complaint from someone in his territory and discerning its merit before he reached a verdict. He was police, judge, and jury in this town, and he couldn’t afford to let someone upset the extremely precarious balance right now.

But then…I wasn’t in the habit of letting people beat me up, either.

This might be bad.

***

Chapter 2

“She has a knife sticking out of her body and she worried you’d do further damage by carelessly yanking it out.” Austin’s eyes sparked with danger. “Every magical person in town is aware of her power situation. You should’ve known how your fumbling would be received. This matter is over.”

The commanding tone had Sasquatch stepping back, uncertainty and fear on his face. “Okay, but…”

Austin looked down on him, unblinking. His power throbbed once, twice, daring Sasquatch to push back. Darkness bubbled just under the surface of his eyes.

“It’s just…” Sasquatch pointed at the knife lamely, reminding me it was still there. Reminding me that a knife was lodged in my stomach and blood was seeping down my side. “I need my knife back.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and currently it’s in her possession,” Austin replied.

“Finders keepers,” I muttered miserably, looking at the hilt with my hands spread to the sides. My mind swam. I wasn’t sure if it was from blood loss or the prolonged dumping of adrenaline into my blood, or maybe my mind was convincing my body that it should be in shock.

“Go,” Austin growled, and Sasquatch took off running, grabbing the waist of his pants as he did so, apparently worried they’d slip down and show his cheeks.

“Except I still have a knife sticking out of me.” I swayed.

Austin quickly stepped closer, and his warm hand grasped my shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he crooned, his tone soft and comforting, a complete one-eighty from a moment ago. “I got it.”

I met his eyes, soaking in that beautiful cobalt blue.

“I didn’t mean to retaliate against him,” I said, holding his shoulders for stability. It was like gripping two large boulders. “I was trying to get him to step back.”

“You seem to forget that I’ve been on the other end of that sort of accident a few times.”

“It’s just…I know you’re under a lot of pressure to keep everyone from killing each other here. I didn’t mean to add to that.”

His gaze dipped to my tongue sliding across my lower lip. “Jess, you don’t have to apologize. I know exactly what happened. I watched the whole thing. I was at the other end of the street when he first caught sight of you. If I weren’t officially alpha now, I would’ve told him to get lost. Being the alpha, I had to at least appear to weigh both sides.”

“I thought you didn’t play favorites.”

“I don’t. But I also don’t listen to whiners who delight in stabbing beautiful women.”

I smiled at him, my heart warming.

“Does it hurt?” he asked softly, his hand near the knife, getting ready to pull it out.

I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t accidentally look down and see. Unlike with a splinter, you couldn’t just leave the knife in until it worked itself out.

“No. I think I’ve mastered my healing magic. It’s just…” I blew out a breath. “My brain is bleating in panic every time I think about it. I have a knife sticking in me, man! For forty years I’ve lived with the idea that being stabbed is a potentially life-threatening situation. It’s hard to ignore that just because I don’t feel the wound. It’s hard to get used to. People in shock don’t feel things either. Shock means something very bad has happened to you. I can’t—”

“I’ll handle it, okay?” His breath dusted my face, spearmint and something sweet.

“Did you eat cake? I could use a slice of cake. I haven’t had cake in…” I trailed away, wondering what the hell was taking him so long. Just yank it out, already!

I flinched at the thought.

“Listen,” he said, his voice still so soft, so comforting. “I wanted to talk to you about the winery.”

As in the winery he’d asked me to buy and run with him. The arrangements had already been made, but what if he’d changed his mind? Did he think it was a bad idea for us to work together?

A wave of worry washed through me, and I blinked my eyes open to see his expression.

His hand moved so fast that I didn’t register it. He grabbed the hilt and yanked.

I cried out, bending in anticipation of a pain I didn’t feel.

A gush of warmth soaked my shirt and then dribbled onto the lip of my jeans. Deep crimson coated the blade in Austin’s hand before he dropped it to the ground and pressed his palm against my wound, bracing his other hand against my back, using pressure to stanch the blood flow. Shifters healed fast, and I healed faster—when I was on my game—but for a handful of heartbeats, magical people bled like anyone else.

“Sorry, I just mentioned the winery for distraction purposes.” Austin grimaced at me, and his smell permeated my world, clean cotton and sweet spice.

“I’m good.” I touched the corded muscle of his bare forearm. “The worst is over.” I glanced down at the knife. “Do you really tell people about my magic?”

“Absolutely. Everyone is warned. I make it very clear that I can’t control you any more than you can control yourself. People are instructed to leave you alone, and if they don’t, they must take what comes. They also know that your property is not part of my territory, and if they trespass, I cannot help them.”

I widened my eyes at him, back to gripping his flaring shoulders while he pressed against my wound. “But Sasquatch said…”

“Ryan just doesn’t seem to learn his lesson.”

I tapped his hands. “I’m good now. Thank you.”

He slowly pulled his hands away, not seeming to notice the flare of crimson staining his palm. “I don’t like this game, by the way,” he said, a growl working into his words. “I don’t like you placidly allowing people to hurt you. If they hit wrong, they could kill you before you could do damage control.”

“I have Jasper pick people because he’s a good judge of character. He usually picks more trustworthy people, though. He either didn’t know that Sasquatch and me—”

“He knew. He’s trying to push you, I think.”

“Ah.” I frowned down the street, noticing Jasper lounging against the wall, easily blending into the building behind him, utterly invisible to everyone except for me because I could see through a gargoyle’s glamor-like magic. Magic I could not figure out how to apply to myself.

“It’s not working.” Austin turned before gently placing his hand on the small of my back, guiding me down the street. He scooped up the knife as we went. “I know I said I’d defer to your judgment of what you can handle, but with all due respect, just because you can handle it, doesn’t mean you should.”

I sighed with frustration. “I keep hoping it’ll work.”

A man walked toward us with effortless grace and hard gray eyes. Shifter. “Alpha,” he said as he approached, stepping into the street and offering a slight bow. “Miss.”

“Damn that Mr. Tom,” I grumbled, Austin ignoring the man completely. It was apparently an alpha custom to ignore greetings from townspeople and pack members. “He keeps convincing people to call me miss instead of just letting them call me by my name.”

“He wants you to have some semblance of a title. It isn’t a terrible idea.”

“Don’t you start. Turning this town into a big shifter pack is your thing. You need the title; I don’t. I’m just a home owner.”

“The owner of the most powerful magical home in the world, with the ability to create your own army if you so choose.”

“Okay, okay, let’s settle down. No more reading up on the history of Ivy House and its heirs. This is modern times—if I created an army, I’d have the government swooping in, thinking I was a terrorist. Besides, I’m not trying to form some magical empire. I just want to defend my home.” I smoothed my hair back, lowering my brows at him. We slowed to a stop on the corner. “You know what I meant, though. No more asking Edgar about the history of the house. It’s giving you crazy ideas.”

He looked away. “I ask Edgar because I need to know the ins and outs of what I am guarding.”

“You don’t. I do.” I looked off toward the house crouching in its wood, not visible from the town’s hub. “There’s a list of vulnerabilities I don’t understand and don’t have the knowledge or magic to work out.”

“No sign of anyone to fill that summons?”

I’d sent out a magical summons, asking for a mage who could help me. Over a dozen had shown up, trickling in with their swagger and egos. One practice session, though, and each and every one of them had been fired or quit. None of them had been powerful enough to work with me.

Most of the mages had assumed (wrongly) that I would know some of the basics of spell casting, based on my age alone. I’d changed their perception quickly.

I’d nearly blown off a mansplainer’s head by accident. He’d stopped ’splaining real quick and got the hell out of there. I’d almost killed another, thankfully able to patch him up before all of his blood leaked out. He’d accused me of tricking him…while sobbing. A woman had admitted she wasn’t the right fit after losing half of her robe to a spell gone wrong.

My power blindsided them, one and all. My complete lack of knowledge widened their eyes. My haywire spells sent them running.

I’d had to devise a test to weed out the duds.

I’d rigged up a spell to send applicants to Agnes’s shop. Once there, she’d instruct them on how to create the spell capable of hiding them from Ivy House’s detection. The challenge was to ingest the spell, mosey onto my property, and knock on the door. Simple as that.

Many had tried. All had failed.

“Nope,” I said, dabbing at the garnet stain ruining my shirt. I probably should’ve worn black today. I’d really thought I’d get it this time, though. I’d hoped to show everyone my clean white shirt with a triumphant smile. “Five came last week. I doubt they’re even from the summons anymore. I think word has gotten out that there’s an open mage position and people are just showing up to apply. Three of them were able to make the potion, but not well enough to mask their heat signatures from Ivy House. She booted them off the property with the new trap Edgar installed.”

Austin shook his head slightly. “You guys and that house…”

“We’re not normal, I know.”

“No, you are not. Effective, but not normal.” He paused for a moment. “Yes, it’s probably word of mouth at this point, which is why only the lesser mages are coming to apply. More established mages might’ve ignored the summons entirely, if they’re happy where they are.” Austin’s upper body tightened up, his pecs popping through his shirt as his biceps strained the white cotton, flexing so as to prevent himself from releasing tension through a physical tic, like running his fingers through his hair. He’d had to make some changes since assuming the alpha role.

“What did you want to do that you can’t do anymore?” I teased.

His gaze zipped to me and then away. His lips quirked, but he gritted his teeth again, his face in hard lines that somehow didn’t detract from his handsomeness. “It’s not that I can’t anymore. It’s that you loosen me up too much and I forget my place.”

“Your place… At the top?”

His gaze connected with mine, this time digging in, primal and dominant. A zip of excitement tore through me, and I felt loose and tight at the same time. A feeling, I fully realized, that was not the way a person was supposed to feel with a friend.

“Yes,” he said.

“And why can’t you smile and…tuck your fingers into your belt?”

“I wasn’t going to tuck my fingers into my belt, and it’s because I have a reputation to uphold.”

“The reputation of a grumpy guy who wants to…scratch his chest?”

“The reputation of a hardass who won’t stand for anyone stepping out of line. If you show weakness as a dominant figure, someone will prey on it. And no, I did not want to scratch my chest.”

“How is smiling or…running your fingers through your hair…?”

His eyes crinkled. “Caught me.”

I laughed. “How is that a sign of weakness? I don’t get it. People who allow themselves to feel and show emotion are not weak. They’re stronger, actually.”

“Honestly, I don’t know why, but when an alpha is too nice, too easy, too expressive…he or she gets an increased number of challenges. People see me loosening up as a green light for them to do the same, and for violent people, that often takes the form of challenges and rowdy behavior.”

“It means more work for you, basically.”

“Exactly, yes.”

“So you’ll never smile again?”

Even though he must’ve known I was teasing, his expression turned uncomfortable and he shifted his body weight away from me. Looking toward the opposite side of the street, he said, “There are a few exceptions.”

“Like…?” I rolled my hand in the air, not sure why he was forcing me to drag information out of him today. Of course, it had been a month and a half since we’d had a normal conversation, minus the rest of my demented Ivy House crew. Clearly he’d forgotten how.

He shifted his weight again, antsy to go. “Like when he’s in private with those closest to him.”

“But not in public?”

He paused for a beat. “In public, people only give exception to an alpha when he’s with his mate or his offspring.”

“Well, at least that’s something. It would be hard to date if you couldn’t laugh at your date’s jokes.”

“No.” His tone was hard. “Not a date, a mate. It’s a magical bond that manifests physically, similar to the magical link we have from Ivy House but much deeper. More primal. It changes a man. It makes him less reasonable. Less logical.” The full weight of his focus came back to me, punching through my humor and lightness like a steel mace. “People forgive an alpha for smiling with his mate or offspring because they know if they do anything that might harm them, even indirectly, the alpha will lose his mind and end the threat with unspeakable force. He will protect his own with everything in him. The smallest slight can turn into a bloodbath. It is safest for all to give an alpha leeway when he is with his mate or children.”

I blinked, my eyes wide, his tone and bearing hostile and haunted.

“That woman from your past…she was your mate?”

“No. I thought she would be, at one time. The reason I acted out back then was because I was young and dumb and full of…” He stopped himself. “Even without that bond, though, I was a menace to society. Even without it, I put people in the hospital and nearly killed my brother. What do you think might’ve happened if she’d been my mate?”

I nodded slowly, watching him, aching for him. I could feel his pain through the magical link we shared. I tended to unblock it these days when talking to him, needing to feel his emotions to gauge what was behind that hard, expressionless mask.

“Gotcha,” I said softly. “I’ll be careful not to badger you into smiling in public. I assume it’s fine on Ivy House soil, since that’s not your territory?”

He watched me silently for a beat. His emotions flicked from one to the next so fast that they were just a jumble of uncomfortable. He finally nodded.

“Well, there you go, then. You just have to stay for a moment after training one of these days. I’ll get Mr. Tom to tell you some jokes. He’s got a few zingers. Of course, he doesn’t realize they are jokes. Since he’s the punch line and all.”

He swore under his breath and looked away. “It’s a lesson in self-restraint speaking with you. Anyway, listen, no biggie, but—” His muscles popped again and his jaw clenched.

I laughed and pointed at him accusingly. “Thumbs in belt loops!”

“Hands in pockets. I did actually want to talk to you about the winery. Mr. Tom sent through the check. He said you’d approved the expense. You still need to actually sign the paperwork. My lawyer is putting that together now. We’ll be partners, fifty-fifty. Is that still good?”

I swallowed. “Yeah, good. Sounds good. My son is coming for a couple days, but outside of that, I’m free…”

While I was glad he hadn’t decided to back out after all, and supremely excited about Jimmy’s visit, I felt weighed down by the memory of the house financial ledger splayed in front of me in the office. I’d never seen such large numbers in my life, and I was the one responsible for the estate. Which was fine—beyond fine—except the generous gift came with an unexpected commitment, something no one had thought to mention to me when they’d explained about the whole magic thing.

I’d finished mastering the first spell book Ivy House had provided for my training, and although we still had a ways to go in Book Two, it was time for me to claim the full gamut of my magic, apparently. But before that final burst of power was unleashed, I needed to give a blood oath—a blood oath!—to protect the house and the people in my circle. To officially become their protector and provider. To become a leader, like Austin was for his pack.

Once I made that oath, I’d be stuck in this position forever. Forever. There would be no divorce court to get me out of this one. No do-overs. I would literally be the heir of Ivy House until I died, and it would almost certainly be a bloody death.

Because one of the supposed upsides of the blood oath was that I (and my crew) would get to live forever. Given I was one of many heirs, it wasn’t a leap in logic to realize my predecessors had all been killed, and that the same bloody fate was in store for me one day.

If I took the oath.

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