Home > Magical Midlife Dating (Leveling Up #2)(16)

Magical Midlife Dating (Leveling Up #2)(16)
Author: K.F. Breene

“Hey.” Austin sauntered over to us, wiping his hands on a white bar towel and giving me a tentative grimace. “So, how’d it go?”

“Well, tonight I was the Gary.” I recounted the situation, noticing Mr. Tom’s wings flutter, just slightly. The feeling of someone watching me tickled between my shoulder blades. A glance back and I saw why.

I groaned. “I told them to go home.”

Cedric and Alek lingered to either side of the door, leaning against the wall, staring at me. The other patrons in the bar noticed, glancing furtively between the gargoyles and Austin, clearly wondering if these new guys were a problem.

“But you did not tell them to stay there, miss.” Mr. Tom put his finger in the air. “As I said, their job is to protect you. Which they are doing.”

“Their job is probably to help me fly.” I took a sip of the wine. “That’s what I was thinking of before the summons. I didn’t expressly ask for help, but…” I shrugged. “That’s my guess.”

“And when are you going to attempt that?” Austin asked, dropping the towel onto the back of the bar. If he was annoyed by their presence, he didn’t show it.

I heaved out a sigh. Something in me said flight was the cornerstone of my magic. Learning to fly would usher in the rest of my abilities and cement my role as the heir of Ivy House. It would prepare me for this new life.

Except I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen.

“Sooner the better, I guess.” I shifted my gaze to Niamh. “That guy tonight was perfect—”

“She was way out of his league,” Mr. Tom interrupted.

I gave him a flat stare. “He would’ve been great, if it weren’t for this circus following me around. But they did help me realize it doesn’t make sense for me to date non-magical guys. It was my way of holding on to the past, but it’s probably time for me to own my situation and ease further into the magical world.”

“How do you plan to do that?” Austin asked, his gaze intense.

“I have no idea,” I mumbled, and took another sip. “I have absolutely no idea.”

9

I really wanted to say today’s situation was déjà vu of the last time I had tried to fly. I really did, but this situation was infinitely worse.

“Starting a new thing on a Monday is a terrible idea, everyone knows that,” I told Edgar. The frigid wind whipped the words out of my mouth.

“This isn’t a new thing,” Edgar replied, raising his voice over the howling wind. He adjusted his bicycle helmet. “You tried a week ago, remember? Right before your first failed attempt at dating a Dick.”

“Is the reason you’re wearing that helmet, because you know I’m going to throw you off this cliff?”

“Thrown, jumped—what’s the difference? At least you have wings. I’ll have to get caught and carried. Or dropped and killed.”

“The new thing I was originally talking about was jumping off an enormous cliff on the side of a mountain, high above a bunch of bone-crunching rocks. Now, however, I think the new thing is having you as my moral support to go through with it.”

“Oh yeah, I’m well known to be terrible in these situations, but I’m the only one without wings. I can fashion myself into a swarm of insects, as you might remember, but that’s more for hovering and moving quickly. I maintain a relationship with the ground. If there is no ground, I cannot sustain the form, have to change back, and go splat. This support role is the sole purpose I can serve when it comes to flying. I’m supposed to talk you out of running, but I don’t really have to, since it’s a long walk back to Ivy House. Fear-induced hide-and-seek is only a fun game for a little while, and then you’d have to come back and face the music. Though, I will say, it would take them forever to find you in the trees back there.”

He hooked his long thumb over his shoulder at the dense trees on the mountain side, the incline slight for about a hundred yards before climbing rapidly again toward the peak not terribly far above us.

Niamh had chosen this spot, about an hour away from town. Only the most advanced rock climbers attempted the cliff, and it was likely too cold for that. Hikers wouldn’t be able to see me through the thick canopy of trees below. Patches of glistening white snow clung to the rocks around us and dusted the leaves behind, not sticking to the ground way below us.

Way, way below us.

“It’s a long way to fall,” I said, my toes pushed up against the edge and shivers racking my body.

“Yes, it is. I don’t much like heights, did I ever tell you that?” Edgar watched Niamh fly by in her nightmare alicorn form, deep shadows swirling in her wake while the sinking sun slid across her oily black feathers. “This is a little torturous for me. You know what they say, though—what doesn’t kill you will haunt you for the rest of your life…”

“That’s not what they say! Of all the people in the world that could be standing next to me in a supportive role, you are the absolute worst.”

“Yes. Probably.”

“I should’ve begged Austin to come.”

“And have one of those young gargoyles fly him up here like a sack of potatoes? Hardly. He might’ve done it because he has a soft spot for you, but I doubt he would’ve been any better at this than me.”

“He would’ve, trust me. He would’ve been so much better.”

He shrugged as if to say fair point. “So, what’s the plan?”

The brawny, purplish Cedric flew close to the cliff, his giant wings beating lazily at the air as he sailed by. Thick slabs of muscle coated his large gargoyle form, his lower half clad in flowing pants. I sure wished he and Alek would fit Mr. Tom for some of those pants. He typically stayed nude when he shifted.

Speaking of Alek, he flew by a little further out, circling in the opposite direction. Though his human form was shorter than Cedric’s, their gargoyle forms were of comparable size. His body was deep brown, covered in chunky muscles, and his thick arms hung at his sides as his wings beat the air.

Mr. Tom, his form a darker brown than Alek’s, almost black to match his midnight eyes, sailed below on a lower plane, his wings slimmer in breadth and needing more beats per minute to compensate.

“Alek and Cedric are really great flyers,” I said, working on my courage. “Look how graceful they are in the sky. They were born for this.”

“Gargoyles are born to fly, yes. Except for you—you were made to fly—and the females of the species have smaller wings. They will need to aggressively protect you when you’re in the sky.”

“They might need to catch me first.” The canopy of trees beneath us butted up against a lovely garden of huge, jagged rocks that would break my fall should my wings not work. “They’re going to have to catch me. My wings aren’t going to work.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I don’t think I am ready for this life. I mean, I’m not even used to being single yet. I was living with the same people for half of my life, and suddenly I’m in a completely different situation in an unfamiliar, magical world. It’s all too much. That’s part of the reason that I wanted to date a Dick.”

“Except…everything would have been new to you anyway, right? You were in a cocoon for the last twenty years. Dating has changed since you were last single. So what does it matter if the person you’re dating is a Dick or someone magical? Either way, it’s going to feel unfamiliar. The magic part is just one more thing to learn about the person, plus it’ll be something you have in common. What do you do for a living? Oh, you are an international bounty hunter, fantastic. How’s business these days? What brings you to these parts—not me, I hope.” He chuckled. “See? I’ve even given you an icebreaker joke to start things off.”

“How would I meet an international bounty hunter in this small town?”

“They pass through, like everyone else. Get Austin to hook you up with someone. Or, I know-you’re familiar with shifters now, so maybe start there. Leave the bounty hunters for when you want a bigger thrill.”

He did make a lot of sense, I had to give him that. Thinking about the whole magic thing as a job made it a bit less daunting.

“Thanks, Edgar, that actually helped.”

“That’s great! Might’ve been nicer to have that pep talk without the crushing fear of falling to one’s death hanging over our heads, but beggars can’t be choosers, as they say. You still haven’t come around for tea. We’ll have to get you over to my cottage one of these days. If we survive the fall, of course.”

I sighed as Cedric sailed by again, looking straight ahead as though he had all the time in the world. He was not rushing me in any way, nor did he seem like he was wondering why I was taking so long. That took the pressure off a little.

“Okay, I gotta jump.” I rubbed my hands together. “I’ve stalled long enough.”

“Drat. I was rather hoping you’d refuse so we could play that game of hide-and-seek. I’m pretty good at it. Then maybe we’d just wander home on our own two feet.”

“That would take forever.”

“But at least we wouldn’t slip through the claws of these creatures and plummet to our deaths.”

“The absolute worst possible choice for support. The worst.”

“Yes, you do have a point.”

“Okay, wings…” I edged forward in a flurry of terror and adrenaline, breathing faster. “Here we go, wings…” I put my arms out to the sides for no reason—what was I going to do, flap them and play pretend? The wind whipped around me, yanking at my half shirt, the back open, and shoving at my loose sweats. “I can do it. Oh, hell, this is so high. This is so, so high.”

I looked down at the trees and rocks way below. Then back up at the limitless blue sky, crisp and cold. I was never going to fly if I didn’t take a chance. I had four people ready to catch me, three with actual arms. There was a long drop, so they’d have plenty of time to swoop in.

   
Most Popular
» Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up #5)
» Magical Midlife Love (Leveling Up #4)
» The ​Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash
» Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1
» A Warm Heart in Winter (Black Dagger Brothe
» Meant to Be Immortal (Argeneau #32)
» Shadowed Steel (Heirs of Chicagoland #3)
» Wicked Hour (Heirs of Chicagoland #2)
» Wild Hunger (Heirs of Chicagoland #1)
» The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club
» Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #
» Undercover Bromance (Bromance Book Club #2)
vampires.readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024