“You’re in that dark place,” Jessie said, stepping closer to Austin Steele, her voice soft and resonant, supportive and understanding. “I get why. I appreciate all the things you said a moment ago. Thank you for trying to protect me. Niamh is right, though—I’m doing okay. I’m giving much better than I’m getting. If I wasn’t, I’d say something. I’d stop. The first time I was supposed to attempt flying, I backed off, remember? You need to trust me, Austin. You need to listen to me when I tell you I’m okay. I know it’s in your nature to reduce harm to those in your territory, but I don’t need it. When I do, I’ll ask, okay? I promise you, I will ask. I know I haven’t always been good about that, but I’m getting better.”
Niamh stepped forward, suddenly freed.
Austin Steele took a deep, shuddering breath. “Would you mind taking the knife out of my back?”
Jessie’s brow fell and hurt flashed in her eyes. “Real mature, Austin. I tell you all of that, and you think I, what, betrayed you by saying I can think for myself?”
“No, no.” He half turned, grunting with the pain. “The actual knife in my actual back. Can you take it out? I can’t heal with it stuck in there.”
“Oh my…” Her face blanched. She grabbed the hilt with shaking hands and yanked. “What the hell… Who stuck a… Niamh, did you… Why…”
“She was probably trying to slow me down,” he said.
“By stabbing you?” Jessie asked, dropping the knife into the sink and quickly grabbing a towel.
“Did it work?” Earl asked, still lying on top of the broken table.
“Why don’t you two go for a walk?” Niamh said, preferring to have Austin Steele out of the house. Jessie was clearly the only one who could calm him down when he was in a rage. “Go visit Edgar. He’s always on about no one visitin’ him. Don’t accept the tae, though. Trust me on that one. You don’t want a cuppa tae from his house.”
“Let him heal first.” Jessie put the towel to his back, the deep crimson now flowing down his skin.
“It’s fine.” Austin Steele delicately moved away from Jessie’s touch. “Going outside would be good.”
With an incredulous look at Niamh, Jessie led him from the room, wisely choosing the side door.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Niamh said, “Get up, Earl, we need to talk to that thickheaded muppet. That gargoyle has the upper hand with this house—with Jessie—he should’ve been the bigger man and kept walking. He only stopped because he wanted to ride the rage of Austin Steele, the dope.” Niamh stalked to the door and paused, waiting to see if Earl would get up. “Did you know this door was here, by the way?”
“There are doors everywhere.” He groaned as he rolled onto the floor. “It’s the way Ivy House traps people in rooms.”
“I see that.” She waited for him to slowly stand. “Austin Steele had a lot of good points about how we’re training Jessie. She’s handling the battering, but does she need to be?”
“No, but we don’t have much choice. Damarion was… Oh, that is stiff.” Earl rubbed his neck as he cocked his head. “Austin Steele is like a tornado when he gets going.”
“He sure flung you something good.”
He grimaced and massaged his back. “Damarion was chosen, just as we all have been.”
“A protector is only chosen when he is given the magic and a seat. Damarion has been given neither, despite asking Ivy House for them.”
“Jessie isn’t sure about him yet, that’s why. She has the final say, not this house. But there can be no mistaking that her ability has grown in leaps and bounds in a short time.”
“Except in flying. She isn’t getting any better there…”
“No.” A troubled expression crossed Earl’s face as Niamh slid open the door without a problem. It fit seamlessly into the wall, as though there wasn’t a door in there at all. This house was tricky. “You don’t suppose she didn’t get that facet of the magic, do you? Surely she should be exhibiting some of the signs of flying by now…”
They made their way up to Damarion’s room by silent agreement.
“Austin Steele seemed to think we were going about it the wrong way…” Niamh said, thinking back over their conversation.
“Austin Steele wasn’t chosen to train her,” Earl replied.
“How could he be? He doesn’t want any part of this.”
“There you have it.”
Frowning, unsure about all of this, Niamh knocked on Damarion’s door. “I feel like we’re missing something. Maybe this is a test for us somehow?”
Damarion pulled open the door, his hair still wet from a shower and a towel cinched around his hips. My, but he was a looker. Jessie could certainly do worse on that front.
“What?” he asked, having fashioned himself Jessie’s second-in-command from the moment he’d set foot on the grounds. At first no one had blinked because he’d just saved her life and the other gargoyles naturally followed his command—this despite having only just met him, something she’d been surprised to learn—but now, after hearing all that Austin Steele had said, Niamh was starting to wonder if they’d been wise to accept him so readily. Maybe he wasn’t the best for Jessie, he was just the best that they had. Maybe she needed to send another summons.
Niamh suspected she’d get a better read on that after this conversation.
“What were you on about down there?” Niamh asked him. “You were trying to cause a row.”
“A what?”
“A fight,” Earl said. “This is not the place for a battle of dominance, especially when Jessie is standing between you two.”
Damarion straightened a bit more, full of righteous indignation. “This is exactly the place for a battle, and Jacinta is the person who must witness it.”
“And you think you’ll win, do ye?” Niamh asked with a chuckle. “Have ye not heard the stories about Austin Steele?”
“Stories grow bigger as the years grow long.”
“Not in this case,” Earl said.
“He’s a distraction to her,” Damarion said. “She won’t give in to me completely with him coming around. She needs to see me force him to submit so she can recognize the true alpha.”
“She doesn’t give two shites who is the true alpha, you muppet,” Niamh replied. “The girl is a Jane in her bones—she doesn’t even know what true alpha means.”
“I’m not sure he does, either,” Earl mumbled. Damarion bristled.
“Regardless, it doesn’t matter,” Niamh said, waving it away, “because they’re friends, that’s it. There is nothing romantic between them. He’s not your problem. Yer problem is ye’ve got limited game and you can’t read the situation. She’s too confident to give in to ye just because it would make you happy. She’s not on this planet to please you, ye donkey. Ye gotta try a new tactic besides drooling all over her and calling it kissing.”
“You should watch yourself, old woman.”
She laughed. “Don’t challenge me, kid. You don’t want to know the nightmare you’ll wake up.”
18
“You know how to freeze air and sound now, huh?” Austin asked, rolling his shoulders.
I grimaced at the blood still dribbling down his back and soaking into his sweats. “We should probably wash this off before we go into a confined space with Edgar.”
“I’m not worried about that vampire.”
We stepped out of a hidden side door, having gone through the secret tunnels to exit the house. I didn’t want to chance another encounter with Damarion or the others. “You’re not worried about a distracted vampire talking nonsense while he stares at you longingly, imagining sucking that blood off your back?”
Austin stopped walking. “You have a hose around here, don’t you?”
I laughed, leading him to the right. “It appears so. About the freezing air and sound thing, I mean. Also about the hose.”
“You hadn’t done that before?”
“No. Regardless of my advancement lately, I still do most things on the fly. That’s why it’s going fine with Damarion.” I ignored him stiffening. “He’s rough, yes, but trying not to get pummeled opens up my mind for creative evasions.”
“Look, this needs to be said.” He paused as we reached the green hose wrapped around the black spindle. He grabbed the metallic tip and tugged. The hose gave a little and then caught. He sighed. “I hate these kinds of hose holders. I always end up breaking them in a frustrated rage.”
Wincing, he gripped both sides of the black roller and pulled, turning it enough to get another foot of hose free. He gritted his teeth as he repeated the movement, his muscles flaring, probably from the strain of not ripping the whole thing away from the wall and throwing it.
I laughed, braced a hand to his arm, and waited until he stepped out of the way.
“I got this. You just focus on not bleeding out.”
“Thanks.” He looked out over the trees at the edge of the yard. “I’m not going to apologize for losing my cool earlier.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“I don’t like seeing you hurt in a way that I don’t think is necessary because—”
He gritted his teeth, biting back what he was about to say. I knew what it was, though—because Damarion couldn’t control his reaction to pain.
But he shifted gears. “Because Ivy House thinks you can take it. Even I started slow, Jess. Slower than I would have liked. But the whole pack worked as one to train each of us, at a pace that made sense for that person, and they did it right. I’m a bad example of their training, but I did learn what works, even if I didn’t apply it in my own situation.”