Might as well practice now, just in case.
I pointed, half wondering if I’d wake up to Mr. Tom’s face and a cup of coffee.
“Excellent choice, miss. I nearly didn’t bring that one. It almost seemed too flashy for your attire, but I think you can pull it off. We’ll need to shop for some simple pieces. Everything else is much too formal for a light affair such as this.”
“Where…” I gulped as he gingerly lifted the necklace and unhooked the clasp, walking around me. I carefully swept my hair out of the way. “Where did you get these?”
“I keep a selection of jewelry in my closet. Most pieces are old and were kept with the house. I updated their boxes or containers.” He fastened the necklace and stepped around to look at it, nodding. “Keeping them in my room stops that insufferable Irishwoman from playing dress-up and heading to the bar. She used to hope someone would try to mug her. Well, someone eventually did, and it created an awful problem with the local Dick law enforcement. She broke five of the mugger’s bones and was in the process of trying to crack his neck—she was clearly out of practice—when the Dick policeman showed up to help. Only, the policeman didn’t know who to help at that point. There was a lot of explaining to do. Old Jane women do not usually assault their attackers in that way. She broke the necklace, and we had to get it mended.” He tsked and shook his head, handing me an earring and waiting for me to fasten it before he handed over the next. “I keep them hidden around my room now. She can’t get in.”
Checking the additions in the full-length mirror, I couldn’t believe how much they elevated my simple black dress. I looked like some cartoon princess, ready to go to her less-than-formal ball.
“If nothing else, I look the part,” I murmured.
“You always did, miss.” He checked his watch. “He’ll be early. Too anxious, I think.”
Mr. Tom was right—Austin was nearly here, although a couple minutes didn’t really count as early.
A flutter of nervousness rolled through my belly, and I frowned when I realized it wasn’t mine. Looking myself over in the mirror, mostly just staring at the necklace, I felt Austin walking toward the door. Ivy House didn’t open it this time, waiting for Mr. Tom to launch into his formal butler shtick.
“Grab some condoms,” Ivy House said.
This surge of nervousness was all my own, my stomach flipping and then dropping, like I was in a free fall. I stood, frozen, feeling the front door open and knowing Mr. Tom was inviting Austin in, offering him a place in the sitting room and a beverage while he waited.
I would’ve usually ignored Ivy House. Rolled my eyes, even.
Tingles covered my body, my limbs shaking, and this time…
This time…
Hastening into the bathroom, I did just as she’d said, grabbing a couple, just in case, then stuffed them into my clutch and snapped it shut. He was a friend. He didn’t want to get involved. He wanted to keep his distance.
We’d made mistakes before…
Dabbing the sudden sheen of sweat from my forehead, I slipped the tissue into my clutch as well and slowly walked out of the room, composing myself. Mr. Tom was just leaving the front sitting room when I reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Would you like a drink here before you go?” he asked me. “Mr. Steele said it was your choice.”
“No, thanks.” I passed him, my back a little too stiff, and paused awkwardly at the door.
Nathanial, the new gargoyle, whose warm brown eyes were undermined by his near-permanent scowl, sat in the far corner, his ankle crossed over his knee and fingers clasped in his lap. He stared at Austin while Austin leafed through a furniture magazine, not bothered.
Austin looked up, eyes appreciative. He put the magazine aside and stood, his movements rippling with lethal grace. A black dress shirt with blue pinstripes hugged his muscular torso, showing off his girth and outlining his pecs. His biceps strained his sleeves and a black belt cinched around his trim hips. Dark blue jeans hugged his thighs, and his black shoes shone in the light. His rich cobalt eyes accented his rugged, incredibly handsome face.
“You look beautiful, Jacinta,” he said, his move toward me more of a swagger.
“Thanks,” I said, both hands on my clutch, held in front of me like a shield. “You do too.”
“Ready?”
“Yes. Yup.” I stepped toward the door and turned to the side, ready for him to lead the way.
Instead, he stopped right beside me, standing close, almost predatory in his intensity. A shiver ran over me, my body suddenly tight and loose all at the same time.
“I didn’t bring flowers this time,” he said, and I glanced at the blue orchid still standing proudly next to the front door, the gift he’d given me before our friend date.
“It is too early to be slipping, Mr. Steele,” Mr. Tom said, standing by the door.
A smile curled Austin’s lips. “But I did think of it. I’ll ask that you have patience.”
I frowned at him. “Sure, but I don’t need flowers.”
“Of course you do.” He nodded and turned, touching the small of my back. “Shall we?”
“Who did you want on detail, miss?” Mr. Tom asked.
“I will be accompanying you, miss, if acceptable.” Nathanial appeared in the sitting room doorway, in house sweats with his wings dusting his ankles, no small feat for a guy who was six-four.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied, knowing there was no point in telling them they didn’t need to come with two alpha shifters on scene. “Maybe Jasper, too, so there’s someone I’m connected with.”
“I’d like to go.” Hollace, the thunderbird, leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, holding a book that rested against his thigh. “My liver is broken from trying to keep up with that Irishwoman at the bar last night. I need something peaceful to do, and this house keeps making the dolls knock on my door. It’s creepy.” He started down the stairs.
It turned out that as soon as I healed him (after I’d taken him down), and he got a little information about why I didn’t know his role, he lightened up significantly. He’d answered my summons, and that to him was a willingness to sign on, as weird as the situation might be.
I smiled. “Grab Jasper, would you?”
Hollace stopped and then retreated. “Yup.”
I nodded at Austin to get going.
“If it pleases milady,” he said softly, then led me to the Jeep and opened the passenger door for me.
“When do you plan on putting a bag over my head?” I asked while strapping myself in.
He climbed in the other side and started the Jeep up. “I didn’t know you were into that.”
“I’ve never seen where you live. I figured you were keeping it a secret.”
“Ah.” He clicked in his seatbelt and away we went. “No, it’s just that your house is safer. Well, safer for everyone except for Kingsley. I think those dolls have been giving him nightmares.”
“That guy doesn’t seem like he’d be scared of anything.”
We turned onto a small road that led away from town, barely two lanes and with trees pressing in on both sides.
“He’s not scared of much, that’s for sure. But Ivy House has a strange way of inducing fear.”
We wound around up the mountain, no shortage of them in the Sierras, the headlights clicking on as the sunlight dimmed, the day giving way to night.
“How are the new people coming along?” he asked, hitting a fork in the road and going left, winding higher still.
I thought back on the past week.
“Hollace and Nathanial are incredibly chill. Always very helpful. The phoenix just chirps because she’s too young to take human form, but she follows us around from room to room, or flies around the house. She has set fire to a few things, but the dolls run around with glasses of water to put them out, so that’s fine. They finally have a good purpose, but now we randomly have puddles, dribbles, and half-burned items littering the place.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
“Definitely not. Nathanial thanked me for summoning him, told me what an honor it was, and then basically just drifted into the background.”
“If he works out, he could be incredibly useful. I think we need to bring in more gargoyles so you can have an extended pack. You should have an army of them.”
“I would never be able to handle that many people answering to me,” I said, shuddering at the thought.
“They’d answer to Nathanial, and he would answer to you or me, depending on the circumstances. Chain of command. You handle him. He handles them.”
“And if he rises up against me?”
“He won’t. He has fully submitted to you. But if he tries anything, you could have Ivy House kill him in his sleep so you don’t have to do the dirty work.”
I smirked and looked out the window, at the dying light dancing through the pine needles.
“Hollace and the phoenix are mythical beings,” he said. “They’re magical creatures with human forms. Their souls live forever, born into new bodies. I don’t know the exact details, but creatures like them only join forces once in a great while, every few lifetimes. You clearly got a couple that were ready to shed their vacation clothes and get to work. Cyra made us work for it, but she wouldn’t have answered the summons if she wasn’t intrigued.”
“That makes me a little nervous.”
“It makes me a little giddy. Kingsley is as jealous as they come.”
The road opened up into a wide driveway leading to a two-story house. A huge, well-lit window looked out on an expanse of grass, pushed up against the woods at the back. Stone pillars bracketed the front porch, and the white door was flanked with colorful stained glass glinting in the porch lights. A wood deck hugged the second story and wrapped around the side. From my vantage point, I could see part of the house stepped up into the mountain, worked into the terrain. Its rustic look, all stone and wood and glass, fit in perfectly with the environment.