Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up #5)(11)

After all that, he’d had the gall to ask if I’d “finally” gotten around to deciding how I wanted to reoutfit the house.

I didn’t care about home décor! I was about to stumble my way into an impossible situation, and I was starting to lose sleep thinking about the danger I was putting everyone in. It would be better if I went alone, took a magical kill shot at Elliot, and hoped for the best. End of story. If someone went down, it should be me and only me.

“You good?”

Austin’s rough voice washed over me in the best of ways. I closed my eyes as his hand touched down on my shoulder and drifted across my back, dropping to rest on the back of the chair. I turned a little, dipping my fingers into his pocket and resting my hand there, pulling him a little closer until his side was pressed flush to my shoulder.

“Yeah. You?” I asked, looking up at his handsome face.

“Very. Should I grab a chair?”

He was asking how long we’d be.

My stomach flipped as I thought of him cooking dinner for me. Of what would absolutely happen once we were finished eating.

“No. Just one drink, I think.”

He nodded and reached around me to grab his glass. “So. You took down the phoenix, huh?”

My mood darkened. I scowled at Niamh. “I didn’t have much choice. It was that or die.”

“Bollocks,” Niamh said. “She was fartin’ around the whole time until she finally got her head out of her arse and finished things up.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t bother to comment. I’d already yelled as much as I cared to. She hadn’t backed down then, and I knew she wasn’t likely to have a sudden change of heart.

“One shot?” Austin said, swishing my hair across my shoulders. He stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes and savored the sensation, my heart leaping, his heart beating right beside mine in my chest.

“Mhm,” I murmured.

“You did better than I did,” he said.

I laughed, my eyes fluttering open again. “Hardly. I didn’t get the shot off until after she nearly choked me to death.”

“That Cyra is tough, boy,” Niamh said. “Jessie raked her across the middle, nearly tore her throat out, and battered her around—she just held on until she couldn’t anymore. Everyone knows female phoenixes have more power than the males, but Hollace says she’s also one of the oldest and most vicious of the females. Her soul has been around for ages.”

The link with Austin sparkled with pride. “And now both of the alphas of this territory have taken her down.”

“I’m not so sure I could do it again,” I said.

“Ah, would ye schtawp.” Niamh gave the ceiling a long-suffering look.

“Was that English?” I asked with a grin.

“Janie Mack, ye’re driven me mental, so ye are. Go have dinner. Austin Steele, if ye’re goin’ta have all these people in this bar all the time, ye’re gonna need more bartenders.”

A woman in her early twenties staggered a little as she climbed the steps from the lower area with the pool table and the bathrooms to the main bar area, from which the pool table had been removed a while ago to create space for the crowds. Been there, done that. She was one of the Janes and definitely a tourist.

I sipped my wine, nearly finished, losing sight of her within the throng of people.

“Are you over capacity?” I asked, pulling my fingers from Austin’s pocket and tracing them up his hard side.

He glanced around, taking in the crowd. I caught sight of the woman again, all hips and breasts, her miniskirt barely covering her crotch and her tube top covering just a strip of her middle. Her jewelry glittered, layered on her chest. I watched, transfixed like a magpie, an effect of my exhaustion. I could think of at least three outfits I had that would look great with that collection of jewelry. If only it was in vogue to steal so I wouldn’t have to go shopping.

It didn’t dawn on me that she had drifted a little too close until Austin stiffened, curling his hand around my far shoulder and turning, using body language to advertise that he was with me. I looked at her face; her makeup was a bit smeared from heavy drinking and her lips twisted in a hungry though taunting sort of way.

“Mmm, I like me an older man,” she purred, slowing.

I could feel my eyebrows lowering and wondered if she thought that was a flattering thing to say, calling Austin an older man. Didn’t men take that as the insult women had been taught to?

But when her gaze roamed his broad shoulders, dipped to his defined chest, evident even through his nondescript cotton top, and settled on his package, the logical part of my brain dimmed. Rage as hot as Cyra’s magma bubbled up out of nowhere. My whole being throbbed with it, pulsing with power.

My scope of vision reduced down to the woman, turning a little as she slunk by, her fingertips trailing across her cleavage, tinkling those stylish necklaces. Her predatory gaze darted to me.

She had no idea what a predator really was.

She had no idea who she was challenging.

I pushed Austin away and stood from my seat, power pumping, ballooning out. That distant part of me, the logical part, screamed at me to stop. To control the magic. To reel it back in.

I shouldn’t reveal my power to so many innocent bystanders, and I definitely couldn’t go after a Jane!

But none of that would register.