He really hoped she was right. Because he was about to face his successful, good-at-everything, stable older brother, and Austin didn’t have much to show for himself. He wondered how long it would take before he got the disappointed look he remembered so vividly from his youth.
“Who died?” Mr. Tom asked Niamh as they neared the tent setup on the lawn, fluffy pastries and square-cut cheeses laid out on a tray. “Couldn’t be your good mood. That has been dead since I’ve known you.”
“Yer sense of humor died, actually,” she replied. “May it rest in peace.”
“Hey!” Jess turned, her eyes sparkling with merriment. Austin stared for a moment, unable to help himself, lost in that glittering smile. “I didn’t know Mr. Tom invited you. I see you put on your garden attire.”
“Hey, alpha.” Ulric walked up with a fuchsia plastic egg in his hand, no shoes on his feet, and a sense of ease that Austin admired. “Good of you to join. We’ve just about found all of the eggs, but there might be one or two more if you want to help? At first we weren’t allowed to help, but Mr. Tom got a little too creative when he was hiding them, so Jimmy had to call in aid.”
“Yeah, sure.” Austin shrugged, falling in beside Jess, his arm brushing against hers.
“Only you could make that outfit look good,” she said softly as they strolled across the grass, eyes down but neither of them really looking.
“What do you like best? The nearly see-through pants?”
She laughed, hooking her arm through his, sending shivers racing across his skin. “I think the shirt that screams ‘I’m a nice boy’ really does it for you.”
He let himself smile, something he could no longer do outside of this property. “I’m just hoping to throw people off the scent.”
“Make them think you’re nice and then offer them a beat-down?”
“Works every time.”
They stopped at the flowers near the woods, and she leaned around to look at him. Their gazes locked for a moment, and his world spun.
“A deeper blue would really suit you,” she said. He turned so they fully faced each other, their bodies close. “It would bring out your eyes.”
Unable to help himself, he reached up and traced his thumb across her full bottom lip.
“When you became alpha, was it forever?” she asked, so softly that he had to strain to hear.
“Being an alpha is never forever. It is until someone tears you out of your position, sometimes taking your life to do so.”
“So if you don’t like being alpha, you could just step down?”
He trailed his fingertips along her jaw before skimming them down her throat, running the pads of his fingers over her jugular. A shifter would only allow someone they trusted implicitly to touch so vulnerable a place. She didn’t know that, of course, but his body responded like she did know, hard in some places and languid in others, savoring the touch. The heat of her skin.
“No, it’s not that simple. I couldn’t just let someone else challenge me and take it, either. In becoming alpha, I’ve drawn people to the area, violent people, who need a strong hand to lead them. I’ve bought businesses and am helping others flourish. If I were to pull out, or allow someone unworthy to take my place, it would have negative effects on the community. It would hurt the territory and, most importantly, the people living here. I’m in it too far now to responsibly back away. Which is starting to chafe at present. No one told me the growing pains of starting a new territory would be so…arduous.”
“Uh-oh, you’re bringing out the thesaurus. You must be getting diplomatic on me.”
“Can you guys stop gazing into each other’s eyes and help me?” Jimmy threaded through the flowers at the edge of the wood. “This is way harder than when I was a kid.”
“Oops, Master Timmy, no.” Edgar jogged to the edge of the grass.
“It’s still Jimmy, bro,” Jimmy said dryly, moving on. “Just like yesterday, and the day before. Do vampires have terrible memories?”
“It has nothing to do with the memory,” Niamh said, hunting around the edge of the hedge labyrinth off to the right. “That one is just Froot Loops.”
“I really don’t think he’d hide anything in the flowers, Master Jimmy.” Edgar leaned over the flurry of color, his flower design like a flower fairy had drunk too much, stumbled to the area, and thrown up all her seeds in one go.
“Ah-ha!” Jimmy reached down and plucked a pastel purple egg out of the flowers. “Got it.”
Edgar’s brow lowered. “I’ll need to have a word with Mr. Tom about that next year. My flowers are not the correct place for fun and games. They are prizewinning flowers, and they should be treated as such.” Still grumbling, he wandered away.