Magical Midlife Meeting (Leveling Up 5)

“So you liked guarding your claim, huh?” Austin kneaded the dough, his biceps popping rhythmically, the effect hypnotizing.

“Guarding my claim?”

“You said a moment ago that you liked having your episode. From a shifter perspective, you were guarding your claim. A Jane might call it protecting her interests. You were guarding what was yours.”

I smoothed my fingers down the stem of my wine glass. “You don’t mind being thought of as property?”

“It’s not a property thing. You claimed me, and I accepted that claim. I claimed you, and you accepted that claim. It’s the same thing Dicks and Janes do in a relationship when they agree to be exclusive. And when a Dick cheats, for example, the scorned Jane might torch his car and burn all his crap.”

“That’s a pretty extreme example…”

“Magic is even more extreme, which you know.”

“Yeah.” The word rode a sigh. “It felt good for some reason, but I don’t want to be that woman.”

“I hope you have no choice, because that woman turns me on something fierce.” He smirked and cut into the dough with a knife, checking for air bubbles before kneading for a bit longer.

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“I know. It’s got to be weird experiencing all of this without any real frame of reference.” He pulled out a bowl and dropped the dough into it before covering it with a dinner plate. “What’s the verdict? Shrimp?” He looked in the fridge. “Maybe a garlic butter shrimp pasta…” He reached in and moved some things around, the muscles on his back rippling and flexing. “Or maybe a creamy shrimp pasta…” He paused and looked back at me. Before I could answer, he turned back. “Garlic butter. You can’t do heavy exercise with a belly full of cream.” My stomach fluttered as he took out ingredients. “Or maybe a parmesan white wine sauce… That sounds good.”

“I can’t believe you do this stuff without recipes.” I watched him pull out a block of parmesan and grab a grater before setting them on the island.

“I can’t believe how in awe you are of my cooking. It makes me feel like a shifter god.” He chuckled as he gathered the rest of what he’d need, including a pasta machine.

I sipped my wine, continuing to watch him, but my mind wandered to the larger issues at hand. “We haven’t gotten any instructions from Elliot Graves yet. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Niamh says it isn’t. He won’t want anyone to try to sneak in, and the magical world is full of leaks. He’s trying to keep the repository out.”

“The what?”

He laughed. “Sorry, I meant the guild. Niamh calls it that so much it sticks.”

“Yeah, right, that thing. Looks like I caught a lucky break, not finding Kinsella. He ran like a coward and saved my skin.”

“For now. For all we know, he might turn up in Elliot Graves’s collection of cozy tunnels.”

“Too bad we can’t bring the basajaun—he’d do okay in the tunnels. He usually hangs out on top of his mountain, but he’s equally comfortable inside of one. The roots, he calls it.”

“He’s been hanging around a lot, that basajaun.” Austin set a skillet onto the stove and flicked on the heat.

“He likes the buffet. We’ve got plenty for him to eat now that I’ve figured out how to reverse-engineer that elixir Sebastian made for Edgar’s flowers.”

“And enhance it to create weaponized sunflowers that try to kill anyone who gets close,” he said with a small smile.

“That wasn’t my fault! I told Edgar that he had to sing to it in order to teach it friend from foe.”

“I thought he did.” Austin dropped butter into the pan. It frothed and bubbled. Steam rose into the air and the hood fan clicked on and whisked it away.

“Yes, but his voice sounds like a dying frog. The plant probably thought he was trying to kill it.”

Austin laughed as he shook his head and dropped in the shrimp.

“The normal flowers are getting a little out of hand,” I said, then took a sip of wine. “The basajaun is keeping them manageable. But the gas.” I scrunched up my face. “I can’t even begin to figure out what part of that elixir is causing him such freaking gas. He sounds like a bullhorn. Mr. Tom is beside himself.”

Austin wilted, shaking with laughter. I chuckled a little, because it was funny, even if I was put out to be in the middle of it.

“Mr. Tom keeps yelling at the basajaun to have manners, and that the garden is no place for flatulence”—Austin laughed harder—“but the basajaun ignores him, lifts up a cheek, and then riiip. It’s crazy.”

Austin transferred the shrimp to a plate before mincing garlic, his knife descending on the cutting board a mile a minute. He added that to the pan with more butter. “That house is…one of a kind.”