“I need some sweats.”
“Well, all we’ve got are the white ones, and every single spare pair has an old bloodstain on it. Edgar keeps switching them out and thinking we won’t notice, and that gobshite Earl won’t buy another color.”
“Why don’t you buy another color?”
“I hate shopping. It’s much easier to bitch about it.”
She led him back into the house, the closed door thankfully cutting out the echoes of Jess falling.
“What’s with the doll?” he asked, following Niamh into the laundry room.
“It was thumping down the stairs and teetering around the place. It got on my nerves. I was about to rip off its head and drop-kick it outside when I saw you. No idea why Ivy House let the thing out.”
“Me, probably. Last time I was here, it communicated with me through one of the dolls. They’re creepy.”
“They’re just dolls, for heaven’s sakes. They’re tiny. Even if they’ve got a knife, you just give ’em a kick and go about your day. Look up, though. Some of them know how to climb. They drop down on you when you least expect it.”
He jerked his head up to hunt the ceiling.
Niamh smirked as she slapped a pair of sweatpants on his chest. “We don’t have a sweatshirt your size. Earl can find you a T-shirt.”
He slipped into the sweatpants. “What’s with all the screaming?” He tried not to take a tone, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.
“Eh.” Niamh chucked the doll in the dryer, shut the door, and turned it on. “See how you like that.”
“Isn’t that going to melt the plastic?”
Niamh checked her watch. “Not before Earl comes in to rescue it. They’re almost done. Want a beer?”
“No, thanks.”
“Will ye have a cuppa?”
“No, I’m—”
“Ah sure, ye might as well.” She led the way to the kitchen for some tea. “The screaming, yeah. The goal is to get Jessie acclimated to all parts of flight, including having no control when something goes wrong and you’re falling. The fact that she hasn’t gotten over the screaming is…troubling.”
“There’s a difference between adjusting your strategy because something’s gone wrong and having no control from start to finish. She clearly doesn’t trust them. If she trusted them, she wouldn’t be so obviously terrified something could go wrong.”
Niamh flicked on the tea kettle. “Ye’ve got a point there, so ye do, but I don’t know that these guys know another way. Most of them learned by being pushed off something high and then figuring it out.”
“Maybe they should work on helping her change into her other form.” He paused, considering, then asked, “Does she change into another form?”
“Not like yer thinking. Her skin texture and color will change when she extends her wings, but just a wee bit. She’ll look like a human sprite or something, they say. Her power is in her magic, not in another form. She’s stronger and faster than a human, but she’s no match physically for the males or a shifter or something like that.”
“Are they at least teaching her how to fly—what to do?”
“O’course. Damarion does that in the beginning, then he speeds up, then they toss her around. Every time the same. Every time you’d think she’d get a little more used to it. Nope. They’re starting to wonder if she’s got wings at all.”
He shook his head, frustrated on Jess’s behalf. Clearly this method wasn’t working. Maybe the problem was that she still thought like a Jane—the idea of flying was fantastical to her, and it was a huge leap of faith to believe she could fly without having ever seen her wings.
“She needs to believe she can do it before she’s dropped,” he said, hearing talking from the direction of the back door. “She needed to see Donna change to believe magic was real. She should work on extracting those wings before she takes to the sky, and she needs to trust the people who bring her up there. Throwing her around like a doll isn’t going to establish that trust.”
Niamh poured water into the teapot. “I’ll mention it to Earl. He doesn’t have much sway with Damarion when it comes to flight, for obvious reasons, but he can appeal to her. What she says goes with that crew.”
“Oh, hey, stranger.”
He looked up at the familiar voice, something in his middle leaping, and then the world went dizzy. He saw red.“Who did this to you?”
Niamh jerked with the drastic change in Austin Steele’s voice, a rough growl lacing his words. Power whipped around the room and pressure bore down. Her small hairs stood on end, warning her that danger was at hand, a predator in her midst.
Austin Steele stalked forward, his bare torso ripped with muscle. His grace and fluidity of movement did nothing to hide the brute strength contained within that robust frame, coiled power ready to be unleashed. Jacinta’s eyes widened as he bore down, one of them half swollen shut from a hard punch not long before, a glimmer of fear sparkling in their depths competing with her obvious excitement.