Magical Midlife Dating (Leveling Up 2)

“There you have it.”

Frowning, unsure about all of this, Niamh knocked on Damarion’s door. “I feel like we’re missing something. Maybe this is a test for us somehow?”

Damarion pulled open the door, his hair still wet from a shower and a towel cinched around his hips. My, but he was a looker. Jessie could certainly do worse on that front.

“What?” he asked, having fashioned himself Jessie’s second-in-command from the moment he’d set foot on the grounds. At first no one had blinked because he’d just saved her life and the other gargoyles naturally followed his command—this despite having only just met him, something she’d been surprised to learn—but now, after hearing all that Austin Steele had said, Niamh was starting to wonder if they’d been wise to accept him so readily. Maybe he wasn’t the best for Jessie, he was just the best that they had. Maybe she needed to send another summons.

Niamh suspected she’d get a better read on that after this conversation.

“What were you on about down there?” Niamh asked him. “You were trying to cause a row.”

“A what?”

“A fight,” Earl said. “This is not the place for a battle of dominance, especially when Jessie is standing between you two.”

Damarion straightened a bit more, full of righteous indignation. “This is exactly the place for a battle, and Jacinta is the person who must witness it.”

“And you think you’ll win, do ye?” Niamh asked with a chuckle. “Have ye not heard the stories about Austin Steele?”

“Stories grow bigger as the years grow long.”

“Not in this case,” Earl said.

“He’s a distraction to her,” Damarion said. “She won’t give in to me completely with him coming around. She needs to see me force him to submit so she can recognize the true alpha.”

“She doesn’t give two shites who is the true alpha, you muppet,” Niamh replied. “The girl is a Jane in her bones—she doesn’t even know what true alpha means.”

“I’m not sure he does, either,” Earl mumbled. Damarion bristled.

“Regardless, it doesn’t matter,” Niamh said, waving it away, “because they’re friends, that’s it. There is nothing romantic between them. He’s not your problem. Yer problem is ye’ve got limited game and you can’t read the situation. She’s too confident to give in to ye just because it would make you happy. She’s not on this planet to please you, ye donkey. Ye gotta try a new tactic besides drooling all over her and calling it kissing.”

“You should watch yourself, old woman.”

She laughed. “Don’t challenge me, kid. You don’t want to know the nightmare you’ll wake up.”18“You know how to freeze air and sound now, huh?” Austin asked, rolling his shoulders.

I grimaced at the blood still dribbling down his back and soaking into his sweats. “We should probably wash this off before we go into a confined space with Edgar.”

“I’m not worried about that vampire.”

We stepped out of a hidden side door, having gone through the secret tunnels to exit the house. I didn’t want to chance another encounter with Damarion or the others. “You’re not worried about a distracted vampire talking nonsense while he stares at you longingly, imagining sucking that blood off your back?”

Austin stopped walking. “You have a hose around here, don’t you?”

I laughed, leading him to the right. “It appears so. About the freezing air and sound thing, I mean. Also about the hose.”

“You hadn’t done that before?”

“No. Regardless of my advancement lately, I still do most things on the fly. That’s why it’s going fine with Damarion.” I ignored him stiffening. “He’s rough, yes, but trying not to get pummeled opens up my mind for creative evasions.”

“Look, this needs to be said.” He paused as we reached the green hose wrapped around the black spindle. He grabbed the metallic tip and tugged. The hose gave a little and then caught. He sighed. “I hate these kinds of hose holders. I always end up breaking them in a frustrated rage.”

Wincing, he gripped both sides of the black roller and pulled, turning it enough to get another foot of hose free. He gritted his teeth as he repeated the movement, his muscles flaring, probably from the strain of not ripping the whole thing away from the wall and throwing it.

I laughed, braced a hand to his arm, and waited until he stepped out of the way.

“I got this. You just focus on not bleeding out.”

“Thanks.” He looked out over the trees at the edge of the yard. “I’m not going to apologize for losing my cool earlier.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“I don’t like seeing you hurt in a way that I don’t think is necessary because—”

He gritted his teeth, biting back what he was about to say. I knew what it was, though—because Damarion couldn’t control his reaction to pain.

But he shifted gears. “Because Ivy House thinks you can take it. Even I started slow, Jess. Slower than I would have liked. But the whole pack worked as one to train each of us, at a pace that made sense for that person, and they did it right. I’m a bad example of their training, but I did learn what works, even if I didn’t apply it in my own situation.”