“Oh, you’re different, all right,” Mr. Tom grumbled.
“He’s a treat, I know,” I whispered to Ulric, then jerked my head back at Mr. Tom.
“No,” Cedric said. For a man of few words, he occasionally knew how to pick them.
The lights of Austin’s bar glowed a welcome, and I felt the coiled tension around my chest ease slightly.
“Why do you want to be part of the twelve?” I asked Ulric as we neared, slowing as we passed the same light post where I’d seen that creeper in the hat a while back. He’d looked at me, but had it been for longer than a normal glance?
How long had people been watching me?
“What do you mean?” Ulric asked, the door to the bar closed for some reason. Part of me missed seeing my favorite friend outside smoking. At least that would have been expected. Of course, Sasquatch was probably in there on my normal seat, braving Niamh’s irritation just so he could annoy me.
“You left your life behind so you could try to be one of the twelve people who protects me. One of my team. Why?”
He stared at me in confusion. “Because you’re the Ivy House heir…” He shook his head as I reached for the door. “I don’t think I understand the question.”
“Female gargoyles really are incredibly scarce, miss,” Mr. Tom said, reaching around me and slapping my hand away. “Remember what I told you? They are called to you. They would do anything to serve you, and mate you.”
“Especially the mating. I would absolutely be in for that. Or even just—”
I held up my hand to Ulric. “I got it, thanks. Never mind.”
“I would mate you, too, if we’re putting our hats into the circle,” Cedric said. “Or just pleasure you if—”
“Nope. No more. It’s fine. Let it go.” I stepped to the side so Mr. Tom could open the door.
“She’s something of a prude,” Mr. Tom said as he pulled the door wide and stepped aside with a flourish.
“Nah, she’s just a Jane. They have different rules,” Ulric said, and I wanted to throttle them both.
Instead, I stared dumbly at Niamh’s seat for a moment, finding it empty. The person behind the bar was neither Paul nor Austin, but some woman I’d never seen before. Only three people filled the stools, and Sasquatch wasn’t one of them. Neither was Niamh.
“Quiet, huh?” Ulric asked, staying by my side even though I’d slowed.
A groan sounded from the left, through the entryway to the pool area. From my vantage point, I could see part of a man who lay on the floor, his body as stiff as a board. His bulging eyes and straining neck made it look as if he were bound and trying to break free, but I didn’t see any rope. Behind him, a glimpse of a woman’s legs—her bare ankles pressed together and one shoe off.
My mind caught up to the situation at the exact moment Ulric grabbed me around the waist and threw me toward the door.
The door slammed shut before I got there. I rammed into it and bounced off, onto the floor. Ulric tore off his clothes. Mr. Tom didn’t wait and ran forward, straight for the closest woman jumping up from her stool.
Cedric tried to step in front of me as a shield, but was torn to the side by invisible hands and flung.
A woman at the other end of the bar had bounced up, too, her arms out, her fingers aiming at me, and her face pinched with determination. A jet of color was the last thing I saw.22“So, hidin’ out here, lickin’ yer wounds, are ye?” Niamh picked up the sack she’d carried around the neck of her puca form, taking out some black sweats she’d had to buy herself because Earl couldn’t be persuaded to veer from white. Her phone chimed, Jessie wondering if she was at the bar. She wanted to share a funny story.
That would be Niamh’s next stop, right after she tried to talk some sense into this big dope.
Austin sat in a lone chair on the beach, looking out over the lake, his small, lonely cabin behind him. A fresh kill, a skinned deer, hung from a nearby tree. Even if it was bear season, no bear in its right mind would come calling at this camp. They’d know a bigger, badder predator awaited them.
He didn’t look so big and bad now, though, hunched in that chair, staring out at nothing.
She slipped into the sweats and took a seat behind him, marveling at the ease with which she could lower and get back up again. That blast of youth from Ivy House had been a blessing. One day she’d try to do a cartwheel again.
She let the silence sit between them for a while. A guy like Austin Steele didn’t let you bully him. He responded best to logic and reason, especially when he was drowning in feelings that had nothing to do with either.