Magical Midlife Love (Leveling Up 4)

“Jess.” Austin stopped in front of me, his stare beating into me like a palpable pressure. His power pulsed and slammed into me, turning my blood to gravy. His commanding presence, his air of dominance, pressed down on my chest. On my shoulders. It seemed to say, Submit, or I will make you submit.

Like a spark igniting deep within me, anger flowered up and blossomed out, covering me in shivers, shrugging off his imposing power.

“You good?” His words were clipped, tone rough.

My fingers tightened on Niamh’s chair. “Is that how you greet a friend?”

His jaw clenched. He didn’t move. He just stared me down like I was a stranger causing a ruckus.

His silence punched straight through my middle.

Anger rushed in to drown out the hurt. Red tinged my vision.

“Bros before hoes, is that it?” I asked, my anger blazing brighter and hotter, my pain lodged firmly in my throat. “Don’t you know how I’m doing? My block has nothing to do with your side of the link, so aren’t you well aware of what I’m feeling?”

His flinch was so slight that I almost thought I’d imagined it. But I ripped away the block on the link, and guilt gushed through it.

Unlike Mr. Tom and Niamh, Austin felt bad for what he’d been doing. He’d known it was wrong. He’d known he was violating my trust.

My eyes stung and my magic ballooned around me, my control wobbling—my heart aching and my rage compensating.

“Why did you never tell me?” I asked the dead-silent room. I wrapped a bubble of silence around us, letting the walls shimmer so he knew what it was. “How could you let me continue believing I was giving us both privacy when you knew it was completely one-sided? The new guys listened in to my…private time, Austin,” I said with a tightening throat, the embarrassment almost choking me. I’d tried to push that aside earlier, but the thought was mortifying. How often, how long… “Can you even fathom how embarrassing that is?”

White-hot rage sparked in his eyes.

“Oh no.” I held up a finger, power pumping out of me in heady waves, more now than I’d ever felt. “No way. You get to apologize, you get to make it up to me, but you do not get to be angry. Do you understand me, Austin Steele? If you don’t listen, I will give you the beating of your life. I’ll be the fire that melts your steel into a puddle. Try me and see if I’m lying.”

“I overheard Mr. Tom, Niamh, and Edgar discussing the way they control their link to you,” he said, his voice so rough it sounded like a growl. “I assumed they’d passed that on to Jasper and Ulric. Those guys should not have access to…” His hands fisted and the weight of his power threatened to push me to the floor. My limbs started to quiver, my reaction to him entirely primal. “I will ensure that ends immediately.”

“None of you should have access to that time, least of all you, considering how desperate you’ve been for distance from me. But you won’t do a damn thing. You don’t rule me, Austin Steele. You don’t control my life. I will ensure that ends immediately. In the meantime…”

I stared at him, grappling for a threat of some kind. I’d overshot my tirade and left myself dangling.

“Go to hell,” I finished lamely.

And then kept standing there, because I had business in the bar. This had to be one of the world’s worst standoffs. No wonder my ex had always won our arguments. I was just plain bad at them.

“Can I speak to you outside, please?” Austin said, his voice softer, more subdued. “We’re making everyone incredibly uncomfortable.” Guilt still pumped through the link. Guilt, discomfort, anger, and regret.

“You don’t really want to start a fight with me right now,” I warned him.

“I don’t ever want to start a fight with you, Jacinta. I’d never lift a finger to you outside of training, you know that. You’d pummel me.”

“Don’t be cute.” I tore down my privacy spell—the irony was not lost on me—and nearly staggered into Sebastian, knocked forward by the menace pulsing from the corner of the room.

“That’s a neat spell you devised,” Sebastian said. “I made it better. Maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s a little too strong right now.”

The spell I’d used to lock Austin and me in a soundproof bubble had also blocked my awareness of the other spell, the one I’d sent to suss out trouble.

“You just made Austin Steele look incredibly weak to those who don’t know him,” Niamh said with a little smile. “Or you.”

I’d seen that smile before, usually before Edgar got the brunt of one of her violent practical jokes.

Austin’s gaze snapped to the corner. He didn’t need a spell to feel the danger.