Magical Midlife Battle (Leveling Up, #8)(4)

Austin’s eyebrows climbed.

“And!” Edgar lifted a spindly finger. “And their transportation pots”—he bent down to pat the plastic tub of one of the seedlings—“will allow us to take them home if Alpha Kingsman doesn’t want to keep them. They will allow us to dig them up as long as they feel their pots near them.”

“Kings ley,” Indigo corrected him softly.

“Yes.” Edgar inclined his head.

“You see…” Indigo stepped forward. Her toe hit a pot, though, which made her stumble. She reached out to brace herself but must’ve realized she’d likely crush a flower that way. Instead, she completed the fall, flopping down between two flowers and flailing a little.

“Whoopsie.” Edgar hurried to help her up. “That pot jumped out in front of you! I saw it. Silly flower.”

Indigo’s face turned red, and she smiled in embarrassment. “I’m a little clumsy. My mommy always said, ‘Thank the Lord you got the gift of healing, child, or you’d be in a bad way from those two left feet.’”

“What doesn’t kill us, as they say,” Edgar told her.

“You see,” she started again, “the flowers in this batch and the one before it really love people.

They love attention and fun. They love children and laughter. We’ve brought a couple into town and coaxed them out of their stupor. They had the best time! As long as the shifters in Kingsley’s pack make an effort to visit the flowers, even just once, they will become friends. If the flowers are treated as part of the community, they’ll lovingly guard the perimeter or—what they’d like more than anything

—the parks or nurseries. They’re designed to protect the community spaces of the pack. The town.

The homes. The gardens. The vulnerable.”

Edgar’s grin was sly. “And the Annihilator was created for the wilds. For the first line of defense.

For destruction.”

I stilled. “The Annihilator?”

“It’s our secret project. Those flowers can be a little…temperamental, but we’ve put in a couple fail-safes that should work. They really should. Don’t worry, Jessie, you’re going to love it.”

It seemed I hadn’t been keeping as close of an eye on the situation as I’d previously thought.





TWO

Jessie

THE NEXT MORNING, I was still stewing about the Annihilator flowers as I stood on the porch, watching the final preparations for our departure. To my utter shock, Austin had agreed to take them with us. He figured it was safe enough if they were kept out in the wilds, where only the shifters’

sentries ventured. The flowers would imprint on them, wreak havoc on any intruders, and all would be well.

I’d reminded him that he was operating on the assumption that the flowers wouldn’t grow legs and terrorize the community. He’d assumed I was joking.

I most certainly was not joking.

This was his show, though. I’d take lead with the gargoyles, and he would take lead with the shifters—including his interactions with his brother. So now psycho-killer flowers were being transported in their plastic pots to unsuspecting shifters who didn’t deal in fantastical and volatile magic. Super.

“Jessie, we’ve got a problem,” a familiar voice said from my left.

I barely stopped myself from sighing as I turned to look at Nathanial.

“What’s up?” I said.

“It’s the basajaunak.”

Terror froze up my middle. “Please don’t tell me they’ve changed their minds about helping.”

He minutely shook his head as Ulric jogged up, his dyed hair combed flat to his head. Clearly he was trying to look a little subdued for Kingsley’s shifters. It wasn’t working.

“The opposite,” Nathanial said. “More have shown up. We no longer have room for them on the chartered flights.”

We’d made space for two dozen basajaunak and our various cargo.

“How many more showed up?”

“A dozen, all parents. They’re watching out for their kids. The lead basandere is one of them. She said she’s not operating in a leadership role here, but she wants to keep an eye on things. They have all agreed to fight.”

Austin walked up wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. We’d all be changing into nicer clothes after we landed.

I relayed what Nathanial had told me.

Nothing about Austin’s expression or bearing changed. He’d completely done away with the looser persona he’d adopted for Ivy House soil, and even the mildly thawed persona he now displayed in the territory at large. He was back to being a tough, blank-faced alpha shifter, something that would be expected of him in Kingsley’s territory.

“We can add on a third wave and charter another jet,” he said crisply. “It’s too late to change the current setup.”

“Not to mention we need to get those flowers set up as quickly as possible,” I murmured.

“Tell Mr. Tom to arrange it,” Austin commanded. “He can do it from the road. Let’s load up. Time to go.”

Nathanial nodded and turned, striding away, and Austin pushed forward to bark orders.

Nessa bounded up a moment later with a ponytail and a bright smile.