“Jessie, come sit near me and we can finish the introductions.” Mimi held up her hand from somewhere behind two younger people. A stool scraped, and the younger people pushed forward in confusion, glancing behind them. Mimi was sitting at the kitchen island. So was Kingsley. “Then maybe we can eat,” she continued. “I’m starved. I had nothing in my fridge when I got home. Someone cleaned it out and didn’t refill it.”
“Will you be okay?” Austin asked me quietly, his head bent toward me.
“Of course.” I slipped out of his grasp. “Don’t worry about me—I have some party jokes saved up.”
His mood didn’t lighten, but he nodded before stepping away with his mother, hopefully to reconcile and heal.
Head kinda down, feeling incredibly uncomfortable and probably advertising that fact, I walked around the gawking kids, ignored the staring hostess, and sat between Kingsley and Mimi. She slid a glass of wine my way, bless her.
“You need that more than me,” she said. “Drink up. I’m looking forward to those jokes. Now, Earnessa, where were you in the introductions, or would you like me to take over?”
“No, Grandma Naomi, I’m sure I can handle it, thank you.” Earnessa’s tone could cut glass. She appeared behind the older teen boy, about Jimmy’s age if I had to guess. He had a slightly lighter
complexion than her, with wide-spread eyes, a narrow nose, and hair that flopped down onto his forehead. “May I introduce Cormac.”
“Mac,” the boy said, putting out his hand. “Put ’er there.”
His eyes glimmered, and my smile grew as I shook his hand.
“And this is Aurora,” Earnessa said, pride ringing in her voice. Maybe you weren’t supposed to pretend you didn’t have a favorite child in the shifter world?
The young lady was a stunner. Her stare was surly, but given both of her parents had the same resting look, there’d probably been no escape. She had wavy dirty-blonde hair down past her shoulders, with lighter blonde highlights, high eyebrows, and almond-shaped hazel eyes that were more than a little cool as they beheld me. She had her mom’s cheekbones and full lips and her dad’s strong jaw and defined chin.
She was older than I’d expected. They both were. Kingsley had described them as being college age, but Aurora looked to be in her mid-twenties. She must’ve been really little when she’d saved her daddy from Austin, because I remembered that Austin had stayed around the territory for five years after that, learning from Kingsley. He’d been in O’Briens for just under sixteen years. So yeah, mid-twenties sounded about right. She would’ve been an impressionable age when he’d left, ten or so if the math checked out.
One thing about her drew me in. Her intensity. That must’ve come from her grandfather, because it was the same as Austin’s, rough and raw and volatile.
“Is it rude to ask extended family what they shift into?” I murmured to Mimi out the side of my mouth.
“Still a yes,” she responded, just as quietly, even though everyone could obviously hear us with their bionic sensory abilities.
“You know what I am,” Kingsley said before taking a sip of wine. “You almost got me into a fight with a phoenix, remember?”
“Contrary to your beliefs, dear sir”—I lifted my glass in a salute—“we are not always talking about you.”
“That’s the problem—you should be,” he replied.
“I apologize.” I smiled and bent my head to Aurora. “Hello. It’s really nice to meet you.”
She studied me for a moment, and I let her, feeling the pulse of her power, unable to help answering it with my own. My gargoyle twisted and swirled within me, liking that intensity.
“You’re not what you seem,” she said in a low voice, energy vibrating through her.
“Careful there, Aurora,” Kingsley warned.
I smiled at her. “It’s fine. And actually, I am exactly what I seem. Part Jane, part gargoyle, and part lost. Kinda weird. Happily a follower until I need to be a leader, and happily peaceful until I or my people are threatened. That’s the thing about people—we’re never just one thing.”
“So you do magic?” Mac asked, leaning over his sister to be closer. Both were at the island now.
She popped her shoulder to get him to back off. “How come you don’t have wings?” she asked. “I saw some gargoyles in town earlier. They all had wings.”
“I do magic, yes,” I said to Mac, “and females don’t have wings in human form.” I shrugged. “My wings are smaller, and I can’t fly for as long as the males, but I can do magic, like mages.”