I laughed because I could never say no to him. Then I kissed him again, loving the feel of his lips.
It was my favorite thing about us, our kiss. It felt like we poured our souls into each and every one. If
it was the last thing I did on this earth, it would be enough. And a small, scared part of me wondered if the end would be soon.
ELEVEN
Jessie
“OKAY, WHAT’S THE STATUS?” I walked through the grass in the square downtown. My purple muumuu flowed around my legs and my flip-flops clapped against my heels. Nessa kept pace with a walkie-talkie, a little behind me, and Tristan waited in front of us on the sidewalk at the edge of the grass.
“The plants are—”
“No, Edgar.” I put out my finger to stop him. He was loping beside me to keep up even though walking should’ve been perfectly fine. “We still need to ask Kingsley about the flowers. We’ll get to that after the gargoyles do some mapping of the territory, okay?”
“Yes, Jessie.” He fell away again.
We wouldn’t need him right now. We weren’t doing any training until the rest of our team arrived later in the day, and we couldn’t come up with a strategy until we had a full rundown on Kingsley’s defense capabilities while looking at a big, 3D map of the territory. Right now, we were getting our bearings in the sky, looking for any interlopers. I was done with letting the enemy sneak around the perimeter and getting away with it. We had to cut off Momar’s information.
“The potion of those at the perimeter has been consumed, and we’re just waiting for them to disappear,” Nessa said.
I nodded and stopped in front of Tristan, noticing the walkie-talkie in his hand and the purple muumuu plastered to his body.
“That doesn’t exactly fit you,” I told him, trying to contain my humor. Non-battle-hardened shifters waited all around, watching our operation. I didn’t need any challenges at the moment, and smiling tended to give people here the green light if they felt so inclined.
With our crew, we had a feeling they’d definitely feel so inclined. It was just a matter of time.
“Cyra supplied it, thinking she was helping me out,” he replied, his grin saying he dared someone to make his day. “I didn’t want to be rude.”
“No one in their right mind is going to challenge you, you know,” Nessa said.
“They will.” He stepped away a little so that I could sit on a little bench, facing the grass.
“Someone will convince themselves that gargoyles are lesser and aim for the largest one they can find to prove how big their balls are.”
“Just don’t chop those balls off. Jessie is strictly against that,” Nessa said.
“We’re trying to get along here, guys,” I said. “This is Austin’s family.”
“They’re not his family,” Tristan growled, his eyes sparking. “At least not the people I’ve heard talking about him around town. A great many have poor things to say about him, and not much better things to say about the shifters who left here to live in our territory.”
“He just needs a chance to show them that he’s changed.” I looked up at the sky, blocking the sun with my hand. Various colored specks dotted the frigid blue. “If the mages look up, they’ll see us. If they have binoculars, they’ll be able to sketch us.” I puffed out a breath, putting my hand back down.
“We need potions for everyone, not just the gargoyles on the perimeter trying to catch sneaky mages.”
“Except remember what Sebastian said?” Nessa lifted her eyebrows at me. “We don’t have nearly enough potion, we don’t have the resources to make nearly enough, and you two in no way have the energy to make nearly enough. We need to ration.”
“They probably already know you have gargoyles,” Tristan said as the walk-talkie he held crackled. He didn’t hold it up to his ear. “They’d be dense if they didn’t. Gargoyles fly. That’s pretty logical. What they don’t know is how effective we are.”
“Why would they approach the territory if they thought they could be seen?” I asked.
“They have invisibility potions, too, remember,” Nessa said. “Besides, they might be more cautious, but they’ll still come. They have to. Momar’s people do not fail to complete their orders unless they want to be killed. They’ll come, we’ll snatch ’em up, and we’ll crack them open and learn all their secrets.”
“Very confident,” I muttered, sitting down on the bench. “Maybe a little overconfident.”