“I can hide in the trees.”
“What fun is that?”
“I have a flask and you have a way of running people off. When the mages run out of the bar, I’ll grab them.”
Niamh turned her mouth down in thought as Jasper snickered. He had a point.
“Hey there.”
The silky voice pulled at Niamh’s focus.
“Austin Barazza, right?” The woman Niamh had noticed moved in closer to Austin Steele, her cleavage on display and her tongue gliding out to wet her bottom lip. “I met you at a party before you left, remember? Cadence.”
The utterly blank look on his face said he had no clue, and he didn’t really care that she knew it.
Ulric ran his fingers across his lips like he was trying to wipe his smile away.
Another interested woman across the way adjusted her hair, stuck out a hip, and started forward as well. She clearly wanted to throw her hat into the ring.
“Move down,” Niamh whispered at Phil. “Give them a little room.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Phil whispered back as Broken Sue got off his seat and cleared out of the way. “I think we should tell that woman to scram. The alpha is obviously—”
“Move down, hurry!”
“I heard you were back in town.” Cadence pushed in closer, moving her bust to draw his eyes.
“It’s so lovely to see you.”
She ran her hand up Austin Steele’s arm and then over his shoulder, the touch already inappropriate but becoming obscenely so when she let her hand trail down his chest.
“I have a mate,” he told her, his voice hard, his body tense.
“Austin.” The other woman arrived, and now there was a wide circle around Austin Steele, his people having all pushed back toward the wall. No one in their right mind was getting involved in this.
“I think I’ll just get up,” Niamh murmured, doing like Broken Sue and clearing out.
“Hi,” the other woman said, taking to his other side and gently grabbing his arm. She was younger still, fifteen or more years his junior and not even eighteen when he’d left. “You’re the alpha’s brother, right?”
“I was just meeting up with my old friend,” the first woman said, her gaze hostile.
“I’m okay with three.” The newcomer batted her eyelashes at Austin. “The younger generation is a little more fluid about that sort of thing.”
“As I said, I have a mate.” He looked over their heads, not engaging. He wouldn’t strip Jessie of her right to defend her claim on him, though. He apparently did not at all care about this bar. “She’s with me tonight. You must’ve seen her.”
“She’s a gargoyle, right?” The second woman snickered, pushing into him a little more. One of her hands settled low on his stomach. His unease at the touch was evident and his scowl was a warning. “You should find a real mate to help lead your pack. A shifter. I hear you have a—”
Acute rage blistered through the Ivy House link a moment before a wave of power swept the bar.
The power didn’t sting, though. It didn’t hurt. Niamh wondered what Jessie’s angle was. She’d better not back down from defending her claim. That would make her into a target the whole territory would try to hit.
FOURTEEN
Jessie
THE ANGER and power pumping through my body beat in time to my heart. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t claw my way around it.
Two women clung to Austin, their hands moving down his stomach.
A gush of magic escaped me, but I managed to stop it from flaying the skin of everyone in this bar.
I was supposed to be Jane to his Tarzan, letting my big, strong man protect me. I was supposed to lie low and let Austin handle things. I was a non-shifter visitor who shouldn’t level this place and cut down everyone in it.
One of the women looked my way and snickered. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder.
She was challenging me.
Another gush of magic rocked my body, feeling like it turned my bones to water. I closed my eyes for a moment, felt myself sway.
Still, I kept it all in, hiding it. Containing it. I wasn’t sure who’d be on the receiving end of my rage. Austin hadn’t pushed them off. He hadn’t stepped away, which obviously meant that he hadn’t told them he was taken. But he was so tense. So uncomfortable. I could feel his disgust and impatience through the bonds.
Then I realized why. He was giving me a chance to fight my own battles, to defend my claim. It was the shifter way.