Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I patted his arm again and this time offered a squeeze. “Okay. I need to head in.”
“What are you doing here?” I heard, and turned to find Nessa stalking up to the gargoyle. Her hair was windblown, standing every which way, and her chest heaved with breathlessness.
A smile slowly spread across his face. “Beautiful Natasha. I didn’t realize you’d be here. Were you up there singing your praises to the sky?”
Sebastian stopped beside her, his eyebrows lifting. He shook his head and then shot a glowering look back at Nathanial. “I’m not sure what they were trying to prove, but they probably proved it.”
Jasper spread his arms, his muumuu gathered in one of his hands. “Just proving my mage was better.”
Nessa lifted her hand, and Jasper air high-fived it. Tristan laughed—a deep, joyful sound.
Nathanial also had his purple muumuu clenched in his fist, but his stare was on Tristan.
“Is this taken care of, miss?” he asked me.
“He wants to be shown around for security reasons. Mr. Tom can handle it unless you want to. I have to get ready.”
Tristan met Nathanial’s stare, his humor not failing.
“Mr. Tom is capable,” Nathanial said before escorting me toward the house, pulling on his muumuu as we walked. “I was thinking about that bracelet, miss.”
Gimerel was the cairn that had sent the bracelet for the connection request.
“What about it?” I asked as we entered through the back door.
“I don’t think it was a gift. Given the way Pierce and Withor both treated you…and the fact that the Gimerel lead enforcer has been snooping around—I wonder if their plan all along was to get it into the house and then raid and take it back. They have a lot more guardians outside of territory lines than the other cairns. If they were to take back that bracelet, it would cement their claims of greatness.”
“Firstly,” I said as we climbed up the stairs, which Naomi had stripped of carpet before having the wood sanded and polished like the gleaming floors, “their guardians aren’t supposed to come into the territory.”
“Those rules don’t apply in raids.”
“They do in this territory, and we’ll make them suffer for breaking them. Regardless, what would it say if they weren’t able to take it back?”
He stopped as we reached my room. His grin spoke volumes.
“Wear it tonight,” he said softly, confidence leaking into his voice. “I know they were going to have you wear a better-made, more expensive bracelet, but wear that one. Show it off…and then lay it down in one of the sitting rooms in plain view. They’ll all know that for the challenge it is. Come and get it.”
TWENTY
Jessie
Later that night, I had to cut out the house link to all my people so they weren’t constantly inundated with my nerves. They ran through me like a living thing, shaking my limbs and quickening my breath.
I stared at myself in the mirror, checking over the silky cream dress with the plunging neckline and a slit up my right thigh. Sapphires surrounded in diamonds dripped down my chest in a fairly simple but incredibly expensive design that matched the cut of the dress. More swung from my earlobes. The multicolored Gimerel bracelet adorned my wrist.
I’d already had a run-in with one of the cairns, and now I was about to issue a challenge to another. I was really betting on aces. And this time we’d have that huge lead enforcer to answer to. If he was as good as he was big, he’d be a real problem in the air. A problem I would struggle to deal with, what with my small wings and slow maneuvers.
Thank God I had magic, or that whole thing would probably be over before it had begun.
“Right, okay,” I whispered to myself, checking my hair and makeup. “Head in the game.”
A car rolled up the driveway. It was too early for the dinner guests, so I was guessing my new wheels had arrived. Mr. Tom had chosen the perfect ride—he’d said so himself. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, though. Or maybe he had, but he’d had too much caffeine for me to make sense of whatever he was babbling about. All I did know was that it was supposed to make the Porsche somehow seem inconsequential.
It would do nothing but sit in the driveway and look pretty tonight. I was the host. The leaders, along with two enforcers each, were coming to me.
Breathing out a nervous breath, trying to dislodge the butterflies filling my middle, I left the mirror and headed downstairs. Austin waited right at the bottom, turning toward me as I descended.
The breath left me in a gust of air, and I slowed and reached out to clutch the banister. He wore a crisp and tailored tuxedo, the jacket flat black with a wide and shiny lapel. A black bow tie matched the black buttons down the front of the cream dress shirt beneath. Draped around his neck was a black-and-cream-checkered silk scarf, giving the ensemble a little flair. A sparkling watch, a gift from Sebastian, encircled his wrist, and his hair was styled in that spiky, messy style I loved. The best thing, though, was the five o’clock shadow gracing his gorgeous face, making him look a little more rugged than those clothes might suggest. He looked fit and strong and powerful, but posh and sophisticated and incredibly handsome. Perfect.