Relief coursed through me. “Okay, good.” I brushed the hair away from my face. “Austin is on his way. He’ll find Alek.”

“That lad made a right balls of the battle,” Niamh said. “Sure, he flat-out got in the way when Cedric was zeroing in on the enemy shootin’ that magic. If you ask me, yer passin’ up a grand wee lesson for the lad. What happens when you are not helpful? Left for dead, that’s what, and good enough for ya.”

“Not much of a team player, then, ye eld bag?” Mr. Tom said from the brambles, his words a little slurred and his fake Irish accident utterly terrible and therefore hilarious.

Niamh blew out a breath and walked away. “Speaking of letting the weak links die off…”

“Mr. Tom, can you get out of there? Will you heal?” I paused, then added, “Could you not crawl out in your other form?”

“No, miss, I’m okay. I was just taking a little break before I headed back into the fray. This seemed as cozy a place to land as any. A little poke-y, but nothing like a pea under my mattresses, right?”

“Donkey,” Niamh muttered. “He’s clearly cracked his head. He’s going to have to be carried home.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“Should we send someone to get a truck, and we can haul him home that way?” I asked.

“One of the others can carry him,” Niamh replied. “Mind you, one of ’em will need to drag him out first. There isn’t enough room to fly over him and scoop him out.”

“I’m not going to make them cut themselves up. He’s my responsibility. I’ll do it,” I said with a sigh.

Of all the days not to bring a metal suit. Not that I had one, but still…

“Okay, Mr. Tom, I’m going to come in and get you, okay? I’m going to take your hand and drag you out. It won’t be pleasant.” I reduced my voice to a mumble. “For either of us.”

After walking around the perimeter and finding a smallish break on one side of the brambles, I steeled myself and shoved the branches aside, making room for me to work my way in. Given my escalated healing rate, this would merely be painful. Tolerate that for a bit, drag him out, and I was done.

“No.” The large gargoyle stepped forward, his wings opening just a bit more, the ends dusting the ground. “I. Go.”

“It’s fine, honestly. It’ll just be—”

“No.” He gently placed his hand on my shoulder, the warmth sending a wash of goosebumps across my flesh. “I. Go.” The pressure of his touch made me step back, out of the way. “Me.”

Given his skin was coarser than mine, and he seemed tough and no-nonsense, I stopped arguing. Brambles shouldn’t hurt him as much as they would me.

He didn’t enter the mess of thorns gingerly, like I’d planned to. He marched in, thorns scraping across his arms and crushed under his feet. Red lines opened up along his skin, blood welling quickly and dripping down. He turned his head to the side and reached. His arm flexed, and then he was turning and walking back out, dragging poor Mr. Tom behind him.

“Not as fun as exfoliating with a Brillo pad,” Mr. Tom said, his wings catching and the split one leaving a trail of blood behind him.

The large gargoyle dumped Mr. Tom on the ground, looked down on the badly torn wing, grunted, and resumed his place in front of his men.

“Ouch.” Mr. Tom didn’t bother getting up. “That was mostly unpleasant.”

Another peek into the connection, and I saw Austin was almost here. As soon as we found Alek, we could all head back. I’d about had it. World’s worst flying lesson. I wished I could just throw in the towel. And now we had yet another problem on our hands—the attack, and how these mages had known where I’d be.

Suddenly exhausted, I didn’t have it in me to be nervous about the future. I’d get to that later.

“Mr. Tom, change into stone so you can start healing. Who volunteers to carry him?” I lifted my eyebrows as I faced the gargoyles. “He is the caretaker of Ivy House, and I am its mistress. Really? None of you want the honor of carrying him?”

The bright pink gargoyle stepped forward, his chest shimmering with an electric sheen of blue. I hadn’t known they could come in disco colors. I quite liked it.

“Thank you.” I nudged Mr. Tom with my foot. “Come on, change. Hurry up now.”

“Of course, miss. I am just now summoning the energy. It is not easy, I assure you. I feel rather like a wad of gum that has been swallowed and has since been worked out the other side.”

I frowned down at him. That wasn’t a great image, but it did seem accurate.

In another few moments, the pink gargoyle lifted off with the stone version of Mr. Tom, the weight not seeming to affect him at all. The gargoyles who were toting our possibly alive but maybe dead attackers left with him. Only the uninjured stayed behind.

“We don’t have long to wait for my friend,” I said as the gargoyles stood in place. They didn’t seem impatient, but then, they didn’t really have facial expressions.

A moment later, I heard the soft rustle of something coming through the trees, something that sounded about half the size of what I was expecting. My connection said it was Austin, though, and a moment later he edged out from the dull green foliage, a massive polar bear bigger than any such creature in the wild. Standing on all fours, he was tall enough that his shoulder nearly reached the top of my head. His own head was full of sharp teeth, and each of his claws could rip a person apart with a single swipe. When he stood on his hind legs, you just really hoped he was on your side.

Head low, a deep growl in his throat, he advanced on our group slowly. His focus was on the basalt-gray gargoyle, who, upon seeing the enormous predator suddenly in our midst, turned quickly and snapped out his wings, the claw on one ripping bark as it passed a tree trunk and the other punching into a wall of bushes. He didn’t have the space to maneuver, though. If there was a fight, Austin was much better equipped to handle it. As the gargoyles’ hands came up, though, revealing his claws, and his mouth opened to expose his long canines, it was clear he wouldn’t let that stop him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Despite my survival instinct instructing me to get out of there, I jogged between them, my hands held high. “Whoa, whoa. Friendly fire. Austin, this gargoyle and his people saved my life. He literally plucked me out of the air. They took down someone shooting magic at us. Four people, actually. The threat is gone. What we need now is to find one of the fallen. Alek—remember Alek? He went down, and since he’s not a part of Ivy House, I don’t know where to find him.”

Austin’s intelligent blue eyes regarded me from within his awesome beast form. His head swung slightly until he was looking at the large gargoyle again, that stare enough to unnerve even the most courageous. The gargoyle stood his ground, though, his muscles still flared and his wings fully expanded.

With a huff, Austin took a step before dropping down to his belly, making himself vulnerable in a way that showed an incredible amount of trust in me and my ability to control the gargoyles. I ran and jumped onto his back, not making it all the way up and scrambling. He reached back with his large paw and pushed me the rest of the way.

“Thanks.” I reached into his fur, coarse on top and baby-soft within, as he rose to all fours. “Try not to thwap my face with the branches. I don’t want to go flying again just yet. I’ve had enough of that for a while.” I turned to the others. “Follow us in the air. When we stop moving, one of you can come down and get Alek, yes? Niamh, go home. I have more than enough protection. I don’t need you bleeding out.”

“I’ll be—”

“Go home. You’ll only slow us down.” I stared at her, brooking no argument.

“Fair play to ya,” she muttered. “See ya at the bar. I need a drink.”

“Go, Lassie, go! Find Timmy!” I motioned us on, grinning at his sudden burst of speed. At least if I fell off him, I wouldn’t go splat.

After we found Alek, we could get to the bottom of who’d wanted me captured or dead.

11

Niamh waited in Ivy House, her leg pounding like the bejesus and Earl hunched down in his stone form beside her. She’d made him very comfortable by decorating him with doilies and potted plants. When he came out of his healing stupor, or when Jessie called him, needing something, he’d shake everything off and create a big mess that he’d then obsess over.

It was the little things.

The host of very polite gargoyles waited in a few of the other sitting rooms in the house, mostly dead quiet. Their kind didn’t say much. Where had Earl gone wrong?

That crew had taken out the attacking mages without much hassle, which was good news. Bad news was that those mages had gotten Alek before they’d been taken out. He hadn’t made it. Jessie had insisted one of the gargoyles take the body back safely to Ivy House. She’d wanted to ride home with Austin. She’d clearly had enough time in the sky for the moment.

“They’ve been gone a long time.” Edgar, standing in the corner like the creepy vampire he was, tapped the wall for some reason while looking at the grandfather clock. “Are we sure they’re coming back here? Maybe they went to the bar. Or Austin Steele’s cabin.”

“Not a hope. Austin Steele got a good look at yer man, but he didn’t get a chance to assert his dominance. He’ll want another chance to size him up.” She steepled her fingers, calling up the memory of the largish basalt-gray gargoyle. She’d seen bigger, tougher, and more advanced fliers, but he’d do fine for the current situation. He shouldn’t be too hard to control either. If he got too rowdy for Jessie, then Austin Steele could handle him, Niamh had no doubt. She hadn’t yet met someone the vicious shifter couldn’t take down. She rued the day when she did. “It was a tense couple of minutes. You missed it.”

“It couldn’t have been more tense than being dangled below a large gargoyle over incredible heights for a very long time.”