“Miss, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re prone to hysterics when it comes to those harmless dolls.” Mr. Tom set down the tray on the small round table by the window, its surface polished and sporting a high shine. “Many of them are cute.”

“Some of them are creepy, though,” Niamh said, walking into the circle.

“Don’t you start,” Mr. Tom said, straightening.

Niamh took a seat in the circle of chairs, the third from the top, the top denoted by a standing, woven flag on a pole that looked centuries old. Mr. Tom took the ninth chair, and when Edgar got there a moment later, his lips turned up in a ghastly grin, he took the twelfth seat. Apparently I chose my protectors, except for the three who had been here before me, and Ivy House chose their importance within the circle.

Austin stood, immobile. “There are ways to get something done, Ivy House, and trying to force me isn’t one of them.”

“Do I…stand anywhere in particular?” I asked, outside of the circle and close to the far wall.

“You wait until Austin’s place has been chosen, miss,” Mr. Tom said out of the side of his mouth.

Austin’s muscles relaxed. His nod was slight, and then he walked forward, curving around the circle until he stood at the top behind the flag, which reached his nose. A shadowy, magical drape poured down in front of the windows, mostly cutting out the light. Candles flickered to life, the flames dancing slowly.

Austin glanced at me, and I saw the wariness in his eyes. After a deep breath, though, he stepped around the flag and between the chairs, entering the circle.

“I can barely breathe with the excitement,” Mr. Tom said.

“Thank God this isn’t a formal ceremony in front of strangers we needed to impress,” Niamh said, watching Austin but addressing Mr. Tom, “or you’d just have outed yerself as a clown.”

“Better a clown than a miserable old hag without a polite bone in her body,” he grumbled.

Austin stopped in front of the first chair, the flag at his back, and slowly sat down.

I sucked in a breath, something stirring deep inside of me. Ivy House thought Austin was and would remain the most important member in that circle. She didn’t plan to save the space in case someone better came along. She didn’t have any second guesses.

Her sentiments lined up with my own.

My stupid eyes teared up again.

The pull forward caught me off guard, and I resisted at first, now knowing what Austin had been reacting to. A moment later, though, I took my place behind the long, thin flag, paused, and then walked into the circle, the air moving around me, the power building. I took my position in the middle and faced Austin.

“Welcome,” I said, somehow knowing this was all that was required.

He didn’t nod or verbally reply, just held my gaze for a long, silent moment. Candlelight danced and glowed around us. Magic and energy jumped between us as though sparks of fire, not sure which person to settle on.

My team officially had a new member. I half wondered if Fate had led him to this town, or Ivy House had called him in preparation for my eventual return. I doubted I’d ever really know.

He was here now, though, and relief flooded me that he’d agreed to join us. That he’d agreed to help us. With him on our side, there was no way we could go wrong.

“You know what this means, right?” Mr. Tom asked quietly. “If you’re one of us, you have to call me Mr. Tom. Or Tom, if the formality is a sticking point…”

Austin ignored him, not taking his eyes off me, like I was his lifeline in this new venture. He’d always been mine.

At least the new guy was already well versed in Mr. Tom’s weird. Better and better.

Epilogue

“Turns out they’d been there for the last couple of months.” Austin leaned against the bar, his long-sleeved T-shirt hugging his currently flaring arm muscles. He seemed to find it humorous that my gaze always snagged on his various flexed body parts.

It wasn’t like I could help it. His shirts were all kinds of tight because of some laundry snafu or other, and he put on a pretty amazing muscle show. Besides, I was a warm-blooded female who’d never gotten anywhere with Mr. Hot McHandsy, and I hadn’t gotten to release the floodgates.

Paul bustled around him, the bar a little busier than usual for a Wednesday night. Word had gotten around that Austin had accepted an official spot in Ivy House less than a week ago. The magical people in this town loved to gossip, and everyone kept checking in to see how it was going. It was like they thought Austin might declare war on the house or something. They must’ve sensed the ongoing battle of wills, something I was happy to turn a blind eye to.

“Who’d been where?” Niamh asked as she returned from the bathroom. “Ah, bejaysus, what are you doing here, you filthy bugger?”

I turned back to find Sasquatch approaching the empty seat to my right. He hated me, I hated him, yet he always sat near me. Why, I had no idea. To make us both miserable, I guessed.

He didn’t say a word as he took his seat.

Austin nodded at him, his way of asking Sasquatch what he wanted to drink.

“Usual,” Sasquatch said.

Austin’s shoulder flexed as he pushed open the door of the cooler that held some of the bottled beer. His bicep flexed as he reached in and took out a brown bottle with a silver label. His large and gloriously muscled back flared as he turned away from me to pop the top. When he turned back, his pecs popped under his shirt.

“What in the hell?” Sasquatch mumbled, catching the show.

“He’s doing that for you,” I told him as Austin set the bottle down. “He likes you.”

Sasquatch scowled at me, but he knew better than to insult me in front of Austin. At this point in his existence, he was clearly tired of being punched and thrown off his barstool.

Yet he still kept sitting next to me. It made absolutely no sense.

“Those mages had been staying a town over basically since I accepted the magic,” I told Niamh, running my fingers down the stem of my glass. “They’d been watching me the whole time. Probably most of the mages we encountered were doing the same.”

“We’re good now, though.” Austin resumed his lean. “I’m setting up defensive measures and lookouts. There’s a lot of work to be done before this town becomes a well-oiled machine, but that was obviously step one.”

There hadn’t been any sort of ceremony by which Austin had officially taken the alpha role. He didn’t tell anyone or say anything about his change in status, but he had stopped correcting people when they used the title. Niamh said there had been a few other minor adjustments in the way he acted, but they were apparently too subtle for me to notice.

“What kind of work?” I asked.

He reached up to rub the back of his neck, his bicep flaring and torso hardening. Sasquatch jerked, leaned back, and scowled before shooting me an accusing look, clearly not liking the muscle show and blaming me for it.

“You chose to sit here. This isn’t my fault,” I said, chuckling.

“It’s nice to look at, but aye, it is a bit strange, all right,” Niamh mumbled.

“Just trying to get even,” Austin said, his smile wide, showing his straight, even teeth, boosting his handsomeness tenfold. My stomach fluttered and I pulled my gaze away. “Just trying to prove that I’m not the only one who looks.”

My face heated as I remembered his reaction to seeing me naked in that cave. Remembered the hard heat pressed against me.

I shivered even as heat pooled in my pounding core. “Little do you know, you’re just making a fool of yourself,” I said, and took a sip of my wine.

“That right?” He turned to help someone down the way, his muscular butt flexing.

Sasquatch flinched again and yanked his head the other way, catching me looking. He rolled his eyes and directed his gaze straight ahead. “You’re the cause of it.”

“You are as sharp as a tack, boy. Nothing gets past you, does it?” Niamh said to him.

“Austin means to replace the local Dick government with magical people, bring in magical people to buy out the shops and wineries,” Niamh said, “and work a lot more closely with the local police. As the alpha, he needs to run the town, and to do that, he needs more magical blood in it.”

“He can do all that?” I asked, awestruck. “The government and wineries and everything?”

“Ah.” She tapped the bar with her finger. “That’s the question, isn’t it? We shall see.”

“Yeah, he can.” Sasquatch lifted his bottle in a salute. “Won’t be a problem for the likes of him. You just wait. We’ll be the most prosperous territory in the southwest. Maybe all of the west. Maybe—”

“Whoa, whoa, there, lad, yer startin’ to sound absurd.” Niamh leaned around me to shoot Sasquatch a look. “Go back to being friendless and mindin’ yer own business. It makes the atmosphere nicer for everyone.”

“What brought on the change, though, alpha?” Sasquatch asked as Austin worked his way back, more interested in hanging out with us than working.

Austin’s gaze delved into mine. “Someone showed me what it’s like to reach for the stars. She showed me that a new adventure is right around the corner—all you have to do is have the courage to answer its call. We can’t be afraid of change, not when there are so many rewards from embracing it.”

“Sounds like something you might read in one of them coffee table books or somethin’,” Niamh said. “The ones you get on sale because no one wants ’em.”

I smiled at Austin, warmth radiating through my chest. “Grab life by the balls.”

“Hear, hear.” Sasquatch lifted his beer again.

“Christ,” Niamh said, clearly responding to Sasquatch. “So what’s the story, then, Jessie?” Niamh pushed her finished drink forward, and Austin went to grab her another one. “Should I pick out another date for ye or what?”