“You moved,” I bleated, knowing when I was sunk. I went limp, lying on the street, now huffing out laughter. “You moved!”

“I apologize. I wasn’t thinking about—” He bent to me, his arms out, looking utterly lost and disheveled. This man who’d shown no outward emotion all night clearly had no idea what to do. Where to grab. “Can I— How can I—”

“It’s fine.” I lay there for a moment. “I’m good.” The night sky looked down on me, floating softly, pricks of light swimming in the black. “It’s a lovely night, though, isn’t it?”

“Can I help you up?”

“Nah. I got it.” I pushed myself to sitting, only because he was clearly uncomfortable.

“Are you hurt? Do you need to be carried?”

My laugh was soft at first, but soon I was guffawing again. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little emotional because my son came to visit, and he had to go home yesterday. It’s hard when they leave. This is the first time I’ve lived away from him. I’ve been so busy with this new life, but seeing him again…” Tears filled my eyes and dribbled down my cheeks. “Sorry.” I wiped them away, trying to stifle sobs. “I’m a little more broken up than I’d expected to be.”

“Ah.” Surprisingly, Kingsley sat down next to me, legs crisscrossed. “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry. My kids are getting to about that age now.” He paused for a moment. “Since you are not a shifter, or in the pack, or even part of this territory, I wonder if I might be frank with you?”

“Ugh. I’m not sure I’m up for your criticism right now. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, I meant…can I be open about my own situation?”

“Oh sure, yeah. I didn’t realize you shouldn’t be. I don’t know the shifter rules.”

“Yes. That is apparent.” He glanced away, watching the quiet town. “I have a boy and a girl. They both have the makings of a good alpha, but my girl is…cutthroat. She’s a handful. She’ll leave first, I know she will. She is eager to start her life away from her parents’ guidance. I just want to hold on with everything I have. To keep her home, safe. Every time she takes my hand, I worry it will be the last.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks again, but this time I didn’t stop them. I nodded and clasped my hands so that I wouldn’t give in to the urge to pat his knee or shoulder and send him scurrying away. “It is hard, but as parents, that means we’ve done a good job. We’ve prepared them for the world and empowered them to find their own path.”

Five animals ran into the back woods of Ivy House. They were moving fast.

“Do you know what animal they are?” I asked Ivy House, only not really, because I’d just said it out loud, and she couldn’t hear me when I talked to her like that unless I was on the property.

“What?” Kingsley asked, sensing my change in mood immediately.

“Do you know what animals they are?” I asked Ivy House properly this time, using our connection.

“Wolves. Shifters. Friend or foe?” she answered, keyed up, I could tell.

“Crap.” I wobbled up onto my feet. “Crap, I’m drunk. I need to figure out how to heal drunk.” I staggered forward, wondering if drunk flying would be as dangerous as it sounded. “Five wolf shifters just ran onto Ivy House property.” I upped my speed, feeling like I was running a million miles an hour. Kingsley was barely jogging beside me. “I need to heal drunk. Get Niamh.”

“I’m not leaving you. Are they with Austin’s pack?”

“I wasn’t talking to you…” I tapped into my connection with Ivy House again. “Bring in Niamh and the others. What is Mr. Tom doing?”

“Preparing to call you.”

Austin was away to the south dealing with his own problems. I didn’t need him for anything other than identifying the pack members.

“Are they with Austin’s pack?” Kingsley asked again, a growl riding his words.

“I don’t know.” My phone rang, and I answered it on the run, the world jiggling around me. “Mr. Tom, hi, ask Niamh to bring in someone that can identify…” More shifters blipped onto my radar, behind the others, spreading out within the woods and coming our way. The intruders weren’t attacking Ivy House: they were cutting through the property to get into town.

There was not one person familiar with this town that would do something like that. Everyone knew better.

“They aren’t friendlies,” I said into the phone. “They can’t be. Mr. Tom, hang tight. Ivy House will bring in the others.”

Twenty-One

I handed the phone off to Kingsley. “Find Sebastian’s name and push it. I can’t look for it, run, and try to cure alcohol poisoning all at the same time.”

He did as he was tasked, and I focused on going faster, feeling those shifters eating up ground. I wanted to be on Ivy House soil before I had to use her defenses. Or offenses.

The phone was handed back.

“Hello?” Sebastian said, his voice crisp. Alert.

“Were you awake?”

“Yes. Are you drunk?”

“Very. Do you have something to help with that?”

“Yes. How quickly do you need it?”

“Now-ish.”

“Then no. What’s going on?”

“Someone is using Ivy House as a… Oh crap—” Something else burst onto my radar: the basajaun was following the shifters, and given his size and my current lack of speed, he’d get to them sooner than I would. I pulled the phone away from my face. “Kingsley, can you run faster than this while carrying me?”

“Yes.”

“Do it.” I staggered to a stop and put up my hands like a child. “Do it now! Head toward Ivy House.” I directed him down the correct street, just up ahead.

He scooped me up and threw me over his shoulder, not the most comfortable of holds, especially since his hard-as-rocks shoulder was digging into my full and fragile stomach. I tried to perch on his back to no avail, and then just worked on not throwing up.

“Ivy House, how do you heal drunk?” I asked, Sebastian still on the phone. I lifted it to my ear.

“Jessie? Jacinta!”

He actually sounded worried.

“Are you sure? I can’t make you drunk again—you’d have to start all over.”

“Just do it.”

“I’m fine,” I said between wheezes, my stomach rolling. If Ivy House really did have a cure, it wasn’t helping fast enough. To be fair, its power was much stronger on the actual property. “Shifters are…running through my property…followed by the basajaun. I don’t know…what they did, but if I don’t get to them before…he does, there won’t be…anything—ow—left to question.”

“The basajaun from the mountain?” Kingsley asked, not even out of breath. He’d been drinking all night as well, beer for beer with me. It hadn’t affected him even a little, just like his brother.

“I’ll be right there,” Sebastian said, and the line went dead.

He’d be too late. We might all be too late.

“Ivy House, slow that basajaun down, but—”

“You’re talking to me again,” Kingsley said.

“Damn it!” I switched gears. “Ivy House, slow that basajaun down, but don’t hurt him. I want him to stay on my side.”

The house glowed like a beacon in the shadows ahead, all the lights on. A lone figure waited out front, and I could feel that it was Edgar. Swooping down from above came the nightmare alicorn with wings of inky darkness. I felt Ulric and Jasper on their way.

Those shifters were halfway through the woods now, coming fast. They were cutting through the property at a diagonal, which would dump them out to the left of the house.

It might not be an attack on me, specifically, but they’d clearly planned to crash into Austin’s territory. I knew that wasn’t how things were done around here. They’d snuck over the mountain, aggravating the basajaun in the process, and instead of making amends, they’d continued their preplanned journey with a lot more haste. These fellers were in a no-win situation.

“Put me down.” I tapped Kingsley’s shoulder. A moment later, half sober, I touched down on the sidewalk before Ivy House. “Thank you.”

I ran onto the property, the alcohol in my blood draining quickly now. My mind raced for a strategy.

“Jacinta.”

Sebastian’s voice was magically amplified. A beat-up old VW Beetle rolled down the street, silent as the grave. I couldn’t tell if he was propelling it by magic or if he’d magically cut out the sound. No lights announced its entrance.

“Can you trust him?” Kingsley asked. He stood beside me, loose and ready for battle, power pumping out of him.

“Doesn’t matter either way. Not on Ivy House soil.” I turned to Mr. Tom, coming out of the house, as Niamh touched down. “Get into the air with the other fliers so you can help Ivy House respectfully slow the basajaun down. Treat him with kid gloves. If he kills a few of the shifters, fine, but try to keep him from killing everyone.”

Mr. Tom nodded and immediately started to change. Niamh lifted into the sky again, Ulric and Jasper showing up. I gestured for them to join the others.

“What do you need?” Sebastian jogged over from his car, his shirt and pants rumpled and his hair mostly standing on end.

“I need to make a wall to keep those shifters from getting out.”

“You know how to do that.”

“Yeah. Right, yes I do. I also need to keep the basajaun from gruesomely killing everyone.”

“I sure hope you know how to do that, too, because I’m at a loss. I’ve only heard disturbing things about those creatures.”

“Yeah. Dang. The things you’ve heard are mostly true, I’d bet.” I ran toward the spot where the shifters would intersect, magically draping a wall over the property line.