“Cover your mouth,” Hollace said, standing beside and a little behind her, clasping his hands in front of him like the shifters were doing.

“I don’t spread germs.”

“Fire snot is still gross.”

Niamh took her place beside and a little behind Hollace, forming the beginnings of a diagonal line. She was uncharacteristically quiet, staring straight ahead with her hands at her sides. She didn’t have a quip for her neighbors or even seem to notice the lurkers around the area. I’d given the revealing potions to everyone, so she’d see them all, but she didn’t appear to notice or care.

“What’s wrong with Niamh?” I asked, feeling anticipation through the link.

My vision wobbled and hazed over, the potion taking effect, and a few more figures popped into the area, one out near the limos, a couple milling around in the open spaces between the building and the trees, and a few waiting off to the left, on the other side of the walkway from the shifters, giving Austin and me a wide berth. Only one invisible mage waited near the line of shifters, near the front corner of the building. He shifted and fidgeted often, and I wondered if he’d managed to deaden his noise and smell as well as his visual footprint. If not, he was not even close to invisible to that line of lethal shifters. Nor could he run fast enough if they decided to attack.

“Niamh’s playing a role, like all of us.” Austin continued to wait patiently, no longer looking around the area. “Well…” He looked down at me, smiling. “Maybe not like you.”

“You’re going to allow yourself to smile?” I whispered.

“To you? Yes. To this visiting party? Only if I am silently promising to kill them.”

Edgar was the last out of the second limo, and upon seeing the vampires waiting around the restaurant at the tree line, he puffed into a swarm of insects and zipped to his position behind them.

“Even Edgar has a role to play, and he just showed that he is the most lethal vampire on these grounds,” Austin murmured, his voice so low that I barely made out the words. “Hopefully he remembers not to speak and ruin the illusion.”

Only powerful vampires could change into a swarm of insects. In his prime, Edgar had been an extremely powerful vampire, but vampires could get too old, just like everyone else. Although old age wouldn’t kill them, it did steal some of their facilities—their minds went fuzzy, they became weaker, and they lost the ability to stalk prey as effectively. Ivy House had restored Edgar’s abilities, if not his mind. Which was why we’d told him to remain the silent menace and, for the love of God, stand up straight and try not to run. He looked ridiculous when he ran.

Movement caught my eye to the left.

“Don’t look,” Austin murmured.

In a moment, I saw why.

Sebastian wandered out of the trees. Austin must’ve smelled him. He was completely at ease, his poise more confident than I could remember, shoulders back and spine straight. It struck me that he always cowered around the shifters, showing his submission to their more dominant personas, but now, around other mages and on the offensive (even if invisible to them), he was clearly in his element.

He strolled through the space seemingly without a care in the world, like he could wipe the floor with every person he saw, vampires included. He walked right past them, lingering briefly, sometimes so close that he could lean over and blow into their faces. If they’d reached out, they could have pulled him into a hug. The Ivy House potion was clearly beyond any revealing potion these people possessed. Sebastian had been right. Good news.

He met us at the beginning of the walkway as Austin looked back at our line of people.

“Thanks for waiting, alpha,” he said, stepping behind me. Austin wouldn’t be able to hear him, though, not with that potion. I relayed what was said in as low of an undertone as I could muster.

“He didn’t take the potion?” Sebastian asked me.

I barely shook my head, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was talking to someone.

“Then tell him, when you can, that those vampires will be easy prey for his shifters. Their power scale is nothing. The mage must have brought in this many people because he’s wary of the shifters. He has people hiding in the trees, but they’re not bothering to mask their smell.” He laughed. “He has no idea what he is walking into. Absolutely no idea.”

“Shall we?” Austin asked me.

“Of course,” I said.

“Use your magic inside, miss,” Sebastian said, following close behind us. “You will be safe here tonight. The shifters have the outside covered, and your alpha and I will protect you inside, but you need to practice. Keep your wits. Just like any meeting with an established mage, you’re entering the snake pit.”

Thirty

Jess tensed beside Austin as they entered the restaurant. The only renovations Austin had been able to pull off were freshening up the paint and decor. There was a lot more work planned, but hopefully it would serve its purpose for the first meeting.

Janet stood at a small podium in the waiting area, a fresh-faced twenty-something who’d been in the area for a while but had rarely visited O’Briens. She was a raccoon shifter, but she seemed to have very little interest in a magical life and zero interest in joining a pack. She hadn’t been thrilled to learn Austin had taken over the restaurant. It was a shame—a raccoon would be a good spy, able to get out of tight corners with ease. Mean little buggers, raccoons. Were-raccoons were ten times worse when cornered.

“Mr. Steele, good evening.” Her smile was entirely forced. It could’ve been a reaction to him, or perhaps to the invisible presence standing off to her right. This mage’s invisibility potion wasn’t nearly as good as Sebastian’s—it didn’t even mask scent. He’d thought smell and sight went hand in hand with those potions, but clearly they came in all sizes.

Why bother at all? They had to know every shifter and probably gargoyle in this place would be able to pinpoint their silent watchers. Were they shortsighted, stupid, or simply ignorant of what shifters could do? This night would be telling.

Janet’s gaze slid to Jess. “Miss Ironheart, welcome.”

“Who?” Jess looked behind her.

“That’s the name they’ve given you,” Austin murmured as a line formed between Janet’s brows.

“Oh, really? Who did?”

“I’m not sure who started it, but my territory all seems to agree.” He slid his arm around Jess’s waist and let his hand rest on her hip.

“Janet, show us to our guest—”

But Jess wiggled her fingers and swept her arm toward the dining area. “There’s some kind of ward up,” she murmured. Then she cocked her head as if listening to something. Sebastian.

Rage boiled through the link from Jess, and her hands balled into fists. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“They created a ward in the dining room to keep shifters out,” she said in a tight but even tone. “You are apparently not welcome in your own restaurant, Austin. What do you think of that? This mage has zero respect for me and my crew, because he and his friends aren’t asking me to come without my shifter date—they are trying to tell me, like I’m a child. They are trying to force me to do what they want.” She paused for a moment. “Be calm. Yeah, right,” she murmured. “Austin, if you want, you can tear down that ward yourself. Sebastian seems to think you can do it. There is a woman standing on your left trying to break out of the binding and gagging spell I currently have on her. Sebastian says I shouldn’t show my power level yet, but I’m having a slight rage problem, and I’m not exactly in control.”

Desire pooled hot at his future mate’s protectiveness of him, and he constricted his arm, pulling her tightly against him. Her soft moan nearly undid him.

“No problem,” he said, walking forward with her.

“He’s in the center of the room, Mr. Steele,” Janet said. “He chose the table. It seems like…” Her brow wrinkled. “This is just a hunch, but there’s more than meets the eye in that room. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s danger in there I can’t actually see. Mages are underhanded like that. They put up that ward right after I seated him, so they might’ve changed the seating arrangement.”

“You’d be a damn fine asset to my pack, Janet,” Austin said, reaching what felt like an elastic wall. He didn’t see her reaction as he swelled his power and forced another step, then another, the wall trying to keep him put as he continued to push it back. If he was in his animal form, he could tear through this thing no problem. Trying to be civilized about it took a little more effort.

With a last push forward, it felt like the resistance snapped, falling away.

“Sebastian is asking how easy that was,” Jess whispered. The woman she’d magically subdued couldn't be the only watcher, but he couldn’t feel the others at present. Maybe they weren’t close.

“No sweat,” he said as they walked past a potted plant and then the bar on their left, a lone bartender waiting behind it.

“Just follow the alpha back,” he heard Janet say, and felt the rest of the Ivy House crew following them in.

“I agree,” Jess murmured, her fingers moving, her body close to him.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“They clearly don’t know how adept shifters are with scent,” she replied, barely a whisper as they entered the main floor of the restaurant, the lights turned low and candles glittering in crystal holders on each of the square tables swathed in white tablecloths. “They might be trying to intimidate you. They spared some time and power by using potions that only cut out sight. If they ever battle a shifter, they’ll get a rude awakening.”

“More than one,” Austin said.

Their man sat at one of the center tables, his bald head reflecting the light and his black suit a tad big in the shoulders. A beautiful brunette sat on his right, less than half his age, in a dress barely containing her chest. From the way she smiled at him and batted her lashes, she wasn’t a constant in his life and clearly wanted to be. She’d be in it for the money or the power—or both. It couldn’t be about his looks, with his pointed face and big nose.