“I know. I’m worried about Elliot Graves.”

He nodded, resting his elbow on the open window. Two gargoyles flew ahead of them, one pink and blue and one with an enormous wing span—Ulric and Nathanial—flying low, since this area was so remote. They’d check things out at the house before Jess arrived. “Niamh is working on it. She’s turned her barstool into a seat at the library, and she has the whole town looking into things and reporting back. She must’ve been a political animal back in the day—she makes pretty intricate connections very quickly.”

“Really? I haven’t heard much of anything. Any time I ask for news, she tells me to stick it up my hole, or some other colorful Irish saying.”

“Each of us needs to be an expert in our own right. Trust her to get all the information and deliver it when you need it.”

“In other words, mind my business.”

“Not mind your business so much as spend your energy focusing on your piece of the pie and don’t waste precious resources worrying about what you can’t immediately control.”

“Right, which is a very eloquent way of saying…mind my business.”

He chuckled. “If you say so.”

He slowed as he approached the house, giving the gargoyles another moment to look around. A supposedly great mage had put a ward on his house, but Austin’s brother had opened his eyes to the fear and hatred most mages felt toward shifters—information Niamh’s research had bolstered—and he no longer trusted the protections. With the right training, he knew Jess could fix it, but her magic lessons had been cut short by her tutor’s death.

“Hey, I was thinking.” He slowly pulled into his driveway. “You’re going to have access to a few good mages at Elliot’s thing. They won’t have as much power as you do—at least, that’s what Niamh thinks—but they’ll have a lot of experience. Maybe you can ask one of them to train you? You’d have to give them something, and I bet Niamh will have a bunch of suggestions about what to offer, most of them ending in you screwing them over when you get what you want, but it would be worth a try.”

“Yeah.” She sighed as he shut off the engine but didn’t make a move to get out of the Jeep. More gargoyles circled the house and grounds now, scouting.

These gargoyles had answered Jess’s original summons and hadn’t made the cut for the Ivy House crew—space was limited, and Jess had to be selective—but they’d hung around in the hopes they could be of some use. And they had. Nathanial, the gargoyle who’d answered Jess’s last summons, was an alpha in his own right, although not as dominant, and he’d led the host of gargoyles on various missions. They also frequently volunteered for night watch duty when Jess was away from Ivy House.

Five gargoyles landed in the front yard as Austin got out and walked around to open Jess’s door. The gargoyles nodded to her and then crouched down and shifted to stone. There they would stay until they were called to action.

“That’s the other part of my day that didn’t go well,” Jess said as she watched them change.

“What’s that?” Austin took her hand and entwined his fingers with hers.

“Nathanial tried to teach me how to call the gargoyles that aren’t connected to me through Ivy House. He does it with his wings. They make this loud buzzing sound. But my wings are too small. They’re runts.”

“They’re female gargoyle wings. They’re the size they should be.”

“Not to call my army, they’re not.”

He started them toward the front door. “I thought you said you didn’t want an army? Something about the government, or modern times, or… Help me out; I can’t remember the excuse.”

“You’re going to get the beating of your life if you keep it up.”

“Hmm, does that mean you want to be on top?”

Heat kindled through their link, but he could feel her pushing the desire away. She was fighting it with everything she had.

He grinned. It made him want to claim her that much more.

“I’m not actually talking about an army, but I need a way to call the gargoyles without Nathanial. If something happens to him or—”

“They need to ultimately be in your control instead of his,” Austin said. He opened the door for her.

“Yes, exactly.”

He led her toward the kitchen, passing a small table in the hall with a stack of brochures and binders. Their winemaker had compiled that thick file on the table, full of fliers for various vineyards for sale that might work for the winery they’d purchased together. Although new wines were already in the works, made from grapes purchased from other wineries and locations, Austin and Jess had agreed that they’d prefer to have control over how the grapes were grown.

But all that could wait until Jess wasn’t so tightly wound. Basically, until after they sorted out the situation with Elliot Graves.

A rush of adrenaline coursed through Austin, and this one wasn’t pleasant. He pushed it away. It wasn’t time to deal with his wariness and uncertainty about the Elliot Graves situation.

“Did you decide what was for dinner?” He placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward one of the seats at the kitchen island. If he didn’t insist that she sit and stay seated, she’d try to help out of obligation. It was nice of her, but Austin could tell she didn’t want to, and it took the joy out of cooking for her.

“Anything, honestly. You know my situation.”

He certainly did. She liked to watch. She never tore her eyes away.

As he grabbed the apron hanging on the handle of the oven, her eyes lit with hunger. Her gaze traveled over his shoulders and down his chest.

“Do you ever cook without a shirt on?” she asked, her voice silky.

He paused in slipping the apron strap over his head, his heart beating faster. Her heart beat right beside his, deep in his chest, her presence always there. It grew stronger every day, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he didn’t need the Ivy House connection. Once their mating bond was solidified, she wouldn’t be able to cut off his ability to find her, something he feared she’d do in a life-threatening situation. Jess was absolutely the sort who would prefer to face danger on her own than to have a loved one in the thick of it.

Eyes holding hers, body tightening up and loosening at the same time, he put the apron on the counter and grabbed the bottom of his shirt. He slowly pulled it over his head. “Pants?”

She crinkled her nose. “Keep the pants on. You can’t have your ding dong rubbing against things.”

He barked out a laugh. “I do have boxers on, but okay. It’s your show.”

He tossed his shirt to the side, getting it out of the way, before holding up the apron, asking if she wanted him to wear it.

Her eyes increased in intensity. He could feel excitement and anticipation bubbling through the Ivy House link. Lust.

She nodded slowly.

He could barely stand the hunger in her eyes as she watched him secure the apron around his bare waist. Her gaze traveled to his shoulders, met his eyes, and dug deep into his soul.

Her dream had always been to have a man to cook for her. Such a small dream in the grand scheme of things, but the wish had been strong enough that her teenage son had known about it. In her life before Ivy House, cooking had always been a chore—her chore. It hadn’t been her way of expressing love. Rather, she’d done it out of obligation.

This was the result. Every meal he prepared for her was an erotic experience. He hadn’t thought he could like cooking any more than he already did. He’d been wrong.

“Meat or pasta, then? Or both?” He moved to the refrigerator.

“Pasta. I like watching your hands knead the dough.”

He pulled out the eggs and closed the fridge before grabbing the flour and placing the ingredients on the island nearest her. “Would you mind choosing some wine?”

“Sure. White?”

“Maybe we can have some sort of seafood in the pasta, then. Shrimp?”

She smiled, getting off her seat and coming around the island. He paused in spreading flour across a large wood cutting board. She reached up and curled her small hand around the back of his neck, pulling his face down to hers. Her lips connected with his, gentle but insistent, tasting of wine, spices, and jam. Their kiss was languid, unhurried, and she released him and trailed an open palm down his chest.

Without another word, she moved away, heading to the wine rack.

He mixed salt into the flour and created a deep well before cracking eggs into it. The cork popped on the wine bottle as he used a fork to whisk the eggs and then unhurriedly pulled the flour from the sides and bottom into the mix.

“I liked…having my episode earlier today,” Jess said softly, placing his glass on the counter to his right. She set hers down, too, and ran her palms up the center of his back. “I didn’t want to admit that earlier. I still don’t want to admit it, but I am so damn turned on that I can’t help it. The feeling of…the episode…keeps seeping out.”

She slid her lips up the center of his back, and he shivered, trying to focus on mixing but having a hard time.

“I don’t want something like that to happen again, don’t get me wrong.” She kissed one side of his spine, then the other side, on the rise of his muscle. “My God, Austin, you have an incredible back.”

“You’re killing me.”

Her laugh was deep and sultry. Her hands flowed down, over his butt, and then away. When she reached for her wine, purplish-pink magic shivered into the air.

“Is that your magic you’re shedding, or power, or…?” He turned his head to catch her as she moved back toward her seat. The same shifting colors drifted behind her, sparkling within the air, keeping his focus. A deep, reverberating need welled up inside him, stopping his heart. He couldn’t seem to think, to get enough breath. He’d wanted to experience what it was like for a female gargoyle to mate without learning about it first, and now he was happy for it. Each new surprise was a pleasure. Each new facet had him in rapture. The experience of her was everything.