“All of them?” Oliver looked behind Austin Steele, getting the drink list. “Okay.”
“I’m just going to run to the restroom really quick,” Jessie murmured to Austin Steele, tilting her head up to get another kiss. He complied eagerly, not because of the perceived situation with the beta, but because he clearly couldn’t help himself. The two were utterly besotted with each other. It made them volatile.
Niamh liked volatile.
She grinned as Jessie drifted away with her head down. Two of the three interested female parties straightened up and pushed out their boobs. None of them had noticed one another, so focused were they on what they thought was the prize of the bar.
But Niamh had business to handle before the fireworks.
“Austin Steele, c’mere, I got a line on a warehouse,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I met a right wanker down the bar a ways there. Real shady, that lad. He was trying to sell me— Well, it doesn’t matter. They didn’t do a damn thing.”
“Drugs,” Phil said. “He sells drugs.”
Niamh turned to the basajaun with wide eyes. “What are ye, some kind of narc?”
“A what?” Phil asked.
“Yer supposed to keep those types of things to yerself, ya muppet.”
“They did not work, those drugs,” Phil replied, indignant. “He is the muppet, not me.”
She shook her head at him before turning back to Austin Steele. “Anyway, he can get us a warehouse. The people renting it aren’t in the area, so we’ll need to clean up when we’re done, but we’ve got a place for…an interview should we catch any…magical people.”
Austin Steele glanced around the bar, not noticing one of the women start his way, her neckline scooped low and her sparkly dress short. She was probably ten years his junior.
He then glanced in the direction Jessie had gone before pushing in a little closer to Niamh. They all knew Jessie would hesitate at playing dirty with those mages. She’d eventually get there, they’d seen proof of that, but they didn’t have time to convince her. They needed to move fast.
For a wonder, after Austin Steele had learned more about the dirty world mages existed in—
Niamh didn’t keep much back from the alpha—he’d stopped feeling any kind of moral duty to protect them. In fact, he was very much on the “mess with what’s mine, and I’ll ruin your life” train. Niamh knew he could be coaxed into it. Jessie was the sunshine in that pair, no question.
“This is a very delicate situation, you understand that,” Austin Steele told her in an equally low tone. “I’d prefer it if no one knew we gave this command. If you get caught, Jess will have to be the fall guy. Unfortunately, that will make her appear weak, but I’d like to keep in Kingsley’s good graces.”
“Ah, sure, but Kingsley’s people aren’t supposed to leave town, right?” Niamh asked. “That’s easy. They won’t want to get caught any more than we do. It’ll be grand. But what about that warehouse? That lad is asking for a few quid to make the deal. More than it’s worth, surely, but when I called around today, I couldn’t find a better alternative.”
“Try to talk him down a bit, but keep him happy. We don’t need him talking about this deal.”
“Do ye not get people or what?” Niamh asked him, leaning away a bit so she could see his face clearly. “I recorded us buying drugs off him. That’s called blackmail, Austin Steele. If he starts running his mouth, he’ll get Kingsley breathing down his neck. Do ye think he wants that kinda heat?
No, he does not.”
“Can I go?” Phil asked.
“Now yer gettin’ on me last nerve,” Niamh told him. “Even if ye could keep your mouth shut, ye’d scare away all the magical people.”
“I can hide in the trees.”
“What fun is that?”
“I have a flask and you have a way of running people off. When the mages run out of the bar, I’ll grab them.”
Niamh turned her mouth down in thought as Jasper snickered. He had a point.
“Hey there.”
The silky voice pulled at Niamh’s focus.
“Austin Barazza, right?” The woman Niamh had noticed moved in closer to Austin Steele, her cleavage on display and her tongue gliding out to wet her bottom lip. “I met you at a party before you left, remember? Cadence.”
The utterly blank look on his face said he had no clue, and he didn’t really care that she knew it.
Ulric ran his fingers across his lips like he was trying to wipe his smile away.
Another interested woman across the way adjusted her hair, stuck out a hip, and started forward as well. She clearly wanted to throw her hat into the ring.
“Move down,” Niamh whispered at Phil. “Give them a little room.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Phil whispered back as Broken Sue got off his seat and cleared out of the way. “I think we should tell that woman to scram. The alpha is obviously—”
“Move down, hurry!”
“I heard you were back in town.” Cadence pushed in closer, moving her bust to draw his eyes.
“It’s so lovely to see you.”
She ran her hand up Austin Steele’s arm and then over his shoulder, the touch already inappropriate but becoming obscenely so when she let her hand trail down his chest.
“I have a mate,” he told her, his voice hard, his body tense.
“Austin.” The other woman arrived, and now there was a wide circle around Austin Steele, his people having all pushed back toward the wall. No one in their right mind was getting involved in this.
“I think I’ll just get up,” Niamh murmured, doing like Broken Sue and clearing out.
“Hi,” the other woman said, taking to his other side and gently grabbing his arm. She was younger still, fifteen or more years his junior and not even eighteen when he’d left. “You’re the alpha’s brother, right?”
“I was just meeting up with my old friend,” the first woman said, her gaze hostile.
“I’m okay with three.” The newcomer batted her eyelashes at Austin. “The younger generation is a little more fluid about that sort of thing.”
“As I said, I have a mate.” He looked over their heads, not engaging. He wouldn’t strip Jessie of her right to defend her claim on him, though. He apparently did not at all care about this bar. “She’s with me tonight. You must’ve seen her.”
“She’s a gargoyle, right?” The second woman snickered, pushing into him a little more. One of her hands settled low on his stomach. His unease at the touch was evident and his scowl was a warning. “You should find a real mate to help lead your pack. A shifter. I hear you have a—”
Acute rage blistered through the Ivy House link a moment before a wave of power swept the bar.
The power didn’t sting, though. It didn’t hurt. Niamh wondered what Jessie’s angle was. She’d better not back down from defending her claim. That would make her into a target the whole territory would try to hit.
FOURTEEN
Jessie
THE ANGER and power pumping through my body beat in time to my heart. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t claw my way around it.
Two women clung to Austin, their hands moving down his stomach.