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Jumping out of her mother’s car so Nimue can park in the rear, Emmy signals that they should park in front of their place. Gideon stares at the single open spot on the packed street. Parallel parking. With an audience. Fucking great.

It’s not enough that his mate might be magical, or that they’re going to Nimue’s home, or that he saw his face in a fifteen-hundred-year-old scroll. Nope. Now he has to prove to Finn—who just got his goddamn learner’s permit—that he can park a fucking car.

“Want me to do it?” Finn offers, his grin the smuggest smug to ever smug.

Gideon resists the urge to growl. He’s too stressed to make rational choices, so he does what he always does when he’s not 100% sure about something: he fakes it until he makes it.

And by the Goddess’s grace, he pulls it off. No scraped bumpers. No crushed pedestrians. No Finn gloating.

“That was sexy,” Nix giggles, squeezing his shoulders. Grayson mutters “hot as fuck,” and slides out behind him.

He barely has time to feel the smug satisfaction of winning before he almost clips a passing car while opening his door.

Shit. Damn. Fuck.

By the time they’re all congregated on the front stoop, Gideon feels a crackle of unease; Grayson is emanating a low, snapping static at an unseen threat. It’s strange, because he’d felt no inkling of a threat once they’d come to an understanding in the library parking lot. And Nix had been giddy. Like he said, Gideon trusted their pregnant omega’s instincts for people, especially now that they have pack babies to worry about.

Nimue opens her door wide, letting her daughter pass beyond her. “Hang on. It’ll pass, I promise. We welcome you into our sanctuary with open hearts. May the protective enchantments of our home acknowledge you as a friend, and may the Goddess’s favor bless our time together with peace and understanding.”

The oppressive feeling passes as quickly as it had come.

“Sorry, it’s a protection spell. Works wonders on solicitors and those who carry ill will.”

“Like Ron and Louise across the street. Ugh,” Emmy mutters and starts pulling dishes out and laying them on the long kitchen table. “They are the worst.”

“Emmy, speak no ill, and no ill will come to you,” Nimue murmurs serenely.

It makes Gideon’s eyes pop wide open until she laughs.

“No, seriously, he’s a jackass. Keeps dumping his trash in my bins on trash day, so I’m over my limit. Then the collectors leave my trash. Frustrating as fuck.”

Emmy growls under her breath. “It’s a pain because pick-up is every other week, you know?”

No, Gideon did not know, nor, if he’s honest, does he care. But Finn is nodding and placing the plates around the table while Nix is growling about paying the neighbor a visit before he goes.

Grayson is still standing just inside the door, and at first glance, Nimuedoesn’t appear concerned. It’s as if she is giving him a moment to acclimate on his own. She does, however, place herself between her daughter and Nix every time Grayson shifts even an inch.

They’re sitting on some kind of powder keg here, and Gideon isn’t sure how to diffuse it without setting a fuse to it. “Coming in, Gray?”

Grayson’s jaw cracks hard and the basil-vanilla-patchouli smells like smoky machinery and metal. Has his mate bitten his tongue?

“There is so much magic in here, it’s driving my wolf mad. I feel like if I move, I’m going to trigger something.”

“Ah, Warrior,” Nimue says as she approaches with her hands out in front of her, an apron with a cat in a witch’s hat on the front; it saysMy Pussy is Magic. It’s funny and ironic, and Gideon likes her a little bit more.

“I apologize for your discomfort. I am a master-level Luminary, and magic is infused into my dwelling like a lifeblood. But I can maybe help you feel less…irritated.”

Grayson nods. “Please.”

“Perhaps if we can put you in touch better with your magic, mine won’t seem so abrasive.”

“Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Can you see your magic as a flowing stream or a babbling brook? Most magic users find that the mental image of a gently flowing body of water helps them tap into it. There will usually be a color that speaks to you…it’syourmanifestation of The Plain. Do you see the color of your link?”

“Brook? Stream?” Grayson repeats, eyes narrowed skeptically.

Nix steps close to press his palm to Grayson’s back, and his shoulders drop a bit, and the clench of his jaw lessens just a smidgen. “Mine is no small trickling stream from a fairy story.”