Page 13 of Magical Midlife Rescue (Leveling Up #11)

Austin faced the others, who fanned out a little more, giving the challengers space. Aurora and the mammoth stripped off their clothes. Someone came forward to take them, and then the challengers nodded respectfully at each other. That was nice, at least. There was no animosity.

When they shifted, Aurora’s flash of light and heat was significantly brighter and hotter than the other’s.

“Wouldn’t males have an advantage over females with this system?

” I couldn’t help but ask as Aurora morphed into a Siberian tiger like her dad.

The other guy changed into a massive wolf, but his form wasn’t as large as hers.

“And the type of animal? Wouldn’t this system pass up someone who’s extraordinary at organizing and leading and managing a pack because they turned into a…

a deer, or something? Or even a smaller wolf than this guy? ”

The wolf’s head lowered as he sized up Aurora, slinking around her as wolves so often did.

“Sometimes yes, and definitely yes,” Austin replied.

“It’s something I’ve thought about because a situation like that has cropped up.

Most packs are small, and the members of the hierarchy are mostly peacekeepers and enforcers.

They’re extensions of the alpha, who needs to protect the pack against people trying to take it over.

They hold power like a policeman might. The rest of the town is essentially just a town, part of a pack but not needing to challenge for the protective, peacekeeping role.

As you saw with Kingsley’s pack, there are a great many more townspeople minding their own business than enforcers.

Our setup here…is quite a bit different, especially concerning the various species we have cohabiting,” he continued with a faint shrug.

“We need to stop thinking like a pack and a cairn and Ivy House, but rather as one big unit. For that, we’ll need a governing body.

That body will have a different skill set than the peacekeepers and will need to elevate themselves in a different way.

” He paused. “I just haven’t figured out how that’s going to work yet.

I want us to talk to my brother about it, and maybe a couple of the other more levelheaded alphas too.

I also want us to talk to some of the cairn leaders, if we can, to ask how their setup works.

Tristan is very knowledgeable, but he didn’t hold the position.

There’s a lot he doesn’t know. I want to ask the lead basajaunak… ”

He trailed off.

“I’ve thought about it,” he finally said as Aurora started to circle the other shifter. “It’s reassuring that you have, too.”

I mean…I hadn’t until right this moment.

I hadn’t had the time to really delve into and understand pack mechanics.

I was trying to learn about it through Aurora, but there were only so many questions I’d thought to ask.

She, growing up in the culture, often didn’t know what to cover other than the basics.

She also didn’t ponder why they did certain things, and if those practices were the best way. If some things were even necessary.

I needed to better understand cairn life, too. I trained with the guardians, but I didn’t even know half of their names. I didn’t know how Tristan worked them into shape, what they did outside of training, what an entire cairn did outside of training…

Then there was the complex and dirty world of mages. Well, not all mages were dirty, just some, except you didn’t really know which because they all tried to blend together so no one got caught in the crossfire.

There just wasn’t enough time. I couldn’t fit a lifetime of knowledge about three different factions and the magical world as a whole into a few months of training and instruction.

When I tried, I felt like I was drowning, like the mountains of information were tumbling down on top of me and burying me alive.

That was why I hadn’t thought about better aerial combat training, or why I couldn’t seem to maintain a schedule, something I’d been great at as a Jane.

Or why I couldn’t feel too bad about Edgar peering in the windows at night, hoping I’d come out and talk to him about flowers, something that really shouldn’t have been as important as he was making it out to be. I was hanging on for dear life here.

Austin’s hand closed gently over my shoulder, and he stepped a little closer. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I pushed everything but this moment away and took a deep breath. “Yeah, sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

He didn’t even know what was wrong, but he was being supportive. He was such an amazing leader.

Then again, he’d been thrown into the deep end too. He didn’t show his feelings because of his training, but he was probably struggling with the same issues.

I nodded and shook it out. Sometimes, it helped to know someone was in the trenches with you.

It was then I noticed the furtive glances from the gathered shifters, all of whom were trying to watch me on the sly. Broken Sue and Tristan had wandered closer and pushed in around me.

“Sorry, did I send out a pulse of magic?” I asked, trying to relax my bearing and offer a smile. I could do that here—they knew better than to challenge me.

“No,” Austin murmured, his hand still on my shoulder.

“But you’re advertising your turmoil. Everyone knows what we’re up against, Jess.

That you, above all, are a target. Mages are after you, cairn leaders are talking negatively about you, and soon, shifters from other packs will be against you as a figurehead.

Our pack is protective of you because they know you’re protective of them. As a whole, they’re worried about you.”

I jerked my head to Austin, but he wasn’t looking my way. “Really?” Tears unexpectedly filled my eyes. “That’s sweet of them.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. When I was frustrated and overwhelmed, I often relieved stress through tears. Too much wine, a tragic love story, and ugly crying did wonders to vent. But this wasn’t the time for my personal hysteria. I was making people nervous.

“It’s fine.” I gave everyone a thumbs-up.

“I’m good. I don’t care about the shifters being dicks, and I care even less about the cairn leaders.

I’ll give them better than I’ve gotten, just you wait.

The mages…well…I guess I’ll just have to blow up their world.

I don’t know. But I’m good. Don’t worry about me.

I’m expressive. It’s a Jane thing. I’m working on it. ”

Austin squeezed my shoulder before pulling away.

It couldn’t be easy for him with a co-leader like me.

I blasted normality all to hell on a regular basis, something I didn’t notice when I was with the Ivy House crew.

They were weirder than me, so it was easy to forget I always used to be the oddest one in the room.

The wolf suddenly lunged for Aurora, and I jerked in surprise.

“Here we go,” Austin said.