Page 36 of Magical Midlife Rescue (Leveling Up #11)

TWENTY-TWO

Tristan

“Listen to me closely,” Alpha Steele told Jessie as we neared the homestead, a beaten-down place with small dwellings, dirty streets, and very few people out and about.

It almost looked like a ghost town. “Watch your six at all times. If someone comes at you, that constitutes a challenge. The outcome is at your discretion, but in a situation like this, you kill. The people in charge have made life miserable for the pack members. They’ve committed atrocities because no one could stop them.

If they’re spared, they could, and probably will, move on and do it again. ”

“No problem,” she answered.

“You don’t have to make it flashy, but you can if it gets the job done. Do not heal.”

“Got it.”

Alpha Steele had filled her and Tristan in on how one of these things typically worked. Essentially, they waltzed in, threw their weight around, challenged, killed the baddies, and tried to help facilitate a new leadership. That, or help them move on.

Not today.

They wouldn’t have time for cleanup. Nessa and Sebastian needed them.

Tristan understood Jessie’s deciding to help these people with the time they would be idle anyway, but the other alphas were in tow, and they could help these people pick up the pieces.

They shouldn’t have waited to help in the first place.

Jessie’s magic created a solid drumbeat of urgency in Tristan’s middle.

The connections were active, and through her, he could feel everyone’s basic location.

She had her finger on the pulse. The enemy had no idea what was on their doorstep.

Their worst nightmare was about to see them into the afterlife.

The alphas tagging along would get to see what it was like when a mage entered a shifter fight.

“I might make a spectacle,” Jessie said in a small voice laced with worry and anger. In the rearview mirror, Tristan could just see her fingernails clawing into her knee.

“Then you make a spectacle,” Alpha Steele replied, and tingles crawled along Tristan’s spine. Alpha Steele had not only given Jessie the green light to go hard, but he also clearly intended to go hard himself.

Brochan would go scorched earth. He had a history of not helping when he thought he should have, but he’d been lost and defeated during that time, unsure of his own existence. He’d damn well prove he intended to help now.

The larger street wound through town and stopped at what must’ve passed for their central hub.

A brown patch of dead grass supported a kids’ play area that didn’t look like it had seen kids in a long time.

A broken tire swing hung from an abandoned house down the way, and the row of businesses in what passed for the main strip seemed in disrepair and were mostly shuttered.

“Park, or stop in the middle of the street?” Tristan asked Alpha Steele.

“Middle. Block it up.”

He stopped the van and exited. The others did as well. A surge of magic washed across Tristan and kept going. It would cover the town.

Come out and meet your fate.

Another shiver washed over him, and urgency ate at his core.

He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be airborne, flying toward Natasha.

She needed him and he wasn’t there. But his wings would take too long, and he couldn’t go alone.

Their enemy was organized and highly effective.

Tristan wouldn’t be enough to combat even lower-tier mages, not if they brought numbers.

Against a mage as powerful and cunning as Elliot Graves, they’d definitely bring numbers.

He gritted his teeth as they walked out in all directions from the van. Another peal of magic thundered forth. With Jessie, they didn’t need to go knocking on doors.

Alpha Steele led the way to the square of dead grass, giving them some space. The basajaunak didn’t climb out.

Tristan learned why when Brochan caught up to him. “I didn’t want to scare our new friends away.”

Fair.

Their people pushed to the sides in organized lines. Tristan stood in front of the gargoyles, Brochan in front of the shifters. The other alphas from the meeting stayed in their vehicles, watching. They probably thought along the same lines as Brochan.

Another peal of thunderous magic: COME HERE!

Alpha Steele waited in the middle of the space, and Jessie came over to wait next to Tristan. She wasn’t afraid. Tristan could feel her anticipation through the connection—she was giving Alpha Steele the limelight. They were a damn good team, each happy to help the other show off.

“If they get one look at us and try to run, you get airborne and bring them back,” she said in a low tone.

The ragtag Ivy House crew ambled forward, filling in the space between the shifters and gargoyles. They hadn’t had a chance to shift last night to show the visiting packs—everyone had been too tired. They would do it soon.

Or maybe that had been the plan all along.

With the next magical wave, movement caught Tristan’s eye. A shiny Corvette stopped at the end of a side street, the way blocked by the procession of vans. Other vehicles stopped behind it. The enforcers.

They exited their vehicles, alpha first and then the others, no one in sync.

Bulky forms walked in a haphazard line with their arms flared and a padding of fat on their person.

They weren’t in their best shape. Even from here, Tristan could tell they would be no match for Austin Steele.

Not even Brochan. Hell, half the shifters here could take the approaching alpha.

The alpha crossed between parked vans, looking them over.

His gaze ran down the line to the head, where there wasn’t a shiny sports car to scream status and money .

The man, only in his late twenties and clearly too dumb to know what awaited him, sneered.

His enforcers were of a similar age, and only a couple showed sudden wariness.

“What’s all this, then?” The alpha stepped onto the grass and looked everyone over.

His gaze lingered on Brochan and he entirely dismissed the gargoyles and other magical types.

Jessie might not have been there at all.

His people spread out behind him, half the force of Alpha Steele’s people.

Finally, the resident alpha met Alpha Steele’s gaze.

The newcomer’s muscles flexed, and his jaw clenched.

He was very expressive for a shifter and downright comical for an alpha. He hadn’t had good training.

“This is the end of the line for you and your enforcers,” Alpha Steele said, his voice hard and authoritative.

“Look,” Jessie whispered.

Tristan followed her gaze. People peeked out from around buildings, clearly frightened and cautious. They had their phones out, filming. That was what they needed for the shifter side of things—someone like Patty. They needed someone facilitating gossip.

“That right?” The resident alpha spat to the side, not taking his eyes off Alpha Steele. “On whose authority?”

“Mine.” It was more of a growl than a word.

“Well, see, you can’t challenge me.” He sucked at his teeth. “You gotta have some sort of official capacity to come in here and throw your weight around.”

“Is that what you’re doing here? Creating rules that make no sense?

” Alpha Steele didn’t move, didn’t even twitch a muscle, but suddenly, the resident alpha jerked as though slapped.

Alpha Steele must’ve let his beast peek out of the darkness.

“You’ve been plaguing these people long enough.

It ends today. You can challenge me officially, or you can run. Either way, you will die. Choose.”

“Gracious,” Jessie murmured. Heat soaked her tone—her gargoyle liked that threat. Tristan knew how she felt. He wanted to be in the action.

The resident alpha huffed. “We’ve got an imbalance of power here, and I didn’t challenge you. You’ve gotta allow me to choose another.”

“You’re a cancer to the world of shifters,” Alpha Steele said in a rough voice.

“A disgrace to our magical type. I don’t gotta do anything.

Made-up rules won’t help you with me.” He undid his buttons.

“Neither will real ones. Or don’t you know who I am?

I’m Austin Steele, and I’m here to tuck you into your grave. ”

The resident alpha smirked, but his eyes appeared cagey in a hurry.

“Steele? Never heard of ya,” he said—obviously a lie.

A big one. Fear soaked into the lines of his body.

His panicked gaze flicked right, to what was probably his beta.

That shifter had been in the middle of their line, but he seemed to have the most power besides the alpha.

The beta inclined his head slightly and touched a flat area in his pocket.

Someone else in line couldn’t keep himself from glancing off toward the buildings of the town.

“Heads up,” Tristan whispered to Jessie. “Incoming.”

“Yeah. Even I could— Oh, no.”

The “incoming” wasn’t what Tristan had been expecting, which was the rest of their force running to ambush.

Instead, it was five people shoving children in front of them.

Two kept their hands wrapped around the backs of little necks.

All the adults held knives, and suddenly Tristan couldn’t see anything but red.

Red everywhere, pulsing at the edges of his vision, tightening his chest, curling his hands into fists.

If he had his way, these shifters would die painfully for this horror. For using innocence as a shield.

Gruesomely.

A pulse of magic swept the area. Jessie was calling in the basajaunak.

She put a hand on Tristan’s forearm. “I won’t let the children be harmed. Be easy, Tristan. We don’t want any sudden movements here.” Her expression and voice were utterly calm. “Keep the gargoyles in check.”