Page 89 of Magical Midlife Conclave

I hadn’t realized Austin was here.

The lion struggled to get up. His eyes still blazed fire and ferocity. He was readying for a last-ditch launch at me. It reminded me of Drex.

“Don’t move, moron,” I called. Fashioning a spell to keep him put, I put my hands on his furry shoulder. “Don’t move, and don’t shift. I’m healing you. Indigo!”

“I’m here, but they won’t let me get closer,” she cried.

“Kick them in the balls. Hurry up! I accidentally went too hard.”

I took deep breaths, assessing the danger. I needed to warn the Elder. I shouldn’t be doing these challenges anymore. I hadn’t trained for mock battles; I’d trained for war. There was a difference with magic like mine.

“Oh God, okay.” I placed my hand over a gaping wound awash with red. He had several others like it. We had to get this stitched up so that he didn’t bleed out.

“I’m here. I’m here.” Indigo slid in beside me. “Cripes, Jessie, what did you do?”

I didn’t even know what spell I’d used to cause this. It wasn’t anything I remembered. A hybrid I’d created randomly.

“We can fix him.” I elevated my voice. “We need hands. We need to apply pressure to some of these wounds.”

“We can do this.” Indigo closed her eyes and lowered her head over Aljoe’s fuzzy head. “This isn’t beyond us.”

I closed my eyes too, using all my energy on healing, thrusting it into him as hard as I could. More bodies crowded around. Other hands glanced off mine as they got into position. Slowly, the wounds stitched together under my palms. His breathing became less labored and less shallow.

“We’ve got it.” Indigo sounded relieved. “He’ll need rest and fluids, but we’re out of the woods.”

I released a sigh and finally opened my eyes. Nina was right across from me, staring at me with an alpha’s customary blank face.

A shiver of unease washed through me. “Sorry,” I said. “I should’ve ended that fight sooner. But look, he’ll be okay. A little harm, no real foul. Mostly. Hopefully he blacked out and won’t remember some parts of it.”

“You could’ve ended that fight sooner?” Her voice was even, giving nothing away.

“Well…you know…I didn’t really need to ride him like a pony. I could’ve just stayed in the air until he said uncle.”

“Yes, about that. Why did you ride him like a pony?”

My face heated. Try as I might, I didn’t have an answer for that one. I’d kinda lost my head in that fight. “It just seemed right in the moment?”

And that wasn’t even close to what I should’ve gone with.

“You locked us out.” Austin was kneeling at Aljoe’s head. Judging by the look in his eyes, I’d just burned up any currency I had with his earlier faux pas. “You created a magical bubble around the battle.”

I frowned. “I did? When? Sue was here. Tristan wasn’t far.”

“About the time you called olé and before you rode him like a pony.” He paused, his gaze sparkling with fear turned into anger. “I tried to break into it when you landed on his back. I knew he’d roll you. He would’ve gone for a kill shot, Jess.”

“Yeah, I know. Well, I didn’t know about the roll move. That was a good one. Kill shots are his jam, though. He’ll want to change that up, because once you know his target, it’s not hard to guess which way he’ll go. After the very fluid maneuvering, I mean.”

The lion shivered under us and tried to rise.

“No.” I pushed down a little harder. “Stay in this form. We can move you to the sidelines. I can sit with you to free up Indigo, since I have to stay here anyway. I had a lie-in this morning, and you will have a lie-down this afternoon. I call that even. For earlier, you know. About not calling me…”

Please don’t be mad.

I would’ve liked to say I was just doing my job, but gesturing like a matador and riding on his back was probably a little excessive. Hindsight. It was hard to be mad at others for their faulty decision-making in the heat of the moment when I did things like that.

Nina looked at Austin, communicating something I couldn’t decipher. Back to me, still a blank face, before down at Aljoe. She put her hand on his neck, comforting him, then got up and moved through the crowd.

I let out a breath. “Is she pissed?” Then I pointed down at Aljoe and raised my eyebrows, asking the same question.