Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
John felt his jaw go slack. “What?”
Jessie
John looked shellshocked, standing stock-still as everyone bustled around him, exiting vans and grabbing luggage and calling for rides to come get them. After months of being away, everyone was happy to be home. Except for John, who didn’t have one.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“I gave him a quick rundown about the house,” Sue said with a little grimace. “I should’ve probably broken it to him gently.”
Ah.
“It’s fine.” Nessa patted John’s arm. It was sweet how welcoming everyone had been, trying to help him find a place to settle. His camp in the woods had been more than a little dismal. “You’ll get used to it. It’s not as weird as it sounds. Really.”
Sebastian gave her a funny look.
“What?” she asked him. “You’re the one looking forward to working in the crystal room again.”
“That doesn’t mean the house isn’t as weird as it sounds. It is exactly as weird as it sounds, and ten times more dangerous.”
I put my hand on John’s arm to bring his focus back to me. “Would you like something to eat or some coffee? Mr. Tom is headed in now to figure something out, though I’m sure he’ll have to go to the store. You’re welcome to come in and relax. We have a lot of quiet sitting rooms. You’re also welcome to take a room here until you find a place to settle, if you’d like.”
“Take the room,” Ulric said, and Jasper threw John a thumbs-up as he moved toward the house. “Mr. Tom is always making food and doing laundry and cleaning and all the things you won’t want to do yourself. It’s great.”
“Here. I’ll show you around.” I tugged John’s arm to get him moving as Austin got on the phone to check in with the shifters in town. We had a lot to catch up on.
The grass was still vibrantly green, though wild and in desperate need of mowing.
“We can’t hire normal gardeners,” I told John. “Ivy House doesn’t like strangers. She runs them off.”
“I’ll get to it post-waste,” Edgar told me as he hurried by. “Don’t you worry, Jessie. I’ll have this handled in no time.”
The tall grasses rose along the path leading to the front door. I squeezed John’s arm.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, clueing in to my nervousness immediately.
“Nothing. If you see garden shears poke out of the grass, though, run.”
As I said it, the grass up the way wiggled in an unnatural way.
“That better be a flower,” I mumbled, urging John on. “It’s fine. We’ll make it.”
A gnome’s head popped out with a wide smile and little white teeth. A gardening trowel pushed through the grass, aimed in our direction in a threatening manner.
I stopped in my tracks.
“I got it!” Cyra knocked me into John as she ran by. “I got you, you little devil!” She blasted fire at it.
It issued a high-pitched scream and ducked back into the grass. Fire blazed a path after it.
“You better run!” Cyra sprinted into the grass after it, spreading fire as she went.
“What in the—“
I yanked John forward. “Don’t talk, act!”
He didn’t delay, running after me to the front door. Before we got there, another gnome popped out, holding a weeder pike like a sword, and charged.
“Oh, crap!” I blasted it with a spell. The spell bounced off somehow and ricocheted back. “Watch out!”
I barely put up a shield in time to cover me and John. The force of the spell knocked me into him. He was off-balance, and we tumbled into the grasses at the other side.
“Go, go, go!” I scrambled to my feet.
“Hurry!” Nessa was there, yanking me to standing. “Get out of there. They’re ambushing us!”
Of all the times for Patty to have taken the long way home to visit friends. She was the only one, besides Cyra and her fire, who could make these little suckers run.
Garden shears chopped at the grass next to John’s leg. He received a nick and jerked away. Leaping to his feet, he moved so fast his limbs practically blurred.
He grabbed me and Nessa around the waist and took off running. Clearly, this alpha had some serious protective instincts, and the gnomes had just put him into survival mode.
“I got it!” Cyra erupted through burning grasses to fire-bomb the place we’d just vacated. “C’mere, you little bastards.”
We reached the porch at a sprint. John half-dropped Nessa, making her stagger to the side, so he could grab the door handle. He turned and pushed to run inside. The door acted like it was unlocked, but did not open, and he slammed into the hard surface. Ivy House was messing with him.
I overrode her, feeling her laughter, and made the door swing open. Fire raged behind me, and I let it. Ivy House could handle that. She’s the one that kept hiding the gnomes from my detection. I needed to find a way to override that, too.