Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,59

giggling uncontrollably now. “Stop, stop! Oh god, those kids are watching us!”

A gaggle of tween boys and one girl were staring at us pretty rudely.

“You said you wanted to know how to be confident,” I said. “Hey, fuck off,” I told the kids.

Hel bit the corn dog in Jasper’s hand, chewing through little shakes of laughter, and we finally let her go so she could actually taste it.

“It’s good,” she said. She patted us both on the head with an imperious expression, like we were Her Majesty’s dogs. “Feed me more of these ‘carnival foods’ you speak of.”

“You’re in for it now.” I grabbed her around the waist, lifted her over my shoulder, and made a dash for the funnel cake.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Helena

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough.” Jasper took the funnel cake out of my hands. “I’ll finish the rest.”

“What? No!”

“Trust me,” he said. “Trying all the carnival food might sound like a good idea, but…you will suffer for it later.”

“Remember that time Mom took us out for dinner to treat us for behaving at the dentist,” Jake said, “and she let us get all appetizers? Cheese sticks, jalapeno poppers, buffalo wings, onion rings…”

“I could remember, but I’d rather not.”

“Fried macaroni bites. I knew I was forgetting one.”

“Your mom took you out for junk food because you were good at the dentist?” I could not imagine my mother doing this. “I imagine your parents are probably a lot of fun.”

“Of course! Our mom’s a gem. She’d tease you just as much as we do, though,” Jake said.

I felt awful when I considered how my parents spoke of werewolves, like they were barbarians who just ran around naked in the woods and were in-bred, which yes, I realize is especially rich coming from anyone whose family was European royalty.

With Jake and Jasper, I started to relax and just have fun, and forget everything I’d ever wasted time worrying about, but at the same time, I felt a palpable tension over whatever this relationship was going to be.

Do we want this? Do we want to explore…a bond-partnership?

It was starting to become clear to me that Jake and Jasper still felt jealousy and were unsure of even poking at the possibility, but also, that they weren’t necessarily opposed.

Is it just because they don’t want to lose me? They want to make me happy?

It will never work if Jake and Jasper didn’t form a bond with Graham as well. And Byron…if he was able to live.

Graham would be here probably by tomorrow night or maybe the day after. I felt like there would be a certain reckoning with the possibility. If we formed a bond between us, it sounded to me like Jake and Jasper’s family would still welcome them. And Graham had no family.

I would be the one who would be disowned by my parents and cut off from Etherium.

Of course, all of this supposes that we make it out of this whole crazy thing alive.

So maybe I just needed to live for the moment.

I certainly knew what my body wanted. Every time they took my hands and caught me between them, the humans looked at us and whispered, and my core heated to a simmer…and then, a boil. I kept trying to just play it cool, but their hands gripping mine were so masculine and possessive that it was twisting something inside me and making me wet, and I knew they could smell that, and that was turning me on even more. Every time their hip or arm brushed my skin, I felt a tingle. And all the while, we were having so much fun.

By the time we left the carnival, I just wanted to jump their bones.

“So what now?” Before I could get in the van, Jasper and Jake stood in front of me and pinned me against the Wolves at the Door logo on the side. “I think our witch is still pretty hungry even after all that food.”

“Hungry for a twin sandwich,” I blurted.

“Wow. That was to the point.” Jasper looked a little embarrassed now.

“I would rather have honesty,” Jake said. “What if we married her someday? Better start off open. Wolves aren’t much for being coy.”

“I guess I never have met a coy beast.” I grinned.

“If we go back to the house, we’ll have company,” Jake said.

“And the van is full of our crap…,” Jasper said.

“So what we need is a blanket—we’ve got one of those—a lonely spot, and the stars,” Jake said.

“But it’s cold!”

“So we’ll keep you