Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,16

so sure about any of this. I saw no way to balance my old life with this new one, no way not to destroy my old dreams and replace them with…well, I wasn’t sure what that would be either.

“I know this is new to you,” Byron said. “But it is inherent in your nature, and I don’t think you’ll have any trouble accepting it. I’ll make it comfortable for both of you. As you can see, I don’t want to compete with you. In fact, the idea of Helena having sex with you is thrilling.”

“Thrilling?” I tried to ignore the throb of my own cock. It seemed like Byron did know what my body and my gut wanted, as if he knew what was buried inside me. I had been raised so strictly, and I had lived strictly, as much as I could stand. Despite how many women I’d slept with, I had a lot of rules I put on my own behavior, trying not to hurt them, nor to get too close. As if I knew I would unleash something inside me if I did.

“She’s even more beautiful when she’s spent and exhausted,” Byron said. “And when, despite that, you can still make her beg for more. And then there is the mystery of it all. When she comes to me, and I know you had her the night before…it makes me wonder. What did you do to her? And how can I exceed it? She will never be bored. We will compete…but only in the best sort of way.”

“What if she likes one of us more?”

“If you’re a good incubus, you’ll never have that problem.”

I wanted to say yes. And then I wanted to storm into the house, find Helena, and claim her as my own. Byron, curse him, knew what to say to excite every nerve in my body, to make me feel like this was my birthright.

“You’re getting hard,” Byron said.

“Are you checking me out!?”

“Well, it’s obvious.” I wished he would take his eyes off my crotch.

“Damnit.”

“If you didn’t like this idea, your face would show anger,” Byron said. I suppose I was just demonstrating how human I was by getting weirded out by any of this. He didn’t seem to care. “But instead your dick is hard. So I’ll take that as a yes.” He grinned. “We’ll win her yet.” And then he vanished.

I hoped there was a way to save his life and give him a body again just so he would stay put, use doorways, and maybe—at least once—I could punch him.

Chapter Eight

Helena

“Wow…,” Billie said, walking through the same rooms I had just taken in minutes before.

“Is that a good wow, or a bad wow? You’ve seen the house before you bought it, right?”

“Only the outside.”

“Both?” She looked at the third chandelier of the tour and reached up to tap a dangling crystal. “It’s…a lot. It is a pretty fun canvas for some fresher antiques, though. Mixed with a few modern pieces…I can see it.”

“You usually furnish the houses you sell?” That was not in my plan. I never did this. Staging, yes. Actually furnishing the house, no.

“Yeah, I sell houses to busy wizards who just want a stylish place without think about it. My houses are real popular down here.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to have a big budget if I have to repair stuff.” She eyed a cracked wall.

“The house isn’t in terrible shape, actually, the more I look at it. The floors are really even. Of course, there are crumbly bits all over the place. But what can you do? We just have to make it look charming and find the right buyers. And in some ways, our job just got easier. If this is a magical hot spot, then whoever buys it actually gains power from the magical realm if they can secure it.”

“Ohhh man.” Billie’s face was getting more red like she was having a wee little panic attack. “But that means I have a responsibility to put it in the hands of the right realm.”

“Yeah…the magical world has definitely gotten complicated lately.” As Ethereal witches, we would be expected to keep this place in the hands of fellow Ethereals. But if we were planning to make trouble for the Ethereal council, that made things awkward real fast. “What do you think the right realm is?”

“I’m still an Ethereal witch,” she said. “For now. But it doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t expect