Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,33

attention.

“Hel, I’m worried,” he said. “Out of all of us, you’re an Ethereal witch with a royal lineage. I assumed this would protect you, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s not a chance I want to take. Billie seems to think that she might actually sacrifice herself to open Pandora’s Box. She also seems to think that she can take it all on herself and the rest of us won’t be hurt, but if I like you as much as I think I do… I want you to get out of here when we get to the end of this thing.”

“You get out of here!” I said. “I can’t believe you’re going to pull the ‘go home and let me die for you as long as you’re safe blah blah’ thing on me. I’m the witch. If anyone should go home, it’s you two.”

“Yeah, but…we’re Sinistrals,” Jasper said. “And I want to know what the box does. If it can actually take down the Ethereal council. That’s a harder choice for you. It’s your family.”

“I truly don’t care if my cousin dies,” I said. “I don’t even care if you kill him. He’s an asswipe.”

“I have to admit, the way you said that so readily is pretty sexy,” Jake said. “And I guess I won’t force you to leave. But…you should think about whether your heart is really in this mission.”

“I want to know what it all means,” I said. “I think things happen for a reason. It’s not just about Byron.” I knew they had to be thinking that. “It’s true that my family has been a power player in the magical world for so long. I know they’ve even pushed for policies that hurt werewolves over the centuries. Or…hunted them.” I swallowed. “It was a long time ago, but maybe I feel like I have a destiny to turn things around. If Pandora’s Box can do that, then I’m all in.”

Jake turned to me again. He gave me this very brief smile, but it was the most honest expression I’d ever seen on his face. Usually he was always one of those guys. You know what I mean. He didn’t show his true feelings much but would rather mess around. For a second I saw the core of him, the fears he had, the anger he felt toward the council, and his deep sense of love for his clan and his home and maybe…the hope that he could invite me in. For real. Not just teasing and flirting, but…

A family.

I got quiet again, but this time I think he knew why and he let me be. Is he right?

When we pulled up to the house, Billie was running into the front yard with a sledgehammer in her hands, held like a weapon.

“Billie?” I yelled.

She kept running. “Monsters!” she panted. “Monsters!”

“And…that’s why I kept calling,” Jake said, just as three giant black snake-creatures came slithering around the corner of Greenwood Manor.

Shit.

Chapter Sixteen

Helena

I was not very squeamish. Old houses are full of nasty things. Roaches, rats, snakes, abandoned trash, dead raccoons, refrigerators with food still in them, and that’s to say nothing of the hazards of a wizard’s house, from poltergeists to paper imps, or the time the skull on a fireplace mantel opened its rattling jaws and said, Leave now or face your doom! (It was just a little security system, enchanted to say that on a loop, but it scared the crap out of me.)

However, these creatures were pretty high in ew-factor. As I got out of the car and approached them, the brothers ducked around the side of the van to wolf out. One of the snakes sniffed the air and shot toward me, flattening the grass in its wake.

I zapped it, praying my lightning blast didn’t also light the landscape on fire. My aim was good, jolting through the monster, but it shook it off and kept coming. It was almost at my feet before I zapped it again and this time it stopped moving.

The monster looked like a sea serpent but it had eight teeny tiny legs, little antennae/feeler sort of things on its face so it resembled a catfish, and a little fin running down its back. I love animals but this thing was ghastly.

Billie had whisked herself up a live oak tree so she had the high ground for attacking them back. Not a bad idea. I climbed up on the hood of the van so I