Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,38
our power, it’s hard to resist, even if there’s danger involved. Like, my parents would still be proud of us if they found out we were killed trying to destroy the Ethereal council. I actually wrote them a letter and I gave it to a good friend back home, said to only send it to them if something happened to us.”
“Oh…really? He didn’t think that was a strange thing for you to do when you’re supposed to just be contractors?”
“Hel, we know there is always danger for wolves in this world. Wizards have a habit of blaming us for stuff we didn’t do and killing us for things we don’t deserve. And we’re buying their houses. They don’t always like that, so the job isn’t always safe.”
“Oh. I see…”
I could see this task was starting to eat at her. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but the rest of us understood the core of it better. A wealthy girl like Hel was just thinking about her own escape at first, her own problems. But the fact that she was still here showed that she wasn’t just working for her own pride, her own life. “I guess I knew that,” she said. “But somehow I never quite thought about it either.”
“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re here now. How about we reward you when you’re done painting this wall?”
“Reward me?” She laughed. “Okay.”
“After all, the houses aren’t the prize to me,” I said, getting close enough to her that I could smell every distinct layer of scent on her body. “And neither is Pandora’s Box. There’s one reason Jake and I drove all the way to Louisiana.”
She looked at me, her weariness not enough to hide her desire. Her pheromones teased at my wolfish nose and made me want to take her right then and there.
At least that full lower lip was worth claiming. I kissed her.
“But I’m so dirty!” She tried to protest and was ignored.
I ran my tongue along that lip before slipping it into her mouth, tasting her deeply. Her breath hitched and then steadied. This was our second kiss and her surprise was short-lived. She knew my kisses were worth having.
“Jasper…”
“I’m up two over Jake now,” I said. “I’ll have to tell him. He’s going to want to catch up.”
She was wide-eyed for a moment, touching her lips. She was one of the most competent women I’d ever met but it was also just too easy to bring out her adorable naïveté. “Am I really this exciting?”
“Get used to it,” I said.
Chapter Eighteen
Byron
“All right, dear sister. I never asked to be your pet sitter. Call your swans home, please. They’re shitting on the grave stones.”
Marisa started laughing, and there really is nothing more enjoyable than making an Ethereal laugh. Usually, they were regal, and if I had never known her, I wouldn’t have known they still enjoyed teasing, just like the lower life forms.
“Byron! What makes you think I would send you swans? They could belong to anyone. My pets never ‘shit’.”
“Sometimes I just know.” I put my hands on the invisible barrier between worlds that kept us apart. “You couldn’t resist keeping an eye on our exploits. But everyone is disturbed by them, and Helena plans to sell the house to the faeries.”
“They keep the Sinistrals away.” She twirled a little, playing the part of starlight made flesh, but basically she was just messing with me. “I sent them to help you.”
My sister had to be one of the most calculating Ethereals in the realm. An angel on the verge of a fall. High Ethereals were truly the most enlightened and good of all the beings in the magical realms. But with their enlightenment often came blindness. They kept their eyes above them and never saw the trouble brewing beneath them.
I snapped my fingers. “Send them away or I’ll strangle them.”
She stopped abruptly. “What an awful thing to say! And I don’t think you could do it, either. You have a soft spot for animals.”
“Every reasonable person does, but I also know those things aren’t ordinary animals. You’re up to something.”
Her skirts stopped fluttering, her willowy immortality frozen, and her eyes looked thousands of years older than mine. She had seen so much. The first time I was murdered, and the fall of our house, and then the second time…
I really caused her a lot of trouble.
“Once Pandora’s Box is open, you won’t be able to close it,” she said. “You won’t be able