Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,9

that he was right. And also that his hands were so powerful and too clean. I needed to get him dirty.

I don’t know how much longer my willpower can hold out with this guy…

“Are we going to talk about this whole deal?” I waved a hand toward his wings.

“I just…strangled that thing,” he said. “It came at me and it passed through me, but somehow I just knew I could force it to bend to my will. That I could touch it. And kill it. I just did it. Instinctively. And as I had my hands wrapped around it and I could feel it trying to slip away from me, and it was scratching my face, my body…” His eyes met mine, his tall and muscular form quivering not just with cold but with all the tension and exhilaration of using his power.

“Graham…” I bit my lip. “You’re powerful.”

“This is the power I got from all the people who voted for me and supported me,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes.”

“It felt really good,” he said. “I’m not sure if I should be proud or alarmed.”

“Both.”

“How do I make this go away?”

“No hurry…,” I said, with a little wink.

“But my tail is stuck.”

In one of the bolder moves of my life, I reached down the back of his pants, wrapped my hand around the appendage, and whipped it out. “There you go.”

He put a hand on his belt, because now the waistband of his trousers was thrown off, pinned under the tail and threatening to fall off his ass. As much as I was enjoying the threat of his clothes falling off entirely, I feigned that I had other purposes in life and went back to the front doors of the manor. Bevan fluttered after me, apparently concerned about leaving me alone. He was always with me for home inspections, anyway.

“Helena, I’m serious,” Graham said. “What does this mean?”

“Well, we’re—”

“No, I know what it means,” he said, stopping behind me at the door.

“Oh?”

“I’m not what I thought I was. And I can’t go back. I have an election in two weeks…all these people who got me this far…but it was never real, was it?”

“Graham…some of it was real. Most of it, probably. You genuinely seem to care. And there are demons who become politicians for their whole lives, so…I suppose it’s just survival to use your magic that way.”

“I’m afraid there is a part of me that’s not a very good guy…and I think I’ve always known it. That’s why I try so hard to keep everything under control.”

“There’s a part of everyone like that,” I said, my voice coming out breathy as we were getting closer, and my desire to warm myself against him was growing stronger. I wondered what it would be like to feel his wings around me and his tail…everywhere.

“Helena…”

“We have to hurry. Billie will be here soon,” I said, not without reluctance.

I opened the door without any trouble this time. In fact, it wasn’t even locked.

“Oh!” I said, as Byron stood on the other side.

“I just arrived,” he said. “I had other business. You are a sight for spectral eyes, Helena. And…Graham…”

“Hello, Byron,” Graham said, with a distinct edge of don’t-even-start.

“You’re awfully busy for a ghost,” I said, looking at him askance before I noticed the interior behind him. My mouth fell open.

The entrance room alone was something else. I was a little worried I was going to get taken out by a chandelier fitted for candles that had two tiers like a giant birthday cake. It was a chandelier that would absolutely, 100% kill someone in a movie.

And my life often ended up turning out like a movie. Note to self, don’t stand anywhere near this chandelier.

The entrance room was painted pink. Not a soft candlelight-glow pink like the dining room in the last house. This was almost a cotton candy pink and even the built-in bookshelf against one wall was pink. Then we had some sort of Moorish revival design to the staircase complete with a very eye-grabbing staircase ornament: an ebony-skinned lady wearing a gold turban and, apparently, gold pasties, and nothing else. Well, I had seen stranger decor in 19th century houses, but this was up there.

“Deveraux was a character,” Byron said. “I’m not sure you can be an old money wizard from a place like this and not be a character. He was very enamored of the vampire lifestyle. The old-fashioned glamour and so on. Not so much of the human attitudes so