“So you’re the wolf twins. Well, okay,” Billie said, on an approving up-note. “You won’t be so bad to work with.”
“Sorry, sister, you’re cute but I’m here to seduce a Habsburg,” Jake said, and i grabbed him and shoved him toward a side table while Helena covered her face with embarrassment and Billie’s mouth dropped open.
“Jake! Don’t be an ass. I’m tired of covering for you. You don’t have to say everything you’re thinking all the time.”
“Not sorry,” Jake said. “I just want to make it clear that I’m not here to waste time. A man gets to thinking on the road. I’m not driving all the way to Louisiana to work below my usual rate just to be coy. I want a wife who shares all my passions.”
Well, that line definitely worked on Helena. Even through her outward embarrassment, I could see that she was riveted by how forward Jake was being. It drove me absolutely crazy how he could get away with anything.
“All these men want you?” Billie was steaming now. “I am not going to work around these four dudes flirting with you and fighting over you all day.”
“No, no, it’s not like that! Ignore Jake. He’s just a shit-stirrer,” Helena said. “I’m here to work.”
“Me too,” I said. “We’ll put Jake outside and make him work on the porch and the soffits. I saw that you have some rot.”
“And Graham and Byron aren’t here to do anything,” Helena said. “We’ll make them leave.”
Billie looked skeptical of this, and I was too. They looked pretty comfortable standing on that porch.
“Graham has an election,” Helena said, more uncertainly. “But since you’re all here…”
“Are you ready for this?” Billie asked, her blue eyes turning harder as they skimmed over all of us. “Let’s talk about Pandora’s Box. And I hope you’re still in, because if you’re not, I’ll have to kill you.”
Chapter Ten
Helena
“Deveraux told me that Pandora’s Box will destroy Etherium as we know it,” Billie said. Her pale eyes glittered with the drama of the statement, but she didn’t seem to find this worrisome.
I was starting to wonder if Billie was a little crazy. “Destroy…Etherium?” I said. “Is that what you want? You’re an Ethereal witch.”
“Sure. I was born an Ethereal witch, technically, the same way most of us are,” Billie said. “But I’m nothing to the Ethereal witches. Nothing at all. So why should I protect them?”
I bit my lip, glancing around the table at the guys, suddenly aware that I was the only other Ethereal at the table, unless I counted Bevan, who was now perched on the mantelpiece. He didn’t like to be seen by fellow witches. He considered it very poor etiquette.
All werewolves were born into Sinistral, and so were all incubi. It didn’t matter how good they tried to be, they would always be cursed to the shadows.
“Are you too scared, Helena? I warned you.”
“I’m not scared. I’m confused. If you destroy Etherium, what do we have left? And how would that even work? You have to have light and dark.”
“‘As we know it’, Deveraux said. Don’t you know all about it, Mr. Byron? And excuse me for not knowing your last name.”
“Adras’ei. But Byron is fine by me. And yes, I do know all about it, but a curse prevents me from telling you anything.”
“Who cursed you?” Billie demanded. “If I tortured you, could I make you talk?”
“No,” he said. “And I hope you won’t try. It’s very unpleasant to be tortured when you’re already dead.”
“It’s okay, Billie, we’ll figure it out by ourselves,” I said.
“I do think I can inform you that Deveraux kept diaries,” Byron said. “And that if you happen upon them, they are worth the time to read.”
“Ohhh. Cool. See? No need to torture anyone.”
“I wouldn’t’ve really tortured him,” Billie said. “I just wanted to see what he’d say.”
“Glad that’s cleared up,” Jasper said, giving me a little smile, flashing pearly white extra-sharp canines. I hadn’t been on the receiving end of his private smile before, and I liked seeing the humor in his eyes.
Although, I’m not sure this was all that funny. “I still want an answer,” I said. “What happens if we destroy Etherium?”
“Well…the council and all the old witch families won’t have power,” Billie said.
“Yeah, but they’ll be pissed,” I said. “At us.”
“I mean, wouldn’t they have to go to Sinistral to get magic? And then they’d be in enemy territory.” She tossed her hair. “Don’t look at me like that, Helena Nicolescu! I don’t care what happens to any of them. Anyway, all your menfolk here are Sinistrals and doesn’t it annoy you that they’re considered to be evil or the dregs of society by your own family?”
“Yes, it definitely does,” I said.
“So why protect all that?”
“I don’t know, maybe I am being crazy here, but aren’t we talking about plunging the world into chaos and turning all Ethereals against us?”
Byron cleared his throat.
“Are you saying that wouldn’t happen, Byron?”
“I don’t think it would,” he said.
“Gosh, I’d love to know what’s in your head.” I pounded my fists into my lap. We were sitting in what had been the dining room, a motley assortment of small tables and mismatched chairs dragged together into a war room, because for whatever reason, the dining room table was gone. I guessed the servants inherited the good furniture or something.
“I would love for you to know it,” Byron said, turning on just enough charm that I started thinking of other parts of him I would also like to know.
“This does sound dangerous,” Jasper said. “But we definitely have no love for the council.”
“Okay…but Sinistral also has a council and it’s not much better,” I said.
“But Ethereals have all the control,” Billie said. “They kick people out of their world at a whim. Sinistrals don’t—and can’t—kick wizards out of the realm and bar them from doing magic. I would rather be free in a dark world than afraid in an ‘orderly’ world.”
A little voice inside me thought, Well, sure, the peasants would think that.
Ick. I couldn’t help it.
But I did see her point—
“I would rather die, in fact, than just keep accepting that I’m nothing and nobody,” Billie added.
Oh, crap. It seemed like I had teamed up with a passionate revolutionary now.
Byron looked at me with reassurance in his eyes.
God, I wished I knew.
“You’re not wrong,” Jasper said, a little bit of a snarl curling his lip and bringing out his inner wolf. “Helena’s cousin would have killed me, or at best, left me to die.”
“Yes. That piece of shit said we were useless,” Jake said. “And we all know they’ve been attacking wolf shifters, vampires and demons and trying to ‘turn’ them to ordinary humans. Like we have a disease they need to cure. Something has to give.”
“I thought Etherium was a world of balance and order,” Graham said.
“It—it should be,” I said.
“This sounds pretty messed up,” he said. “Like something is off.”
“It’s true,” Byron said. “Let’s see if I can say this… All of us know that magic is slowly dying. It will probably take many generations. Maybe it will never truly die entirely. But our territory is shrinking. All of us. Even though us magical folk are not human, we still need humans, the same way humans need trees or birds. Everything is interconnected and…” His voice was getting thinner, like he was running out of oxygen. He drew in a sharp breath—strange for a ghost, but I didn’t really know how ghosts worked, to be honest—and frowned. “I can’t say more. But you get the idea.”
“I get it. Ethereal wizards can still fuck up.” I sighed. “I agree. But if we destroy the whole world…”
“Will Pandora’s Box destroy the
world?” Graham asked. “Or just the structure?”
We all exchanged looks. I could see the excitement in Billie’s eyes, and the surprising anger in Jasper. He was the sweeter of the brothers, but he’d been hurt by a member of my own family. The same way my brother was hurt by our family.
The scary thing was that I had to trust in this path without actually knowing what it was.
“This—thing we’re doing,” I said. “It might mess up Etherium, but it won’t kill my parents or sisters, right? I know they’re not always the best people in the world, but I’m not sure I can hurt them.”
“It won’t,” Byron said. “As long as they stay out of the way.”
I was getting the disconcerting sense that everyone at the table understood this mission except me, even if no one else knew what it was either, besides Byron. I was a royal, at the party where people started talking about how the guillotine was a cool new invention. And of course I knew the magical world was messed up. Of course I hated how my cousin treated the Sullivan brothers and how I would never see my brother at a family Christmas again.
But while my brother ran toward the danger and joined the faeries, I just wanted to flip houses and mind my own business, for crying out loud.
I was afraid of what happened if I had to make a hard choice.
But you could have walked away from Pandora’s Box. You knew it was dangerous. Why didn’t you?
“Hey, on sort of a side note,” Jake said, “did the rest of you notice the old cemetery?”
Chapter Eleven
Helena
Man, I hope faeries liked creepy wizard cemeteries.
I wasn’t touching that thing. I had always loved creepy old cemeteries. The older and weirder the better. Sagging stones with old faces on them, unsettling religious inscriptions etched out in a 1700s font, and vaults surrounded by fences. All awesome…until I found out that we needed to find Byron’s body.
Suddenly it all lost its luster.
“I don’t see any stones that could possibly be from the seventies. You’re not buried here, are you, Byron? Tell me you’re not,” I said.
I was surveying the backyard now, while the Sullivan brothers and Billie walked the house. I hoped they didn’t formulate any plans without me. I still hadn’t actually seen the upstairs yet.
“No one is really buried here,” Graham said. “It would be easy enough to open a crypt, at least.”
I ignored him and the disconcerting casual attitude toward grave-opening and studied Byron’s face. This was never a chore. I had never noticed just how many shades of gold shone in his eyes like some precious gem, and his eyes seemed more amused by my fear than concerned over the graves.
He put a hand to my waist, becoming briefly solid. “You can see the dates on the crypts, can’t you?”
“So you’re not buried there?”
His dark brows lifted.
“Phew.” I waved at Graham. “He’s not here. They’re just old graves. So stop touching them, ya creepy demon.”
“That’s not good news,” Graham said. “We need to find him!” He planted a dress shoe on the decorative fence surrounding a low crypt and studied the swan perched there. “And what are these swans?”
Byron’s hand had crept up my dress to cop a shameless feel of my breast and when I tried to give him a swat, he became transparent again.
Incubi. I swear. I widened my eyes at him and shook a finger.
Not that I really minded the warm, tingling sensations that shot through me and made me want a lot more attention than the barest graze of my nipple.
He chuckled and whispered in my ear, “Tonight…you dream.”
“The swans are probably low Ethereal spirits,” I said, thoroughly flushed but trying to act like I was actually paying attention. I walked over to him and sort of brushed him to make him back away from the creepy swan before it bit his nose off or something. “If they were Sinistrals, we might have crows or vultures or eels or jackals or…you know. Something people don’t generally welcome.”
“Are they intelligent?” Graham asked.
“I doubt they understand our language,” I said. “But I wouldn’t mess with them. They might be scouts for…something or someone else. An Ethereal spirit.”
“And what are they, like angels?”
“You’re getting the hang of it,” Byron said. He approached one of the swans and smoothed a hand down its feathers. The swan tried to snap at him but went right through his arm.
“So that’s how you treat me,” he said, the corners of his lips twisting up with humor. “Tell your masters I am not amused.”
“Do you know their master?” I asked Byron.
“Do you think I could tell you if I did?”
I sighed. “I know it’s not your fault, but no one likes an enigma.”
“Not true. I’m an enigma and you like me very much. Even Graham likes me and he’s trying hard not to.”
“All right,” Graham said, trying to move on. “So you don’t need me to dig any graves or heave the covers off of vaults with my strong arms.”
“Thankfully no. It seems like we’re good.”
“So…when we can we go back to the Airbnb?” he asked, in a just-for-me voice, glancing at Byron, who kept a not-that-polite distance.
But they were getting along. Huh. It was one thing for Byron not to care because he was clearly down for whatever, but Graham had the morals of a human—or a normal, non-demon wizard. It seemed like he was trying to adapt to Byron’s presence.
This was giving me some very enticing fantasies.
Two men. Can I handle two men?
And what about the Sullivan brothers, then?
The whole situation was so beyond what I was used to that it was giving me a panic attack. I hadn’t even had a proper date in years. Maybe I should go back to just being alone all the time and not even seeing men who weren’t like, sweaty middle-aged plumbers and roofers and exterminators.
“I thought I’d just sleep here so I can get back to work,” I said, but I could already tell this was a disappointing answer.
“I have to head home,” he said. “At least let me treat you to a nice evening.”
“Just…us? In your Airbnb?”
“It’s a beautiful house,” he said. “I thought you would enjoy a real bed in a house that doesn’t need work, just once in a while.”
This was the part where he really should be assuring me he wasn’t going to try anything, and the fact that he didn’t set a fire in my loins. If I went off alone with him tonight, there was no way I wasn’t going to succumb to temptation. There was something surprisingly sexy about watching Graham slowly come into his full demon nature. Alas that he couldn’t take on a demon form in the normal human world.
“I said I wasn’t going to make things too easy for you,” I said.
“Well, I look forward to finding out how difficult you’ll be tonight,” Graham said. “Facing challenges is one of my best skills.” He swept his fingers through his hair, a gesture that oozed confidence, and said, “Wrap up whatever you need to do around here.”
I veered toward the house, feeling very thrown off by these new developments. I didn’t expect Graham to tolerate Byron. I didn’t expect Billie to be here. And I didn’t expect all five of them to agree that they were willing to destroy Etherium.
Billie was coming down the staircase as I walked toward it. “So what’s your deal, honey?” she asked me, and I was disarmed. Was she being nicer to me by calling me honey, or was this aggressive? I couldn’t tell with this girl. She seemed equal parts tough and soft. “You know what you’re doing with all these men?” she elaborated.
“Uhh…heh,” I replied, in a great show of confidence.
Billie crossed her arms, leaning against the naked lady at the post, and gave me a look that made me feel naive. “You better find out quick or I wouldn’t mind peeling off their attentions.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, it’s fair, if you
’re just going to string them along. If you’re a one-man woman, shouldn’t you decide now? Otherwise this project is going to turn into drama, and I don’t have time for that.”
“I definitely don’t want drama! I’ve never had any boy drama in my life. I don’t have time for it either.”
“Never?” Billie made a face. “Well, you gotta make time for boy drama at some point in your life before you’re old. I’ve had my share. No wonder you don’t know what to do.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t know what to do! I’m just…deciding.”
“That is what not knowing what to do means, isn’t it?” Billie plucked at a few strands of her hair. “Why not try for all of them? We’re already about to break all the rules. It’s clear they all like you and they even sort of get along with each other.”
“Why would you want to help me if you’re interested in them too?”
“Okay, part of me just likes the idea of you entering into a scandalous relationship and knowing you’d get kicked out of society. I admit it! But I also hate seeing people fight against what they want just because they think it’s improper or something. If you’ve already been making your own way in the world you might as well get all the love you want.”
“I didn’t think I wanted any love, particularly,” I said, plucking my lower lip. “I’ve been alone a while.”
“It always sneaks up on you,” Billie said. “When you least expect it. In that case, I’ll leave you to it. I think you should try for it and see how it goes.”
“Try for all four of them?”
“What do you think I’m talking about? But you have to take the bull by the horns. If you’re going to go for it, go for it, or you’ll make it weird.”
“Oh, I’ll make it weird?”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be weird.” Billie shrugged. “You’re just too up the butt of your boarding school education. Now, you want to come check out the upstairs?”
“I’m not up any butts,” I said.
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