“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 to stay that way.”
“What do you think about shopping this house to the faeries of Wyrd instead?”
“Faeries…living here?”
“From what my brother has told me about faeries, they might enjoy this house more than most people would. So, less work and money for you, and they’re desperate to gain territory.”
“Hmm. I do like that part of it.” She glanced at me with a little sigh. “You know, I know we have all changed since high school. I’m still not sure I can trust you, but it seems like I have to, and you seem like you might actually be okay.”
“I deserved to be snapped at,” I said. “I’ve felt terrible about how I was in high school. I was just too scared to be my own person until I got out of the house. I hate to be the rich girl who’s like, my parents were sooo totally harsh! But they really could make your life hell.”
“And you have three older sisters or something, right?”
“I have five sisters. Four older.”
“Damn, girl! I always wanted a sister, but that’s too many for sure. Well, maybe this was meant to be so we can purge those high school demons.”
We were passing by an original telephone nook, where the Greenwoods would have installed their first telephone. It had a folding door with two glass panels etched with art nouveau flowers for privacy and was under the staircase.
“So we sell it to some faeries. And you can get us some faery buyers?”
“I’m sure I can. I’ll call my brother. I won’t say a peep about the rest of all this, of course.”
“And the faeries will be okay with living in Louisiana? Aren’t they sort of…Irish or something?”
“They’re a mixed bag, I think.” Harris had told me some interesting stories about faeries so far. High fae were aloof and traditional, but the low fae could adapt to life in the human world, at least in limited amounts. Of course they couldn’t handle too much technology either. “The only thing is…I mean…they’ll need a human to mate with.” Small magical hot spots needed a mating between a human and a magical being—or two or three—to secure them. A witch would do because we were still from the human world. But they absolutely couldn’t bring their own faery bride or groom.
“And how are we supposed to find them that?”
“You don’t know anyone who’s looking for love with a faery man or two?”
“No!” Billie crossed her arms. “I—I don’t know if this is a good idea after all.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll ask my brother if he knows anyone.”
She let out her breath. “Okay. This is already sounding like trouble but if it makes a profit, I’ll take it.”
“So what are you thinking you’ll do with the place?” I asked, as we strolled into what I thought would be the kitchen, because it was the only room I hadn’t seen yet.
It was just an apothecary room common to magical houses. Dried herbs were hanging from the ceiling in forgotten, dusty bundles.
“No kitchen?” Billie said.
“Oh, shit. One of those out-buildings must be the kitchen.” I had never worked on a house with a detached kitchen. But I could understand how, without any air conditioning in the house, even Deveraux might not have wanted to move the kitchen inside. Particularly if he always had a cook all his life.
“Maybe faeries won’t care?” she said hopefully.
“Their human wife definitely will, even if she’s a witch.”
This was a huge bummer for the budget. No way around that. I was glad it wasn’t my budget to worry about. We would have to get all the correct electric and gas lines installed and put in a mini-split air conditioner.
“I can’t install a whole new kitchen!” Billie said.
“At least there was a bathroom,” I said. “The last house I did needed a whole new downstairs bathroom.”
“Yeah, a hideous 1970s bathroom,” Billie said, which was true. The bathroom was done in a “harvest gold” color scheme, a color that just looks skanky almost fifty years later.
“Still, you have plumbing. Knowing that the house has no kitchen, it could have also had an outhouse.”
“Yikes. Well, I guess we can convert the back parlor into a kitchen, I’ll just have to do it as cheaply as possible and that’s that.” She looked at my face and said firmly, “That’s all I can do. Sorry. My budget for this
house is fifty grand.”
If I was being honest, I had more than one reason for selling Billie on faery buyers. Sure, I genuinely thought some faeries would snap this place up, but I also figured she didn’t know anything about faeries. No one did. The faeries had been deeply reclusive for centuries and only recently had they rejoined the other realms in fighting for territory. So if I sold her on the idea, maybe I could gain some say on how to shape the renovations.
I guess I had a teeny-tiny bit of my conniving ancestors in my bloodline. I swear, I only intended to use it for good.
“Well, I still have the cash I planned to use on this house,” I said. “What if we really go in on this together? I throw in another hundred grand and we really make this house stunning. We both recoup our profits first and then split the rest four ways between you, me, and Jake and Jasper, who I promise you really do work their asses off.”
“Wow. You really want in deep on this.”
“I love this house! I just get so excited! I want to be invested in it! And you know you need the help. And now that we know it’s a magical hot spot, I think we can ask eight hundred thousand for this house if we really make it shine.”
Billie looked around and I could tell she was tempted. It was a risk, for sure. I didn’t know if the faeries would actually buy the house or understand the value. They would also likely pay in gold, jewels, or magical items because it wasn’t like Wyrd had a bank that handled inter-world currency exchanges.
Jake and Jasper were probably going to be annoyed at me and tell me I acted impulsively again, but that was another perk. If we ladies teamed up, Jake couldn’t start mansplaining the kitchen renovation. (I had to ignore the fact that my eventual buyer for Lockwood House had agreed with his ideas.)
“Do we have time?”Billie said.
“I think so…” I was trying to do mental calculations in my head. We would need some help. Maybe we could bring Billie’s crew in just for a short time and keep them well-protected from monsters.
Then her expression darkened a little. “I guess it doesn’t really matter in the end. I bought it for the treasure. That’s why I paid so much.”
That look made me worry a little about what she thought was going to happen. There was a certain air of doomsday about her all of a sudden. “Still, you might as well make some money too!” I tried to stay upbeat. I did want to make money.
“All right, I’m game. I sure would love to get eight hundred grand for this house, that’s for sure. Even split four ways, that would be my best flip ever.”
“Mine too. But let’s not tell Jake and Jasper that,” I said. I had a feeling the Sullivan Brothers had enjoyed a big profit flip or two. And just as I was thinking that, I heard a van door slide open outside.
Chapter Nine
Jasper
“Hey, what are those two talking about?” Jake said, noticing the two incubi on the porch before he said one word about the house.
“Hel’s boobs, probably,” I said.
“Man, they better fucking not be.”
“I’m kidding.” Then I laughed. “You’ve really gotten possessive.”
“When I want something, I want it,” Jake said. “Anyway…you know. Don’t play it cool.”
Yeah. I did know. Once we both decided we liked Helena, it was like we realized just how much we’d been noticing her and liking what we saw for the last several years. That’s how it goes sometimes. There’s that moment when everything changes, when something previously veiled becomes so obvious that you can’t stop staring at it.
We were here to win a witch’s heart, and we had already agreed this was a united front. That made just as much sense as anything. Hel was our perfect partner.
I stepped down from the van and pain shot through my leg. I let out a groan of agony through gritted teeth.
“I’ve never seen someone forget they broke their leg this many times,” Jake said.
“I haven’t forgotten. I just keep thinking it won’t be that bad. And it just hurts because we’ve been in the van so long.” My hand slammed against the side of the van, like I could slap out the pain. It also steadied me. “Believe me, I’ll never forget that little bastard’s face when he blasted me.”
If I ever saw Helena’s cousin again, I was going to have a hard time not mauling him, even if he was on the council. Even if I probably would also have a hard time mauling him, because he was clearly more powerful than me.
Damnit.
We wolves were nothing to him. Animals. Lesser beings. I didn’t have a hot temper, but that would have been hard for any man’s pride to take. Jake and I had worked hard all our lives to help our families and our community. What had the wizard council really done for anyone lately? What right did some rich warlock have to claim we didn’t do any good in the world? He was welcomed into a leadership role only on the strength of his family name.
Helena’s mother had knit my skin and bones back together, but it would take a lot more time for the pain to leave me. Several weeks, probably. Magic wasn’t always perfect. I didn’t have time for this, but it would be worse without the healing, so I guess there was that.
I did a few stretches, rubbing my calf, and then tried to walk off the pain. It didn’t really work. I had to take the stairs slowly. Graham and Byron were looking at me.
“Are you all right?” Graham asked. “I heard about the fight.” He sounded genuinely concerned. His shirt was also torn into tatters and he had bloody scratches on his face.
“On the mend.”
“That’s good.”
“Is everything okay here?”
“We fought some ghouls,” Graham said. “Helena is fine. I got the worst of it.”
My image of him as a slick human professional was quickly fading, and I had to give the guy some grudging respect. He was taking all of this in stride.
“Good morning,” Byron said, also trying to be friendly.
“It’s three o’ clock,” Jake said.
“Ah. Well, that makes sense.” Byron shrugged. What did a ghost care? It wasn’t like he had appointments.
“Helena is checking out the house, I guess?” I asked. “Whose truck is that?”
“There have been some complications,” Graham said.
To say the least. He relayed the story and then Jake tilted his head toward the side of the house.
“Let’s scope out the land,” he said. “We’ll come in through the back.”
Of course, Jake was always interested in a good piece of land. It was a perk if we had some hunting grounds to roam while we were flipping a house. We liked to keep our wolf instincts honed, and a fresh rabbit made for a good dinner too, although Helena might not appreciate the catch. We’d behaved ourselves at Lockwood House, but Jake was ready to show her who we really were.
The house was surrounded by a cleared area to support the gardens and outbuildings and some overgrown pasture for horses. In fact, in the far distance I saw a man riding a horse, but he was so far away he must be a neighbor. I still wasn’t sure I liked the idea of neighbors in view. If he was human, he could be trouble. If he was a wizard, even worse.
Old live oak trees drooping heavy branches toward the ground, shading everything. I smelled swampy water and I could tell we were near a river or lake. I saw what might have been an old path, wide enough for a carriage, disappearing through some trees. Maybe that led to the water. No thick forest for hunting, though.
Jake pointed in the other direction, toward the square of iron fencing that circled an old graveyard, the moss-covered vaults sagging in uneven directions over lumpy soil. There must be flooding here now and then since the tombs were all above ground.
“We’re looking for Byron’s bones, aren’t we?” he said. “I wonder if that spot has anything useful. Maybe his friends buried him where they already had a plot?”
“Sure, maybe,” I said. “But count me out.”
“You afraid of old bones?”
“About as much as you are,” I said.
“Which I have a feeling is a decent amount.”
As we were speaking, several big white swans flew down and landed on the tombstones, staring at us.
Swans? What the hell were swans doing hanging out on the tombstones? It would have been less creepy to see ravens. They were here just to weird us out.
“Graham can do it,” Jake said.
“Exactly.”
Jake hustled to the screen door in the back and tried the handle of the solid door behind it. It was locked, but after a second, Hel opened it. I limped behind him as fast I could, cursing under my breath the whole way.
Was it just my wishful thinking, or did Helena’s whole face brighten when she saw us come in?
“Hey guys! You made it! Isn’t this place amazing? We haven’t seen the upstairs yet.”
“It’s something, all right,” Jake said. We stepped inside to a large workroom. He peered through the nearest doorways to peek at some of the other rooms. “Where is the kitchen?”
“We were just talking about that,” Helena said. “So…there’s no kitchen…”
“A blank slate,” Jake said, clearly relishing the thought. “Man, this place is hideous inside. We’re going to have to—”
“Oh, no,” Helena waved her hands. “No, we were just thinking that if we sell it to the faeries we can spare a lot of work. Faeries like bright colors and old-fashioned decor.”
“When have you been interviewing faeries about their design choices, Baroness?” Jake asked. “And where are you going to find these faeries?”
“Through my brother,” she said, with perfect confidence. “He works at Merlin College, which as you know, is now a parallel to the faery realm. They have contact with the faery queen and she wants and needs to expand her territory. Hence—” She rubbed her fingers together in the sign for money. “Less work, more money.”
“What does Billie think of all this?” I asked, extending a hand to the redheaded girl. “Hello, by the way. I’m Jasper Sullivan. Graham told us what happened.”
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