Altair
The tie binding me to Ivan snapped the second the tendons in his neck gave up. I’d never felt the kind of weightlessness that I did then.
I shuddered, and Viktor scowled at me.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” I agreed, a smile growing on my face that felt half mad, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was free. Ivan had nothing on me. He was dead, and it felt like a thing worth singing about, if I couldn’t feel the pulsing anxiety radiating off Leo.
That was new. Strange, too. But I didn’t mind. It didn’t feel heavy like an anchor or like any kind of cage. It was just Leo, and I wanted to feel him.
Wanted to be with him more, though it took a moment before Viktor believed I was fully myself again. He eased back, both of us staring at my Leo, who looked like nothing I’d ever seen.
Through the bond we’d forged, I felt his fear and anxiety and, yes, his righteous satisfaction in the aftermath of unleashing all that fury.
When I ran my hands over his face, his fur was so soft.
He made a quiet, rumbling sound that I instinctively knew wasn’t a growl, even though a few wolves took a step back when they heard it.
I had to push far up on my toes and drag him all the way down before I could press a kiss to the soft part of his muzzle.
“Thank you,” I whispered against his fur.
He blinked at me. His eyes looked enormous like this, with him all big and wolfy. He didn’t look anything like a werewolf I’d ever seen, but it was hard to argue with his results, and the way his emotions swirled through me, I had to assume it was new for him too.
I sighed and pressed into his fuzzy warmth until a growl rumbled in his chest, and I lifted my head.
Another threat?
No, it was just Viktor getting up off the ground, scowling down at the pieces of Ivan. I didn’t know if Leo was upset by the reminder of Ivan, or mad at his brother.
Pulling back from him, I frowned up at Leo. “You know Viktor was only protecting you, right?”
The way he blinked, slow and with narrowed eyes, said he wasn’t entirely satisfied with that.
“I asked him to do it. Are you going to be mad at me?”
He whimpered, pulling me in tight.
“Okay,” I said, laughing and kissing his chest because his face was too high to reach easily. “Then you can’t be mad at him for trying to help me.”
Leo huffed, his nose flaring out, but I could feel when he let it go.
Still, when I turned to Viktor, Leo didn’t let me out of his arms. His enormous clawed hand splayed across my stomach and kept me pressed against him, and right then, I was rather happy to let him keep me close.
Having his hand on me was settling in a way nothing else had ever been, and I was happy to place my palm on the back of his wrist and enjoy the softness of his fur while his pack—our pack? —took care of the rest.
“Viktor, would you . . . would you see him destroyed?”
Even dead, I didn’t want Ivan anywhere near these people.
We’d been lucky that he’d only killed the one witch, but maybe it was more than that.
The whole pack coming together to stand against him.
It wasn’t easy to catch any of them, even little Evie, who was talking to Prudence in a quick, high tone of voice, excited to learn more about the potion she’d concocted out of my blood—the very one Evie had smashed over Ivan’s thick skull.
Viktor scowled down at Ivan. Seeing that expression turned on someone else was a relief. We were on the same side, and if I had my way, we always would be.
After all, he cared about keeping my darling safe more than just about anyone. I couldn’t fault him for it.
“Happily,” Viktor said with a grunt. He kicked Ivan’s head away from his body, like the cretin might somehow piece himself back together.
Cash put down his chainsaw to help direct the pack in gathering firewood while Viktor arranged the pyre.
He tossed the head into the flames first, and the scent—I’d expected roasting meat, but just like the way we crisped in the sun, Ivan turned straight to ash.
He was dry and dead on the inside, but he didn’t have Leo, his very own sunshine, to keep him alive.
I wouldn’t be like him. Not ever.
Leo didn’t move, and his arm locked around me meant I didn’t either. I leaned back against him and watched Ivan burn, watched his ash float up and disappear into the night sky like he’d never been.
It was strange, to be so happy and light, and also feel tears pooling in my eyes at the thought of everything that had happened. The nights in the garden chewing nightshade for relief, the pain, the isolation.
And now this, a whole pack around me watching as the devil that haunted me drifted away on the breeze.
Aleks came up to us, scowling first at me, then up at Leo.
“You all right?” he asked.
I thought he was talking to Leo, but then his eyes settled on me, scanned the blood smeared over my hands from fighting to grip glass. The wounds themselves had healed already, and Ivan was gone. It was hard to imagine being any better.
Leo’s arm tightened around my middle, and I couldn’t help giving a little smile. “We will be once things calm down. I think we just need to know the threat has passed, hm?” I looked up at Leo, and he sniffed.
Aleks was still watching me, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to say when I met his eye again. “I’m okay,” I promised.
I thought he might’ve given my shoulder a squeeze, but he glanced down at the possessive hand Leo kept on me and smiled instead. “All right, but if you’re not . . . ”
It’d be okay, even if I wasn’t. How bizarre, to have people to lean on.
How could I be anything but happy, knowing what I’d gained?
I nodded, and Aleks nodded back. Maybe in a pack like this, we’d never be the best at acknowledging things outright, but the hard times had made it easier to understand each other.
Aleks found his way to Cash, who was determined to watch, glaring, as the entire pile of firewood burnt to ash and took Ivan and that witch with it.
Me? I didn’t need to stay there and watch to be sure he was already gone. I could feel it in the clarity in my head and that pulse that said all that was left was my bond to Leo.
I slipped my hands around his oversized one and eased it off of me, only to keep hold of it and turn and walk backward to the house. “Come with me?”
Leo huffed and took a jolting, awkward step, but when I took another back, he followed.
We took it slow back to Katya’s porch, but the stairs seemed no more issue than the ground had. It was simply that these weren’t legs Leo was used to standing on without his front paws to balance him.
Didn’t matter. I’d be there to hold his hand and keep him upright.
Katya stood back from the door with Prudence and Evie, and I paused there and caught Prudence’s eye.
“If I . . . ” I began to ask. With my free hand, I touched my neck, and she smiled, catching on rather quickly.
“It’ll be safe. Vampires are more like werewolves than witches. You are magic, you don’t wield it. I don’t know if it’ll take the same way it would for a wolf, but it certainly won’t cause any damage.”
I took a breath and nodded.
It’d be safe. The only question was whether I wanted to give Leo everything he’d given me, and that was an easier answer than it should’ve been, given my history with fangs.
Leo had to crouch down to shuffle in the door, which was another problem as we made our way up the stairs and his ears dragged up the sloped ceiling.
Finally, we made it to his bedroom, and I shut the door behind us. I didn’t light the oil lamp or search for any candles. I could see fine, and I didn’t think he needed the extra stimulus while trying to calm down.
Up in his room, he stood in the middle of the floor awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure what to do again.
While his massive shoulders rose and fell, I let him go and shrugged out of the shirt I was wearing—still his, still too large for me, but I liked the way his clothes swallowed me whole.
I even liked how big he was now, impossible and enormous and so very safe.
When I slipped my trousers down, toed off my shoes, and stepped out of them, Leo’s breath caught.
“What are you—” he started, his voice rough and gravelly, a little muffled like he wasn’t sure how to talk in this new shape—“doing?”
In the dark, I stepped closer to him. All across my skin, his fur was so soft. I could imagine burying myself against him and never untangling from him again.
I slid my hands up his chest, through all that fur, with a sigh. “You’re mine,” I said. “We’re safe here, right? I want to be with you.”
He whimpered, leaning into my hand as I reached up to touch his face.
“Like this,” I went on, “or . . . well, I’d rather like to bite you if I can avoid a mouthful of fur.”
The snort he made was more like a laugh.
We stayed like that for a long time, simply standing in the middle of the room with me running my fingers through his fur. When he touched me, he curled his clawed hands inward and brushed his knuckles across my bare skin instead, always sure to never hurt me.
There was something so luxurious in standing there, just touching each other, feeling the steadiness of his every breath.
A while passed before he was able to shift back, shrinking before me to his regular size.
His muzzle disappeared into his normal, beloved face.
He grimaced, but when I pulled him into my arms, he sighed and whatever pain had gripped him eased.
His body went slack against mine, but he tipped my chin up and we kissed, lips to lips, his heartbeat throbbing against my still chest.
I loved the warmth of him, the hair that covered his chest and still tickled my skin, the way his hands felt as he swept them up my back, over my ribcage and down to my waist. Perfect touches that stoked me to life again, or something like it.
He didn’t press for more, let me guide us, but I wanted him as close as I could have him, and I wanted—