Leo
I ran the full perimeter of the inner pack lands, and it took almost two hours, even at my top speed, dodging around trees and leaping down embankments. If I ran around all the land we owned, it might take all day, but those miles nearest the hunting lodge and the pack homes mattered most.
Besides, we’d never had the witches invade on foot before. That would have been odd. They always drove in, in their shiny new SUVs that smelled like leather and a kind of synthetic air freshener that made my nose twitch.
I smelled no sign of any outsiders—none but Altair, anyway.
I tried not to think about how the scent of him had changed in the last day. It had been paper-thin when I’d found him, just the vaguest whiff of something tantalizing, like a hint of perfume remaining on a decades-old love letter.
Now, it was more like last year’s love letter. Still not incredibly strong, but more present, something that was there whenever I was near him. Musky and sweet and almost mouth-watering in a way that was unfamiliar.
It wasn’t a food smell, like the cake-scented body spray the Crescent wolves had sent to Evie in a care package with a bunch of things that had made her squeal with delight.
It wasn’t like any kind of perfume I’d smelled on any of the people in the city, fascinating as they had been.
It was unique, and constantly made me want to turn around and walk back toward it.
To find its source and bury my face in it.
Or better, to find Altair and feed him again.
I tried not to take it in a bad way, his hesitance to feed more . . . deeply. I could tell he wasn’t being entirely honest with me about it. The starved look in his eyes alone told me that he wanted more. Wanted to latch onto my neck and just keep pulling.
After all, if the amount of blood I’d given him was all a vampire needed to be completely sated, then they would never have killed even a human.
It simply hadn’t been that much. Now, maybe Altair was dealing with the aftereffects of starvation, and trying to treat it the way those of us who needed regular food did—slowly working their way back up to real meals. But I didn’t think so.
I was certain he was holding himself back.
The only real question was whether he was doing it to keep from scaring me off, or because he knew what was going on in my head, and it made him uncomfortable.
I still had no idea if vampires could smell things the way wolves could.
If he knew that whenever his lips grazed my wrist, it was all I could do to keep breathing.
That I had to run through a litany of the unsexiest things I could imagine to keep from getting an obvious erection while his fangs broke my skin.
It was sick. I was broken, for sure. What kind of weirdo enjoyed being hurt?
So if Altair knew, he probably pitied me, at best. Maybe he was even disgusted, but kept taking at least a little, because he didn’t want to starve to death and had years of abuse to recover from.
Hard to blame him. Who wanted a fucked-up werewolf?
Even if someone wanted a werewolf with mental issues, it’d be one of my brothers, who were an alpha and . . . well, terrifying. I was just boring nice Leo.
I checked in on the hunting lodge before heading back toward the pack for the night, but my skin was crawling.
I was wrong. Not about something, but made wrong.
My brain didn’t work right, and everyone around me had to deal with all the ways in which I was screwed up.
Killing Barry and stealing Mama’s blankets and talking incessantly and keeping secrets and getting turned on when vampires bit my wrist.
It was no wonder I was constantly on the outside of everything. Who would want to be around a complete fucking weirdo?
I was overcome by the need to bathe, so on the way back home, I made a detour to the river, dumped my clothes on a bush, and plunged myself into the cooling fall water.
At least it wasn’t winter yet. It got downright hard to take a bath in the wintertime, except inside, where Mama always kept a giant pot of water on the hearth to warm baths inside.
Or maybe I was getting soft, not wanting to take cold baths after so many years of the luxury of living in a warmer climate, with a roof always over my head.
It was a little odd to think of Wildwood life as luxurious after witnessing city life firsthand, but I’d never lived like a city wolf, with twenty-four-hour hot running water and electricity and who even knew what else.
Maybe they had heated floors so their toes didn’t get cold in the winter.
Some of us just, you know, wore socks. That their mothers made.
Mama’s socks were the best.
I, for one, pitied anyone who didn’t have socks made by my Mama.
I was just coming up after dunking my head in the water to rinse the grime off my scalp, when I heard voices. They didn’t set off any internal alarms, because they were voices I knew as well as my own: Viktor and Aleks.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Viktor was saying, and they were clearly approaching, given the way it increased in volume as he went on.
They were also speaking in Russian, as they tended to when speaking privately.
I always wondered if they wished I didn’t speak the language, so they’d have even more privacy.
“I know working with Fyse means you have to swallow your pride, but it’ll be good for the pack to have the panels, and if he’s willing to help, it doesn’t matter why. ”
The solar panels. It had been a subject of debate since Evie had brought it up when we’d gotten back.
Somehow, even though she’d spent less time out of pack lands than almost anyone else who came back, Evie seemed to have learned more about the outside world than any of us.
I thought it might have something to do with the fancy phone that had arrived for her after we’d returned, from one of the Crescent wolves.
It wasn’t just a phone. It was like a tiny computer, and got a good internet connection even out in the woods.
There was also a fancy single solar panel that had come with it, to be sure she could keep it charged.
Some of the older wolves, and frankly, the more prideful ones, thought it was all a waste of time and energy, and insisted we didn’t need anything from the Crescent wolves.
Me? I was with Viktor on this one. Did we need fancy things because the Crescent wolves pitied us?
No, of course not. But also, why turn them down?
The internet on her phone let Evie learn amazing things and share them with us.
The electricity the solar panel provided meant that no one’s phone ever died.
Cash even had a plan for the solar panels that meant we might be able to have hot running water in the new houses year-round.
No more cold baths in the winter, or heating and carrying giant pots of water to keep from taking cold baths.
Who cared if it came from the Crescent wolves? They had plenty, and if they were inclined to share, why say no? Nice things were . . . well, nice.
Mama always said it was the pride Aleks had inherited from his father and learned from his grandfather, and that it wasn’t necessary, but it was hard to ignore once you had it.
The only pride I’d ever had had come from my personal accomplishments, relatively few though they’d been.
I certainly didn’t see a reason to give things up for it.
It wasn’t like these items were coming from Grant.
There was no reason to keep the Crescent wolves out of our lives.
Personally, I thought they were aces, because the main person they’d been sending things to was Evie.
It was both smart—a good way to convince us to accept those things—and well, it was for Evie.
Who would ever say Evie didn’t deserve good things?
Only someone who wanted me to gut them like I had Barry.
She was like the kid sister we’d never had, and I would commit atrocities to make her happy. I kind of had. No hesitation.
Aleks gave a deep sigh, right as they came out of the trees, and nodded.
“I suppose. It would be good for the others, to be able to have heating in the winter. Mama wants an electric stove. Says they hold their temperature more closely so she’d be able to make things she can’t make with a wood fire. ”
Viktor snorted and shook his head. “Trust Mama to worry most about what she can do for other people with it. She wants to bake American-style cakes.”
Me, I thought cake was pretty great, so I was for it.
Viktor looked up at me, clearly having known I was there all along, and like he’d read my mind, he gave a tiny smirk. “Probably for you, mostly.”
I scoffed at that. “If Mama could bake cakes, every person in the pack would start getting a birthday cake.” Then I winced at the idea, because making buttercream frosting was a ton of work, and no doubt Mama would want my help with it. Making it every week sounded like a lot.
Aleks rolled his shoulders, as though thinking the same thing as me, then sighed again and shrugged. “If it would make Mama happy, I suppose it would be worth it.” He pulled an orange out of his pocket and looked at it a moment, scrunching up his nose.
Viktor made the same face, only more disgusted. “Why would the pack use any of the grocery money on such a thing?”
“American oranges are sweet,” I said, halfheartedly. It was true, they were. They were as sweet as sugar. But I could never get past the look of the thing, and the memory of choking down Russian oranges because Mama said they were healthy.
Fortunately, just then, movement in the trees caught my eye, and I smiled. “You can give it to Drew.”
The raccoon came toddling out of the underbrush as though summoned by the suggestion someone give him something, and without hesitation, Aleks tossed the orange over in front of him.
He lit up like he’d just been offered the finest thing that existed, grabbed it with one arm, hugging it tight to his chest, and rushed over to the riverbank to start washing it.
We all watched in amusement, but at least someone would get pleasure out of the thing. Whatever Mama said, we could get our vitamins elsewhere. Tomatoes had vitamin C, right? We wouldn’t die of scurvy just because oranges were disgusting.
“Were you running the perimeter earlier?” Viktor asked me as they started to strip, also clearly having come to bathe. He watched me closely as he asked. Like he expected to catch me out on something.
So I nodded, because it wasn’t like there was a reason to lie about it. Also, maybe . . . “I’ve been worried about the witches. I know they haven’t come back, but . . . they will, don’t you think?”
Viktor’s face did a strange thing, lifting into something that looked annoyed for a moment, but I wasn’t sure who he might be annoyed at. The witches, for being disgusting? Or me, for bringing them up at all?
Aleks waded into the river, staring off into space, but clearly considering what I’d said. “They will,” he answered finally. “I don’t know what it is they think we can give them, but they were obsessed with the witchwolf. They want him.”
“Or one like him,” Viktor suggested. “He’s not the only witchwolf ever. So maybe they just want one of their own.”
“You think that’s why they, um”—I looked away, swallowing hard, not wanting to remind Aleks of the way Grant had basically sold his body to the witches for years.
“Yes,” Aleks agreed, matter of fact and not at all hurt, as usual.
I thought he still struggled, sometimes, to see that he’d been a victim in the mess Grant had made of the pack.
He was Aleks, after all. Alpha and “the strong one” and all that bullshit.
He wasn’t allowed to be hurt. “I don’t know why having wolves do their awakenings would lead to witchwolves, but I believe it happened for Dakota, so maybe it would. ”
“But he was also bitten, which they don’t allow.
” Viktor marched into the water like he was heading off to war, not just taking a bath.
It was how he did everything. Solid, strong, serious.
With intent. “They will never have a witchwolf if they aren’t willing to risk their lives as Dakota did, by taking the bite. ”
Personally, I didn’t think it was worth it. Being magic was fine and being a werewolf was . . . well, I didn’t know another way, and I liked it fine. But having both a wolf and magic by risking death? Seemed a little silly.
Why not just take the gifts you’d been given and use them to their best effect? Why always search for more? Sometimes, I thought people chose not to be happy. Sometimes, life was enough exactly as it was, and you didn’t need more.
Like me, there, with my brothers, taking a chilly bath in a river.
A hot bath might be nice, but wasn’t it enough that we were home, safe, and happy?
Maybe it was because I knew how much less I could have—that Viktor could be missing and Grant could be plotting to hurt the most vulnerable members of our pack—but in that moment, I felt like there wasn’t a whole lot more I could want in the world.
Except, maybe, the tingle that shot through me every time Altair bit into my skin.
Dammit.