13. Cash
Cash
The way Aleks was looking at me, hurt overflowed from his sapphire gaze.
My chest ached, a fist squeezing around the need to apologize, and I wasn’t sure for what. He hadn’t stumbled on me . . . heck, I couldn’t imagine what I could do that’d make Aleks upset with me.
So far, he’d only ever been kind to me, and I had no reason to think that’d ever change. Even if I were to make him angry, he wouldn’t be like Reeve or Grant.
He was sweet to the pack kids, doting on his mother. Yes, he followed Grant around more now than ever before, but I’d never seen him join in on the raucous laughter of the men Grant kept closest.
That sound always set my teeth on edge. There was a wickedness to it.
Even Uncle Tommy joined in. He benefited from proximity to the alpha, and I wanted to think that Evie would too, but I wasn’t so sure.
There was a lot that Uncle Tommy was willing to tolerate for his privileges.
Aleks looked down at the water for a second. “No, don’t kill them,” he muttered.
Right, the witches. There was the ozone scent of magic in the air, and Aleks smelled . . . strange. Still nice, like cedar and sticky-sweet honey, but like he’d been away.
It was a little like the way the scent of the plane travel had lingered on him when he’d brought Viktor home.
“We, ah, got all sweaty working on the house,” I explained, a twisty feeling in my guts saying I needed to. “So I suggested we wash off. Since it’s a nice day.”
One of the first we’d had since the days started to get longer. The water was still chilly, but the sun overhead shone bright.
Aleks stared at me again. “It is.”
Right then, I wanted to come out of my skin.
Leave it to Evie to save me from it.
“Cash?” she called from up by the house.
Before I could answer, Viktor rolled to stand up, water sluicing off him, dripping from the longer strands of his hair. I didn’t think he’d cut it since he’d been home. I didn’t think he cared.
“I’ll go see what she wants,” he said, stepping out of the water.
Leaving me entirely alone with Aleks. The awkwardness that hung in the air was new—not that I’d never been awkward around him before, but this time, it felt weighted. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d done something wrong, but I knew better.
I hadn’t crossed him. And there was—there was nothing between us to cross.
“So . . . ” I said. “Witches?”
Spreading his arms and sinking neck-deep in the water, Aleks twisted, letting the river ripple over his fingers. In response, he only hummed.
Maybe that made sense, witches.
I’d never seen Aleks hang around with any of the women in the pack, or any of the men for that matter.
Maybe he and Grant thought an alliance with the witches would do us some good?
I didn’t know. I’d barely been aware of a nearby coven before I’d left, and I wasn’t privy to these kinds of conversations.
I’d just seen them in their big black SUVs rolling into our pack territory.
It was no easy thing, navigating the woods to get out here, but they seemed to know exactly where they were going.
But even if whatever Aleks was doing with those witches wasn’t that serious—well, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand a one-night stand.
When I’d been living with humans and gotten particularly lonely, when I would’ve gnawed off my own hand just for a warm, familiar touch, I’d gone out to bars that served men with my inclinations.
I’d pick someone up, go back to their place, and for a little while, I felt better. Less alone. I couldn’t let any of them close, of course. I had to keep our secrets, and humans didn’t know about our world, but sometimes, I’d missed touch.
I doubted Aleks’s reasons were so pathetic. He could have anyone he wanted, any time he wanted them. But still, he was a young, handsome man, who should enjoy himself whenever he had the chance.
One day, he’d be our alpha, and that was more than enough for me. I knew already that he’d be better, kinder, than any alpha I’d ever had. My life would be better because of him, even when he took a mate.
It just . . . ached a little, and it didn’t make any damn sense for it to.
Aleks swayed back toward me. The water rippling over his arms was transfixing. “I haven’t heard his voice since we found him.”
I blinked at him.
“Oh, I—” Was that why Aleks was upset? That made more sense than it having anything to do with me.
I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel, having a brother who wouldn’t talk to me but would speak to someone else. I didn’t understand that bond at all, really, the one that kept Pa and Uncle Tommy together even when they disagreed.
“He probably just got sick of listening to me ramble on,” I said.
Aleks arched a brow at me. We both knew I wasn’t a big talker either.
Truth was, those early days with Viktor had been quiet. I’d ask him for something or direct him when I needed to, but if Leo was busy elsewhere, the only sounds were the breeze in the trees, the birds overhead, and any tools we were using.
Eventually, I started talking to him, just about little things—a book Evie had snatched from the library on the way into town that she was telling me about, or how I needed to get Pa to give me a haircut. It was nothing more than a way to fill the silence.
But then he’d started talking back. Mostly, he told me the same sort of stuff, like what Evelyn had made for dinner at the big house and how Katya’s would have been better, or that he thought jeans didn’t have enough pockets to be useful.
Once, he’d asked me about a joke Leo had told. The meaning had been lost on him.
(I thought it was pretty funny, as far as puns went. He’d asked Edgar’s son Jeffrey, “What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?” It’s nacho cheese. But having to explain it out step by step kind of drained the humor out of it.)
Looking back, I realized he had clammed up around Leo. It was easy to miss, because Leo talked all the time. At first, that constant need to fill the silence had put me on edge, but quickly enough, I realized Leo just wanted everyone to be comfortable. Now, listening to him go on was soothing.
I didn’t know why Viktor would talk to me and not to his brothers, but if I had to guess, there were things he wasn’t ready to explain or talk about, and they’d have questions I would never even think to ask.
After a few moments of staring at me incredulously, Aleks shook his head. “You make him comfortable. It is good. I’m glad.”
Still, he looked sad. Miserable, even.
Silence stretched out again. I didn’t know what to say, but I hated seeing him like this. He looked smaller than he used to, not like he’d lost weight but like he’d packed some of himself away.
At least, he was keeping himself away from me.
I knew I’d . . . noticed him, before, but I really hoped I hadn’t made him uncomfortable. Maybe that was why he was being so strange with me now.
It wasn’t like I meant to, and I hadn’t said anything. I wouldn’t say anything. I knew better than anyone that Aleks wasn’t for me.
But I still noticed the way the sunlight glinted off the golden freckles on the tops of his shoulders, and it made me understand why the great artists had put so much time and effort into their crafts, creating masterpieces that celebrated precisely this kind of beauty.
I forced myself to look away, but the sunlight glistening on the water’s surface wasn’t half so magnificent.
“I . . . wish you could come back and work on the house with us,” I admitted, unsure what else to say when the silence had gone on too long again. I just wanted him to know I missed him, or maybe that I’d noticed he wasn’t around. He didn’t need to fix it, but it mattered.
The water splashed gently as he turned toward me again. “You do?”
I met his eye and nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Leo’s enthusiastic and Viktor’s so helpful, but I thought you and I . . . worked . . . well together.”
Aleks’s tongue flashed between his lips. “We did.”
The simplicity of that statement hit me like a bolt. It was so final. Of course it was. There was no reason for us to—
He had more important things to think about than—
I shook myself, blinking a little too fast, a lump lodged in my throat. “I should, ah, save Viktor from Evie before she tries to paint his fingernails again. Or, god”—I laughed, but it sounded hoarse and strange—“ropes him into a game of Monopoly.”
I wasn’t even sure our ancient set had all the pieces anymore.
I spun toward the shore, but Aleks’s voice brought me up short.
“Cash?”
I froze, slowly turning back to him. “Yeah?”
“I wish I could come back too.”
My heart throbbed. Did that make it better or worse, that he might want to?
Either way, he couldn’t, and all I could do was nod, looking down to hide eyes that were stinging when I barely even knew why.