40. Aleks
Aleks
I slept better that night than I’d ever slept before in my life.
I knew that in the morning, some pack houses would be emptier, and that was fine. We didn’t need anyone who preferred what Grant had offered to an honest community, working together.
Cash was at my side, and the path to the future was clear in every way. No more major hurdles that might land us dead before we even got started.
Mama and my brothers were home and safe, and so was every pack member who mattered to me. Henry and Evie and all the people I’d come to know and love in the twelve years I’d been back. Even Tommy, I supposed.
Who knew, maybe he would surprise me and become more than he’d been, since there was no reason for him to side with someone like Grant or disappoint his daughter with cowardice anymore. All the future required was hard work and a willingness to show up and do what the pack needed to survive.
Anyone could manage that if they wanted to, and the people who couldn’t contribute to survival, well, that was why we were a community. Everyone did what they could, and when they couldn’t because of disability or illness or age, then it was our turn to care for them.
That was why we built communities to begin with, wasn’t it? So that people didn’t have to die when they got sick.
I stared across the pillow at Cash’s beautiful sleeping face, so angelic when he was unbothered by the stresses of his waking hours.
He looked younger when he was asleep, which was a little odd.
I liked the slight wrinkles in the corners of his eyes when he squinted, and handful of silver hairs growing in around his temples.
I thought as he got older, they would multiply, a testament to all he’d survived. All the storms he’d weathered.
His eyes snapped open suddenly, as a shudder worked its way down my spine, but still, it took my conscious brain a moment to comprehend what the issue was. A low rumbling, getting louder from second to second.
Cars.
Multiple cars, headed toward us.
I sat up in bed, looking around, annoyed that my lovely morning was being interrupted. Even more when I dressed and went downstairs to find Mama in the kitchen, pancake batter half mixed in front of her.
She turned to me, a scowl on her face. “It’s those damned witches.”
Of course it was. No one else drove into pack lands regularly.
No one with access to that many cars knew where we were.
I finished sliding yesterday’s shirt over my head and toed on my shoes with no socks before heading out the front, marching back toward the old square. That was where they would arrive—where they’d always arrived.
Sure enough, by the time I got to the square, four shiny black SUVs were parked there in the middle, a bunch of witches in a group in front of them.
Wolves were there as well, mostly staying in their homes, watching from doorways and windows, slinking around the edges of the buildings to watch without getting attention on themselves.
But not me.
This was my job now. I was the one to stand in front of my people when danger arose. That was the point of an alpha.
So I marched right between two buildings and into the middle of the square, planting myself right between the witches and my people. I heard footsteps behind me and presumed it was Mama, maybe Cash, maybe Leo, and definitely Viktor, who was never far away when danger came for the pack.
I ignored that, and took my place opposite Ermengarde, drawing myself up to my full height in a way I rarely bothered with, crossing my arms over my chest. I remembered my father doing the same when I was very small, and how enormous it had made him look. How terrifying I’d found him.
I was now the age he’d been when I was born, and I’d put on the same muscle as him over the years of lifting and moving entire trees for Cash’s use. So while I didn’t think of myself as especially intimidating, I knew I could be.
For Ermengarde, I definitely could be.
“Where is Grant?” she demanded, looking me over from head to toe and then dismissing my importance, looking around the clearing for someone else.
Naturally. I was a servant. Someone Grant had assigned to sleep with her witches to awaken them. To be used, but not respected.
It was time for that to change.
Well, that, or she’d turn me into a toad and my pack would be without an alpha.
Only one way forward.
“Dead. He challenged Crescent alpha—Crescent alpha killed him. Is over.”
I was dropping words again, and I wasn’t immediately sure why.
Well, except that the boy who sometimes came with Ermengarde—her son, maybe—was there, and his reaction to my whole demeanor was telling. He swallowed hard and looked away, leaning back, like he’d prefer to be farther away from me.
Good.
I wanted them all far away from me.
Maybe he hadn’t specifically wronged me, but .
. . but Viktor hadn’t been wrong. Grant had been selling my ass to these people, almost exactly as he’d been planning to do to Evie, and while I’d never be able to see myself as a victim, I had been abused.
What they’d been doing was wrong, and if they didn’t see that, it just meant they were irredeemably evil, like Giselle and Grant.
If they did know it was wrong, that was almost worse, since they continued on regardless.
If my Russian accent helped me seem scarier to people like this, I’d ham it right the hell up and make them wonder if I’d gotten off a plane yesterday, rather than over a decade ago.
Ermengarde didn’t immediately respond, just crossed her own arms and sighed, long and loud, like the pack teacher when I’d struggled to relearn my letters in English. I couldn’t help that Cyrillic ones simply made more sense.
“Fine. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He always was useless.” She pursed her lips and tapped her toe, impatient and annoyed, but not leaving like I very much wanted her to. After a moment, she demanded, “Well?”
“Well what?” I tried not to mimic her impatience.
I was still. Calm. Breathing evenly, no fidgeting.
She was not in any way my superior, and I wouldn’t have her know that I found her very presence unsettling.
“You worked with Grant. Grant is dead. Deal is over. Wildwood is no longer interested in alliance.”
At that, her eyes narrowed, and all semblance of civility disappeared. “You listen here, you little upstart. Grant and I had a deal. Blood oaths were made. Your little pack of ragamuffins owes me a witchwolf. I. Am. Owed.”
There was a sharp exhale behind me that sounded like a snort, and I wondered if it had been Mama or Viktor. He was usually better at hiding all emotion, but things had changed, so maybe that would change as well.
I took another step toward her, hardening my expression into a glacier of calm, met her eye, and held it steadily.
I wanted her to have no illusions about what the Wildwood pack thought of her and hers.
“Grant is dead. Deal is over. You have blood oath? His blood is spilled. Absorbed into the earth and gone.”
“You’re his blood,” she corrected, stressing the focus as she leaned toward me. “His nephew. If he’s gone, then the oath transfers to you.”
It was my turn to snort. “Grant betrayed Wildwood in favor of you. In favor of selfishness. We do not claim him. This pack follows me because I offer them change. I am alpha because they accept me. Not because of blood. Grant was no family of mine. His line is dead. Blood oath is meaningless.”
With the words, I felt something shift inside me, and oddly enough, outside of me.
It was as though I’d been tied to a boulder, dragging it along behind me, and suddenly, the line had been cut.
It was gone. A burden lifted from my shoulders, and I felt a hundred pounds lighter.
Like I’d been carrying a tree around for days and forgotten I even had it.
The relief was profound, and I sucked in a deep, involuntary breath at it.
Ermengarde, on the other hand, fell back as though she’d been punched in the face, and a second later, a line of red appeared all along her right cheekbone, as though cut by a knife.
Two of the witches stepped up to catch her and help her remain standing—not the one I considered her son, I realized idly, observing as though this wasn’t relevant to me.
As though there was no chance she was about to kill me for my insolence.
Except . . . she wasn’t.
Because, I realized, she couldn’t.
With that burden gone, there was something else there instead. There was Mama, and Viktor, and even Leo behind me. Cash, rushing between the buildings, apparently having been held up. I could tell he’d heard the exchange, could feel his worry that Ermengarde was going to kill me.
It didn’t stop with them, though. There was Evie and Henry and Tommy and Maggie and dozens of others.
Even annoyed old Walter, who thought we should just give the witches what they wanted so they would leave us alone.
I couldn’t read their thoughts, exactly, but I knew what they wanted.
What their goals were. Whether they were loyal to the pack or only staying because they didn’t know where else to go.
It almost felt invasive, knowing that much about everyone in the pack, but also, it was because we were pack. Because they had decided to stay and be a part of what we were building.
And the strength of every single one of them bolstered mine. Ermengarde couldn’t affect me with a spell unless she could affect all of us with a spell, and in that second, I knew that she wasn’t nearly strong enough for that.
Together, the pack could handle this threat. We’d just never been together this way before. I had little doubt my uncle had never felt this, because I’d never felt this connection with him in return, and I knew, instinctively, that everyone else could feel it the same way I could.
If I hadn’t been able to feel their surprise at it, I’d have heard the gasps from dozens of wolves, all at once as the feeling of pack settled inside us all.