33. Viktor
Viktor
It didn’t take long to wash my hands, but as it turned out, when I felt like taking ten minutes for it, no one really noticed.
I’d known from the start that Daire and Cash could be friends, but getting through the tension created by Grant and Ermengarde was going to take time and work.
It turned out that it didn’t require that at all, just a near-tragedy that made Cash realize Daire wasn’t the enemy. Not something I’d have chosen, but since it was already done, I decided to be grateful in the moment, and listen in silence while I took extra time to clean up.
It was always easy to see how you or your loved ones had been mistreated, and sometimes not as easy to see how others had also suffered.
When I’d entirely finished washing my hands all the way to the elbow, I leaned against the outside wall of the cabin and waited, letting Cash and Daire continue to talk.
I couldn’t make out the words without my wolf to improve my hearing, but the tone was soft and not unhappy, so I wanted them to have all the time possible to make up and maybe, if I was lucky, even bond.
I thought that maybe Daire needed a friend or two very badly, and Cash seemed like the perfect person for that.
He’d changed my life for the better when I’d first come home.
Daire needed that too.
More, he deserved it. I was starting to think he’d never had a friend who didn’t want anything from him before, and since frankly, I wanted things from him, I hoped other people in the pack would fulfill that need.
“Are you reading Evie and Altair’s books now? Stalking people like a creeper?” Aleks’s voice startled me, and that was annoying, because I’d never been easily startled before. Without my wolf, though, I couldn’t hear or smell danger coming, and it was fucking off-putting.
No, Aleks wasn’t danger, but if he had been, I still wouldn’t have noticed him.
I smothered my annoyance, since it wasn’t aimed at my brother. Instead, I rolled my eyes at him. “Are you trying to copy Evie’s slang words now? What’s a creeper?”
He shrugged, but there was a grin on his face, and that was something of a relief.
I glanced down at his hand, not trying to hide it, since he would be expecting us all to worry over him.
No reason to pretend I wasn’t as worried as anyone.
“Have to keep learning, always. This is why they call it a living language, yes?”
I scoffed at him. “Don’t go faking your Russian accent on me, littlest brother. I don’t find you charming at all.”
He laughed aloud at that, which was . . .
well, it was good. For too long, his spirit had been constricted within him, pushed down and made smaller by Grant and the shame of not doing something about the abusive alpha.
That annoyed me almost more than Grant himself, the fact that anyone had convinced my victimized baby brother that he’d been the one in the wrong while being abused.
“I might not be as big as Leo, but I’m bigger than you,” he said, leaning on the wall next to me and nudging my shoulder with his.
The truth was that Aleks was bigger than Leo, if only muscles counted for anything. I was the smallest of my brothers. Normally, it didn’t bother me at all, because size was irrelevant to usefulness.
These days, though? It was another piece of annoyance on top of other frustrations.
I needed my damned wolf back.
Daire’s magic was impressive, and probably overall more powerful than my wolf, but it wasn’t mine. It belonged with him, and I wanted him to have it.
And more than anything else, I wanted to feel like myself again.
I’d been born a wolf, and that had always been a part of me. The loss of my wolf had left me feeling scooped out and raw on the inside, missing so many things that I had always taken for granted.
I smothered all that in myself for the moment, and scoffed at him. “Please. Size is nothing. You’re just the biggest pastry in the kitchen, full of nothing but hot air and sugar.”
He continued to grin, proud and pleased with it as though the words had been a compliment. And . . . maybe they had.
I realized the voices from the porch had stopped, and turned to find Daire’s head poking around the side of the house, looking at us.
As always, so innocent, so guileless, so sweet.
“Hey, you guys ready to come in? Your mom says dinner is ready, and I for one don’t want to be the guy to tell her no.
Let alone your cousin. She’s a little scary.
” He paused, cocking his head. “Cousin? Sister?”
“Boss,” I corrected, smiling at him as I pushed off the wall and went to join him to go inside. I was so tired that my fucking bones ached, but I would never let any of them know that. It didn’t matter.
Cash was waiting, holding the door, and he ducked his head at me when I got there. “Sorry,” he mumbled, almost whispered.
I didn’t respond, because there was no need.
I only reached up to grab his shoulder and squeeze.
We were brothers. He never had to apologize to me for being the same brother I loved.
As long as he didn’t make Daire sad again, now that he understood that Daire was a good person, he had nothing to apologize for as far as I was concerned.
Everyone was there for supper the way they hadn’t been for breakfast, the whole table packed with people, and the two spare chairs pulled in from the other side of the room.
Mama, my brothers—including Cash and Altair—Henry, Evie, Drew, and even Tristan.
Maybe he was just there because Aleks wanted to keep an eye on him, but that was only sensible.
Evie slid onto the back bench next to Drew, looking him over with confused interest. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?”
Drew, who had been busy sniffing at the air in the kitchen with something that looked like euphoria, jerked back and looked at her, cocking his head and then looking down at himself. “Pants suck,” he said, like it was the most obvious answer ever.
Aleks was frowning, maybe concerned about her sitting next to a teenage boy who wasn’t entirely clothed, but I snorted and jostled him toward a chair.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, clearly curious.
He actually paused to consider that, but shrugged after a moment. “Maybe? But pants are worse than cold. Too uncomfortable. They rub on things and make it harder to move.”
They were quiet for a moment, Evie considering, then she brightened and looked across him at Altair. “We should get him a dress. That would be warmer, right?”
And suddenly the whole kitchen was abuzz, planning what Drew could wear that he would find both comfortable and warm.
Daire, who’d just sat down next to me, paused at this, staring at everyone for a second. I wasn’t sure what he was worried about, but he seemed to shrug it off after a moment, and leaned into the topic at hand. “Boots might help,” he offered. “They make a kind with fur that might be warmer.”
Drew’s eyes narrowed. “Boots made of fur? Whose fur?”
“Fake fur,” Daire explained. “I think they make it out of plastic, but it feels nice. I assume”—he turned to Cash, eyes wide—“fake fur doesn’t smell bad, does it?”
“Some of it,” Cash admitted. “But not all. I’m sure we could find him some that would work.”
They shared a smile at that.
There was a strange ache in my cheeks, and I realized that I was smiling too. When had that happened? How had that happened? Despite the exhaustion in my bones, I was strangely light, sitting there in the noisy firelit room. And why did the kitchen feel warmer than cooking or fire accounted for?
What was wrong with me?
Wait.
No.
Nothing was wrong, I realized after consideration. I did know this feeling; I just hadn’t felt it in almost a decade.
I was happy.