39. Viktor
Viktor
When we got out of the bath, I ran into the first new problem: the clothes Daire had been wearing, and to a lesser extent mine as well, were caked in thick mud from the events of the night.
From burying Ermengarde.
Funny, I’d thought I wanted to kill her for revenge. Suddenly, I wished I’d killed her just to save him the pain of having done it himself.
Maybe he’d be angry with me if it had been me, but I liked that idea better than him being angry with himself. He’d done nothing wrong, only tried to defend the pack—
No.
Me.
He’d been trying to defend me. And now he was miserable about it.
I climbed out of the tub and held a hand out to him. “You stay here. I’ll go get fresh clothes.”
His sleepy eyes narrowed in confusion, but I rushed off, not wanting to have him worry about the clothes. Maybe we’d clean them tomorrow, and maybe they were ruined, but they didn’t matter. They were just things. Things could always be replaced.
When I returned, though, he was still staring at me, confusion and maybe a little shock on his face. “You . . . you went inside.”
“Of course,” I agreed, holding up the fresh clothes, then setting them aside to grab the towels Mama had left for us.
The whole outdoor bathing setup was under an awning beside the house, so they were still fresh and dry despite the continuing light rainfall.
When I turned back to Daire, he was still staring at me, so I paused. Was I missing something?
“The tether,” he whispered.
My stomach dropped. Would he decide to leave just because we weren’t tethered anymore? I’d noticed it right away after his mother’s death, but I supposed it wasn’t a shock that he hadn’t. He’d had bigger things on his mind.
No. He wouldn’t leave. He still had my wolf, and he wouldn’t leave me as long as that was true.
I wasn’t sure why part of the spell had reverted and the other hadn’t, but in the moment, I didn’t care. My wolf was safe in his care. I was safe with him.
It was a strange feeling, and one I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced before.
Even before I’d been taken by that last government raid that had broken the pack in Russia, we’d never been safe.
There had always been the threat of a totalitarian government who wanted werewolves as soldier-slaves coming for us.
That danger didn’t seem to exist in the US, if only because most of their government seemed blissfully unaware of our existence, but I still hadn’t felt safe. Not even with Aleks as alpha.
But now?
Looking at this adorable man who probably could have been blown over by a strong wind in that moment, I was confused by the certainty inside me. He wasn’t tall or imposing. He didn’t even have his own magic, since it was inside me, but . . .
I felt safe in his hands.
Daire was safety.
I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the dread in me at the idea he might leave. He wouldn’t. He just . . . wouldn’t.
So I held the towel out for him and nodded, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. “It’s gone. I still have your magic, but the tether is gone.”
He nodded, stepping out of the tub and into my arms. Or into the towel. Same thing. I wrapped it around his body and for a moment, stayed there with my arms around him. Quiet. Peaceful. Together.
He leaned into me, and it spurred hope inside me. Maybe he felt safe with me too.
I dried him off, slow and methodical, making sure we’d handled all the mud, then finally holding out clothes to him, one piece at a time. I was mostly air-dry by then, so I shoved my own clothes on as fast as possible, and put my arm back around him, leading him into the house.
Mama was sitting downstairs in the kitchen with a pot of tea, which she tapped, and looked up at me, question in her eyes. Did I want tea? Not particularly, but maybe Daire could use—
Pressure on my arm grabbed my attention, and I looked down to find Daire leaning hard on me, his eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. He was falling asleep again. So I shook my head at Mama and led Daire up the stairs back to my room.
Maybe it wasn’t necessary that we share anymore, but I had never much cared about that, and even less now. I just wanted him next to me, tether be damned.
He didn’t hesitate when we got into the room, just sort of crumpled into the bed, not even bothering to reach for the blanket.
He had been through a lot that night, to say nothing of the physical toll of digging a grave.
It had been fucking impressive, and while I’d wanted to help—and so had everyone else—it had been clear that it was a task Daire had set for himself.
Maybe it was from guilt, maybe some vestige of loyalty to a woman who’d had none for him, but that didn’t matter. I wanted Daire to know he had done that, completely. He was a good and dutiful son till the end, even when she hadn’t deserved a bit of it.
So I just lifted him lightly, pulling the blanket from under him and settling it on top of him before climbing into the bed.
Almost instantly, he moved forward, snuggling into me. I felt like a thief in the night, stealing his affection when he didn’t have to give it any longer.
But he did know the tether was gone. He just wasn’t awake enough to think it through and demand his own room.
For just this one night, I would be selfish and accept what that got me.
I fell asleep with Daire in my arms, and I didn’t remember ever feeling so settled in my own skin. Even with my wolf still outside of my body, everything felt fine in that moment, and I slept easily.
I woke with Daire’s beautiful green eyes already looking into mine. They were still sad, but I refused to focus on that. Daire was there, and he was fine, and the threat to him had passed.
More than that, if it hadn’t passed, if the witches came back for him, I would kill the lot of them with my bare hands. Somehow, I suspected that Tristan would be the first guy out there helping me, which was a nice surprise after how he’d come to us.
“Hi,” Daire whispered, his voice still a little rough with sleep.
“Hi,” I offered right back. “Smells like Mama’s making breakfast, so everyone must already be up.”
He bit his lip, his eyes drifting away from mine for a moment before he spoke again. “Do . . . do you think they’ll want me to leave? I mean, I could now. But! I still have your wolf. I . . . I understand if they don’t want me around, or—”
I leaned in and kissed him to interrupt the usual flow of self-doubt, and when I pulled back, his eyes had fluttered shut, and he was just breathing deep, looking content. “They won’t. No one wants you to leave, spell or no. Wolf or no.”
“Cash—”
“Forgave you when he realized the grudge he was holding was never about you.” I leaned in again and kissed one of his closed eyelids, then the other.
“I know it’s not as easy as this, but please try to stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t control.
All you’ve done is react to what you’ve been forced into.
You haven’t made any of the bad decisions that led us here.
I hold more responsibility for it than you do. ”
His eyes flashed open at that and he shook his head, clearly offended on my behalf.
So I leaned in and kissed him again. “Precisely. So stop saying it’s your fault. If you don’t want me to feel guilty, then you shouldn’t push guilt on yourself either.”
I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. Of all people, I knew that guilt wasn’t so easy to wipe away. But all I could do was remind him at every turn that he’d done nothing wrong.
We didn’t bother changing clothes, since we’d only been wearing them a few hours, and headed down to the kitchen, where Mama was setting out porridge with separate bowls of fruit and honey and nuts to add to it.
It was one of my favorite things she served for breakfast. It was nicer than anything they’d given us in the camps, but not completely foreign to me after years of being fed the bare minimum.
She knew that, and clearly, she was concerned about me after the last day.
And maybe it made sense to do the same thing for Daire. Something that wasn’t too decadent, so we wouldn’t add to any guilt he was feeling by reminding him that his mother was not eating pastries or cakes.
He ducked his head at Mama as she handed him a bowl, murmuring thanks, even though he couldn’t seem to meet her eye. Likely, he thought everyone was finding fault in him. Was he concerned because she was my mother, and his was gone?
Mama clearly wanted to fuss over him, but she was one of the cleverest people in the pack, and left him be for the moment.
An equally serious Leo and Altair joined us at the table, even though Altair didn’t need breakfast at all. Solidarity, I supposed.
It was my turn to feel a stab of guilt, for ever thinking ill of the vampire. Somehow, being deprived of sunlight for hundreds of years had turned the man into a ray of sunshine himself. Just like Leo.
Maybe it was Leo’s influence, or maybe it was the fact that Altair’s life had gone from hopeless to filled with everything he loved in the space of a few weeks. Either way, he smiled at all of us, patting Daire on the back as he walked by, and then . . . patting me as well.
I turned and nodded to him, and he beamed at me, as though acknowledgement from a surly asshole was a gift.
That was when Cash and Aleks came in the front, careful not to bring the sun in with them, but hurried nonetheless. Cash was waving a notebook around, and when he saw us at the table, he seemed to brace himself, then nodded and came over to sit next to Daire.
“How many bedrooms do you think you need? Just the one? Two, in case you have guests?” Everyone at the table looked up at him except for Mama—well, and Aleks, who was dishing up extra porridge for the two of them—and Daire was clearly confused, his eyes squinted, brow furrowed and head cocked to one side.
Cash seemed to barely notice, just poked at the notebook he’d brought with him.
“This is the same sketch I initially gave to Leo and Altair, but Altair wanted a bigger bathtub.”
Altair gave a long sigh and nodded. “What can I say? I’m a dramatic fellow. I require all the luxuries.”
Cash snorted at that, but just shook his head instead of responding.
He pushed the notebook between the two of them.
“I put two bedrooms, just in case.” Turning the page, he motioned to a new drawing.
“This is the one with the bigger bathroom. It’s not much more space, just a few feet, so we could do that easily.
Right next to Leo and Altair’s if you want.
” He ducked his head and blushed. “I mean, we’re not going to do it right away.
We’re working on a lot right now, and after last night, we’re going to have to push our work plans up.
A couple of those buildings in the old village just can’t house anyone anymore.
But now that the whole pack is working on the houses, it’s going pretty fast.”
Next to him, Aleks sighed. I knew my brother; it was because moving up the schedule more meant that we were going to have to accept more of the charity from the Crescent pack, and he didn’t want to.
But there was only so much money the pack could bring in, particularly when most of us were staying in the Wildwood full time, working on building the new houses.
I shoved down my amusement at Aleks’s stubborn irritation and looked back at Cash. Was he offering to build a house for Daire? I appreciated him trying to keep Daire with us, but also, was annoyed by the idea that Daire would go anywhere without me.
Naturally, that was when Cash looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “What about you? Sorry I didn’t ask right away. I figured you wouldn’t care that much, as long as the basics were covered. But is there anything you want in your house?”
He slid the notebook between Daire and me.
Because that was what he was talking about. Building a house not for Daire, but for Daire and me.