41. Viktor
Viktor
He wanted to stay.
In fact, he wanted to stay so much that he was . . . emotional about it.
I was sure I should be more concerned about the fact that he could access his magic inside me and still had my wolf, but I just wasn’t. I didn’t want to withhold his magic from him, so as far as I was concerned, there was nothing to be bothered by.
I did want my wolf back, obviously.
The wolf was a part of me.
I needed it to properly protect the pack.
But if he was necessary to make Daire feel better? Well, the pack could handle itself for now. They were clever and resourceful, and they could deal with things themselves.
Besides, if the witches weren’t going to attack us anymore, that made my need to protect less acute. It wasn’t as though the Wildwood pack was inclined to go picking fights with anyone. We just wanted to be left in peace.
But Daire had been vulnerable with all of us, opening up his soul for my whole family to see. The hard look Leo was giving me said it was my turn, and he was right. I couldn’t let Daire think he was alone in his thoughts of not being good enough.
“I thought you’d be happy to see the last of us,” I said, and my voice came out annoyingly soft. Not that I was usually one to shout, but this quiet felt different. It felt weak.
Daire’s eyes flashed up to stare at me, that bright green boring into my soul. “Why?”
I couldn’t hold back a scoff at that. “Half of us live in now burned shacks in the middle of the woods. We don’t have electricity. We—”
“That’s not a choice you made,” he said, scrunching up his nose with disgust at the very idea of judging us based on something so superficial.
Except that judging us for it was different from wanting to live with us.
Then his eyes drifted off to gaze at nothing, and a moment later, he grinned.
“But I can fix that. I’m sure I can. All you need is more of those solar panels, right?
If I’m”—he swallowed and looked around, then back at his lap—“if I’m joining the pack,”—he paused again, as though waiting for denials, but smiled a tiny bit and went on when there were none—“I come with something. I . . . well, maybe it’s not a lot, but it’s something.
I own part of the coven. My grandmother left me everything she had, not my mother.
So once I have that money, we can buy lots of solar generators.
Because if the pack shares everything with me, builds a freaking house for us to live in, then it’s only right that I share what’s mine with the pack. Right?”
And that? Well, unlike the offers the Crescent pack kept making, Aleks couldn’t deny that. It wasn’t charity when it came from within the pack. It shouldn’t come up against his pride at all.
Indeed, when everyone at the table immediately looked to him, he smiled at Daire like he was a gift. “That would be excellent, Daire. And appreciated by the whole pack. We could all have hot baths.”
“A real stove,” Mama said, clasping her hands in front of her, eyes shining, and looking like she was a thrilled child rather than a grown woman nearing fifty.
Altair grinned, nodding. “I could charge my phone without feeling frivolous.”
Evie, who was just walking into the house, snorted at that.
“You’ve been on social media for less than a month and you’re already monetized.
It’s not frivolous. You’re going to make this pack more money than we’ve ever seen in our—” She froze for a moment, looking at all of us, pausing on Daire’s red eyes and frowning. “What’s going on?”
“Daire is staying with us,” Altair answered her, smiling.
She made a face at him, like he was being silly, shaking her head and coming over to the table, grabbing a handful of walnuts out of one of the bowls.
“Of course he’s staying. Viktor is freaking in love with him.
You think we’ll find someone else Viktor would fall in love with?
He’s a miracle. We can’t let him leave.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed, but apparently, Evie wasn’t the only one who thought I was a complete ass, because fucking Leo started laughing, and a moment later half the table joined him.
“Viktor . . . ” Daire said, his voice almost breathless, looking at my whole family one at a time, like he thought they might be performing the world’s cruelest prank. “Loves me? Me?” He turned to stare at me, stunned.
“Duh,” Evie answered. “You’ve still got his wolf, right? Can’t you smell it?”
I gave her a glare. “He wasn’t raised with a wolf.
He doesn’t know what every smell means.” Then I squeezed his hand tight in mine.
“We aren’t offering you a place because you have my wolf.
No one is waiting for you to give him back and then leave.
As Altair said, you are you. Perhaps the wolf pressed you to follow your conscience, but he could not give you a conscience to begin with.
He could not make you a different man than you are already.
Just as he wouldn’t have made your mother good.
He could only have brought her end, not changed her for the better. ”
He practically threw himself at me, twisting sideways in his seat and hugging me tight.
That was when I felt a shift in me. Not my wolf sliding seamlessly back into me, but a strange shifting of Daire’s magic, as though it had been slightly unseated by the motion.
Like it was riding loose inside me. Curiously, I reached inside myself and gave it a tweak, as though to send it back into Daire’s body. And it went. Right along with it, my wolf slipped back into me, like the perfect homecoming.
Except it didn’t cement and freeze that way. They were both still loose. Still free to go sliding back and forth at will.
Daire pulled back, his eyes wide, as he stared at me. After a moment, I felt him do the same as I’d done, trading wolf and magic, and then back again, as though they were simply both a part of each of us. As though we were simply four entities that shared two bodies.