42. Daire
Daire
The wolf’s homecoming turned Viktor’s eyes from their usual steely gray to something liquid and bubbling.
He breathed in through his nose, and I watched his senses return to him, understanding lighting his expression.
Yes, it still remained subtle, but I could feel it, when Viktor was fully himself again.
He searched my face, and every second that passed turned my cheeks warmer. Werewolves could smell emotion, and now that Viktor had his wolf back, that meant he could smell mine. No sense trying to hide what I was feeling.
Of course, I’d never been good at it in the first place. Too emotional from the start.
“Me too,” I whispered, like we didn’t have an audience of Viktor’s entire family watching.
Oh, yeah . . . that was maybe a lot. Too much. Because if Viktor felt that way, I wanted him to be able to tell me himself. As much as I liked Evie, I didn’t want to hear that the man I loved, loved me back from the lips of a teenage girl.
“I think we need a minute,” I announced, already pushing out of my seat. “Can we—”
When I tipped my head toward the door to the wrap-around porch, Viktor nodded. He got up too and grabbed the bowl of oatmeal with honey and fruit that I’d almost dumped my whole head into, and when I went outside, he carried that too.
On the porch, I spun toward him.
When I scowled at the bowl, he shrugged. “You should eat.”
“I—”
He was worried about me eating. He’d brought a bowl outside to make sure that if I fell apart on the porch, I still got breakfast.
Unsure what to say, I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into me, stepping back until my shoulders hit Katya’s house. His mouth was on mine, sweet from the honey, and the bowl pressed against my hip, but I didn’t care.
Panting against his lips, I realized I was going to miss that werewolf stamina. “In case I wasn’t clear before, I do love you. Which I realize is absolutely bananapants and probably too fast, but I’m maybe just bananapants. Bananapants and proud.”
Viktor stared at me, and his lips began to spread across his face in a smile that stretched out forever. Next thing, he was laughing. Laughing.
I loved it when Viktor laughed, but it was even better when he slipped his arm around the back of my neck and drew me in to place a kiss on my forehead. I twined my arms around his hips, determined to pancake myself between his warm body and the wall of Katya’s home.
“I love you too,” he muttered. His lips tickled my cheekbone and his nose nudged against my temple.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep. I couldn’t smell as well as I could with the wolf, but that didn’t matter. All I was trying to do was let those words settle into my bones, because the first thing I wanted to say was that he couldn’t.
I wanted to deny it, not because I didn’t trust him. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have believed someone less serious saying something like that to me, even if I felt it too. But Viktor was steady and honorable and kind, and he’d never lie to me. Especially not about something this important.
If he didn’t feel the same, he’d have told me. He’d do the right thing. After having a part of his soul stuck inside me, I couldn’t doubt it.
The problem was that I—I couldn’t remember the last time someone had said they loved me and meant it. It was too natural to brace for the “but” after the sweet part—that barb that meant the kindness had never been genuine at all.
Maybe nobody had loved me since Ingeborg had forgotten herself.
I sucked in a shaky breath and dropped my forehead against Viktor’s shoulder. Tears dampened his shirt, but he didn’t say anything. He just rubbed my neck and kept me there.
One day, I hoped I wouldn’t be quite so full of tears, but then again, the last day—the last weeks, months, years, even—had been a fucking lot.
Maybe I was cringy, leaking my emotions all over the place, but I’d rather do that than shut them down, as long as I wasn’t hurting anybody.
Better to get them out and work through them than to stuff them down and get stuck.
And . . . well, maybe that wasn’t so bad. Viktor had his feelings locked down tight, but I’d made him laugh. Maybe even when I was crying, it was okay to show it, and if he ever felt like not holding on to the bad stuff, he’d be okay to share it with me.
I hoped so. I’d never be as strong as him—heck, especially now that I wasn’t holding onto his wolf—but if I could find a place to fit anyway, I wanted to.
When I was done crying, I sniffed and lifted my head. “I just need one thing from you.”
Viktor arched his brow in question.
“You can’t ever make me chop wood, okay? Never. I know how strong you werewolves are now, and that’d just be, like, totally unfair. If we need wood chopped, that’s all you. Deal?”
His responding smile was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. It crinkled his eyes in the corners and dimpled his cheeks. Wistfully, I reached out to slide my fingers through his dark, wavy hair.
“Deal. You’ll never, ever have to chop wood.”
“Perfect. And maybe—”
Okay, this one was harder. It was asking Viktor for something I didn’t know if he’d even want, but with my magic slipping easily on the threads still woven between us, with his wolf able to shift back and forth, I hoped it wasn’t totally out of the question.
When I hesitated too long, Viktor touched my cheek, his palm a warm, steady comfort. “What?”
“It’s just . . . werewolves have pack, and—and witches have a coven.
Which I—I obviously don’t anymore, but maybe .
. . would you maybe want to learn magic with me?
It’s just, if you can access it, you should know what to do with it, and, I don’t know, if a witchwolf is what Mother said, and we kind of make up one, we could . . . we could do a lot.”
Viktor had started to brush his thumb across my cheek while I rambled. When I was finished, he leaned down and captured my lips in a soft, undemanding kiss.
Even before he answered, it felt like acceptance.
I wasn’t alone anymore. I wouldn’t have to figure it out by myself, or test what we could do—what I could do—on my own.
I let out a dreamy sigh when he leaned back, and I couldn’t help tipping toward him.
“Absolutely,” Viktor said. “Let’s figure out what we can do.”
“After breakfast.” He was right. We both needed to eat.
And then maybe nap for a week.
But before I could think about either, Tristan came rushing around the side of the house, wide-eyed and startled.
“Ryan called,” he said, his eyes landing on me. “The coven wants to talk to you. They . . . I think you should hear them out.”
Viktor’s arm tightened around me, and I thought if the coven wanted any piece of me, they were going to have to go through a very intimidating werewolf to get it.