Page 23 of Oakheart

I glanced among the women with her—the young man was like me, no longer paying attention, looking bored to death. The women were all aflutter, very like the cartoon characters I’d been imagining. One of them, though, the blonde one who had practically groped me when they had arrived, was staring at me with a strange, intense look in her eyes.

“Excellent choice,” Grant said, his voice strange and bright, like he was trying to sell something rather than just having a conversation with a person. “He’s a strong wolf. He’ll be alpha of the Wildwood pack someday.” He met the woman’s eye, leaning his head forward.

Extolling the virtues of a car he was trying to sell her.

I was tempted to caution her that I didn’t even have heated seats and wasn’t a good long-term investment.

But they weren’t looking for a long-term investment. Grant was just selling my ass for one night, and if he convinced her I was the top-of-the-line model, he could charge her extra for it.

They started talking business then, and we were all dismissed. The deed would be arranged for another night; something advantageous magically for... whatever the hell it was the witches were up to. I personally found it suspicious, but the first time Grant had sold me to witches for some magical ritual, I’d been sixteen, and I hadn’t died in the intervening years, so I worried less now.

Mostly, I wanted to go take the longest, hottest shower known to man.

It had been one of the only benefits of the trip to get Viktor: hotels had hot running water.

That had been nearly a year ago now, though, and hot showers were the stuff of dreams once again. I started toward the clearing where Cash, Viktor, and Leo were still working on the house, but took a detour halfway there.

I couldn’t show up like this.

Stinking of witches, their hands having been all over me.

Hot showers weren’t an option, so I simply headed for the river. I stripped off my shirt as I went, settling it over one shoulder.

It wasn’t like they needed my help on the house. They had spent the last year together, building. None of them were required at Grant’s meetings, where he sold us for... well, I had no idea what. I didn’t question it, and I didn’t protest, because he had paid to get Mama safe. Had paid for Leo’s papers. Had paid for our trip to retrieve Viktor.

I owed him.

Maybe I didn’t want to pay with my cock, but what else did I have to pay with? I wasn’t the smartest wolf, didn’t have a skilllike Cash. All I had was a somewhat pretty face, a good body, and an accent that the little witches seemed to swoon over.

I stripped off my jeans and dropped my clothes on the ground before heading right into the water, leaving just my boxers on to avoid any possible awkward encounters with the pack youngsters. Maybe I’d been exposed to naked people and sexual situations as a child, but it didn’t mean I had to return the favor for the younger generation.

Let them be children for as long as they could be, I thought.

I stepped into the freezing water, and it was... well, it was no hot shower, but it was still very nice. I could almost feel their sticky little fingerprints wash away in the flowing water. No, the fingerprints weren’t real, and if they had left marks on me, they were permanent marks on my screwed-up mind, but what mattered was that I felt better in the water. Cleaner. Safer. Less like a thing and more like myself.

I closed my eyes and knelt in the river, letting it flow over me, only leaving my head above water.

Voices drifted on the spring breeze, and at first, I thought it was Cash and Leo, but it... it wasn’t. It was Cash, yes, his lilting voice unmistakable. But the other voice wasn’t Leo at all. It was lower than Leo’s voice, not as filled with light and laughter.

I stood without leaving the water and walked around the bend in the river, toward the voices.

What I found took my breath away.

Cash, half naked and in the water. Viktor, floating on his back nearby. “It’s warmer here,” he was saying. “I like it. The land is good, and the people are... sad, but kinder than they were back in Russia.”

Talking. Viktor was talking.

To Cash.

An irrational stab of jealousy shot through me, over both of them. Viktor was my brother, and in the near year since he’dreturned, he hadn’t spoken to me. Cash was... Cash. And he was here, taking a bath in the river with Viktor instead of... of...

“Hello, Aleks,” Viktor said, without opening his eyes or even moving. “Are you all right? You stink of witches. I’ll kill them for you if you like.”

Cash whipped around in the water so fast that he made a huge splash that reached as far as my face, his green eyes wide and terrified.

For a moment, we simply stood there staring at each other, while Viktor lazily floated on in the background.

CHAPTER 13