Page 33 of Oakheart

The only problem with that, was that I wasn’t sure Grant’s goons would follow pack law and let a challenge go on as it was supposed to. He’d surrounded himself with them for a reason, after all.

My father had been a huge singular target. Sure, he’d had big strong men in the pack who would have defended him from interlopers to the death. But Grant had done something different. He’d built a sort of cult of personality around himself, to the point where his followers thought that things in the pack were great, and no one else could possibly lead us as well as my uncle did.

Even as we were forced to more desperate measures to keep the pack houses from collapsing, and the letters we got from the government about taxes on the land went from black lettering to red, they continued to believe that Grant was some kind of perfect creature who did no wrong and would never lead us astray.

And then there was Avery.

He was just another of Grant’s goons, and it was just another Wednesday, another meeting with the witches from Boise. Another young witch sizing up which of Grant’s pack she liked the look of best.

Avery was no one I liked especially. He was as much a bully and an ass as the rest of them, no better or worse than average. Maybe better than Marcus and worse than Tommy. Maybe.

The witch in question wasn’t quite like the others had been. Most of them were giggly and coy, clearly choosing a wolf based on which she thought was most attractive. This one was colder.Harder. Calculated. She’d watched Grant’s reaction each time she’d approached one of us, and unless I missed my mark, she had chosen Avery because Grant had been least interested when she’d approached him.

And then he hadn’t come back the next day.

A single witch had returned in one of their shiny black SUVs, along with a briefcase that she’d handed to Grant. She’d spoken to him briefly, and he hadn’t said a word to the pack.

I watched the SUV leave, and turned around and walked into the woods.

I got to the clearing eventually, even though I had no idea where I was going, or why, and found Viktor and Cash working on the walls of the second house, one much smaller than the one Cash had made for Mama nearby. I could hear her inside in the kitchen, talking to Leo, but Viktor and Cash were working a little ways away.

Viktor’s eyes narrowed the moment he saw me, but Cash had been the first to drop everything and rush at me. “Aleks? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

For a moment, all I could do was breathe. How could I explain? I knew. No one had told me, but I knew. But how did I say it without sounding insane? Instead of thinking it through and presenting a reasonable argument, it simply tumbled out. “Avery is dead. The witches killed him. He’s not coming back.”

Cash, who was in the process of wrapping himself around me, blinked up at me owlishly, confused, but it didn’t stop him from trying to hug the stuffing out of me. “What happened? I don’t... was he helping them with something?”

Behind him, Viktor snorted.

Cash, without disengaging from me, turned his head to look at Viktor. “What? I don’t understand.”

Viktor looked up at me, his eyes narrowing in thought for a moment. “I believe the word is prostitution. He is prostitutingthem to the witches. Perhaps sexual abuse is a better term? Aleks was a child when it began, after all.”

With that, Cash did let me go, whipping around to stare at Viktor, then turning back to me, those wide green eyes wet and lips tremulous.

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I felt... well, bereft. I wanted Cash to hug me again. But Viktor was telling him the things I’d never wanted to talk about, and making them sound like... “Is not important,” I said, but for some reason, my voice came out weak, the accent thicker than usual.

I didn’t know why. It was fine. I was fine. My life could have been so much worse. Right?

Cash did wrap his arms around me again, so tight I could barely breathe. No one said anything else for a long time after that.

In the pack, no one ever mentioned Avery again.

CHAPTER 17

Cash

I was an idiot.The biggest dumbass to ever walk the face of this cursed fucking rock.

I should have known. As soon as Viktor said it, everything clicked into place—why I’d never seen Aleks walking around our settlement arm in arm with anybody else, witch or otherwise.

It wasn’t that he liked to play the field. He just didn’t have any choice.

I didn’t know why I thought it’d be any different, why I’d assumed it was just the girls and not... noteveryone. Anyone that Grant could use to consolidate his own power, he would. He wasn’t the strongest wolf out there, wasn’t even the strongest wolf in the pack, but he’d placated enough of them with favors that turned my stomach.

And I’d?—

I knew I hadn’t forced Aleks’s hand, but when had he ever had the choices he deserved? Maybe he hadn’t realized he could say no. Now that I realized being Grant’s “heir” simply meant being a tool he kept near at hand, I worried that I’d done the wrong thing, the one time we were together.