Page 55 of Oakheart

I was already antsy from the whole damned San Francisco pack smelling just slightly like Cash, whom I wanted to see more than anything. Except... it had been days. Why was his scent still mingled with blood and pain?

Because Grant was the worst alpha ever, that was why.

Before I could distract myself too much, the witchwolf pulled off a coup with just one motion. Rolling his head all the way to one side, submitting to Fyse.

It was almost laughable, the way he was obviously still in control of the pack, even in the middle of submitting to its alpha, and it put me to mind of Mama and her quiet strength. The way she took people in when they came looking for advice, and gave them tea and let them talk about their problems. Or of Cash, even more quiet, who was slowly building the pack new homes to replace the old broken-down ones we currently lived in. The way Evie would just sit with him at his work site, or help him byholding things as he worked on them, without a word. Another kind of basic support: simply existing in the same space. There was a healing magic to it. A togetherness that people needed.

I barely remembered my father, but what I did remember about him was violence, quick and hot, in bright flashes of memory that ended with us sneaking away in the night. Then there had been the absolute rule of my grandfather over his own pack in Russia, until it had been destroyed by the government raids. No one had ever questioned him, even on tiny things, not even when he was clearly wrong. He was alpha, and he knew and controlled all, even when he didn’t. We’d been outsiders in the pack in Russia, because my grandfather thought Mama leaving her violent husband was a failure on her part, not his. She should have soothed the savage beast, or whatever nonsense it was the older generations thought about abuse.

And now there was Grant, with his pack of goons who enforced his every whim. Even when I could clearly see that he was wrong and everyone in the pack knew it, no one said a word, too afraid of what would happen.

Cash’s scent, mingled with blood and pain.

And here, in front of us, was the San Francisco pack. Crescent, they called themselves. Like the first thin sliver hanging in the night sky after the dark of the moon. Like hope. I couldn’t have stifled my grin at the scene even if Grant had been looking right at me.

This was how a pack should work, I realized with the complete clarity of a bell ringing through my head. This give and take. This trust. The witchwolf—Dakota—being entirely in charge even as he handed authority back to his alpha.

I would have stood there like a dope, staring off into space and grinning, through the whole fight, if my eyes hadn’t snagged on something out of place: Giselle.

Sneaking around the small lake toward the Crescent pack’s house.

What was that awful woman up to now? These wolves didn’t seem to have children for her to abuse, so she could have no purpose there. Not that abusing someone else’s children was a good purpose to begin with.

I glanced around to make sure no one was looking at me, and of course they weren’t. They were all riveted on the scene before them, of Grant fighting for his life. I couldn’t have cared less about the duel if I’d tried. If Grant survived, which seemed quite unlikely, I would kill him myself later.

Or Viktor would. Regardless, Grant would die.

When I came around the water and headed behind the back of the house, it wasn’t hard to tell what Giselle was up to. She was literally setting the house ablaze, right in that moment. I saw with my own eyes as she swiped a match, cursing, since apparently she’d had to do it repeatedly—the stink of Dakota’s magic continued to hang around her, and she kept having these problems—and then tossed it onto a bush that reeked of gasoline.

“Giselle,” I hissed, not even sure what the hell I was going to follow that up with. No doubt she was following orders from Grant, doing this. A distraction so he could cheat on the challenge?

Her had snapped up, and instead of responding to me, her eyes went wide, and she turned and ran—right into the building she’d just set alight.

What could she be thinking? Surely no amount of rage in my eyes could warrant runningintoa burning house.

I had a sudden flash of memory as I stood there. Lights in a few windows of the enormous house. There had been people in the house Giselle was setting on fire. I rushed after her, nolonger interested in the awful woman herself, but in the people she might be hurting.

A second later I realized my mistake. Giselle hadn’t been getting started when I’d found her. She’d been finishing up. The house was already ablaze on the inside.

It made her actions, running in, make even less sense. It also made my immediate job more urgent.

“Fire!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, not because I thought it was likeliest to get attention, but because it was the only damned thing I could bring to mind in English in the moment. It wouldn’t help anyone if I reverted to Russian in the stress of the disaster.

I drew a breath to shout again, and was almost immediately overcome by hot, ashy smoke, filling my lungs, burning and choking. I’d never been in a fire before, never realized... no wonder people panicked.

I was doubled over, coughing, even as my lungs healed, and then immediately filled with damaging smoke again.

I tried to recall how I’d been told to deal with this: by Viktor, of course, who was prepared for all things. I crouched low, able to get a clean breath from down there, and shouted again.

The room I was in, some kind of mudroom, wasn’t accessible anymore. Everything around it was on fire. I had to find another way into the house. I went back out, and circled the place, looking for the most convenient route inside. The others had noticed the fire and started moving toward the house, so I had to push past them when I finally spotted a door that wasn’t enveloped in flames.

This part of the house wasn’t in such bad shape yet, so I took a moment to shout again, trying to get a response, to see if someone could let me know where they were, so I could help.

There was a scream off to my left, and I recognized Giselle’s voice.

I turned and went into that room, and found that the floor above had already collapsed into the room. A huge beam pinned Giselle to the floor. She was panicking, scrabbling at the wood but only managing to loosen splinters of it with her claws. She turned and saw me there, meeting my eye with desperate hope, but when she tried to draw a breath to call to me, she started to cough.

I had considered her for only a second when I heard another voice, farther away, calling out. Another woman.