Page 7 of Oakheart

Katya smiled at me softly and patted my cheek.

I spun to find Aleks and Leo standing behind me, off across the clearing, waiting patiently. Leo had a broad grin on his face and Aleks looked somewhat uncomfortable, but whatever the reason was, I didn’t know it.

He shook himself when I looked his way. When he smiled, it was more smug than Leo’s, but it lacked the sharp bite I would’ve expected from the alpha’s heir.

“We have found much wood,” Aleks said.

I didn’t think he meant it the way it sounded, but heat rushed into my face nonetheless.

“That’s great!” My voice pitched high. Leo hid a laugh behind a cough. “Really, that’s”—I stepped around the log I’d been sitting on with Katya—“that’s really helpful. Let’s go look at what you found.”

It turned out, they’d listened well. Almost all the trees they’d marked were usable, all approximately the same diameter, and the one or two that didn’t work, well, they asked me why. They weren’t derisive about it either, but curious and eager to learn.

The less we had to shape the wood, the faster this would go, and from what Katya had said, speed was her primary concern. She wanted out of Grant’s house, and I could hardly blame her, so I’d strip the full logs and treat them, and build her cabin out of that, rather than carve down individual boards.

This wasn’t a house for humans, after all. We didn’t even have proper electricity out here, just generators that ran on propane for emergencies.

I wanted Katya to like it, and I meant to make it as nice as I could, but no one was going to be out here trying to one-up their neighbor with their ostentatious entryways or perfectly manicured lawns.

When we went through the last tree, I nodded at the pair of them. “You did great. Thank you, really. Not having to go through this alone makes my job a heck of a lot easier.”

“And we will take them down,” Aleks said seriously.

I let out a little sigh, because yeah, that’d make my life a hell of a lot easier too. With Freddie, we’d just gone out and bought supplies. Providing them ourselves would be a lot.

“Thank you. Pa has a chainsaw we can borrow. It’s been a while since anyone used it, I think, but I’ll make sure it’s inworking condition and gassed up for tomorrow. We can start after breakfast.”

“Breakfast,” Aleks echoed. “Come to the big house and we will feed you and go from there, yes?”

Part of me wanted to say no. I didn’t want to risk getting any closer to Grant than I had to.

But then, he was looking at me all stable and serious, and I thought I was being a fool and an asshole to turn him down. If Grant had brought Katya and Aleks back, it stood to reason that Aleks would be alpha of the pack one day. We might even get along. And he was?—

Okay, he didn’tlookanything like Grant or Reeve. He looked like his ma, beautiful and golden. His smile didn’t make my skin crawl the way his pa’s and uncle’s did.

It wouldn’t be fair to lump him in with them, right? And it had absolutely nothing to do with the way he’d smirked when he caught me looking him over.

Nothing.

“How about you come over to Pa’s place instead?” I suggested. “We’ll have breakfast, but all my tools are there, so you can help me carry them.”

Aleks beamed like I’d handed him a gift rather than asked him to carry toolboxes. “Yes, perfect. We will be there first thing.”

CHAPTER 4

Aleks

He cared about my mother.Sat with her while Leo and I worked, his whole body facing her, expression open and hopeful and utterly angelic.

Because he was an angel, I decided as I was marking a tree behind where they sat. I didn’t know how such a perfect, sweet person had come up in the Wildwood pack, since on the whole we were a jaded, miserable lot who expected the worst and always got just that.

“Perhaps when he is done with Mama’s house, he will build a house for you,” Leo said behind me, sounding too amused.

Damned brothers.

I turned a glare on him. “I will live with Mama, as I always have.”

He lifted one dark brow over an equally dark brown eye. “Do you think Mama will approve of this? Of you”—he paused, searching for a word, then grinning in triumph—“railing her carpenter inside her home?”