Page 88 of Oakheart

In retrospect, the thought alone made my heart race and my palms sticky with sweat, but it’d been right. The pack had been proud.

As far as I could tell, Viktor was all right.

Maybe the spell just didn’t work on werewolves the way that the witch had intended. Maybe Viktor was just especially hardy and knew it already. Nobody knew what kind of shit he’d faced back in Russia, but maybe he had some reason to think he’d shake off a witch’s curse.

More likely, I thought Viktor cared about his family more than he cared about his own life, but either way, it seemed like we’d gotten lucky.

Now that everyone who belonged here was home and the pack was fed, there was work to do. We cleared out the old big house, making room for people who wanted to stay together. Unlike other supernatural creatures, wolves relied on each other. In trying times, we needed the closeness of pack.

At least, that’s what Pa said.

It’d always made me nervous to have so many people around, but watching how the pack gathered and worked together, I thought he might be right.

While people cleared out Grant and his old enforcer’s things, divvying up resources where they best belonged, I wandered to the clearing we’d made for Grant’s new house.

It could be Aleks’s home now. It could be anything.

I no longer had to make it something that would satisfy a man I hated. And I knew Aleks—knew him to my marrow. He wouldn’t care what I made of this place, so long as it served the pack.

We had a space in Katya’s home for as long as we needed it, and even if I worried I was imposing, well, his family accepted me as one of their own. Her home was right near Pa’s smaller cabin. I wanted to stay close, and for the privilege, I’d make myself useful.

But there was more to plan. Our ramshackle homes around the square had been built by circumstance and necessity. No planning had gone into it, but I could plan now—where we could dig wells, where the community would gather, what Aleks needed to effectively lead us to better days.

I spent the day not wiping away the past, but planning for the future. Aleks came up to me in the late afternoon as I was sittingon Katya’s porch, a cheap yellow legal pad on my lap, covered in sketches of what I thought we might do.

“If we cleared here and here”—I pointed to the places on my sketch, but then raised my pencil to indicate the real space in front of us—“we could make a couple of short roads for homes. When the pack grows, we build them out to where the main buildings are now, then connect them. One big loop so no one feels disconnected or shoved out to the edges. By then we’ll have a chance to tear down the old buildings and rebuild.”

Aleks tipped his head as he sat beside me. I knew he saw me, that I was trying to keep anyone from ever feeling how I’d felt all these years, an outsider, unwanted and in constant danger.

But all he did was smile, his blue eyes glistening, and he leaned in for a soft kiss. “Sounds wonderful.”

That was it. He didn’t question me, didn’t offer other plans. He had enough on his plate, and he trusted me with this.

That trust was staggering.

And yes, I talked my plans over with Pa the next day because I wanted to make sure they were right.

Viktor seemed fine, but that didn’t stop Aleks from calling Dakota. Well, he called him, but he was anxious for his brother.

It was Katya who did most of the talking, and truth told, I thought she was the only reason Jax and Dakota hadn’t jumped on a plane to Idaho. It was nice to have their support, but the pack didn’t need another alpha walking around with a claim to leadership, even if Jax had no interest in running this pack.

With what I knew he’d seen back when he’d been part of the Wildwood pack himself, I was certain he wouldn’t send his mate out here alone. But Dakota checked in with Prudence, and all parties agreed that while Viktor remained healthy and normal, there was no sense in stressing too much about it. Werewolves were hardy, and there’d be time to save him if anything went wrong.

Days passed, and he continued to seem fine. He had more stamina than anyone else when it came to working, and with a few changes, we got back to work on the new big house, which wasn’t going to be for the alpha anymore. It was going to serve the people—one place where those who wanted the safety of being close together could live in harmony. Aleks said he didn’t need a house that big and certainly didn’t plan on consolidating power within it.

One night, my biceps aching from stripping logs all day, I trudged back to Katya’s house only to find the twins and their mother sitting at the table, staring at me like I wasn’t supposed to be there.

At first, my heart clenched hard. Wasn’t I? I’d been staying with them for over a week now, and no one had complained, but maybe I’d overstayed my welcome.

Fuck, maybe I imagined all that. I’d half convinced myself that nothing was as good as I thought it was, that I was just building dreams around myself, when I asked, “Where’s Aleks?”

Katya blinked, but Leo’s face broke into a wide grin. “Out at the overhang,” he said. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Oh.”

Okay, so that wasn’t so terrible, even though I didn’t know what he wanted out there.

It was a little behind Pa and Katya’s houses, sort of between them. You could see their homes through the trees, but in the quiet, it felt private.