Fire. I could burn him from the inside out.
I could eviscerate him with?—
Suddenly, Kosuke was in front of me, looking as corporeal as he ever had, and he was shaking his head. “No. Not like this, mago.”
“I know, you hate wolves, but I won’t?—”
“No,” he said, and he clasped his hands around mine. How was he doing that? “I do not hate your wolf. As it happens... you were right. I was incorrect, and choosing to remain ignorant, letting my previous experiences blind me to reality. But you cannot dishonor him and his people by breaking their rules for this. You have to do it the correct way, so that he can retain his dignity. Otherwise, what are you winning for? You don’t want him to feel shame for the way he survives this day.”
And . . . I didn’t. He was right.
As much as I gave literally zero fucks about honor and ethics in this situation, it would bother Jax forever if he won this fight in what he thought was the “wrong” way.
But how could I help him in a way that wolf laws said was “right”?
Fucking rules were for the birds, and I was a lot of things, but a bird was not one.
Kosuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath—or mimicked it, since as a man who’d been dead for a very long time, I doubted breathing was a thing he needed to do. I found myself unintentionally mimicking it as well, and realized that was his intention.
Maybe my great-great-grandfather had been a bit of a hothead too, and got how it worked.
Then he opened his eyes to meet mine, and motioned toward Aleks. “Go stand by him. I will show you how to heal him.”
I almost exploded with renewed annoyance. “How does that help Jax? That fuckwit is going to kill him because he doesn’t have a violent bone in his body, and?—”
“Your friend, this young blond wolf. Aleks? He has the instinct you need. And I hardly think he will allow the alpha’s attack on him to pass unanswered, do you?” I hesitated, because no, Aleks hadn’t struck me as the kind of guy who’d let someone smack him and not respond in kind. It was why Jax hadn’t known what to do with him. They were both that too-proud alpha type, and neither knew how to back down. Just, Jax needed me to step up and spill blood, and I doubted that Aleks needed someone else to do that for him.
Aleks’s injuries said that if Grant won, he wouldn’t have a pack anymore. And maybe he’d be satisfied to come join us, but... no he wouldn’t.
So I followed Kosuke over to Aleks, where the huge gray wolf still stood with bared fangs.
“Viktor,” Aleks mumbled, and blood dribbled from his lips. Fuck, he was seriously hurt. “The city wolves do not mean us harm.”
The gray wolf seemed to calm at that, but continued to eye me warily. For a second, I thought his gaze landed on Kosuke as well, so that was something to set aside for later.
I turned to Kosuke, who nodded to me and took another deep breath. He proceeded to show me, somehow making his magic visible to the naked eye, how to perform the most complex healing I’d ever imagined possible.
It was like the one Prudence had shown me, but on hard drugs. The magic was more difficult, but the way Kosuke showed me, it was... it was like weaving a Celtic knot of magic. It looked hard, but when you went one step at a time, it was as simple as tying your shoes.
I followed his every move, mimicking them with real magic, and pressing the magic into Aleks’s chest, which was... fuck that wound came close to his heart. If he’d been human, he’d have already been dead.
Heck, if he’d been a lot of wolves, he’d have been dead.
But the flesh wanted to heal, so when my magic worked its way into the heart of him, it took hold just like the fire I’d been imagining, and burned through him in a near-instant, making him jerk up, sucking in a quick breath, his eyes snapping open.
The gray wolf gave a little growl, but then leaned in, sniffing, and paused, looking over at me like I was something unexpected.
A second later, Aleks was jumping to his feet, his eyes blazing with anger and, I could have sworn, almost glowing bright blue with the magic I’d stuffed into him.
Across from me, Kosuke gave a smirk.
I lifted a brow, and he shrugged. “He hasn’t made a challenge yet. And he doesn’t know he’s got a healing spell still functioning inside him. No wolf law broken by his challenging his alpha like this.”
Tricky.
I stared at Kosuke even as Aleks roared right between us and then rushed off toward his alpha and mine.
“You really were the right guy to name me after,” I told my great-great-grandfather. “It took me a while to see it, but we have a lot in common.”
