It was bloody. Oh fuck, I was getting blood on him.
I tried to pull away, and he held my hand tighter. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It was right. You didright.”
I stared into his dark, earnest eyes.
At home, among my own pack, I might have fallen apart, but we were standing there with a pack that’d just challenged us. I couldn’t afford to. I had to hold myself together.
I squeezed Dakota’s hand back and nodded. I was fine. I’d be fine.
I blinked, no doubt pale and strange looking, at Aleks. His jaw was clenched, but when he met my eye, he puffed out a slow breath. All I saw in his eyes was understanding and gratitude.
Tension ripped through the air around us, but between us? Nothing. I had nothing that he wanted to take, and he had nothing for me.
Between two other packs, this very easily could have turned into a scrap over bones, but that wouldn’t be us. My pack didn’t need bones. In fact, we had more than enough to share.
“Hey,” Aleks stepped closer to me and this time he was the one to stick out his hand. “We will need to work together, yes? To make these shit American laws better. Make those assholes out there see us as we are, not like—” He waved his free hand rather than the one he was holding out in offering, toward Grant’s body like it was nothing more than a heap of trash.
I couldn’t say I disagreed.
“Your pack, and mine,” Aleks went on. “Together. We will change things, step by step.”
My lips twitched upward. I wasn’t sure I liked Aleks, but I could respect how he moved. He was setting up clear expectations, diffusing the tension in the wolves around us who didn’t know how we’d react to one another now that Grant was out of the way.
He was clever. He’d make a good leader for the Wildwood pack.
Fuck, I hoped he’d be a good leader for the pack, because no part of me wanted to look backward. With Dakota and my family and the Crescent pack, I only wanted to move forward.
Firmly, I placed my hand in his and shook it. “I’d like that.”
When we let go, Aleks was grinning in that way that I’d learned meant trouble. “Yes, what will we do with all my intelligence and all...” He looked me over like he wasn’t quite sure what I had to offer, and strangely, it just made me want to laugh. “Your millions of dollars? It will be so hard to change the world with our many impressive assets.”
Seth snorted. “Billions.”
Aleks rounded on me, his eyes wide enough I could see his full, round irises. “Billions?” he demanded. “You havebillions?”
I nodded, unsure whether to laugh, apologize, or stand taller about it.
Aleks rolled his eyes. “What the fuck does a werewolf need withbillions?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I wasn’t sure either.
The only thing I’d been certain of for all my life was that I needed the people I loved to be safe and to have the opportunities they deserved, and I didn’t want to make the world worse.
Maybe I needed to shoot higher.
He walked around in a slow circle, shaking his head. “Well,” he said, finally coming to a stop with his hands on his hips, “wewill have plenty to work with. Clearly, you do not know what to do with it. I will tell you.”
Dakota laughed. “We can discuss it, sure, but it’ll be our decision what our pack does.”
“Yes, but you know good ideas when you hear them. I have plenty. You will see.” He turned toward his pack and spread his arms. “We will show them, yes? Remind them what wolves do.”
There was a ripple through the other wolves, but one by one, they began to nod. The gray wolf howled.
Aleks would be fine. We could all move forward.
He started back to his pack, and I stopped him with a light hand on his back. “Aleks?”
“Hm?” He looked at me over his shoulder, brow arched.
