Page 83 of Nightshade

The way he blinked, slow and with narrowed eyes, said he wasn’t entirely satisfied with that.

“I asked him to do it. Are you going to be mad at me?”

He whimpered, pulling me in tight.

“Okay,” I said, laughing and kissing his chest because his face was too high to reach easily. “Then you can’t be mad at him for trying to help me.”

Leo huffed, his nose flaring out, but I could feel when he let it go.

Still, when I turned to Viktor, Leo didn’t let me out of his arms. His enormous clawed hand splayed across my stomach and kept me pressed against him, and right then, I was rather happy to let him keep me close. Having his hand on me was settling in a way nothing else had ever been, and I was happy to place my palm on the back of his wrist and enjoy the softness of his fur while his pack—our pack?—took care of the rest.

“Viktor, would you . . . would you see him destroyed?”

Even dead, I didn’t want Ivan anywhere near these people. We’d been lucky that he’d only killed the one witch, but maybe it was more than that. The whole pack coming together to stand against him. It wasn’t easy to catch any of them, even little Evie, who was talking to Prudence in a quick, high tone of voice, excited to learn more about the potion she’d concocted out of my blood—the very one Evie had smashed over Ivan’s thick skull.

Viktor scowled down at Ivan. Seeing that expression turned on someone else was a relief. We were on the same side, and if I had my way, we always would be.

After all, he cared about keeping my darling safe more than just about anyone. I couldn’t fault him for it.

“Happily,” Viktor said with a grunt. He kicked Ivan’s head away from his body, like the cretin might somehow piece himself back together.

Cash put down his chainsaw to help direct the pack in gathering firewood while Viktor arranged the pyre. He tossed the head into the flames first, and the scent—I’d expected roasting meat, but just like the way we crisped in the sun, Ivan turned straight to ash. He was dry and dead on the inside, but he didn’t have Leo, his very own sunshine, to keep him alive.

I wouldn’t be like him. Not ever.

Leo didn’t move, and his arm locked around me meant I didn’t either. I leaned back against him and watched Ivan burn, watched his ash float up and disappear into the night sky like he’d never been.

It was strange, to be so happy and light, and also feel tears pooling in my eyes at the thought of everything that had happened. The nights in the garden chewing nightshade for relief, the pain, the isolation.

And now this, a whole pack around me watching as the devil that haunted me drifted away on the breeze.

Aleks came up to us, scowling first at me, then up at Leo.

“You all right?” he asked.

I thought he was talking to Leo, but then his eyes settled on me, scanned the blood smeared over my hands from fighting to grip glass. The wounds themselves had healed already, and Ivan was gone. It was hard to imagine being any better.

Leo’s arm tightened around my middle, and I couldn’t help giving a little smile. “We will be once things calm down. I think we just need to know the threat has passed, hm?” I looked up at Leo, and he sniffed.

Aleks was still watching me, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to say when I met his eye again. “I’m okay,” I promised.

I thought he might’ve given my shoulder a squeeze, but he glanced down at the possessive hand Leo kept on me and smiled instead. “All right, but if you’re not . . . ”

It’d be okay, even if I wasn’t. How bizarre, to have people to lean on.

How could I be anything but happy, knowing what I’d gained?

I nodded, and Aleks nodded back. Maybe in a pack like this, we’d never be the best at acknowledging things outright, but the hard times had made it easier to understand each other.

Aleks found his way to Cash, who was determined to watch, glaring, as the entire pile of firewood burnt to ash and took Ivan and that witch with it.

Me? I didn’t need to stay there and watch to be sure he was already gone. I could feel it in the clarity in my head and that pulse that said all that was left was my bond to Leo.

I slipped my hands around his oversized one and eased it off of me, only to keep hold of it and turn and walk backward to the house. “Come with me?”

Leo huffed and took a jolting, awkward step, but when I took another back, he followed.

We took it slow back to Katya’s porch, but the stairs seemed no more issue than the ground had. It was simply that these weren’t legs Leo was used to standing on without his front paws to balance him.