Page 114 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Can you just tell me where you are?

VALEK

Sulking in the maintenance tunnels.

Now you've got two mates with the same coping mechanism.

Congratulations.

UNKNOWN

Thanks! So do I. The three of us can hide together when we get back to the pack house.

There's a perfect hall closet that comes preloaded with blankets.

Musty blankets, but… still.

I scoff a laugh in spite of myself.

UNKNOWN

You coming?

VALEK

Fine.

But only because you asked so nicely.

She doesn't respond to that, even though I wait for a solid minute, which torments me all over again.

I slip the phone back into my pocket and growl on my way back toward the locker room, tracking the sound of the pack moving through the tunnels themselves.

I catch up with them by a side door. Thane's already pushing through, checking the alley beyond for press or fans or any of the other vultures that circle moments like this.

No one acknowledges me when I fall into step behind them.

The threat of rain hangs heavy in the darkness, that smell that warns the sky is about to open up and drown everything beneath it.

Thane takes point, shoulders squared, jaw set, every inch the pack leader even when his pack is in shambles. Whiskey and Plague flank him in silence.

And at the center, protected on all sides, is Ivy.

Wraith is in step beside her, lagging slightly behind, ever the protective shadow. Their hands are intertwined. She has to crane her neck to look up at him. He has to hunch down to maintain the connection.

The bandages wrapped around his lower face are bright in the streetlight. He looks less like the feral nightmare that tore into Wade Kelly and more like what he actually is. A damaged man who just had his own nightmares confirmed.

I know the feeling.

I bring up the rear and Ivy glances back at me.

Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second before she turns away again.

I notice.

I hate that I notice.

Thane unlocks the front door when we reach the pack house and holds it open, gesturing for everyone to file through. Ivy and Wraith enter first, Ivy still holding Wraith's hand, Wraith ducking his head to slip through the doorframe that's almost too low for an alpha his height.