Page 146 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Valek leans back against the wall without a word. His book is already open again before I fully register what happened, his silver eyes locked on Whiskey over the book and the cover angled carefully so the first thing Whiskey sees when he looks up is something that's going to make him say something crazy.

"Thanks," I mouth to Valek.

He inclines his head and the smile he gives me is a real one this time. It isn't wolfish or sarcastic, and it softens the angular planes of his face.

I keep typing. When I finish, I read it once, then send it to Thane with a whoosh sound from my phone.

The sound makes Whiskey look up.

"Hold on. Hold the fuck on. Have you been reading that this whole time? While the rest of us were having emotional breakthroughs? You've been sitting there reading Russian titty literature?"

Valek gives him a sharp grin, his eyes lighting up. "Would you like me to read it to you?"

I can't hold it in anymore. I laugh my fucking ass off, so hard and loud Wraith startles behind me and growls into my neck.

Thank the gods for Whiskey.

Chapter 30

Valek

The PR circus begins at seven.

And until then, we wait.

I've never been good at waiting. Waiting implies trust. Trust that things will unfold as planned, that variables have been accounted for, that the people around you won't do something catastrophically stupid in the interim.

Whiskey is in the room.

So.

The odds aren't great.

He's on the couch with his phone, scrolling with his thumb at a speed that suggests either superhuman visual processing or a complete absence of reading comprehension. Knowing him, it's both.

"Oh shit," he breathes.

Nobody responds.

"Oh SHIT."

"What," Plague says flatly from the other side of the couch, where he's been pretending to read something on his laptop for the last forty minutes. I know he's pretending because he hasn't scrolled once and he's been staring at the far wall.

Whiskey ignores him and angles his phone toward me instead.

I lean over from my armchair and glance at his screen.

Fan edit. Slow motion footage of me dismantling Wade Kelly on the ice, set to a bass-heavy Tchaikovsky remix with flashing lights and slow-motion effects. The timing is impeccable. Every hit lands on a beat. The knee goes on the drop.

"Three million views," Whiskey whispers reverently. "In sixteen hours."

"Turn it off," Plague says without looking up.

Whiskey keeps scrolling. "Oh, you're gonna love this one. Someone put the Wraith footage to⁠—"

"Do not show that to Wraith," I say quietly.

Whiskey's thumb stops.