Page 160 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"So," he says.

"So."

"What were y'all saying over there?"

"Nothing worth repeating."

"Uh-huh."

I move toward the hallway. The migraine is pulsing behind my left eye now, a steady throb that syncs with my heartbeat, and I have a plan that involves a shower and a closed door and a bare minimum of ten hours of not looking at either of these alphas.

"Plague."

Whiskey's quiet, which is not a mode he normally operates in. It would be more realistic for Whiskey to suddenly transform into a fucking unicorn. It means something has gotten under his skin and he can't joke it away fast enough to pretend it didn't.

I stop in the doorway without turning around.

"What?"

"What were you talking about?"

"Languages."

"Try again."

My jaw tightens. I turn slowly. He's still on the floor, but he's sat fully up now, shoulders squared, face tilted up at me with an expression that is unfairly soft for someone who just shoved a whole spring roll in his mouth.

Like a…

Ugh. Fucking STOP IT, brain.

"It was nothing, Whiskey. Drop it."

"He told me not to tease you," Valek says from the armchair.

My head snaps toward him.

He sounds untroubled, smooth, as if he's commenting on the weather and not starting shit I'd prefer to keep buried under forty feet of concrete.

He hasn't looked up from his book. But his mouth is curved in that faint, knowing way that says he knows exactly what he just did and is unbothered by the consequences.

"Valek."

"What? I'm not teasing him now." He turns a page. "I'm telling him the truth, which is different."

Whiskey is still watching me. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. I adjust my laptop against my ribs and stare at a point somewhere above his left ear because if I look at him directly, I'll see whatever expression he's making right now, and I'm not equipped for whatever that expression might be.

Puppy eyes, probably.

Gods fucking damn it.

Whiskey pushes himself to his feet. The movement is slower than his usual chaotic energy, and when he straightens to his full height, he moves to put himself between me and the hallway.

His honey-brown eyes are too soft. Too searching. Too fucking everything.

"What the fuck is going on?" Whiskey asks. His voice is still quiet. Still that wrong register that doesn't belong to him. "Between the three of us."

"Oh? It's the three of us now?" I arch an eyebrow. "I have no idea what you're talking about."