Page 169 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I don't change my expression. Don't shift my posture or do anything, really, except let the mask I wear for the rest of the world slip half an inch. Enough to show him the thing that lives underneath.

"You will?" I ask. "Like you did in Canada?"

Whiskey's grin falters.

"Yeah. Like in Canada," he croaks. "You know, you don't have to be that fuckin' menacing. I'm trying to have a moment here. Six months ago I was single, pissed off, and eating nachos at two AM. Now I've got a scent-matched omega upstairs, a pack full of feral idiots, and I just sucked off the prettiest alpha in the league while a Russian⁠—"

"Canadian."

"—while a suspiciously evasive alpha watched and took a selfie. My life is a goddamn fever dream. Are you ever gonna tell us the truth? About who you are?"

"Before I tell Ivy?" I ask. "No."

I've kept secrets from people who held knives to my throat. Kept them through blood and silence and years of practice. But the idea of telling her the truth about me makes me ill.

She accepts the truth of what Wraith is.

But Wraith is kind and good beneath the feral rage and… everything else.

Beneath my exterior lies only rot.

Whiskey's already arguing. "Not even after we⁠—"

"Don't," I warn him.

Plague's mouth twitches, clearly fighting back a smile. Or a smirk.

Perhaps it's the same for him.

"You're a mystery yourself," I remind him, tilting my head to look at him. "There's hardly anything about you online. A ghost among the Ghosts."

"Yeah, well, he's my mystery," Whiskey says, squeezing Plague hard enough to elicit a choking sound from the smaller alpha. "He can be as mysterious as he wants."

"Cute," I say flatly.

Plague glowers at him. "I don't need you to look out for me."

I feel my own lips tugging into a grin that's far less malicious than Whiskey deserves. "Then it's settled. When I tell Ivy everything, if she still wants to accept me into the pack, I'll tell you the truth, too. But Plague is going first."

Whiskey shrugs. "Fair."

Now Plague is glowering at both of us. "I didn't agree to that."

The silence stretches for exactly four seconds before Whiskey fills it.

"Too bad. You're outvoted."

"This isn't a democracy."

"It's literally a pack. That's the definition of a democracy."

"No, it isn't," Plague and I say at the same time.

We look at each other.

Look away.

Whiskey's grin threatens to split his face in half. "See? You're already finishing each other's sentences. That's a pack bond, baby."