Page 232 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Hmm.

No mask tonight. We're going to a restaurant anyway.

I fold it and put it back in the drawer.

My phone buzzes and I glance at it sideways, the elastic between my teeth while I pull my hair back into another tail, already knowing what it is before I look.

THANE

Wade's PR team released a new statement.

Check the thread.

Beat you to it, Captain.

I've been tracking Wade Kelly's media strategy all day. He's been all over social media since this morning, so apparently, someone's feeling better. His first coherent act was calling his publicist.

Miraculously, he hasn't complained about being visited in the night by Whiskey and Valek. He's not completely stupid, apparently.

The angle is predictable. He's portraying the sympathetic victim, complete with quivering swollen lower lip on the videos he's taking from his hospital bed, IV in full view every time.

Would a stable omega reject a bond?

Would a healthy person burn their own skin with a flat iron and hide in a tunnel?

Would an omega terrified of alphas feel safe with a feral alpha like Wraith?

The legal fight already broke against him. Ivy's testimony, Wraith spilling everything in his statement, the pack's unified front under alpha instinct defense… that part is over.

But Wade doesn't need to win in court.

He needs to win in public perception, because public perception feeds the league review board, and the board decides what happens to the pack.

The smear campaign leans hardest on the burned mark. Evidence of self-harm. Concerning behavior that raises questions about the legitimacy of claimed scent matches.

The implication being that Ivy is too damaged to know what she wants. That the pack took advantage of a vulnerable omega. That Wraith—the feral "monster" who mauled America's golden boy on live television—is the predator, not the protector.

Rage has been bubbling behind my sternum since the moment I first turned my phone on when I woke up this morning.

It's why I spent today researching instead of doom-scrolling. I've been reading clinical papers since dawn, cross-referencing databases and international pharmaceutical registries, and I found what I was looking for around noon.

Because Wade's narrative only works if Wraith stays vulnerable. If the league has reason to believe Wraith is unstable, deteriorating, one bad game away from going fully feral on live television again.

If there's something that might help, it takes the teeth out of every argument Wade's team seems to be building.

And it might save Wraith in the process.

I need to talk to him before I leave.

I head down to the kitchen, since that's where I last saw him rummaging through the fridge. He's standing at the counter in a black tank, cutting fruit with a knife too large for the task. His scarf is looped loose around his neck, but it isn't covering his lower face. The bandage on the sutured side has been changed recently.

Ivy's work.

It's neater than mine, I notice, pleased.

He glances up, his eyes sweeping over me.

You look nice, he signs.