Page 255 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

He signs one-handed, his other arm still wrapped around my waist. Yes. You're very beautiful.

I push against him playfully. "I mean the marks."

YOU. All of you.

"Cornball."

His chest shakes with that silent laugh.

"They are very nice."

Valek's voice comes from the armchair across the room, where he's been sitting so still and quiet I almost forgot he was there. His long legs are crossed at the ankle, a paperback open on his knee, silver eyes fixed on the page.

He hasn't looked up once.

Hasn't moved, either, except to turn pages.

He's been like this since we got back. Present but distant. Orbiting the pack at a wider radius than usual, which is saying something for an alpha who already keeps the emotional equivalent of a crocodile-filled moat around himself.

"Thanks, Valek," I say with a smile.

He turns a page.

I want to know what's bothering him, but when I asked him, he just muttered "bad dream" and wouldn't elaborate. Everything about his posture says don't push it. The crossed ankles, the book angled like a shield, how he hasn't once shifted his weight since I sat down.

He's locked in tight. Pushing him now would just make him seal the door.

Later, then. When he's not braced for it.

It isn't the right time anyway. Right now, all I can think about is how Wraith isn't purring, he's wearing his mask again, and the fresh marks on my shoulder are all tugging when I'm near the alphas who made them, like compass needles finding north.

They're pulling me in every direction right now, and two are still missing.

Wraith adjusts me in his lap, pulling me closer, and winces.

The wince is subtle. A tightening around his eyes, a fractional shift of his jaw. If I wasn't sitting on him, I'd have missed it.

But I am sitting on him.

"Hey." I twist around fully, straddling his thighs so I can face him. "Let me see."

He shakes his head.

"Wraith."

His scarred hands come up. I'm fine.

"You winced."

Muscle spasm.

"You are a terrible liar." I add in a whisper only he can hear, "Misha."

His eyes narrow slightly above his mask, but there's no heat in it. Just the stubborn, frustrated look of an alpha who hates admitting when something hurts.

But he's been adjusting it every few minutes. Tugging it away from his jaw, shifting it, pulling it down a fraction and then immediately yanking it back up.

I reach for the mask and stop with my fingers at the top edge of the fabric, hovering.