Page 304 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

I let him finish, listening quietly.

"Ivan would have killed Ilya. The staff were…" He swallows, his voice roughening. "They were doing what they were doing, and no one was going to stop them. So I did."

"You were a child."

"I was old enough to know what I was doing. And I'd do it again. Every time. Without hesitation. And I would enjoy it. That's what I mean when I say I'm broken, Ivy. Not that I regret it, or that I carry guilt. I don't."

"Val—"

"I carry nothing, Ivy," he grits out, his lips curling around the words. "The place where something is supposed to be is just…" He taps the center of his chest with two fingers. "Empty."

I reach across the table and wrap my hands around his. Both of them. He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't curl his hand around mine, either.

“Don't,” he says hoarsely. "Whatever you're about to say⁠—"

"I'm not going to tell you that you're secretly good and whole and just need the right person to fix you." I squeeze his hands. "That's not what I think."

He blinks.

"I think you did what you had to do to survive in a place where nobody else was going to save you." I press my thumbs into the backs of his hands, feeling the hard bones beneath. "I think the empty space you're describing is what happens when you have to hollow yourself out just to stay alive long enough to get somewhere better."

His jaw works as he watches me. Like his very life depends on this.

"I can't fill it," I tell him honestly. "I'm not going to tell you I can. I don't even think that's how it works."

Valek's eyes drop to our joined hands on the table, opening his mouth like he’s going to speak, but he closes it.

"But… maybe," I say quietly, "you don't have to feel so alone in it anymore."

He doesn't say anything.

I nudge the sundae toward him. "Now eat. I had to fight an alpha through the woods and a river, and I need dessert."

He stares at it, spacing out, and for a second, I’m not sure if he heard me.

Then his eyes lift to mine, and his lips twist into an unusually lopsided smile for him. He pushes his damp hair back from his face, shaking his head with a soft, surprised laugh that's unlike anything I've ever heard from him.

But he picks up his spoon.

Chapter 63

Valek

The pack house lights are on when we make it home.

All of them.

"Oh no," Ivy croaks.

I look at the house, then at her.

"They were supposed to be asleep," she says.

"They were never going to be asleep, Ivy. They’re alphas."

She groans, but I know she was well aware they weren't going to be asleep. Through the bond, I can somehow feel her hoping, faintly, irrationally, that they'd at least be pretending when we got back.

The front door opens before we even reach the porch.