Page 315 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

My eyes squeeze shut.

I take the popcorn from her fingers blind, accidentally licking her hand in my frantic attempt to get it over with as fast as fucking possible, and swallow without chewing.

It gets stuck in my throat and I cough.

She says something I can't hear over the ringing in my ears and I feel her hands in my hair, both of them reaching up to stroke the strands, her nails scratching against my scalp.

"Good boy," she murmurs.

And I bury my face in her hair with an exhausted growl.

Chapter 66

Valek

Wraith's SUV handles like a fucking tank.

I'm certain it could survive a direct hit from a missile and keep rolling, unscathed. It isn't to my usual taste, but he wouldn't fit in my BMW, and Ivy is by my side in the passenger's seat, so what's there to complain about, really?

I still can't believe he asked me to come. I'm not exactly road trip material.

Ivy's flipping through a playlist on her phone. She's wearing one of Wraith's hoodies, the black one with the fraying cuffs—which, to be fair, describes most of them—and it swallows her whole.

"No," I say.

She hasn't even pressed play yet.

"You don't know what I picked."

"Whiskey curated it, so the answer is no."

She grins and presses play anyway.

Country music fills the cabin.

I reach for the volume.

She smacks my hand away.

Behind us, Wraith takes up the entire back seat. His knees are jammed against the passenger seat, his head propped against the window, and his arms are crossed over his chest. He isn't wearing anything over his lower face, but the windows are tinted enough no one can see him back there anyway.

He's in worse pain today.

Has been since we left.

I have my suspicions it's because he spent several hours in a mask yesterday, watching the team get humiliated on the ice.

The highway opens up ahead of us, flat and mostly empty. Late morning traffic thinned out twenty minutes ago, and now it's just us, a handful of semis, and the occasional minivan going ten under the speed limit. I settle into the left lane and let the speedometer climb.

Ivy switches the music to a tolerable playlist. One Whiskey didn't choose. I prefer silence, but this isn't exactly my drive.

An hour and a half in, my bladder decides it's had enough of pretending I don't drink tea like it's oxygen.

And Wraith doesn't look well. His glazed eyes are open slightly, staring off into nothing, his jaw clenched so tight the tendons are strained in his throat. Every few seconds his scarred hand twitches against his crossed arm, and I've noticed him slumping in the seat more over the past few minutes.

"We're stopping," I announce.

Ivy looks up from her phone. "Food?"