Ivy #2
"'My name is Wraith Belmont. I was born Mikhail. I changed my name because Mikhail belongs to a boy who does not exist anymore.'"
The cameras click, a continuous shutter storm.
Wait… what?
Mikhail.
His name is Mikhail.
The syllables sink into me. I never expected to know the name he was given when he was born, never let myself wonder, because Wraith was always just Wraith to me, the way the dark is just dark and the ocean is just the ocean. Vast and complete and not requiring further explanation.
My throat closes.
Thane keeps reading.
"'My father was from Russia and anglicized his name. He didn't want to do the same for me. He named me after the archangel who threw Lucifer from heaven.'"
Whiskey whips around to stare at Wraith, wide-eyed. "Bro, no fucking way—"
Plague stomps on his shoe.
The shutter clicks are relentless, a strobe effect in my peripheral vision that I block out because the only thing that matters right now is Wraith's words and the alpha standing behind me whose name I just learned for the first time in a room full of strangers.
Mikhail.
Named for the archangel who threw Lucifer from heaven.
Of course he was.
Thane continues.
"'My father died when I was young. My mother remarried. When I was a child, my stepfather poured acid on my face. He is in prison. The court records are public.'"
Thane's voice holds steady on poured acid on my face but I hear the fracture beneath it.
Beside me, Valek is absolutely still.
The journalist in the back row has both hands over her mouth now. The one beside her is writing so fast her pen is tearing through the paper.
"'My mother never recovered. She believed her son had died and that a demon had taken his place. A wraith. That's the name she gave me, and I kept it. She kept me in the basement. I do not blame her. She is ill. She has always been ill.'"
My eyes burn.
Because I remember sitting in that room with Claire while she abused him. And he just stood there and took it with his hands limp at his sides and his blue eyes steady and sad, because he's been taking it his entire life and he doesn't know how to do anything else.
A tear escapes when I try to blink them back.
"'My vocal cords and lips were destroyed, so I sign and I write.
My teeth were sharpened so I could eat without flesh on my lower face.
I can't chew normally. I tear, like I tore into Wade Kelly.
I did not consent to this. I was too young to refuse.
Being a feral alpha probably makes my teeth even sharper.
I don't know and it doesn't matter. My face is my face. '"
The tremor in Thane's hand holding the paper is slight enough that the press corps probably can't see it, but I can. I see the way his thumb presses into the crease of the page, the way his Adam's apple moves on a swallow that takes too long.
Thane lifts his eyes from the paper to the press corps, then back down.
"'I am telling you this because reporters will find some of it and invent the rest. I would rather you have it from me.'"
The room is so silent, I can hear my own heartbeat.
"'What happened on the ice is simple. Wade Kelly recognized Ivy's scent on me.
He hit me in the face with his stick until my mask filled with blood and I could not breathe through it.
I removed it because I had no other way to stay on the ice, and I was not leaving while he was within reach of her. '"
Valek's knee presses harder against mine.
I press back and keep my eyes forward and my jaw clenched because if I turn around, if I look at Wraith, I will shatter into a thousand pieces on this conference room floor and they will never get me back together again.
So I keep my eyes forward, but I reach up and rest my hand on his, brushing my thumb over his scarred knuckles. He squeezes lightly.
"'I am a feral alpha. The league knows this. They have allowed me to play because I have never completely lost myself on the ice. And I did not lose myself when I protected my mate from Wade Kelly. But I am sorry the children in the stands saw what they saw.'"
Thane's voice has gone rough. The cracks are showing now, spreading through the professional facade, and I watch him fight for every word.
"'Valek Carter is being treated as the aggressor in what came after. He is not. He acted to protect our pack.'"
Valek's breathing changes beside me. A single sharp inhale through his nose, held, released slowly.
"'Ivy is my scent match and my mate. She left Wade Kelly because he hurt her. She is owed protection from him, and she will have my protection from him and everything else that would ever think to harm her.'"
My vision blurs completely. The lights, the cameras, the journalists… all of it dissolves into warm watercolor smears and I blink rapidly, furiously, swallowing against the pressure in my chest that is threatening to crack my ribs open from the inside.
"'If the league decides I no longer belong on the ice, I will accept their decision. I will not say I regret what I did.'"
Thane folds the paper and looks up.
"'And I would do it again.'"
He sets the paper down on the table, smooths it flat with both hands, and steps back from the podium.
Even the pens and shutter clicks have stopped.
From the podium, Eliza steps forward and opens the floor for questions for Thane. The room erupts, voices overlapping and clamoring for a word with the team and pack leader. Hands shoot up. The cameras resume their relentless clicking.
But Wraith doesn't let go of my shoulder.
And I don't let go of his hand.