Ivy #2
He tips the bowl and catches a clump with his tongue, pulling the noodles between his teeth. They immediately slip sideways and hang through the side of his teeth where he can't bite all the way down without severing the noodles and getting them everywhere.
He freezes, his scent spiking with panic.
I keep eating. Valek takes a bite of fish, staring into the fire thoughtfully, tilting his head like he actually sees something interesting there other than flames and logs.
Wraith tilts his head back and his exposed jaws gnash twice, sharp teeth chopping through the noodles, and he swallows with his head still tipped back.
Like a wolf eating ramen.
He lowers the bowl and glances anxiously at me.
I shove another forkful into my mouth before I can make the embarrassing noise building in my throat.
Why was that hot?
The fuck is up with me?
His blue eyes narrow warily.
Valek clears his throat into his fist and Wraith looks sharply at him. Valek’s mouth twitches. “She thinks you’re cute.”
Traitor.
Wraith looks at me like I'm insane, and maybe I am, but he takes another bite.
This one goes better. He catches fewer noodles, tips his head back sooner, and swallows them almost whole. Broth runs between his teeth and down his chin. He wipes it away with the back of his scarred hand.
I finish my noodles and set the bowl beside the fire.
Valek somehow eats both trout, stripping every bone clean while firelight slides over his bare chest and catches on the scars scattered across his body. His swollen lip makes him look even more criminally attractive.
Across from him, Wraith drains the last of his broth straight from the bowl before setting it aside. He stretches his enormous legs toward the fire, forearms resting across his thighs, rain still glistening on the scarred planes of his chest.
Two shirtless, scarred alphas beside a campfire.
I'm one lucky omega.
I stand and stretch, the blanket slipping down my back. Wraith’s gaze tracks the exposed curve of my spine before snapping politely toward the trees.
Cute.
Valek doesn’t bother pretending. His silver eyes drag slowly from my bare legs to my face. “Cold?”
“Nope. Not with this glorious fire.”
I gather the blanket around my shoulders and go back to the cooler. “I’m going to make s'mores."
The fire is perfect for it now. Valek built the base wide, and Wraith’s campaign against every dead tree he could drag to the campsite has given us a thick bed of glowing coals beneath the flames.
I skewer three marshmallows on long forks, hand one to Valek and one to Wraith, and start rotating mine slowly over the heat.
"Thank you," Valek says, even though I don't know how he could possibly have room after two trout—the man is lean—and he immediately sticks his straight into the fire.
It ignites, a bright blue-and-orange flame eating the entire marshmallow in half a second.
He stares at it in dismay.
Wraith watches the burning marshmallow with deep concern, still holding onto his. You should put that out.
"It's fine, Snow White. I'm not going to burn the forest down with all your woodland friends in it," Valek promises him, dropping the goopy charcoal mess into the dirt and dropping a rock onto it to put it out.
"You're supposed to roast them," I say, holding mine higher over the fire. "Like this. You don't have to cremate it. Low and slow. You want it golden."
Valek spears another marshmallow and reluctantly holds it beside mine, following my instructions with an unnecessary amount of focus to make sure he doesn't fuck up.
Wraith doesn’t try just yet. He leans forward with his forearms braced over his thighs, blue eyes moving from the marshmallows to the graham crackers and chocolate laid out on the cooler lid.
The wariness is back.
"You want me to roast yours?" I ask him as Valek's second marshmallow ignites. I ignore the stream of curses in Russian and him smashing the marshmallow into the ground again.
He shakes his head and takes the remaining fork, reaching for a graham cracker. He turns it over in his scarred hand, studying the perforated lines, then snaps it neatly in half.
I resist the urge to watch directly and focus on crisping my marshmallow to perfection instead, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He sets the pieces on his thigh and adds chocolate, then skewers a marshmallow. His hands are steady while he assembles it, but his movements are stiff.
He holds the marshmallow well above the flames, copying exactly where I had mine. His eyes track it as he rotates the fork carefully, keeping his head turned down slightly, like he's ashamed of how he looks in the firelight.
Valek’s third marshmallow goes up in flames.
“For fuck’s sake,” he growls.
Wraith jerks away as Valek waves the burning marshmallow too close to his arm.
I snatch the fork and blow it out. The surface is black and blistered, but the inside is probably okay.
Valek takes it back. “Perfect.”
"That's charcoal, Valek."
"Exactly. Perfect."
He crushes it between crumbling crackers and chocolate, then holds it out to me. "For you."
I laugh nervously, glancing between my perfect golden marshmallow and the… hunk of burnt tire being offered to me. "Um… thanks?"
Wraith makes a distressed growling sound and I turn to see he's holding his own s'more out to me. This one, much to my surprise because I've seen what he does in a kitchen, is actually perfect.
"Beginner's luck," Valek remarks, grinning.
"Thanks," I say, taking it from Wraith and taking a bite while he watches me with mesmerized blue eyes even though I'm getting fucking marshmallow all over my face. "Wow, this is delicious."
Wraith makes a soft rumbling sound that's very close to his purr.
Valek eats his own s'more pointedly and starts on another, muttering about not being outdone again.
"Want mine?" I ask Wraith, holding it out.
He looks at it, unsure, his eyes moving between the dripping gooey snack and my smile. He finally takes it and stares down at it in both hands, turning it over and over.
"If you wait, it'll cool off," I tell him. "It might be easier to chew."
He lifts one hand without looking up. Can't chew anyway.
Oh. Right.
I take another bite of mine and look into the fire.
Valek continues roasting his own marshmallow, humming quietly like he hasn’t noticed anything. This time, he's doing it perfectly, and I have to wonder if he ruined the one he made me on purpose so Wraith could do better.
Wraith lifts the s’more.
His jaws part.
The graham cracker is too wide.
He turns it sideways, but that’s worse. His teeth catch the edge and crush it before he can guide the rest into his mouth. Crumbs drop onto his chest. The sticky marshmallow stretches from the cracker to the side of his jaw in a long white string.
He freezes, FUCK written all over his face.
The scent of midnight forest spikes with a fresh wave of anxiety and his hand drops. He turns his head away, hunching forward as he tries to wipe the marshmallow off with the back of his wrist with a humiliated growl.
I set my s’more down and start reaching for a towel to offer him.
Valek reaches over, plants one hand against Wraith's massive shoulder, and shoves him off the log.
I gape at Valek. "The fuck?" I sputter.
Valek calmly reaches over, steals the ruined s’more from the dirt, and holds it up to the firelight.
"There was a bug on it," he says, pointing.
Wraith pushes onto one elbow in the mud, blue eyes blazing.
He lunges.
Valek bolts off the log, laughing as Wraith catches the leg of his pants. The fabric stretches. Valek makes it two stumbling steps before Wraith yanks him backward hard enough his feet leave the ground.
He lands flat on his back beside the fire.
Wraith hauls himself to his feet to loom over him, mud streaking his shoulder and ribs and hair, marshmallow and now dirt still stuck to one side of his exposed jaws.
"I saved your life," Valek says. "Bugs can be poisonous. You should be grateful."
Wraith grabs a handful of wet leaves and drops them directly onto his face.
"Oh, no, you didn't," Valek sneers, hooking a leg behind Wraith's knee. Wraith crashes to the ground and Valek tackles him with a snarl.
They roll, grappling, and crash into the river together. Wraith surfaces first, water streaming off his bare shoulders, dark hair plastered flat. Valek comes up spitting and barking laughter, his white hair hanging in his face like drowned silk.
Wraith shoves him under.
Valek comes back up and drives his shoulder into Wraith's ribs, pushing him backward through the current and soaking everything within ten feet, including me.
I pull the blanket over my head. "Thanks for that."
Wraith shoves Valek back underwater again, looking up toward me, water streaming from his hair and scarred jaws.
He's laughing. Even from here, I hear the rough huffs and see the brightness in his eyes. There's nothing feral about them now.
Just pure happiness.
Valek’s hand shoots out of the water and drags Wraith down with him by the hair. By the time they both surface again, still shoving and splashing each other, the last of the marshmallow has finally washed off Wraith's jaw.
Oh.
The marshmallow.
I look back at the ruined s’more lying in the mud beside the log. There was never a bug on it. I knew this when Valek pointed at nothing, but I didn't understand then.
Val was saving Wraith by distracting him.
I love him.
Fuck, I love him so much.
In the river, Valek shoves Wraith's head underwater and Wraith surfaces snarling, grabbing the other alpha's arm and dragging him sideways through the current. They look like they're trying to drown each other.
They look like brothers. Feral brothers.
Two wolves.