Wraith
For once, I wake up slowly. My brain doesn't flick on the moment my eyes crack open.
The tent is still dark and warm, almost uncomfortably warm, and I already run hot. Hot usually makes shit worse for me. For a minute, I just lie there and wait for the pain to arrive.
It doesn't.
My jaw still aches in the deep tissue where the injections went in, but it doesn't burn. I press my tongue carefully against the back of my teeth, checking. Wishing I could still taste her on them.
The nerve clusters beneath my ears pulse.
That's all.
I open my mouth slowly, then close it.
Nothing.
Press my tongue into the hinge of my jaw where it usually feels like shattered glass, and find only soreness.
Huh.
I keep waiting.
I don't trust this.
There have been plenty of times I thought I wasn't in pain only for it to slam into me out of nowhere. I trust it more when it hurts a little. This is strange and I don't like it at all.
So I lie there with my eyes open in the mostly dark tent and breathe through my nose, counting to a hundred, then back down again.
Still nothing.
Maybe the nerve injections haven't worn off yet.
Or I died and ended up in heaven, somehow.
All I want is to stay here in this exact moment, where nothing hurts and Ivy is warm against my chest, and I smell all of our scents mingling together.
Ivy is curled between us, her back pressed against my chest and her face tucked into the crook of Valek's shoulder. He's out cold on his back with one arm folded under his head and the other draped over her waist, his white hair half in his face.
I watch Ivy, taking in her dyed hair fanning out across the blanket in dark waves, her honeysuckle scent warm and content, her breathing rising and falling in a rhythm that makes my whole body want to match it.
She makes a small sound as if she can feel me watching her and burrows deeper against Valek without waking, and my arm tightens instinctively around her before I catch it.
Fuck. Too tight. She'll wake up.
I ease off, my arm brushing against Valek's.
His light eyes open immediately. He stares at the tent ceiling for a moment, perfectly still, then stretches and murmurs, his lips sticking together from sleep, "French toast."
I squint at him, signing one-handed over Ivy's shoulder. It's barely dawn.
He turns his head lazily to look at me. "Is there a better time for French toast?"
Guess there isn't.
Ivy stirs at the sound of Valek's voice. She tips her head back, blinks at me, blinks at Valek, and pulls the blanket over her face with a groan.
"Don't you dare go make breakfast without me," she says, muffled. "You still haven't finished filling my cuddle prescription."
"Watch out," Valek says dryly, pulling her closer. "Prescriptions are dirty talk to Plague. He'll sense it and get jealous."
She dissolves into a fit of giggles, squirming between us.
Too warm or not, I could stay here forever.
Twenty minutes later, after cuddling so fucking hard I almost fall asleep again, I'm looming over a camp stove that's the size of my fist, trying not to fuck this up.
Already failed with the eggs.
They survived the night in the cooler—the ice packs are mostly slush and Plague would kill all three of us for not throwing them out—but they didn't survive me.
Still don't know how, but when I cracked them into the bowl, they exploded in my hands.
I barely fucking touched them.
Ivy thought it was cute, for some reason, and assured me the bits of shell I couldn't fish out are just extra calcium and kissed my scars.
Secretly, I'm blaming her for the eggs.
I'm distracted as fuck.
She's digging through the cooler humming to herself in the sweater she pulled out of Valek's bag, which hangs off her but it rides up when she bends over.
I force myself to look back at the frying pan.
The bread is smoking now.
Growling in frustration, I grab the spatula and flip it. The underside is dark brown but not black. It's the best piece of French toast I’ve ever made.
Valek appears beside me, examining the pan with narrowed eyes.
“Is it supposed to smell like that?”
I shove him away with my elbow.
He barely moves.
Ivy straightens from the cooler with the syrup bottle held triumphantly above her head. “Found it!”
I get lost staring at her and scorch the toast after all.
Fuck.
I transfer the slice onto the metal plate while she chases Valek, who got syrup on her somehow and now she's furious that she's sticky, and try again.
This one is actually coming out okay.
The edges are crisp. The middle is cooked and golden. Cinnamon covers the surface evenly instead of sitting in a thick pile on one side because I finally figured out I was supposed to mix it into the egg first.
Ivy comes up beside me and leans over my shoulder to look, her long hair brushing against my skin.
“Holy shit, that looks good.”
I glance up at her.
She looks genuinely impressed.
My chest expands before I can stop it.
She kisses my bare shoulder and goes back to the cooler. I watch her go, almost ruining this one too, but my attention snaps back to the toast when Valek reaches for a piece.
I swing the spatula at his hand. He darts back just in time.
That one is perfect, so it's Ivy’s.
"I was going to rescue it for her," he tells me, grinning.
I roll my eyes at him and slide another soaked slice into the pan, ignoring the butter spitting at my hand. I don’t feel much of it through the scar tissue, but Ivy still catches my wrist and examines it.
"Did you burn yourself?" she murmurs.
No. I'm fine, I sign with my other hand, watching as she turns my palm over and kisses it.
I'm almost tempted to pretend it does hurt so she'll do that again.
The next slice cooks even better.
I make five in total. Two for Ivy, two for Valek, and one for me because I can’t eat more without getting everything all over my face, and even one feels like too much with both of them here.
But I’m going to try.
We move to a blanket beside the fire. Ivy sits sideways on my lap, although I wish she would sit with her back to me, stealing bites from Valek’s whenever he looks away.
He pretends he doesn't notice.
They chat about the pack, and how Plague wouldn't approve of keeping the eggs in the cooler overnight with mostly-melted ice packs, and I bask in this moment of normalcy and try to focus on eating my toast without getting it everywhere.
I tear off a small corner, syrupless because I can't manage fucking syrup, tip my head back, and guide it past my teeth with my tongue.
It takes me longer than it should. I have to work the bread back with my tongue because there's nothing to hold it in, and I keep my hand near my jaw in case something falls.
But the bread is soft enough that my sharp teeth shred through it without any effort, and I swallow before anything can go wrong.
Ivy watches, her ears turning pink for some reason.
I don't understand her at all.
After breakfast, Ivy digs soap, toothbrushes, and towels from the convenience-store bags. We pack up the campsite and head down toward the river to wash up.
Ivy links her fingers through mine. "Are you still staying in the car while we get flowers and check on Claire?"
I nod, dropping my eyes and gesturing to my face.
I can't go in like this.
I don't know how I can go anywhere like this.
I really fucking don't.
But right now, out here in the forest where only Ivy matters, and the only other person is the alpha who's somehow becoming a brother to me, I can shove it far from my mind.
Ivy is already chest-deep, hair floating behind her, tipping her head back to let the sun hit her face. She pulls me in after her, still holding my hand, and I slip.
I don't mean to land on her.
She shrieks and retaliates, splashing straight at my face, which is a mistake on her part because my arms are longer, and by the time Valek wades in with the soap and towels she's laughing so hard she's spluttering.
I catch her around the waist and lift her out of the water before she can inhale more of it, and she wraps her arms around my neck, still coughing and grinning.
Cold water runs down my face, dripping off my teeth. I feel all of it, but Ivy is in my arms, and when she pushes my wet hair back from my forehead, I hold still and let her look.
Her thumb traces the scar through my eyebrow, the one from my mother's kitchen knife, and follows it all the way down.
She smiles wider and kisses my nose.
Valek wades in beside us, setting the towels on the flat rock half out of the river, and soaps his hands with a charcoal bar before scrubbing his face and neck.
"What color did you say your mother likes again?" he asks me. "Purple?"
Yeah. Purple. Pink is okay too, I sign to him, settling Ivy onto her feet so I can use both hands. The water comes up to her collarbone, and she leans against my arm while I sign. It's going to be bad, you know.
He meets my eyes. "What does she usually do?"
I don't know how to answer that.
She might be okay with you. She hates me. She thinks I killed her son and stole his eyes. My hands are slower than usual, making sure he catches every word. She screams. Cries. Says things that sound fucking insane but are completely real to her.
Valek's expression doesn't change. "What do I do when she does?"
Don't react. Don't touch her unless she reaches first. I pause. Ivy knows. She's done this before.
Ivy nods against my arm, her hand finding mine underwater and squeezing.
Last time… I start, my hands hovering.
Last time, she ripped my mask off, and Ivy saw my face for the first time, and it was fucking horrible, and I dissociated and went feral and Thane had to track us through a rainstorm.
I don't sign any of that.
Last time was bad, I sign instead.
Valek studies me for a moment, then smiles pleasantly.
"It's only a flower delivery. How bad can it be?"