Valek #2
We disembark and make our way through the terminal. I'm immediately aware of the attention we're drawing. Three professional hockey players traveling together. The phones come out instantly.
"Oh my god! The Ghosts!" Someone shouts. "Can we get a picture?"
"Of course!" Whiskey booms, already moving toward the small crowd gathering.
I consider making a break for it, but that would look suspicious. So I paste on my charming public face and join the photo op.
Plague hangs back, but Whiskey grabs his arm and drags him forward. "Come on, don't be antisocial."
We pose for what feels like a hundred photos. Fans asking about the season, about me joining the team, about the upcoming game against the Demons. I answer with my usual aloofness, which they eat up anyway, giving them just enough to seem engaged without revealing anything real.
Whiskey, naturally, is in his element. Cracking jokes, making fans laugh, being the lovable teddy bear everyone is comfortable with.
If they knew he's capable of full-blown grizzly mode, they would be even more obsessed.
What they've seen on the ice is nothing compared to what he's really capable of.
Finally, we manage to extract ourselves from the crowd and head toward baggage claim. My single bag appears quickly, then Plague's. Whiskey's was apparently the last one loaded.
"Seriously?" he mutters, watching bag after bag that isn't his circle past. "This is bullshit."
"Patience," Plague says without sympathy.
"I don't have patience. I'm a Leo."
Whiskey's bag finally appears, bright red and impossible to miss with the stickers of his likeness plastered all over it. They were clearly gifts from fans, and from the looks of it, he makes room for every single one.
How cute.
I hate him.
The glass doors slide open to reveal the pickup area. Cars and rideshares creating their usual chaos. I'm already pulling out my phone to call an Uber when Whiskey comes up alongside me.
"Ride with us," he says.
"No thank you," I reply flatly.
"Dude, we flew here together. You riding separately is gonna look weird and suspicious to the fans. If you're gonna be on our team, you have to act like it. We don't need fans to go wild with conspiracy theories right now."
He doesn't need to say why. I know. It's because of the omega they're protecting. The omega who bludgeoned me with a fire extinguisher and branded her honeysuckle scent on every cell in my body. The omega I haven't been able to stop thinking about, even in the back of my mind.
He has a point. Annoyingly.
"Fine," I concede.
"It's my car," Plague points out, leading us toward the parking garage. "I should have a say in who—"
"We would've taken my ride if Wraith and Thane hadn't had a brotherly brawl in the parking garage and flattened my beautiful bike," Whiskey interrupts him. "And you refuse to take Ubers because they smell funny."
Plague pinches the bridge of his nose. "What do the fans call you? A himbo, is it?"
"Himbo king specifically," Whiskey corrects, grabbing both his and Plague's luggage before Plague gets a chance. "I'll take that before you break a nail, Ice Prince."
I follow them through the garage, amused by their continued bitching despite my general irritation with existence.
Plague's car is exactly what I expected.
A sleek black sedan, meticulously maintained, likely has UV-sterilizing lights in the interior.
He unlocks it with a click and Whiskey immediately moves to the passenger door, opening it for him with a flourish.
"After you, babe."
Plague stares at him. "What are you fucking doing?"
"Opening your door. Being a gentleman."
The look Plague gives him could melt steel. He slams the door shut and circles around to the back. "I'm sitting in the back."
"You didn't have to shut the door," Whiskey says to him, popping the trunk. "Val needs to get in if you don't wanna sit up front. By the way, if knife psycho here decides to hijack the car, I'd rather have him in the back. So you've probably just fucked us all in the collective ass."
"I'm right here," I say dryly, loading my luggage into the trunk. "By the way, from the back, I could just strangle you. And I'm very good at strangling."
"That's not reassuring, dude," Whiskey grumbles, settling into the driver's seat. I slide into the front alongside him and we pull out of the garage into weak afternoon sunlight, crisp rain pattering down.
The drive starts quietly. Too quietly. Whiskey keeps glancing at me like he's building up to something. His hands grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary, knuckles white.
Here it comes.
"Look," he says finally, his tone dropping to something more serious. "I'm gonna make this real simple for you."
"Please do," I drawl. "I appreciate simplicity."
"Stay away from the loft. Stay away from the omega we're protecting. You so much as think about going near her, and I'll fold you in half and shove your own head up your ass."
"Oh? Is that what you were trying to do before?" I ask conversationally. "When I nearly killed the two of you on that mountain road?"
His jaw clenches. "I'm serious."
"So am I." I turn to look at him directly. "You stalked me to another country. You followed me to my mother's hospital room. You crashed your vehicle trying to chase me down like dogs. And now you want me to be afraid of you?"
"You should be," Plague says quietly from the back.
I shift to look at him in the rearview mirror. Those pale eyes are cold as winter, and there's steel underneath that refined exterior. "Should I? Because from where I'm sitting, you two can barely protect yourselves, let alone an omega on the run."
Whiskey's hands tighten on the wheel. "We're doing fine."
"Are you? You left her alone with a feral alpha and his brother while you flew off to Canada to play Sherlock Holmes and John Watson."
"Wraith's unhinged, but he's got a good heart," Whiskey grits out.
"Yeah, so he's scary as fuck, and I'm a little worried, but I also know he'd never hurt an omega.
Alphas, on the other hand? Fair fucking game.
" He glances pointedly at me. "And Thane's a stuffy asshole who takes himself too seriously, like Plague here, but he's a psycho son of a bitch himself.
If anyone came anywhere near the omega we're protecting, the brothers would rip him apart with their bare hands. "
"Excuse me?" Plague says from behind us.
"You are a stuffy asshole," I say to him with a slight grin, turning back to Whiskey.
"That may all be true. I don't know your pack.
Yet. But I'm not your enemy, and I'm not going to pretend you have this situation under control when you clearly don't. Your pack is falling apart at the seams. You're a bigger threat to each other than anything else is. "
Whiskey and Plague exchange a glance in the rearview mirror. Something passes between them, unspoken but heavy with meaning.
"You done with the life coach bullshit?" Whiskey asks, but there's less hostility in his voice than before.
"For now."
We drive in silence for a while. I watch the familiar landmarks appear as we get closer to the pack house. The arena rising in the distance, the pack house on the hill overlooking it, both structures looking almost peaceful in the rain and fog.
"For what it's worth," Whiskey says as we pull into the underground garage, "I don't think you're gonna hurt her."
I glance at him, arching an eyebrow in surprise. "No?"
"Nah. I don't get that vibe from you. And I follow my gut." He parks and cuts the engine. "You're still a psychotic, half-feral asshole with anger management issues, though."
It's possibly the nicest thing he'll ever say to me.
"High praise," I say dryly, climbing out of the car.
We grab our bags and head for the entrance. The pack house is quiet when we enter, but Thane is in the living room with a cup of pitch-black coffee, looking exactly like a pack leader who hasn't slept in thirty-six hours.
That honeysuckle scent is all over him.
I have to clench my teeth until they creak so I don't let on how it's affecting me, even clinging to an alpha standing across the damn room.
"You're back," Thane observes unnecessarily.
"Astute," I mutter.
"She okay?" Whiskey asks immediately, dropping his bags.
"Upstairs," Thane says, and the relief in his voice is palpable. "She's fine. Wraith's with her."
They still won't say her name around me. The Ghosts still don't know I know exactly who she is, and I'm going to keep it that way. If they find out just how much I know about the mysterious omega they're hiding, I'll be on thinner ice than I already am.
And I refuse to leave the pack house.
"I'm tired," I announce to Thane, who's still standing there like he's not sure what to do with me. "Going to my room for the longest fucking nap of my life."
"Valek—"
"Whatever you're about to say, save it." I adjust my bag on my shoulder. "We all need sleep before we kill each other."
I head toward my suite without waiting for a response. The stairs feel longer than usual, my body heavy with exhaustion that has nothing to do with the flight and everything to do with the emotional gymnastics of the past two days.
My room is exactly as I left it. Bed made, curtains drawn, everything in its rightful place. I drop my bag by the door and collapse onto the bed, not bothering to remove my shoes.
The ceiling fan spins lazy circles above me, and I track the motion with my eyes while my brain refuses to shut down.
I can hear them. Muffled voices. Movement. The soft rumble of Wraith's growl that carries through the walls. He isn't the only one with remarkable hearing a cut above what most alphas are capable of. We're both survivors, cut from the same cloth of violence and pain.
And underneath it all, faint but unmistakable, is the soft voice of the fierce little omega who faced me with nothing more than a fire extinguisher and put me down like a rabid animal.
Ivy.