Ivy
Something wakes me up.
My eyes crack open. The living room is dark, lit only by the pale wash of moonlight bleeding through the curtains.
Wraith is wrapped around me, his bandaged face buried in my hair, heavy arm draped over my waist. Thane's breathing is slow and deep somewhere to my left. And Plague is wrapped around one of Whiskey's stupid IKEA sharks, one leg over mine.
He'd kill me if he knew I noticed the shark.
Where is Whiskey?
I hold my breath, listening.
And I hear a muffled thump followed by a whispered "FUUUUCK" that isn't whispered at all.
I know that voice anywhere.
Another thump, this one at the front door.
I extract myself carefully from Wraith's arm. He stirs, his hand twitching against the blanket where my hip was, but he doesn't wake up. I tuck a pillow into the space I left and his arm curls around it automatically with a low growl.
Plague stirs, too. I replace my leg with a pillow.
He stays asleep.
Whew.
My bare feet hit the cold floor and I pad toward the hallway, pulling Whiskey's flannel I ended up in again tighter around myself.
The front door pops open.
Whiskey comes through first, and he is a disaster. Mulch in his hair. Dirt smeared across his forearms. His brown leather coat—the one that's been repaired so many times it should qualify for a military decoration—is shredded and flapping open to reveal a predictable red plaid flannel underneath.
Valek slips in behind him like a shadow.
Comparatively pristine, of course. His hair is slightly disheveled, but he's otherwise untouched.
"Hi," I whisper from the hallway entrance.
Whiskey startles so hard he bangs his elbow on the door frame. "FUCK! Ivy? What are you doing up?"
"You're kind of loud," I say.
Valek's mouth twitches.
"I was being quiet," Whiskey protests at full volume.
"You were not," Valek tells him.
"Bro, I was whispering."
"I am not your bro," Valek says in a flat tone.
Whiskey groans, kicking his boots off. One of them hits the wall with a thud that could wake the dead.
I wince.
"I need a shower," he announces, plucking a leaf from his hair and flicking it onto the floor. "I'm covered in garden shit."
I look between them. Whiskey, destroyed. Valek, suspiciously composed. Both of them sneaking in at—I crane my neck to glance at the microwave clock through the kitchen entryway—the ass crack of dawn.
Oh yeah.
I'm suspicious as fuck.
"What were you two doing?" I ask innocently.
"Fucking around," Whiskey says without missing a beat.
Valek's face twists. "Not in your wildest dreams."
Whiskey snorts and waves him off, already lumbering toward the bathroom. "Chill, bro. It's a figure of speech."
He shuts the bathroom door hard enough to rattle the picture frames on the wall.
The shower kicks on. Through the walls, I can hear Whiskey singing Eye of the Tiger, perfectly on-key.
So much for not waking anyone.
I turn to Valek.
He's leaning against the wall by the door, arms crossed, silver eyes fixed on a point somewhere past my left shoulder. His jaw is set. His posture is casual in that deliberate way that means it's anything but.
Shifty.
He's being shifty.
"What happened?" I ask him.
"Nothing of consequence."
"Valek."
"We went for a walk."
"At four in the morning. And Whiskey came back covered in dirt."
"He's clumsy." Valek gestures in Whiskey's general direction. "You know that."
I cross my arms, mirroring his stance. "Tell me the truth."
His silver eyes finally meet mine. The flat emptiness he wears like armor flickers, just for a second, and underneath it I catch something almost sheepish.
On anyone else, I'd call it guilt.
On Valek, it looks more like mild inconvenience at being caught.
But I'll take it.
"We had a chat with Wade," he says finally.
My stomach drops.
"You what?"
"A chat." He holds up both hands. "Words only. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"No one was physically harmed." A beat. "Further."
I press my palms against my eyes. "Valek. He's in the hospital. There are cops. We literally just had a PR meeting about not making things worse and—"
"Which is precisely why we went." His voice is calm. Infuriatingly reasonable. "Wade needed to understand the new parameters of his existence. We provided clarity."
"You threatened him."
"We communicated expectations."
I drop my hands and stare at him. He stares back, unblinking, silver eyes catching the faint light from the kitchen.
"He'll leave you alone," Valek says quietly. The smooth edges of his usual detachment soften just enough. "Trust me. He was terrified."
"If this comes back on the pack—" I start.
"It won't."
"You don't know that."
"I do." No hesitation. Just Valek stating a fact with the same conviction he brings to everything. "I've done this before. Not the—" He gestures vaguely. "—hospital infiltration, specifically. But the ensuring-someone-never-becomes-a-problem-again-via-light-terrorism part, yes."
He grins that wolfish smile of his and it goes straight to my fucking core for some reason.
The bathroom door bangs open and Whiskey emerges in a cloud of steam, a towel slung low around his hips.
Water drips from his chestnut hair down the thick column of his neck, tracking over his broad chest and the padded muscle of his torso.
He's scrubbing at his head with a second towel, biceps flexing with the movement.
He looks like a calendar model for a lumberjack charity.
"Correction," Whiskey announces, dropping the towel from his hair and pointing at Valek. "I terrified Wade. You just did the… creepy knife thing."
Valek's expression doesn't change. "I never said who terrified him more. I do think your over-the-top bullshit was effective, yes. Squeezing yourself through a window was decidedly less intimidating."
Whiskey glares at him mid-towel-scrub. "Only one of us made Wade scream into his own mouth and it wasn't you." He glances at me, his brow furrowing. "Uh. Sorry."
I snort. "No need to apologize."
Whiskey gives me a lopsided grin. "He really did, by the way. Scream."
A shadow fills the doorway behind Whiskey.
Seven feet of shadow with burning blue eyes.
Now it's Whiskey's turn to scream.
"What the FUCK, bro!" Whiskey yelps, jerking sideways so hard he almost loses his towel. He clutches it to his hip with one hand and presses the other against his chest. "How do you DO that? You're the size of a fucking BUILDING."
Valek lets out a low, rough cackle at that.
But Wraith ignores Whiskey entirely. Those tired blue eyes find me and don't leave, even as he reaches up to check the bandages covering his lower face.
“Come here,” I say, sinking to the floor and leaning against the wall, patting my thigh.
He crosses the room in three long strides and collapses beside me. His head drops into my lap, his arms wrap around my waist, and he buries his bandaged face against my stomach with a low exhale that seems to empty him completely.
I sink my fingers into his dark hair and scratch lightly at his scalp.
He melts.
Whiskey watches this from the doorway, still clutching his towel, water pooling on the floor around his bare feet. His expression softens and then he starts smirking again because he's too much of a human tornado to let himself have serious feelings.
"You know," he says, "if Thane and Plague wake up cuddled together in that nest, they're both gonna flip." His grin widens. "Their shippers would lose their minds."
"People ship Thane and Plague?" I ask, blinking in surprise.
"Oh, wildcat." Whiskey shakes his head with the gravity of a man about to impart sacred knowledge.
"They even have a ship name. It's Plane.
And trust me, I'm gonna be telling you all about the fandom in the morning.
You need me to tell you everything I know because we're all gonna be dealing with PR shit for the next few weeks and the fans are… um. Fucking nuts."
Wraith gives a soft distressed growl from where his face is buried in my lap.
I stroke his hair and the growl fades.
"Hey, we have a ship name now, too, big guy," Whiskey adds, as if that's going to help. "You wanna know what that is?"
Wraith lifts his head just enough to fix Whiskey with a glare that could curdle milk. Those blue eyes, bloodshot and exhausted above the bandages, communicate a very clear message.
Absolutely fucking not.
Whiskey's palms fly up. "Okay. Cool. Good. Never find out it's Bear Shark, then."
I somehow stifle my giggle.