Ivy
Valek wasn't joking when he said he can build a fire.
I'm huddled under the rocky outcropping with my knees pulled to my chest, watching Valek work like he was born in the goddamn wilderness.
Which, for all I know, he was.
He found the dead wood first. Snapped branches over his knee with zero effort and stripped the bark for kindling with a fucking switchblade he apparently keeps in his pocket.
He dug a shallow pit in the gravel near the cave mouth and lined it with flat river stones, arranging the whole thing in a pyramid shape.
He had a survival lighter ready to go, too, of course. I'd packed my own, as well as a change of clothes that are currently drying alongside my rescued duffel bag on a makeshift rack made of branches, but he had everything he could ever need and more in those black combat pants.
The bark catches first, then the smaller sticks. Then the bigger ones, and within a few minutes, flames are licking up through the pyramid and lighting up the entire riverbank.
He stretches to his full height, peeling his turtleneck shirt off over his head. There's hardly anything left of it, but he wrings it out anyway and drapes it on the rack next to my change of clothes to dry by the fire.
The heat that rushes through my body makes me stop shivering.
Valek shirtless in the glow from the fire and the moon above is... a lot.
Every muscle of his body is visible and defined. A god carved from marble. And his scars…
There are so many scars.
A silvered stab wound between his ribs. The puckered starburst scar on his shoulder I've been afraid to ask about. The small, very old round burns scattered across his whole body like stars, the kind that could only come from something pressed deliberately against skin over and over.
Cigarette burns.
Everywhere.
I'm certain that's what they are. I've read one too many articles about "self-harm indicators" thanks to Wade's asshole lawyers. Except most of these are in places he couldn't have reached.
Someone did that to him.
Valek adds another branch to the fire and crouches beside it, feeding the flames patiently. Sparks spiral into the dark sky. The fire crackles and pops, and even tucked back in the shallow cave, it's warm enough that I stopped shivering a few minutes ago.
The firelight flickers across the sharp planes of his face.
He's beautiful.
"Are you certain," Valek says, his eyes flicking up to me, "that you don't want to fire the flare gun and have your feral mate and the three stooges here in a flash with blankets and hot chocolate with marshmallows?"
I snort. "No chance in hell," I tell him, pulling my thermal away from my skin in the one spot that's still wet where the fire hasn't dried it out. "I'm exactly where I want to be."
He exhales through his nose and turns back to the fire, adds one more piece of wood that sends a shower of sparks up, and then he's on his feet, crossing the distance between us in three long strides.
The cave is more of a deep overhang, but Valek has to duck as he slips in to join me and settles at my side in the warm darkness. He sits close enough that his bare arm presses against mine. Even through my wet sleeve, I can feel the heat of his skin, and I lean against it.
He blinks sideways at me, his white lashes low.
"So," I say, looking up at him. "Are you too drowned to mark me tonight?"
His eyes darken. "I'm not drowned."
"You sure? Because you look a little—"
He kisses me.
His hand catches the side of my face and his mouth presses harder against mine, desperate and hungry, and he still tastes like blood from his split lip.
I grab two fistfuls of his wet hair and pull him closer.
He growls against my lips as his other hand finds my waist. He hauls me into his lap easily, and I go willingly, my thighs straddling his hips, my back arching as his mouth moves from my lips to my jaw to the sensitive spot below my ear, nipping at the flesh there.
"Val—"
His teeth scrape my throat.
My fingers dig into his bare shoulders as I roll my hips against him and feel how hard he already is through his pants. My whimpers echo in the shallow cave.
"You're sure," he murmurs against my throat.
"I pepper-sprayed you in the face and tackled you into a river." I pull back just enough to look at him. "Do I seem like I wouldn't tell you if I wasn't sure?"
His lips twitch.
I grab the hem of my thermal and peel it off.
The cold air hits my bare skin and I gasp, but Valek's hands are already there, sliding up my ribs, spreading warmth everywhere they touch. His palms are rough with callouses and old scars. They feel incredible against my skin.
He gazes reverently at my body, his full lips slightly parted.
"You're staring," I whisper.
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.
I kiss him again, slower this time, my fingers tracing the scar between his ribs. He tenses under my touch but doesn't pull away, his hands finding the button of my jeans.
Getting wet jeans off is a fucking nightmare and there's a solid thirty seconds of graceless wrestling that involves me kicking my legs while Valek yanks and tears, chuckling low in his throat. By the time the denim hits the cave floor we're both panting and I'm laughing into his neck.
"Good thing I brought a change of clothes," I manage to breathe as he kisses me again, nipping at my lips. He's already making short work of his own pants, lifting his hips to shove them down. And then we're skin to skin, nothing between us at all.
His cock presses against my inner thigh, hard and hot against my chilled skin. I wrap my hand around him and—
My fingers stall.
There's metal. A row of small, smooth barbells running along the underside of his shaft, one after another, slightly cooler against my palm where the rest of him is burning hot.
A Jacob's ladder.
Of course he has a Jacob's ladder.
My brain short-circuits for a solid two seconds before my hand tightens around him and his head drops back against the rock wall with a rough exhale.
"Ivy."
"Mm?"
His silver eyes find mine, the composure in them cracking. "If we do this—"
"We're doing this."
"If we do this," he repeats, his voice strained, "I need you to know that I…"
"Val." I cup his face in both hands. His jaw is clenched so tight the muscles jump under my palms. "Whatever you need to tell me can wait."
"When?" he manages to choke out. "If not now, then…"
I kiss him again, swallowing his words. "After," I whisper against his mouth. "After you mark me. You can tell me everything. I promise."
His hands are shaking where they grip my hips.
"But right now—" I roll against him, dragging the slick heat of my arousal along the length of his cock, and his fingers dig into my skin hard enough to bruise. "—I need you."
He surges forward and his mouth crashes into mine, one hand fisting in my wet hair, the other sliding down my spine to pull me flush against him.
His tongue drags across my lower lip and I open for him, my nails raking down the hard planes of his chest. His cock twitches against my stomach, smearing precome across my skin.
"Valek," I breathe. "Please."
He pulls back just enough to look at me with his blown pupils, the thin ring of silver iris barely visible around them. His wet undercut is plastered to his face, his eyes wild behind his hair.
"Say it again," he rasps.
"I need you…"
His hand slides between my thighs. Two long fingers drag deliberately through the wetness there and my spine arches so hard I would crack my skull against the rock behind me if it weren't for his hand getting in the way to protect it.
"Fuck, Val—"
He finds my clit and circles it, watching my face.
"There?" he murmurs, pressing harder.
"Yes… right there, don't stop…"
His fingers work me in tight circles while his mouth finds my throat, his teeth dragging along the tendon, and I'm already climbing. My thighs are shaking on either side of his hips and my hands can't find purchase on his wet skin, so I grab his hair instead and pull.
He growls against my throat.
"Inside me," I pant. "Val, I need you inside me—"
His fingers dip lower and push into me, two at once, and my vision whites out for a second. He crooks them upward and my whole body jolts.
"FUCK!"
The sound bounces off the rock walls and the crackling fire and the dark river below us, and I don't give a shit. There's nobody for miles except the owl and the trees and my white wolf.
He pumps his fingers slowly, stretching me, his thumb still working my clit in those devastating circles. His mouth hasn't left my throat. He's biting now, not quite hard enough to mark, but close, little sharp points of pain that bloom into heat beneath my skin.
"More," I demand.
A third finger.
I choke on air.
"Valek…"
"Patience."
He curls his fingers and his thumb grinds against my clit, and I scream, the orgasm ripping through me without warning.
My teeth clack together and my vision dissolves into sparks that rival the ones floating up from the fire.
I'm coming apart on his hand and he's showing no signs of stopping, but he slows down, teasing me back to reality.
"Good girl," he breathes against my temple in that gravelly accented voice.
Oh, fuck him for that.
I chomp down on his shoulder.
He snarls and his hand pulls free of me. Both hands find my hips and lift me onto his lap, positioning me above him as I snap playfully at him again. The blunt head of his cock presses against my entrance.
Valek's silver eyes lock onto mine.
The alpha predator is suddenly gone. And what's beneath the chill that usually keeps his face in a neutral mask is unguarded and terrified.
I've never seen him afraid of anything.
I cup his face and press my forehead against his.
"What's wrong?" I breathe.
His exhale shudders out of him. "Nothing," he says hoarsely. "Nothing at all, little omega."
He sinks into me slowly.
The first barbell drags across my inner walls and I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders.
"Oh—"
The second one.
"Oh, fuck."
The third makes my head drop forward against his collarbone. I'm mewling desperately now. His hands grip my hips hard enough I'll have bruises shaped like his fingers tomorrow. and I can't wait to show them off.
"More," I manage.
He pushes deeper. The controlled, shaking restraint in his arms tells me he's fighting every instinct to slam home.
Each barbell bumps against the spot inside me, one after another, each building on the last. My thighs tremble violently on either side of his hips and my hands can't stay still, sliding from his shoulders to his hair to his jaw and back again.
"Val… Val…"
He slides in all the way to the edge of his swollen knot and we both stop breathing.
He's so deep my lower spine is prickling. His cock twitches inside me and the metal shifts against my walls, making my back bow, a strangled whine tearing from my throat.
"Move," I beg.
He pulls out slowly, every single barbell dragging along my spot on the way, and I hear my own cries echoing off the cave walls before I register I'm the one making the noises and not some wild animal in the forest.
He thrusts back in.
"FUCK!" I cry.
His mouth finds my throat, teeth scraping again without breaking skin, then clamping. The combination of his bite pressure and the metal bumping inside me sends electric shocks up and down my spine with every hard, desperate stroke.
I grab his face and force him to look at me.
His silver eyes are wild, his lashes wet, hair plastered across his sharp flushed cheekbones. Every wall is down.
I kiss him. Or try, with him thrusting into me and jarring my entire body.
He groans into my mouth, his hips snapping up harder, and I lock my ankles behind his back and ride him, the barbells making me gasp against his lips.
"Right there," I choke, nipping at his tongue as it plunges into my mouth. "Right there, Valek, please—"
"Ivy," he rasps. He barely sounds human. "I'm…"
"I know." I already feel his knot stretching me wider with each thrust. My body clamps down around him automatically, pulling him deeper. "Give it to me."
His jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck straining beneath the scattered cigarette burns, and his thrusts slow but deepen, pushing his knot against my entrance.
I wrap both arms around his neck and hold on.
He rolls his hips once more, grinding the swell of his knot against me, and the pressure is enormous. My body fights it for one agonizing second before the stretch blooms into heat and his knot pops in with a sudden fullness that makes me fucking scream as he locks inside me.
I can't even think straight.
All I can think is knot knot knot, every barbell pressed against my walls at maximum depth, and all I can do is writhe on his cock. His pulse slams against my walls as he fills me. Or it's my pulse. I can't tell our heartbeats apart anymore.
I'm still coming undone when his teeth find my shoulder.
The bond opens like a door blown off its hinges.
And the cold rushes in.
There is no warmth inside Valek.
There is nothing here.
My vision grays at the edges and my lungs lock. His teeth are still buried in my shoulder, his knot still pulsing inside me, but my entire reality breaks away and what's left is the bond tearing open between us.
I feel… nothing, and everything all at once.
Valek's suffering isn't a single wound I can hope to soothe and cradle.
There is only a vast, echoing emptiness where I somehow know fear and horror should be, and the drive to fight fiercely until we never feel anything again.
Until we destroy everything that hurt us.
But I am not empty.
I push back.
I don't know if it's even possible or if I'm just an omega running on sheer fucking stubbornness and love. But I shove everything I have through the bond like I'm packing a wound.
The smell of the pack house kitchen in the morning. Plague's secret tea he thinks Valek hasn't discovered. Whiskey's booming laugh shaking the fucking light fixtures. Wraith's warm, strong body wrapped protectively around me. Thane's gentle touch and possessive stubbled kisses.
The nest, with all of them in it.
With Valek in it.
Bodies tangled, heartbeats overlapping, the loft warm and dark and safe.
Blood fills my mouth again. Only this time, it isn't phantom blood from his buried memories.
It's his.
Coursing in hot rivers from where my teeth have sank into his shoulder, binding him to me in a frantic last-ditch effort to pull him out of the deep.
And the slightest flicker lights up the dark.