Ivy
Wraith has chopped enough wood to survive the winter.
The pile beside him reaches almost to my shoulder, and he’s still going. Another log lands on the stump. His scarred hand steadies it, fingers spreading over the bark, and the axe rises over his head.
His entire back flexes.
Holy fuck.
The axe crashes down with a clean, brutal crack, splitting the log straight through the center. Both halves tumble into the mud.
Wraith immediately reaches for another.
Valek is keeping him busy on purpose. I can tell because no sane person looks at our meager campsite and decides what we desperately need is more fuel.
Wraith isn’t sane right now, though.
He’s okay.
Mostly.
He hasn’t shown any signs of pain since the injections settled in. No twitching hands or shallow breathing. No glazed-over stare while the nerves in his face try to cook him alive from the inside. And I know it's because he isn't wearing a mask, and he's getting some fresh air.
But he’s off.
Quiet, even for him. Restless. Every time he looks at Valek’s bruised cheekbone or split lip, his shoulders curl forward and his scarred hands clench.
So Valek keeps handing him shit to do.
Move the rocks.
Secure the tarp.
Check the tent.
Chop wood.
Chop more wood.
Apparently chop down the entire fucking forest.
Another log cracks apart.
Rainwater shines across Wraith’s bare shoulders and runs in thin trails down his back.
His hoodie hangs from a line near the fire, dripping steadily beside Valek’s destroyed leather jacket and my coat.
We got halfway through pitching the tent before the sky opened, soaking all three of us in under a minute.
Wraith stripped off his hoodie when it started clinging to his chest.
I haven’t recovered.
He’s fucking enormous. I know this. I’ve seen him naked. I’ve climbed him like a tree, slept on him, been pinned beneath all that scarred muscle.
Doesn’t matter.
Watching him work is different.
His shoulders bunch as he lifts the axe again, massive deltoids rolling beneath rain-slick skin.
Thick cords of muscle run down either side of his spine, narrowing into a hard waist above his pants soaked enough with rain to hang low on his hips.
Every swing pulls his muscles tight enough to show the ridged definition beneath the web of scars spreading over his collarbones and chest.
I force myself to stop staring and look down at the river instead, dragging my bare toes through the icy current. I stripped because everything I own is wet anyway, and the river is cleaner than I am after walking through all the mud.
This technically counts as bathing. A very cold, lazy bath where I sit on a smooth boulder and let the water numb me from the knees down while two shirtless alphas wander around the campsite.
Life is fucking weird.
Valek steps around the boulder and into view with two fat trout hanging from one hand. Scratches and fresh bruises cover his pale torso, including a darkening mark beneath his ribs where Wraith hit him.
His silver eyes travel down me slowly.
“Enjoying the view?” I ask him innocently.
“Immensely.”
Wraith’s axe hits the stump with a violent thwap.
Valek glances over, and Wraith straightens, staring at him.
He's still just feral enough to be unnecessarily protective of me, and his bright blue eyes narrow beneath wet strands of dark hair.
His exposed teeth remain fixed in their permanent skeletal grin, but the muscles along his ruined jaw tighten.
Valek lifts the fish slightly.
"Dinner. I know you won't eat it."
Wraith looks at the trout.
Then at Valek.
Then back at me.
I trail one foot through the water, deliberately extending my leg. "Nice fish," I say to Valek.
Valek’s gaze drops to my leg.
“Thank you.”
Wraith growls.
I laugh and splash water at both of them. Wraith is too far away to hit. Valek isn’t, but the spray only reaches his feet.
"Behave," I tell him.
I don't mean it at all.
Wraith abandons the axe and crosses the campsite toward us. Every step shifts the hard muscle in his thighs beneath his wet pants clinging to them. He rolls one shoulder as he walks, loosening it after the repetitive chopping, and my mouth goes dry despite being surrounded by an entire river.
Rain beads on his lashes as his eyes flick toward Valek’s bruised face, and the easy predatory weight in his stride falters.
There it is again.
The guilt.
Valek notices too. He casually moves the fish to his other hand and steps closer to the fire, forcing Wraith’s attention onto the task instead of the damage.
“Can you clean these?” Valek asks.
Wraith stops and looks at the fish, then at Valek like he’s just been handed two severed human heads.
No.
“You don’t know how?”
I don’t eat flesh.
Valek lifts the fish and looks doubtfully at them. "Fish is flesh?"
Yes.
Valek tilts his head. "But do you know how to clean fish?"
Why would I know how to clean fish if I don’t fucking eat them?
Valek blinks.
Wraith points toward the river. Put them back.
"They’re dead."
Wraith’s shoulders slump.
Oh no.
I pull my feet from the water and stand on the boulder, dripping everywhere. "Val caught them for himself. He’ll clean them."
Wraith looks down at the fish again.
His expression somehow gets more miserable.
Valek sighs. "You're not eating them either, I take it?"
"Solidarity," I tell him, but it's also because Wraith looking with sad blue puppy eyes at the dead fish has completely ruined my appetite.
"Fine. They won't go to waste."
Wraith gives him a flat look.
"I’ll eat both."
The fish are each almost the length of my forearm. "Can you eat both?" I ask, blinking.
"Of course," he says, but he doesn't seem completely certain himself.
Wraith huffs softly. The tension in his shoulders loosens a little, and I step off the boulder. He's already wrapping a dry blanket around my shoulders.
Mother hen.
A shirtless, beautifully terrifying, obscenely muscled mother hen.
I pull the blanket tighter around myself to warm up while Valek crouches beside the fire.
He lays the fish on a flat rock and opens the cooler I'd thought to pack in the SUV before we left.
Most of the things that have made camping possible are things that occurred to me because I wasn't going to be caught with lackluster camping supplies unawares again.
Wraith sinks onto a log beside me with a tired groan, resting his elbows on his knees. The movement hunches his shoulders and makes every muscle in his back bunch again.
I let myself stare. He glances warily up at me through his dark hair falling over his face, still clearly worried I don't like what I see.
He's going to worry forever, I'm sure.
So I climb onto his lap and sit on his solid thigh, where I always sit whenever I get the chance, and reach up to turn his face toward mine. I kiss his sharp teeth and he freezes, blinking wide-eyed at me, and then my naked body on his lap, his ears turning red.
Fuck, he's cute.
Valek starts unpacking, pulling out bread, trail mix, dried fruit, crackers, everything. "For the bleeding heart alpha," Valek says, completely sincere, holding up a jar of peanut butter.
Wraith’s expression collapses.
Valek pauses with the jar in one hand. "You don't like peanut butter?"
Wraith gestures at his exposed jaws. Do you know what that would look like?
Valek blinks, his silver eyes flicking over Wraith’s face, then the peanut butter, then back again. “Um.” He turns the jar slowly. “A mess…?”
Wraith groans and buries his face in both hands.
Valek’s expression softens more than I've ever seen it and he puts the peanut butter back in the cooler without another word.
I slide off Wraith’s thigh, keeping the blanket around myself as I crouch beside the supplies.
“There has to be something in here that doesn’t involve coating your entire face in Skippy.
” I lift three packs of instant ramen above my head.
"Like these. Or we can make soup. But they only had tomato, so… "
Wraith lowers his hands.
I can eat noodles.
“I know.” I shake the packages. “You ate pho.”
In the dark.
Right.
I glance at Valek, but he’s already carrying the fish to the river with his switchblade and a flat rock, giving us space without making it obvious.
Sneaky bastard.
“Okay.” I pull the blanket tighter and kiss Wraith between the eyebrows. “You don’t have to eat in front of us.”
His jaw flexes.
Then he shakes his head.
I do.
My chest squeezes.
I don’t argue.
I find the little camping pot in the pile and fill it from the water jug. Wraith takes it from me before I can lift it over the flames, setting it neatly on the metal grate Valek arranged across the firepit.
Mother hen strikes again.
“Thank you.”
He nods.
Valek returns several minutes later with the fish cleaned, gutted, and wrapped in foil.
I dump the noodles into the boiling water. Valek lays both foil bundles among the coals, then settles on the opposite side of the fire. Wraith sits beside me, knees spread, shoulders hunched as he watches the pot, spacing out.
Wait, no. He isn't watching the pot. He’s watching the reflection trembling across the metal.
I shift the pot so the handle blocks the worst of it. His eyes flick to me, and I pretend to be deeply fascinated by seasoning packets.
The noodles soften fast. I stir them with a fork, dump in two packets of seasoning, and split the results between the three metal bowls we brought. Wraith gets the most, by a lot, because Valek has two whole trout all to himself.
Wraith takes his bowl with a soft growl I know is a thanks.
Valek pulls one fish from the coals, unwraps the foil, and concentrates intensely on checking the flesh with his knife. He doesn’t look at Wraith.
Neither do I.
Not directly, anyway. I can still see him out of the corner of my eye. I blow on my noodles and take a bite. They’re salty as fuck, but they're perfect.
Beside me, Wraith lifts his bowl.
He hesitates.
My heart pounds so hard it’s ridiculous.
His jaws part.