Ivy
Wraith is sleeping sitting up after the BioMuzzle injection.
That was… an event.
Plague didn't waste any time getting it secured from the compounding pharmacy, and when he came home, he set the supplies on the kitchen table and got straight to work.
Wraith took one look at the syringe in Plague's gloved hand, Plague flicking it to get the bubbles out and watching the fluid beading on the tip of the needle with his light eyes narrowed above his surgical mask, and left the kitchen.
Plague followed him to the living room.
Wraith moved to the hallway.
Plague followed him there, too.
Wraith went upstairs, then to the loft, and I could hear Plague's footsteps right behind him like he was taking a very big, stubborn dog to the vet.
Whiskey eventually sat on him.
T-R-A-I-T-O-R, he grudgingly fingerspelled to me with his free hand as Plague gave him the injection in a massive bicep, crushed beneath Whiskey, while I pet his hair and tried not to show how adorable I found him as he glared half-heartedly at me.
Now he's resting with his face against the back of my neck and his hair falling over my shoulder, his sharp teeth grazing my skin with every exhale. It doesn't make me nervous or bother me. It never does.
His teeth were somewhere much more sensitive on the camping trip.
I shift in his lap and his arms tighten around my waist on instinct, even in sleep. His giant body is warm and slack beneath mine on the couch, where I'm sitting on his lap as usual, his chest rising and falling in slow, even pulls.
Pretty sure I just live on his lap now.
"He's out cold," Whiskey says from the floor, where he's sprawled with his legs stretched halfway across the living room. He's eating cereal dry out of the box with his hand like a barbarian.
"Leave him," Plague says from the armchair, not glancing up from his phone. "He needs to actually sleep properly. He's been through hell."
"The meds kicked in fast," I murmur, running my fingers through Wraith's dark hair. Like Thane's, it's gotten longer than it was before, though it isn't quite as long. I love the way it falls in his blue eyes now, which are closed in sleep.
"They should. I calculated the dose for his body weight." Plague pauses. "Which is… considerable."
Whiskey crunches another handful of cereal. "Yeah. Guy probably weighs as much as I do and he's still got all his abs," he says, patting his stomach. "Pretty fuckin' impressive."
"Not quite as much as you," Plague says dryly, but I catch his eyes roaming Whiskey's bearlike body appreciatively.
Whiskey doesn't seem to notice. No wonder Val thought Whiskey should be the one to visit Claire in the future, which Wraith agreed was a good idea. He really does live in a perpetual state of obliviousness.
"So," Whiskey says, tossing a piece of cereal into the air and catching it in his mouth, "what's the plan today? More PR shit? Because I gotta be honest, I'm getting real fuckin' tired of—"
Thane appears in the doorway and the look on his face kills the sentence in Whiskey's throat.
"What?" I ask warily.
"Wade's family filed a civil suit this morning."
The room goes very still.
"Against who?" Plague asks.
Thane's dark eyes flick to me. "Ivy."
My stomach drops.
Thane leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "Defamation, and… emotional distress, believe it or not. Their lawyers are framing Ivy's public statements as a coordinated attack on Wade's reputation and career."
"His career is over because Valek smashed his stupid fuckin' leg," Whiskey says around a mouthful of cereal. "That ain't Ivy's fault. He should've had thicker legs."
Thane waves him off, his eyes holding mine. "They're suing over the public statement. Everything you said at the press conference. The forced mark, the abuse, the tunnels... they're claiming it was fabricated to generate sympathy and destroy his 'brand.'"
Whiskey snorts. "His brand is being a psychopathic dickhead," he mutters.
My hands are shaking.
Wraith shifts beneath me, a low growl vibrating against my back, but he doesn't fully wake.
"Can they do that?" I ask, wincing at how small my voice sounds.
"They can file whatever the fuck they want. Winning is a different story." Thane picks up his phone and flips it around. "But someone already leaked Wade's on-ice mic audio."
Plague's head snaps up. "The mic audio?"
"Full audio." Thane nods grimly. "Everything Wade said to Wraith on the ice. Every word about Ivy. The taunting. The threats. All of it."
Whiskey stares at him. "And is that good or bad for us?"
"It reframes the entire incident," Thane explains.
"brO. That doesn't answer my question."
Thane holds up a hand. "Just wait a second. It's good." He turns to me. "Wraith's response reads more as protective alpha instinct than aggression in this context. It's spreading like wildfire."
"Who leaked it?" I ask, swallowing.
Thane's jaw flexes. "I… think it may have been my father, based on his tone. I just got off the phone with him. Didn't admit to anything, but… yeah. I think it was him. Think he did it for us."
Whiskey rakes his hands through his hair, letting out a whoosh of breath. "Whoa, dude. Do you think it's enough?"
"I don't know," Thane admits. "His team's already claiming it was edited."
For a split second, I'm back in the tunnels. The dark. The cold concrete. The version of me that had no choice but to make herself invisible because that was the only way to survive.
That girl got me here.
But she's not the one who gets to answer this.
I close my eyes, thinking.
Wade's family is coming for me. Lawyers and depositions and courtrooms where I'll have to relive everything while alphas and betas in suits pick apart my trauma like a science project.
But they can't edit a livestream.
"Give me your phone," I say to Thane.
Thane blinks. "What?"
"I'm going live."
"Ivy—"
"A recorded video can be accused of editing and rehearsing," I say, holding my hand out for the phone Thane's gripping in his hand. "A livestream can't. They want to call me a liar? Fine. Let them watch me tell the truth in real time, to a real audience who can actually ask me questions."
Whiskey sets his cereal box down.
"Where?" Thane asks.
"Here." I gesture at the couch and the warm, soft light coming in through the windows. "Right here."
None of them seem sure about this, but Thane hands over his phone and Plague helps me set it up on a tripod. I frame the shot tight on my face and shoulders, the natural light from the window hitting my left side.
Behind me, Wraith is invisible. He's so big, his dark clothing just looks like a backdrop. The angle hides the rest.
"This okay?" I ask Wraith quietly.
He nods against my neck, his arms tightening around me.
"Ready?" Plague asks me.
"Nope."
But when has that ever stopped me?
The viewer count starts at twelve the moment I go live.
Never mind. Thirty-four.
A hundred and sixty-three.
The numbers climb in real time in the corner of the screen, and I watch them tick upward while my pulse ticks faster and my head swims.
"Hi," I say, swallowing hard.
We're already at three hundred.
Holy shit.
Somehow, I manage to keep my voice steady. Maybe because Wraith's arms are still locked around my waist behind me, solid as iron, his steady heartbeat thudding against my spine. It's tough to be scared with Wraith wrapped around me and the rest of my pack by my side.
"I'm Ivy Byrne," I begin. "I guess most of you probably know of me, which isn't the same thing as actually getting to see me one-on-one, so… I figured I'd fix that."
Seven hundred viewers.
A thousand.
Oh gods…
The chat is already moving. All I catch are fragments scrolling past.
omg is this real
where's the guys???
THAT'S IVY
"So… this isn't rehearsed," I continue. "Nobody coached me. I'm just sitting in my living room, and I'm going to tell you what happened to me, and you can decide for yourselves what's true."
Over two thousand now.
I take a deep breath.
"When I met Wade Kelly, he was everything you'd want in an alpha.
Charming. Attentive. He made me feel like the only person in the room.
I know some of you have been asking why I didn't just leave as soon as that changed, and the answer is that the person hurting you is often the person who made you feel safe.
By the time I realized who Wade was, he'd cut me off from everyone who could have helped, and he did it so gradually even I didn't realize what was happening until he controlled everything. "
Five thousand viewers.
"It started small. Comments about what I was wearing. Questions about where I was going, who I was texting. He'd check my phone while I was sleeping. He'd time how long I was at the grocery store and act like he was worried I'd gotten in an accident."
Eight thousand.
"Then it got physical. Grabbing and shoving. And when I did try to leave the first time…" I touch my shoulder through my shirt. "He forced a mating bond on me. Bit me while I was pinned down and told me if I was bonded, I'd always come back. That I'd have no other choice."
I pause again.
"He's missing his finger because I bit it off, by the way. That wasn't from a dog attack like he said."
The chat's going wild. I don't have the mental bandwidth to read it right now, but I see dog and devil emojis flying by.
"So I burned his mark off my body with a flat iron. And I hid in the maintenance tunnels of the Ghosts' hockey arena because the last place Wade's ego would let him look for 'his' omega was his rival team's home."
Ten thousand viewers.
"That's the story Wade's family is calling a lie."
I stop for a second to give myself a chance to breathe, and watch the chats fly by.
holy shit
GIRLLLL
GET HIM GIRL
"This morning, Wade Kelly's lawyers filed a defamation and emotional distress lawsuit against me. Against me." I almost laugh. "For telling the truth he tried to force me to smother."
what a dick
GIRL????
emotional distress lmaooooo
Fifteen thousand viewers.