Ivy #2
Whiskey almost chokes laughing on his pot roast. Plague smacks him hard on the back, unnecessarily, and I'm pretty sure he just wanted to smack him.
Wraith has gone completely still beneath me. Slowly, his arm curls around my waist and his face drops into my hair, and his anxiety fades in one long breath I feel against my scalp.
There we go.
Arthur looks pointedly at Thane with an expression that says what the fuck?
Thane looks back at his father, and I catch the corner of his mouth fighting a losing battle. And I'm sure it's because his parents are obviously scandalized and trying to hide it. This is the most aggressively normal family on the planet. Stepford levels of normal.
Thane is the most normal person in the pack, and compared to his parents, he's super fucking strange.
"So," Maureen says faintly, setting down the gravy that almost ended up all over the table. "Ivy. Tell us about yourself."
"Well," I say, spearing a roasted carrot. "You already know I bit off Wade Kelly's finger and used to live under your son's arena, so honestly, most of it's already public record."
There's no point in even trying to approximate their normalcy, so why bother?
Maureen stares at me, then actually laughs, and everyone's breathing again.
Dinner actually goes… well.
Weirdly well.
Other than my constant internal panicking about how fucking fancy they are and how I feel very much like a feral omega who got plucked out of a tunnel, anyway.
But Maureen is so sweet, it's hard to completely freak out.
She asks about my hobbies and lights up when I mention Thane promised me bookcases. Arthur, Plague, and Valek get into a surprisingly civil conversation about European leagues in the meantime. Wraith drinks his soup in slow, careful pulls behind me.
And Thane spends the whole meal with his spine straight as a goalpost, eating too fast, glancing between his father and the rest of us with the same intensity as if he were on the ice and we're all pucks about to get out of control.
But we all behave. Even Whiskey, because he keeps taking more pot roast and it's keeping his mouth occupied.
"Ma'am," Whiskey says solemnly, reaching for more, "I mean this with all my heart. Next time I gotta bulk for the season, I'm coming here. This is the second greatest thing I've ever put in my mouth."
He's looking straight at me when he says it, of course. Because he can't help himself.
Then he looks at Plague.
"Third."
Plague drops his fork.
I'm pretty sure everyone hears my squeak.
"Speaking of which," Arthur says slowly, setting his own silverware down parallel on his plate. He steeples his fingers. "Would either of you like to explain why the fans are running a frame-by-frame analysis of the scar on Whiskey's neck?"
The table goes silent.
"Uh, what?" Whiskey asks, his ears reddening.
I just stare, blinking.
"There are side-by-side comparisons of the scar on your neck with the approximate bite radius of every alpha in this pack," Arthur continues. "Someone made a spreadsheet."
"A spreadsheet," Plague repeats in a completely flat voice.
"Yes. Cross-referencing jaw width, canine spacing, and estimated bite force." Arthur takes a sip of water. "Wraith was eliminated first. Too sharp, would have caused more damage. Thane was ruled unlikely due to… well. Insufficient romantic tension in available footage."
Thane groans. "You were considering it was me?"
Arthur shrugs. "Hey. You never know."
More loud groaning from Thane.
I'm trying not to laugh at him.
"That leaves Plague and Valek." Arthur's eyes move between them.
But Plague and Whiskey are the ones to exchange a look. Whiskey just shrugs pointedly at him. Plague opens his mouth and turns back to Arthur, then to me.
I urge him with my eyes to tell the truth.
For a moment, Plague is completely frozen. Then he tears his eyes away from mine and picks at his napkin before looking back to Arthur.
"It was me," Plague says finally. "I marked Whiskey. Well. As much as an alpha can," he adds in a mutter.
Plague reaches up to the collar of his turtleneck sweater and tugs it down, baring his own scar from Whiskey's teeth.
"And he did the same."
Maureen blushes.
Arthur just stares at the mark, then nods thoughtfully, chewing.
"For what it's worth," Arthur says, returning to his meal, "the public response has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's helping turn the tide. Apparently your pack's… how do they put it… your pack's vibes are very popular."
"Our vibes," Thane says.
Valek leans back in his chair, arms crossed, grinning like Christmas came early. "It's always been clear they're a couple of lovebirds," he remarks. "This is a surprise to absolutely no one."
I catch Plague stomping on Valek's shoe under the table.
Valek doesn't even flinch.
Arthur clears his throat.
"Well. You don't need to hide anything here. You come whenever you like," Maureen says, beaming in delight. "All of you. You all share the same scent match, so that makes you—"
She stops, just for a second. Her eyes flick toward Wraith, and her lips thin and pull.
Because they gave him back.
He took their name anyway, because Thane was his brother even though Maureen and Arthur were never his parents. They were his last long-term placement before a flurry of short-term stays and he aged out of the system.
Wraith was too broken, too feral, for the Belmonts. Too many hospitals and locked doors and nightmares. And it wasn’t long after Maureen saw his face.
He still loves them.
He says he understands.
I know all of this from Thane, in pieces.
Maureen recovers by clearing her throat and reaching for the water pitcher, refilling everyone's glasses, including the ones that don't need to be refilled.
"Family," she finishes, softer.
I squeeze Wraith's arm where it's wrapped around my waist and try not to show how upset and angry I am at the injustice that Wraith's only father is dead and his only mother thinks he is.
He doesn't react. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him staring off into space as silverware and glasses clink.
Arthur puts his hand over Maureen's on the table, briefly, before clearing his throat. "So. Ivy. That livestream," he says, his eyes finding mine. "Thousands of live viewers, and millions of views on the uploads to social media. Unscripted and without contacting the legal team."
"That's me," I say with a sheepish grin. "A menace."
"It was the smartest move anyone in this situation has made," Arthur says flatly.
"Including our lawyers, and I pay them a frankly criminal amount of money.
The Demons released a statement an hour ago distancing themselves from the Kelly family's lawsuit.
And Wade's personal accounts have gone dark. "
He cuts a piece of roast.
"When the other side stops talking, it means someone told them to stop making it worse," Arthur continues.
"Wade Kelly's counsel spent weeks building a narrative, and you dismantled it in five minutes from a couch.
" He points his fork at me, which I suspect is the Belmont equivalent of a hug.
"You handled it well, kid. You're bold."
"She's terrifying," Valek agrees pleasantly, smiling proudly.
"The league review closes at the end of the month," Arthur adds, glancing at Thane, then at the silent hooded shape behind me before meeting my eyes again.
"But the public pressure is doing half the work now.
Keep your heads down, play your games, and let Wade's lawyers realize they're trying to fight an omega the entire internet has adopted. "
"So we're winning," Whiskey says.
Arthur sighs. "Well. You're not losing," he says, his lips tugging into a slight smile. "In my experience, that's usually the same thing."
Wraith exhales into my hair, long and slow.
Nobody says much as Maureen stands and starts gathering plates, waving off Plague when he tries to help.
Valek offers, too, and she actually lets him, saying it's only because he's such a gentleman, which lights up his whole face in his most devilish grin yet as he spins around to aim it straight at Plague.
Plague's eyes narrow.
Oh yeah. We're never going to hear the end of this.
We're still sitting in weird polite silence, interrupted only by the sound of an oven door opening, then closing, and a waft of cinnamon rolls into the dining room.
Whiskey's head snaps up like a hound.
"YO!" He slaps the table hard enough to rattle the candlesticks. "THERE'S MOTHERFUCKING PIE?"