Page 187 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"I was almost literally a doctor," Plague growls.

“Almost, being the key word.”

Plague throws his hands up and stalks to the freezer for an ice pack.

I pull my phone out to check the time and the lockscreen lights up.

The lockscreen of three of my alphas in a… well. A cock-sucking chain.

I forgot it was there.

"Oh," I say, and then I can't help it. "Oh, I should show you guys⁠—"

Whiskey lunges.

But it's too late. Valek's already glanced over from the stove, and his silver eyes catch the screen, and his mouth twitches into a slow grin.

"Ah," he says. "She wasn't joking about the lockscreen."

Plague freezes halfway out of the freezer. The ice pack dangles from his hand. His eyes lock onto my phone and the tips of his ears go scarlet, the color crawling up from beneath his mask.

"You set that as your lockscreen," he says, his voice strangled.

“She told us she was,” Whiskey reminds him.

Plague just groans.

Wraith leans over to look at my screen, then signs something at Valek that makes the white-haired alpha actually bark out a laugh.

"What'd he say?" Whiskey demands.

"He says I look smug," Valek replies.

Smugly.

Thane finally shuffles into the kitchen, hair a disaster, and takes in the scene with the flat exhaustion of a pack leader who's given up trying to understand his own life. His eyes land on my phone screen as I'm still holding it up, and he immediately turns around and walks back out.

"I don't want to see that before coffee," he calls over his shoulder.

"You don't want to see it ever, Captain!" Whiskey yells back. "It's not your business!"

"It's literally on her lockscreen, Whiskey. It's everyone's business now."

I pocket my phone, still grinning, and notice something.

Wraith's scarf is sagging again, slipping down past the line of his jaw, exposing the scarred lower half of his face entirely. He hasn't fixed it. He's too busy signing back and forth with Valek about something.

Valek’s hands are clumsy and slow compared to Wraith's fluid movements, but he’s trying to sign while he speaks out loud, the way Thane does. Only Valek is speaking Russian, not English.

Warm fuzzies flutter in my chest.

And when I notice Valek isn’t reacting to Wraith’s face, and he's maintaining steady eye contact with the feral alpha without his eyes flicking to the scars and sharp teeth even though I get the feeling eye contact isn't necessarily easy for Valek in the first place, the warm fuzzies really get going.

Actually, none of the alphas are reacting. They're all treating Wraith normally. Even Whiskey is managing to fight every stare-and-yell-YO-BRO demon inside him.

Although that might be because Plague is actively hunting him with the ice pack, which is now wrapped in a damp towel.

Wraith notices me watching and tilts his head. What?