Page 411 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

"Damn. I really hoped she'd come up with something fun for our little 'mortal enemies' thing we've got brewing, but she just went back to livestock again."

Ivy cracks up beside me as we cross the parking lot, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. She's doing better than last time she visited Claire, I think.

Probably because I absorbed all the hits instead of her. Or Wraith. Or Valek.

I can take 'em no problem. I'll happily be the Claire Whisperer from here on out. Imagining how badly she must have hurt Wraith makes me wanna puke.

I swing a leg over Hogzilla and settle into the seat, turning the key. The engine catches and rumbles to life beneath me. Ivy climbs on behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, helmet already on, the pointy chin of the helmet pressing against my spine.

"You okay?" I ask over my shoulder.

"Yeah." Her arms squeeze me affectionately. "Thank you for doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Being you."

"Oh. Yeah. Can't really help that."

She bonks her helmet against my back affectionately.

The ride from the care facility to the campsite isn't too long, and I wish it would go on forever. The back roads are twisty and narrow, the pavement giving way to gravel, then dirt.

Ivy's grip tightens on the rougher terrain.

I slow down because she's precious cargo and I'm not a complete maniac, despite what Thane thinks, and also because the last time I hit a pothole with Ivy on the back, she squeezed my love handles so hard I saw God and not in the fun way.

The air gets colder as we gain elevation. Smells different up here where it's dark and foggy. Kinda like Wraith, actually.

Fitting. Because if everything goes right tonight—and it will, because I believe in him, and I believe in Ivy's plan—Wraith marks her.

The last bite.

The one that completes the pack bond and keeps us all safe and together and legal.

The campsite appears through a break in the trees. Wraith's SUV is parked at the edge of a small clearing beside a river I hear before I see. There's a tent already set up—a big one, the kind that could fit two normal people or one Wraith and a pint-sized omega—and a firepit ringed with rocks.

And enough chopped wood to build a second pack house.

Classic Wraith.

The alpha himself is standing by the firepit, massive and still, his dark hoodie pushed back off his head for once, his exposed teeth glinting in the light from the fire and visible even from here.

His blue eyes find us the second the engine sound changes.

I kill the motor and kick the stand down.

Ivy's off the bike before I am, pulling the helmet off and shaking out her hair. She looks at the campsite, taking it all in.

"You set all this up?" she asks.

Wraith nods, his shoulders drawing up slightly, kind of uncertain.

"It's perfect," she says, crossing to him and rising on her toes, and he bends to meet her, dipping his head enough that she can reach his scarred face. She cups his jaw in both hands and presses her lips against his teeth with zero hesitation.

I hang back by the bike, watching them, giving them the moment. The forest is dark and quiet except for the river and the soft wind rustling the trees overhead, and the two of them standing together in this clearing look like something out of a painting no one would believe is real.

Wraith's eyes close when she kisses him.