Page 210 of Psycho Pack

"You wouldn't know straight if it bit you in the ass," Plague mutters.

Whiskey's eyebrows shoot up. "Was that ajoke? From Prince Stick-Up-His-Ass himself?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Plague says primly, but I catch the hint of a smile in his eyes. "Are you just wishing you'd stuck around to find out what Raven meant when he said you were the cute one?"

"Hey," Whiskey barks. "He wasn't talkin' about me."

"He looked right at you," I point out.

"He did not," Whiskey groans, dropping his head back against the couch. "He was clearlylooking at you."

"Fifteen for the cutealpha," Plague says, echoing Raven's words. "Not the cuteomega."

Whiskey scowls at him and fidgets uncomfortably. "Could've been any of us," he mutters. He glances at Wraith like he's about to say something stupid and my eyes narrow warningly, but whatever he's thinking about saying, he keeps it to himself.

Wow. He's actually capable of having a filter.

There's a first for everything, I guess.

Then the door opens and Thane strides in, his dark eyes scanning the room automatically before settling on us. Even inhis charcoal suit, he still carries himself with the commanding presence of a military leader.

"Well?" Plague asks, sitting up straighter.

"Valek made contact," Thane says, running a hand through his dark hair. "So now we wait."

I shift against Wraith's solid warmth, watching Thane's face carefully for any sign of what he's thinking. He looks tense, but that's nothing new. We're almost always tense.

"How long do we wait?" I ask.

Thane shrugs, his broad shoulders moving beneath the charcoal suit. "Could be hours. Could be days. Nikolai isn't exactly known for his predictability."

"Or his sanity," Whiskey chimes in from his sprawled position on the couch. "Just sayin'. The guys' completely unpredictable."

"You're one to talk," I mutter.

He just grins at me, unrepentant as always.

Valek slips into the room behind Thane, his eyes glinting with the same silver as the accents in his scarf. He’s wearing it again even though it clearly annoys Plague. Or maybebecauseit annoys Plague. “We simply have to trust that thirst for power and wealth will overcome everything else.”

"And if it doesn't?" Plague asks, his pale eyes narrowing.

"Then we're no worse off than we are now," Valek replies with a shrug. "Though I must say, the promise of Surhiiran gold does tend to make people remarkably forgiving. Especially people who have had to buy their own survival."

I catch the way Plague's jaw tightens at that. He's still not entirely comfortable with using his homeland's resources this way, even though the queen gave her blessing. Another reminder of how complicated all of this is.

"What do we do now, then?" I ask.

Thane shrugs. "We wait."

I watch Whiskey and Plague fall back into their usual bickering, with Valek joining in this time, though there's an undercurrent of deeper affection to it now that wasn't there before. Everyone is clearly still tense around him, including me, but seeing him try so hard is making it a little bit easier to consider a future where I'm not as pissed off as I am.

It's sweet, in its own way, like watching them bond over a sport. And I guess fighting is a sport to them. But I can't relax. My body thrums with tension from everything that's happened, and I can tell by the rigid set of Thane's shoulders that he's just as wound up.

My mind drifts back to that thought Plague implanted in my mind about Thane and Wraith, and in spite of all the things weighing on my mind, I feel my stomach clench at the thought.

Maybe there's a way I can help the two alphas work off some of this stress. The way their massive frames fills out their black suits is doing things to me, anyway.

And I'm tired of fighting it.

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