A wicked smile forms across his features. Something dark and twisted, almost, changing his face completely. My heart begins to race, my scent souring as I take a single step away from him. Something is telling me that no amount of distance I can putbetween us will ever be enough, because the look he’s giving me now is downright villainous.
For the first time since meeting Sasha Volkov, I don’t know which version of him is standing in front of me. The broken Alpha who had looked at me like I was his lifeline only moments ago is gone, buried beneath the same unreadable mask he’s worn since the day we met. A chill creeps down my spine. Not because I think he’ll hurt me. Because I can’t predict him, and predicting people is what I’m good at. It’s why I became such a good lawyer. A short career considering the circumstances, but a skill I’m proud that not too many possess.
His lips twitch, the ghost of a sadistic smile lingering for only a second before his expression smooths into something cold and unreadable. Those icy blue eyes pin me where I stand, the weight of his stare settling somewhere deep within my bones.
“Forget me?” He lets out a humorless chuckle. “That’s not how this ends for us, Omega. But you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing you could.”
I don’t know how, but we were able to win the game against the Gators.
After returning for what little remained of the second period, I noticed something shift in my players. Whatever fear or anger had settled over the bench after Sebastian was taken from the ice seemed to harden into resolve. Every hit became heavier. Every stride is more purposeful. Every battle along the boards was fought as if it were the one that mattered most. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read six goals to nil.
We won.
It should have felt like triumph. Instead, it felt… quiet. Bittersweet. Like celebrating beneath a sky already threatening to storm. While we lost a goalie, along with me very nearly losing my mind, I can’t deny how proud I am of every single one of them. It may only be one away game in my coaching career, but it’s one I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. Not because of the score, but because of everything that happened in between.
I don’t speak to Sasha for the remainder of the game, nor does he seek me out, which is on brand. Silence between us isn’t unusual. If anything, it’s become the only language we’ve ever really spoken. But after everything that transpired between us, the quiet feels… different.
Heavier.
Like it’s carrying the weight of words neither of us is willing to say out loud. I keep expecting something, but why the fuck for? I was the one who said we needed to forget about what happened. I was the one who put my brain back in place and felt instant regret for forgetting the true purpose of my being here. Yet, like an idiot, I’m still looking for something. Some silent acknowledgment that what happened behind the locked door of my office wasn’t simply going to disappear because we’d both chosen to return to work. But there’s nothing. Only stolen glances that vanish the moment I catch them, and the lingering awareness of him every time he steps onto the ice. It makes me wonder if things between us would have unfolded differently had we met under a different sky. If I hadn’t inherited, almost inherited, a hockey team. If he wasn’t the captain. Maybe fate would have been kinder to us. Two people standing on opposite sides of a line neither of us can afford to cross again.
But none of that matters right now.
Not when Sebastian is somewhere in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors trying to determine whether he’ll everstep onto the ice again. I’ve seen enough careers end before they were ready to know that injuries don’t come with guarantees. You fight. You rehab. You hope. Sometimes, that’s enough. Sometimes it isn’t.
The thought settles heavily in my chest. Tomorrow there will be scans to read, specialists to speak with, management meetings to attend, and contingency plans to put in place. There’ll be media waiting for statements, a roster that suddenly needs reshuffling, practices to redesign, and a team looking to me for answers I don’t have.
I’ll throw myself into it, just like I always do. Work has been the easiest place to hide. The easiest place to bury my thoughts that hurt too much to examine. Because if I keep moving, if I keep planning, then maybe I won’t have to think about what happened tonight. About the Alpha whose touch still lingers against my skin. About the line we crossed and the even more impossible task of pretending we didn’t.
And yet, as the arena empties around us and I catch him watching me one last time before vanishing down the tunnel, I can’t help but wonder if fate ever cared much for lines in the first place.
Chapter Fifteen
Holden
Ican sense the tension in Sasha.
It has consumed him like a raging tornado since the game against the Gators a few weeks ago, following him from room to room, practice to practice, never quite meeting the ground but never easing either. Usually, I know what version of my Alpha I’m waking up beside. The broody one. The perfectly lovable one who tries to hide his feelings. The one pretending everything is fine because that’s easier than admitting he still wakes in the middle of the night, choking on fucking memories.
Or my personal favorite, the version who pretends he isn’t listening while Dominic and I fuck in the shower. I know he loves that shit. The grumpy bastard will stomp around our home muttering under his breath about us using all the hot water, all while lingering just long enough outside the bathroom door that Dom and I know he’s hoping one of us will drag him in. He’d deny it until the day he dies, but he’s a terrible liar.
Normally, all it takes is one teasing comment from either of us for him to crack. A roll of his eyes. A sarcastic remark. Maybeeven that tiny smile he fights so damn hard to hide whenever he thinks neither of us is looking. Lately, we’ve got nothing. Silence.
Not the comfortable kind we’ve spent years building together, where words aren’t necessary because we already know what the others are thinking. The kind that feels wrong. Like I’m standing beside the love of my life, yet somehow he’s a thousand miles away.
I’ve spent the better part of fifteen years learning every version of Sasha and Dominic. Long before we were drafted. Long before NHL. Back when we were nothing more than a bunch of dumb teenagers trying to survive high school without getting suspended every other week. We found each other before fate ever found us. Before designation mattered. We chose each other first.
I know the way their mouths twitch when they’re trying not to laugh at my admittedly incredible sense of humor. We’ve been there for each other through it all. When my sister and mother cut ties with me because they didn’t approve of my pack, something about them being dangerous, Sasha and Dom were the ones to talk me down. Willing to walk away if it meant I had them in my life. That was never going to happen because you couldn’t pay me to give up my guys. They’re everything to me, and my sister can either get on board or fuck all the way off. She chose the latter, and that’s no longer my problem.
We stick together. That is what a pack does.
It isn’t just biology or instinct. It’s also a choice. One I’d make over and over again in every type of reality that exists.
It’s the same for Dominic too, except he grew up never knowing his real parents. The closest thing he had to a family was us. We spent years chasing every lead we could find after we signed our first contracts. Every private investigator around. Every public record. We thought money would buy us answers. Instead, it brought closure.
His biological parents had both died before he was old enough to remember them. And when the couple who adopted him were killed in a car accident just after he turned eighteen, Sasha and I never even discussed what came next. Dominic packed his bags and came home to us. We didn’t have a penthouse back then, but it didn’t matter where we lived. I’d live under a tarp with them if I had to. Thesethingsaren’t what make a home to me. They do.
Which is exactly why watching Sasha disappear into himself feels like watching the foundations beneath our pack begin to crack. And I don’t know how to stop it.
