Page 29 of Knot Your Pucking Secret

Not because she’s a woman, or an Omega. We’ve all learned the hard way that binary and designation means absolutely nothing in the skills department despite what some Alphas think. But for someone whose career isn’t playing hockey to have just stepped onto the ice and outplay us all. Again. She hadn’t needed to threaten my position. She simply reminded me that I had one. That’s what Lennon does best. She never tells you that you’ve failed. She creates the kind of moment where you realize it yourself. If you weren’t paying attention, it almost feels like a compliment. Like she trusts you, believes you, pushes you because she knew you could do better.

But if you looked a little closer, you realized she’d already torn your game apart before you even understood what she was doing. By the time you figured it out, you’d already become the lesson. Today, that lesson was me.

In front of the entire fucking team.

Wearing our captain’s jersey.

Lennon Welshis brutal.

Ruthless.

And I don’t think I’ve ever wanted her more.

She is right, though. I’ve been lacking this season, and I know I’m not the only one. My head hasn’t been on the ice for months.

I have been focused on her. On my actions and their consequences. On every moment I could have stopped what was happening and chose my pack instead.

Hockey had started to feel meaningless by comparison. But Lennon hadn’t returned to coach a team that had forgotten how to fucking play, and improving my game couldn’t remainsomewhere near the bottom of my priorities. She wants me to be better.

So I will do better.

It’s the least I can do.

Not because playing will somehow undo what I did. Not because winning will earn me forgiveness. Some debts can’t be cleared by putting points on a board. But this is the one thing she is asking from me, even if she will never frame it that way, and I refuse to fail her there too. If she wants me to win her games, that’s exactly what I will do. If she wants me to exhaust myself for the rest of this season, only to get her that fucking cup, you bet your ass that is exactly what I will do.

I’ll skate until my lungs bleed. I’ll throw my body in front of every puck, take every hit and bury every shot she puts in front of me. Not to prove I deserve her, because right now, I don’t. But because she deserves a team worthy of her.

The memory of practice plays through my head again, beginning with the moment Lennon turned away from me and offered another player what she had refused to give me.

I watch Lennon smile at my teammates, offering them praise and advice as they attack and defend against each other. It’s cruel that she didn’t offer me the same kindness. But I get it, as much as I fucking hate the reasoning behind it.

Before I can keep dwelling on it, the locker room doors swing open and Lennon walks through beside the team doctor, their voices low as they discuss Sebastian’s progress.

Seb has been through the fucking ringer since the night everything went to shit in a handbasket. The corrupt Alpha responsible hadn’t just injured him. He had obliterated him piece by piece, leaving damage that went far beyond the bruises and broken bones everyone could see. There had been swelling around his spine, nerve damage through one leg and enough trauma to his hip and pelvis that the doctors hadn’t knownwhether he would ever walk properly again. For weeks, nobody had been willing to promise that he would walk at all.

The first time they’d got him upright, his legs gave out beneath him before he could take a single step. The second time, he made it less than a foot before the pain sent him crashing back into the support harness. Since then, his entire life has been reduced to physiotherapy and hospitals. Learning to trust muscles that no longer respond the way his brain expects them to. Every movement had to be taught back to his body, every step fought for.

The doc explains that Seb is finally managing to walk short distances, and that the sensation in his injured leg is slowly improving, but there’s still no timeline for when he will be able to walk without assistance. Returning to the ice isn’t even part of the conversation yet. I already knew as much from what he’d told me, I only wish things had been different. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.

Lennon asks question after question, her voice steady despite the concern hidden beneath it. “Keep me updated after his next session,” she says quietly. “Even if there’s no chance, I still want to know.”

“You got it, Coach,” the doc replies with an understanding nod before turning around and heading back down the hallway.

Lennon remains where she is for a moment, her shoulders sagging beneath the weight of everything she’d just learned about our goalie. She lets out a slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose before straightening herself.

Only then does she turn toward the locker room. Her gaze catches on me, and for the briefest moment, she freezes. Her eyes lock onto mine, unreadable as always. Her shoulders square. Every crack I’d just witnessed disappears behind the coach she forces herself to become. Without acknowledging me, she walks further into the locker room, her footsteps againstthe concrete echoing through the otherwise empty space. She doesn’t spare me a second glance as she reaches up, peeling Volkov’s practice jersey over her head in one fluid motion.

The red fabric lands in a heap as she throws it toward the hamper tucked against the far wall. It catches the rim for a split second before dropping inside. She busies herself gathering the rest of her things as though I’m not sitting less than ten feet away. As though I don’t exist. I force myself to stand, my legs suddenly feeling a hell of a lot less reliable than they ever had on the ice. Yesterday, I’d had a million and one things I planned on saying to her the next time our paths crossed. I’d replayed the conversation over and over in my head. Every apology and explanation. Every argument she’d no doubt try to have with me. Every desperate attempt to convince her that the Beta standing before her wasn’t the same man who’d let his Alpha’s rage dictate his own actions.

I’d convinced myself I was ready.

The words would come naturally.

That if I had just five fucking minutes alone with her, I’d somehow know exactly what to say.

But now she’s here.

Standing in nothing more than a fitted tank top, the harsh fluorescent lights catching against the sheen of sweat still clinging to her skin, every muscle in my body forgets how to function. My mouth goes dry. My heart suddenly pounds against my ribs, hard enough to hurt, and everything coherent abandons me.