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When I called him he’d just gotten out of hockey practice, so his clothing was still disheveled and his black hair was sticking up in all directions as he stood in front of me with his hands on his hips.
I’d only ever seen him from a distance but up close I could see exactly why Ciara liked him. He was a handsome fellow, but that wasn’t it. He seemed to take in everything he’d heard in stride, as if he’d been expecting all of this to happen.
“I’m Leith Dougall, sorry that our formal introductions have to happen like this,” I said, holding my hand out to him.
He shook it but his eyes were already going to the pair behind me. “I’m Jae-Sun Park, but most people call me Wiz. Ciara’s told me a lot about you.”
My eyebrows rose at that. “She has?”
I wasn’t sure why, but the idea that Ciara had talked about me with the alpha filled me with a mixed sense of excitement and dread.
Wiz nodded in the affirmative, his cheek dimpling as he smiled at me. “Yeah, we’ve been discussing what potentially joining your pack would look like, but it looks like these two have figured that out all for themselves without the rest of us.”
“This doesn’t make you jealous?” I asked, surprised. I wasn’t sure that, if the situations were reversed, that I wouldn’t be green with it if I saw my girlfriend wrapped up with another man. Even if he was an omega in heat.
Wiz shrugged. “The way it happened doesn’t seem ideal, but I wouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with her if I couldn’t handle all of this.” He gestured to the pair in the shower.
I opened my mouth, at a loss for words for a moment before I finally managed to choke out. “You’re oddly calm about all of this, so apologies if I sound shocked.”
“My parents raised me to communicate about things first versus reacting emotionally. Makes me a pretty good hockey player, and a pretty good boyfriend if I do say so myself.”
I couldn’t fault him there.
Wiz snagged one of the big fluffy towels that the changing room stocked and made a step in the direction of the shower.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They’ve both been… not all together nice when I’ve approached,” I warned.
Wiz shot me a grin. “Let me try it and if it doesn’t work we can figure out where to go from there—can you grab another towel for Artem?”
“We call him Artie,” I corrected him before grabbing a towel.
“Artie, then.” Wiz stepped into the shower where the pair was still locked together, Ciara’s teeth deeply embedded into Artie’s neck.
Despite the fact that they were now shivering from the lack of hot water pouring down on them, they still clung to each other as Ciara let out a growl, warning Wiz off from coming any closer.
But Wiz didn’t seem put off by her rejection. Instead, he crouched down low so they were eye level and offered her a soft smile.
“Hey there, gorgeous, what a situation you seem to have gotten yourself into, huh?”
Ciara answered his question with another growl, but Wiz just kept talking.
“I know you don’t want to leave him right now, but can I at least get you to loosen your jaw? You wouldn’t want to mangle that pretty bond mark you’ve made, would you?”
He continued to speak softly to her until her mouth slowly unhinged and she released Artie’s neck. Her mark was, even to my eyes, indeed very pretty where it was sitting just above mine. Once it healed up it would make a perfect match to his other ones.
For just one breath, I let myself feel excitement. Ciara was a part of our pack now, for better or worse, she was ours.
And then the reality settled in again. What would happen as soon as she came to her senses again? What the hell was I supposed to tell Enzo when I promised him that I would take care of Artie?
Letting another alpha bond him before we had any actual verbal discussions seemed to go against that promise almost to a T.
“There we go,” Wiz cooed as Ciara reached for him and he pulled her off of Artie’s lap, wrapping her up in the towel. The movement caused the omega to whine loudly at the loss despite being half asleep himself.
Recognizing that it was my turn, I stepped into the shower and wrapped Artie up in his own towel and pulled him close to my body, inhaling their mixed scents deeply.
“Aurelia says she’s got a car waiting for us at the west exit. We should cover them completely in towels, but I think most people are going to be gone for the day,” I told Wiz as we patted them both dry.
“And then what?” he asked, caressing Ciara’s sleeping face as it lolled against his shoulder.
