The final goal comes ugly, the way the best ones often do: bodies stacked in the crease, sticks hacking, the puck bouncing off skates and pads until Marco muscles it through sheer will and buries it behind their goalie.
The horn blares, and the Iceboxshakes.
Beer sloshes as people scream themselves hoarse. The Wolves argue the call, crowding the ref and shouting about goalie interference. Connor chirps back, grinning like he’s won Christmas as one of their player’s squares right up to him. It only ends when the refs shove them apart.
We hold the last seconds by grinding it into the boards, killing time the hard way. My shoulder burns as I pin a guy along the glass, but it holds.
Then the buzzer sounds.
We win—but only just.
As we skate off, lungs burning, legs heavy, my eyes find Emery without conscious thought. She’s already moving, heading toward the tunnel where Theo disappeared, her attention fully locked into work mode. Through the bond, I feel the echo of her emotions: relief first, then worry settling underneath.
Pride swells in my chest at our win, fierce and territorial and threaded through with something softer I don’t have time to name.
She’s mine, and this team—thisseason—is going to demand everything I’ve got.
Including control.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Theo
It’s been four days since the hit that took me out of the game, and three since the bruising started to bloom beneath the skin. Whatever damage was done—trapped nerve, torn muscle, bruised bone—Emery’s the only one I trust to figure it out, and I’m already waiting in the PT room when she walks in.
It’s the first time I’ve been so close to her since… well,everything.
And if I didn’t already know she’d been claimed, then I’d know now.
Before she even opens her mouth, before she even looks at me, her scent tells me everything. It’s richer, the edge of wildness to it replaced by the unmistakable signature of an alpha’s bite, but it’s not just Beau. There’s… something else underneath. Somethingmore.
I inhale once, then again, subtly as I can. And it’s faint, but it’s definitely there.
Connor.
There’s something about the way she moves now, softer at the edges, glow in her cheeks and that satisfied ease in her body—like she’s finally beenseen—and it does something to me I wasn’t ready for.
“Hey,” she says, smiling when she sees me and tucking one of her dark curls behind her ear as she shuts the door. “You beat me here.”
“Didn’t want to be late,” I shrug, trying not to wince as I rotate my shoulder. “Figured if I sat too long, I’d lock up entirely.”
She sets her clipboard down and walks toward me, her voice dropping into that soft, clinical tone she uses when she’s focusing.
“Let me take a look.”
The second she’s close, it hits me harder:theirscent. Combined.
My instincts stir, but I hold still as Emery’s fingers move with practiced ease, tugging my hoodie up and off. Her hands are warm against my skin as she gently presses into the muscle along my neck and shoulder, and I hiss through my teeth.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
“Don’t be. That means you found it.”
Her eyes flick to mine, and the look there is... complicated.
We don’t talk about what’s hovering between us. We never have. She’s all business as she walks around me, checking range of motion and making little humming noises under her breath, but I’m not just watching her hands: I’m watchingher.
The way her cheeks flush when she catches me looking.
