A whole roster of potential disasters.
I drag my palm across the treatment table once, grounding myself, then flip my pen around in my fingers, glancing at the door.
I’m in a concrete box at the back of a rink in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by alphas, with my name written in colors on the whiteboard and my stuff in all the drawers. My space is small, rough, and humming with potential.
It feels, uncomfortably, like the start of something.
I blow out another breath and square my shoulders.
“Alright, Iron Lake,” I mutter. “Send me your next problem.”
Chapter Eleven
Connor
My thoughts are swirling like snow in a blizzard, and maybe that’s why I walk directly into the wall outside her door once Benny has stepped in.
It’s a solidthump, and pain shoots through my ribs.
The wall wins.
“Hey, Madsen!” I look down to the far end of the corridor, where Dylan is grinning. “You okay, or did she break you with a glance?”
“...The wall moved,” I announce.
“It didn’t,” he says.
“It definitely did.”
I rub my forehead like that might fix my life and pull my hoodie on over my T-shirt. My ribs still feel warm from where her fingers were pressed, slow and clinical and intentional, and my brain hasn’t caught up.
Emery Tate.
She’s not what I expected. She’s funny in that quiet, sarcastic, deadpan way that sneaks up on you and smells like citrus and clean laundry, like fresh sunlight on a windowsill—shit you only notice when your instincts suddenly sit up and say:well hello.
Suppressants never fully hide a fresh omega scent, and hers is one I won’t be forgetting anytime soon, even if it has been dulled down.
I get ready quickly before I head over to the rink, and the arena hits me with its usual slap of cold air and charm of a half-functioning municipal building. Gordo’s already skating laps, Theo’s stretching on the bench, and Marco’s lying on his back at center ice doing…something.
Leg circles, maybe. Or snow angel yoga.
“Morning, sunshine,” he calls without lifting his head.
I skate out toward him. “You look like a crime scene outline.”
“Iama crime scene outline,” he groans, stretching dramatically. “My lower back died three seasons ago, and the rest of me is just waiting.”
Dylan skates up to us, flicking ice shavings at him.
“Emery’ll fix it.”
“She’ll fix everything,” I say before I can stop myself.
Both of them look at me funny, and Marco’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Ohhh. You saw her.”
Saw her? Touched her? Got clinically assessed as though she was reading my soul?
