“You shut your filthy fucking mouth about my father,” she gasps.
I take another step forward, concerned about her. It’s not every day you meet your scent match, and I’m having a hard time trying to wrap my head around what this means. Her father hates me, he has to. We glare at each other across the hockey rink several times a season while our teams go for each other’s throats.
This feels like some hardcore regurgitated hate if I’ve ever seen it.
My nostrils flare as I smell the chemical scent of the spray she must have doused her body in, but I also smell…patchouli? It’s such a new age scent, yet it also works hard to override her natural one.
Someone is hiding.
“Why do you hide, Little Omega?” I croon, taking another step forward.
Caelia shoves back in the chair, and it knocks into the wall as she pants. Lifting what’s in her hand, she brandishes a stun gun at me, pushing the button so I’ll hear the crackle of it.
“Why do you need that?” I ask, dumbfounded.
The cards spilled when she shoved herself back, and I realize they aren’t playing cards, but tarot. I know nothing about her anymore. She’s all grown up.
I haven’t spoken a word to her in the six years that spread between the time that I was a hockey player on her father’s team and now.
A hand slams into my chest, pushing me back until I hit the wall, which is as far as I can possibly be from Caelia. Ripping my gaze away from her, I see Curtis Freedman’s angry face.
“Are you back to continue what your old teammates did to her?” he asks, his voice almost unrecognizable. “They destroyed my baby girl. Did they tell you that while they fucked with my reputation?”
“What?” I ask, having a hard time processing that information. All I can think about is that Caelia is supposed to be mine, and I can’t see her anymore. Not to mention, Curtis very obviously hates me as much as I hate him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“Do you understand the word ‘no’ when someone says it to you?” Curtis asks. “Or do you take what’s not freely offered?”
“No,” I sputter. “No means no. Full stop, do not continue past.”
“Then maybe you should have taught your teammates that,” Curtis growls, moving backward toward his office door, as if he thinks I’m going to rush past him. My instincts are riding me hard as horror fills my veins. They’re telling me to protect my scent match, but I’m already too late. “They had a real hard time with that word six years ago.”
The words echo in my head as I shake it. I was friends with these guys, I still see them around and greet them occasionally when my team plays theirs. This can’t be happening.
“Who?” I croak out, my hands pressed against the cool paint of the wall to ground myself. “Who hurt her?”
“It doesn’t matter where you’re concerned,” Freedman mutters.
“Daddy?” Caelia whimpers, making me flinch as if I was shocked with her stun gun. There’s so much sadness, fear, and pain in that one word.
I desperately want to be the one she calls for, but she doesn’t fucking know me, not really. I was with the team for six years while Freedman coached the Devils. Watching someone grow up from afar, doesn’t mean shit when her father has clearly been there for all the hard parts.
“Leave her alone,” Freedman whispers. “Please. She’s all I have.”
The door slams in my face as I stare at it. I can’t get myself to move away from the wall, not when a piece of me I didn’t know I was missing is so close by. I’ve watched people meet their scent match, but I never thought it would feel like a punch to the knot.
I lose track of time, startling when a hand touches my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, sir. Coach Freedman would like to take his daughter home now. I need you to leave this area so that he can do that.”
Turning my head, I see that there’s a security guard beside me.
“Yeah, I’ll go,” I grunt, pushing away from the wall.
I’m stuck in my head as I make it back to the lockers, unsurprised to find that they’re empty. Checking my phone, I find a text that the buses are loaded, and they’re waiting for me. Pushing out an exit, I walk to where the buses are.
Climbing on, my eyes search for Levon. Every footstep feels heavy as I walk, stopping beside him.
“What’s up, Coach?” he asks, searching my face.
