Horror pierces me as people race toward him, and my stick falls from my hand as red flows out around them.
I fall to my knees as panic bursts through the rink, medics dash out, and people are yelling around us.
I can’t see anything except the body slumped on the ice.
“He’s having a seizure! Someone get the fuck over here! Get the kit! We need to stop the bleeding.”
It’s like the scene of a play unfolding in front of me. I’m just another member of the audience and not the guy who hit the puck right into him and destroyed his face.
The blood freezes deep red as it pools around the medic’s knees, and Timber’s body convulses.
The muffled shouts and cries grew in the distance as the high buzzing whirs through me.
All I can do is sit there, wheezing as they end the game, dragging him off the ice on a stretcher with a streak of blood forming behind him. And I’m left with the knowledge I might have killed the guy I’d idolized since I was a kid.
***
Igasp as I shoot up in bed, slamming my hand against the mattress to stop myself from tipping over.
“No! Fuck!” The cry rips from me in my pitch-black room, and my body shudders with cold sweat.
My heart’s running at 100 km per hour, and I can’t calm it down.
I rub my other hand against my face, as if that could stem the massive wave of guilt that crashes over me every time I have those dreams.
I bend my knees, wrapping my arms around them, leaning forward to press my forehead against them through the sheet and groan. I curl up into a ball like a little omega trying to protect itself.
Eyes stinging, stomach twisted, guilt eats into me as I tremble.
Timber always says it’s okay. He keeps telling me whenever I bring it up that it was an accident, and it wasn’t my fault. But those words he said when he was drunk stuck with me forever.
Any chance he has, he throws punches. If he’d really forgiven me, he wouldn’t hurl himself at me like a berserker whenever he could.
I can’t ever forgive myself for hurting him. Pissing him off was the only way I could get close to him for years afterward. So he can beat the shit out of me as much as he likes. I throw a punch or two to make him feel better, but nothing that will ever really put him in danger.
I just want him to look at me. And those mysterious lunchboxes might be the thing to change it all.
I moan as I take a breath. My lavender scent never helps me chill the fuck out like it does for other people. Omegas are usually all over me. I’m like catnip for the nervy ones who don’tlike big alphas. It used to fill me with pride, but now I can’t use my magic charm to make Ollie to come back to me.
I want her here. I want to hold her. I want to rub my nose against her as she kisses me and strokes my hair and does whatever she would to calm the shakes in my body as I force myself to breathe.
I don’t know her well enough to guess how she’d comfort me.
Running my hand through my hair, I groan at how sharply my heart aches. It’s the middle of the night, but I just want to talk to her.
I grab my phone and hit call. Even though it rings straight through, just listening to her voicemail message helps.
Missing you.I type before I dump the phone onto the mattress beside me and throw myself back down on the pillow.
Now I know for sure that the maple syrup Timber has been carrying around with him is my omega’s, I need to find a way to visit Timber’s house to see what’s really going on.
I wrap my arms around myself, ignoring my raging hard on. It’s all pointless when my mates aren’t here.
Sighing, I glance at my clock again. It’s still too early to get up, but I don’t want to go back to sleep. So I grab my phone, pull up Ollie’s chat, and start scrolling through her one-word messages.
Kane
“Holtz, what the fuck are you doing!?” Assistant Coach Wilder yells from the other side of the rink as Timber misses another pass. Ares Wilder has been bringing him on and off the ice the whole game, trying to get him to get his shit together, but it just isn’t working.
