They are all about to be very, very wrong.
For once, let that competitive side of you come back to life.
CHAPTER 15
Full Throttle
~CALLAHAN~
Inotice the shift right before the puck drops.
It is subtle. The kind of change that most people would miss entirely because they are too busy watching the play or checking their phones or debating whether the Omega on the ice is going to humiliate herself. But I have spent my entire life reading people. Reading rooms. Reading the invisible currents of energy that flow between bodies in a space, and I am telling you, the air in this arena changes the moment Mabeline Mae Rose settles into position.
I would also be lying if I said watching an Omega hold my hockey stick and wear my jersey is not the biggest flex I have ever experienced.
Because holy shit.
She looks ridiculous. The jersey hangs past her thighs, the sleeves swallow her hands, and the hemline sways when she moves like a dress on a girl who has never owned one fancy enough to twirl. But there it is, stitched across her back in bold white letters against the red fabric.
KNOX.
My number.
My name.
On her body.
That is an odd way to claim an Omega you met forty-eight hours ago and surely do not have feelings for, right?
Right?
Absolutely right. I do not have feelings. I gave her my jersey because she was cold. That is it. A practical decision. A health-conscious decision. I am simply protecting my immune system from potential exposure to a sick roommate. Nothing more.
Except I am fighting a hard-on that is becoming increasingly difficult to justify as a health concern.
Every time she shifts on the ice, the jersey ripples across her frame. Every time she turns, I catch a flash of KNOX between her shoulder blades. And my body, the traitorous bastard, reacts with an enthusiasm that has no business existing in the middle of a freezing rink surrounded by twenty other Alphas who would absolutely notice if I had to excuse myself.
Get it together, Graham Knox. You are not this guy. You are the fun one. The easy-going one. The one who flirts with everyone and commits to no one. You do not lose your composure over a girl in baggy pants and borrowed equipment.
Mae settles into position at center ice, facing the rookie forward. She holds my stick loosely in her grip, her stance relaxed, her posture carrying a casualness that reads as intentional underestimation.
But that is not what catches my attention.
What catches my attention is the look in her eyes.
People talk about auras. About the way certain individuals can walk into a room and change its atmospheric pressure just by existing. I have seen it before. Etienne does it on the ice sometimes, stepping into the goal with a focus so absolute that the arena goes quiet despite him just being a goalie. In logical terms, a goalie is stationary. Reactive. But when Laurent locksin, there is an energy radiating off him that makes your skin prickle.
That same energy is flickering behind Mae's hazel eyes right now.
And it sends literal goosebumps racing down my arms.
Coach Mercer raises the puck.
I do not blink.
The puck drops.
And Mae becomes a different person.
