"Happy?"
Captain of the Paris Wolves.
Semi-professional.
He has been playing hockey. In France. At a competitive level. Captaining his own team while I was over here assuming he was buried in textbooks and croissants, completely unawarethat my brother was building a career in the same sport that I have staked my entire identity on.
He is not just smart. He is not just the gifted Beaumont son who conquered academia. He is a hockey captain. A leader on the ice. The same title I hold, except his comes with a French accent and international experience and a team name that actually sounds intimidating.
Every early morning practice. Every bruise and fracture and concussion I powered through. All of it was anchored in the belief that hockey was the one arena where Raphaël Calder did not exist. The one sport, the ONE thing I thought was mine.
And he took it without telling me.
The speechless silence that follows his introduction is the longest of my life.
Raphaël, clearly unbothered by the wreckage his presence has caused, turns his attention back to the coaches.
"I will be back in fifteen minutes. Let me make sure that..."
He pauses.
Looks down at Mae.
The girl who has been staring up at him with an expression that wavers between awe and absolute mortification, her hazel eyes wide, her cheeks crimson, Cal's jersey rumpled against his chest where her fists are gripping the fabric.
"What is your name?" he asks, and the softness in his voice is so jarring compared to the dry arrogance of thirty seconds ago that it catches me off guard.
Mae blinks.
"Mabeline Mae Rose," she says, and her voice is barely above a whisper. Not the breathlessness of exertion. The breathlessness of a woman who is being held by a man whose scent is rewiring her brain chemistry in real time, and she cannot for the life of her figure out how to act normal about it.
She has never sounded like that. Not with Cal. Not with Etienne. Not during any of the bickering or the banter or the bold declarations she has hurled at every Alpha who crossed her path since moving in.
She sounds undone. Completely, thoroughly undone by a man she has known for less than a minute.
Raphaël lets the name sit on his tongue, rolling each syllable with his accent until it sounds like a verse written specifically for this moment.
"Sweet Mae Rose." A smirk crosses his face that mirrors mine so closely it makes my skin crawl. "With your scent, that is a pretty good name."
He says it almost to himself, murmured into the space between them like the rest of us have ceased to exist. Like the arena full of gawking students and bewildered coaches and one very unraveled younger brother does not matter because the girl in his arms smells like a universe he has decided he wants to inhabit.
Her scent.
He is reacting to her scent. The vanilla sugar and frosted roses that have been haunting me since she moved in. The aroma that clings to my car, my apartment, my every waking thought. He is doing openly what I refuse to do. Acknowledging it. Naming it. Letting it pull him toward her without the armor of denial I have welded around myself so tightly it has become indistinguishable from my personality.
And she is not pulling away. She is not cracking a joke or delivering a cutting remark or kicking him in the groin. She is lying in his arms with her fists in his jersey and her face the color of a sunset, looking at him like he is the first Alpha she has ever genuinely wanted to look at.
She never looked at me like that. Or Cal. Or Etienne.
That realization burns more than I am willing to admit.
"I will be taking Mae Rose to the nurse's office," he announces, already gliding toward the exit with her cradled against him. His skating is effortless despite carrying another person, his balance immaculate, every stride steady and sure.
He reaches the gate.
Pauses.
Turns his head just enough to speak over his shoulder, his gray eyes finding mine across the ice with a precision that feels surgical.
