"Rafe. Babe. Who WAS that? Are you okay? You look like you have seen a ghost. Actually you look like the ghost looked back and told you it was disappointed in you. Should I be worried? Should WE be worried? Is he staying? Is he single? Wait, why did he look at me like that? Was he unimpressed? He was totally unimpressed. There is no way an Alpha that attractive is straight and available. The universe does not work like that."
I shake her hand off without looking at her.
"Leave me alone, Vanessa."
"But..."
"I said leave me alone."
My pheromones must be radiating hostility with enough force to register as a warning, because she backs away without a third attempt, her heels clicking against the rubber mats as she retreats to the safety of her figure skating group.
I drop my stick.
The clatter echoes through the arena. Sharp. Final. The sound of a captain whose throne just grew a second seat he never agreed to share.
Why is he here?
Why now?
What does he want with Valenridge, with this rink, with the Omega who was supposed to be a temporary inconvenience and has somehow become the center of gravity for every Alpha in her orbit?
And why does watching him hold her feel like losing a game I did not know I was playing?
I am not just a loser in this race.
I am standing here, alone at center ice, questioning why my older brother is here at Valenridge University.
CHAPTER 18
Scent Match
~MABELINE~
My heart is hammering against my chest with a violence that should concern me medically.
Every beat sends a pulse of heat flooding through my veins, up my neck, across my cheeks, pooling in the tips of my ears until my entire face must be the color of a ripe tomato. I can feel it radiating off my skin like a fever, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it because the source of this biological meltdown is currently carrying me through the athletic facility hallway like I weigh less than the hockey stick I borrowed from Cal an hour ago.
Raphaël Calder moves through the corridor with the kind of presence that turns heads without trying. Students flatten themselves against the walls as he passes, their eyes widening at the sight of a tall, auburn-haired Alpha carrying an Omega in a hockey jersey through the building like it is the most natural thing in the world. A group of girls near the water fountain stop mid-conversation and stare with their mouths hanging open. A maintenance worker nearly drops his mop.
He is the definition of aura farming.
The phrase pops into my head unbidden, pulled from some corner of my brain that has been spending too much timeon social media. But it is accurate. This man does not seek attention. He generates it passively, the way the sun generates heat, simply by existing in a space and allowing the natural laws of charisma to do their work.
And he looks like the upgraded version of Rafe.
I keep coming back to that. The same Calder bone structure, the same stormy gray eyes, the same sharp jaw and high cheekbones. But everything that is rough and unfinished on Rafe is polished on Raphaël. The anger is replaced by composure. The bravado is replaced by a quiet authority that does not need to announce itself. The brash, defensive energy that makes Rafe feel like a live wire is refined into a calm steadiness that makes Raphaël feel like an anchor.
Raphaël Calder. Rafe's older brother. Captain of the Paris Wolves. A man who just caught me at full speed, whispered scent match against my hair, and is now carrying me to a nurse's office while I cling to his jersey like a koala who has forgotten how legs work.
This is insane. This entire day is clinically insane. I started this morning as a broke, packless Omega sleeping in a closet-sized room with three Alphas who can barely tolerate each other, and now I am being cradled by a fourth Alpha who smells like everything I have ever wanted and whose lips are close enough to my forehead that I can feel the warmth of his breath against my skin.
I cannot stop inhaling him.
His scent wraps around me like a cocoon, inescapable and intoxicating. Rich vanilla ice cream layered with dark masculine musk, sandalwood, and the clean bite of winter air. It fills my lungs with every breath, saturating my bloodstream until my entire body hums with a low, steady vibration that I have never experienced before. A warmth that does not come from temperature but from recognition. From the deepest, mostinstinctive part of me acknowledging that this scent belongs to someone whose biology is perfectly calibrated to mine.
A scent match.
He said it. On the ice. He whispered those two words and my entire understanding of my own existence rearranged itself around them.
