I huff, squaring up to the bag again, pulling my guard back into position.
My arms are lead. My lungs are shredded tissue. But the anger is still there, still burning, still demanding an outlet that my exhausted body can barely provide.
I pull back for another punch.
Hands grip my shoulders.
Firm. Warm. The pressure landing on the muscles between my neck and my deltoids with a steadiness that is both grounding and commanding, the touch of someone who knows what they are doing and has decided that what I am doing needs to stop. The scent arrives half a second later. Vanilla ice cream and dark sandalwood, rich and complex and carrying an undercurrent of musk that tells me its owner has been exerting himself recently.
I look up.
Raphaël is standing behind me.
His dark auburn hair falls across his forehead, slightly damp at the temples. His gray eyes are fixed on me with an expression that carries equal parts concern and the particular calm of a man who has walked into chaotic situations enough times to know that the first step is always physical stillness. He is still in his hockey clothes, the team jacket unzipped over his practice shirt, his frame filling the space behind me with the quiet authority of someone whose presence is a statement regardless of what he is wearing.
"You are going to black out if you do not regulate your breathing properly between reps," he says. Matter-of-fact. Not a suggestion. An observation delivered with the clinical precision of a man who has watched enough athletes push past their limits to recognize the symptoms of an impending collapse.
I blink.
Several times. My vision is still slightly tilted, the edges soft with oxygen debt and adrenaline withdrawal, and for a moment I am not entirely certain that the man standing behind me is real and not a hallucination produced by a brain that is currently running on spite and residual fury.
"Am I hallucinating you right now?" I ask, my voice raspy. "Because I was punching a bag thirty seconds ago and now there is a French Alpha in my training room and I need to confirm this is reality before I say anything embarrassing."
He smirks.
"Not a hallucination. Though I am flattered that your subconscious would conjure me in a moment of distress. Says a lot about where your mind goes when it is unguarded."
"It says I am dehydrated and oxygen-deprived. Do not read into it."
He releases my shoulders and steps back, giving me space to turn around. I face him fully, taking in the sight of Raphaël Calder standing in the middle of the Omega training room in his team jacket and practice gear, looking entirely too composed for a man who just watched his brother get punched in the face and then witnessed an Omega dismantle a locker room full of hockey players.
"Why are you here?" I ask, pulling at the velcro of my gloves with my teeth. "Especially in the Omega training room. This space is designated. There are signs. Multiple signs. Signs with exclamation points."
"Because you are angry," he says simply. "And I cannot go back to the apartment or do anything productive until I confirm that you are okay. Anger makes people reckless, and reckless people in boxing gloves with no spotter is a recipe for an injury that I refuse to explain to Etienne and Cal."
I let out a breath.
Long. Unsteady. Carrying the last remnants of the adrenaline that has been fueling my assault on the heavy bag, the exhale deflating my shoulders and loosening the tension in my jaw that I did not realize I had been holding.
"Are you not turned off by that?" I ask, gesturing vaguely at myself, at the training room, at the general concept of an Omegadrenched in sweat and rage beating the hell out of an inanimate object at ten o'clock at night. "The whole angry, violent, paper-throwing spectacle I just performed for a live audience?"
He chuckles.
The sound is low and warm and carrying an amusement that should not be as attractive as it is, given that I look like a drowned cat who got into a fight with a punching bag and lost.
"You should not ask what turns me on," he says, his gray eyes holding mine with a directness that makes my stomach drop six inches, "unless you want me to pin you to these mats and kiss you senseless. Because watching an Omega box, dripping in sweat, with that look in her eyes? That is the best form of entertainment I could ask for. And I am using the word entertainment very loosely."
I laugh.
The sound erupts before I can contain it, startled out of me by the sheer, unfiltered audacity of the statement. My hand flies to my mouth, muffling the snickers that keep escaping through my fingers because every time I think I have controlled the laugh, the memory of what he just said triggers a fresh wave.
"That," I manage between my fingers, "is the most blunt pickup line I have ever heard in my entire life. And I have heard some truly terrible ones. This is in its own category. It needs its own wing in the museum of shameless flirtation."
He winks.
"My brother may be a playboy, but I am the one who is more dangerous in the wing of fuckery. Rafe flirts with volume. I flirt with precision. Very different skill sets. Very different results."
I laugh again, louder this time, removing my hand from my mouth because the attempt to muffle it has failed completely. The sound fills the training room with an echo that bounces off the rubber mats and the mirrored wall and the heavy bag stillswaying gently on its chain, and for the first time since I stormed out of that locker room, the knot in my chest loosens.
