But all it’s done is hurt her and for that, I feel like a fucking asshole. As much as I don’t like these two, I’m not going to keep butting heads with them. It’s only going to hurt Addie in the end.
“Why do we hate each other?” Carson asks. “Like, before this. Because when I think about it, other than you being a cocky fucker, there’s nothing either of us did to the other to warrant so much hatred.”
I shrug my shoulders. “It was mostly just team rivalry stuff. It wasn’t until I found out that you two were the ones trying to take Addie that I really hated you.”
“We’re not trying to take Addie.” Reid sighs in frustration. “Addie is her own person and she has the right to make her own choices for her life. We don’t control her and we’d never try to.”
“This is one big cluster fuck.” Carson sits on the edge of the bed, his hand reaching up to stroke Addie’s face.
My hand twitches to shove him away, but I keep the urge to myself.
“We need to come up with a game plan before she wakes up,” Reid says. “I don’t want any ill will between us. Addie comes first. Before our personal opinion of one another, before our wants and needs, before hockey.” He looks between the two of us. “She’s the most important thing so being at each other's throats won’t cut it. I won’t be the cause for Addie’s pain.”
“Neither will I,” I grumble.
“Then we make an agreement, now. We do our best to keep the peace for Addie, despite what we feel toward one another,” Carson suggests.
“Yes, but we can’t just ‘keep the peace’ for the rest of our lives. We’re going to have to learn how to get along at some point. It’s not fair to Addie if her Alphas can’t stand one another,” Reid says.
“That’s not true. You two are thick as thieves,” I mutter. “Two peas in a pod. Have been for years, haven’t you? Not only did you know each other in real life, but you two knew each other online. Waffle and Grim knew each other’s real identities, didn’t you?”
The way they look at each other gives me all the answers I need.
“Pretty messed up to make the two of us believe that you didn’t know one another in real life.” I shake my head.
“It’s pretty messed up you knew you were Addie’s scent match and kept it from her. That’s pretty hard to do, considering you two lived under the same roof from when she was thirteen until she moved to Nashville,” Reid scoffs. “Don’t act like you’re innocent.”
“I’m not,” I sneer. “I know I’m not. Trust me, I fucking know. You think it’s been easy to keep something like this to myself?” I get to my feet. “You think it’s easy knowing the girl you fell in love with online, who was your best friend, your dream girl, was your step-sister? Do you know how hard it’s been to keep that to myself when all I’ve wanted to do is go to the room down the hall and take her for myself?” I run a hand down my face before scrubbing it roughly.
“I thought the crush would go away because of who she is to me. Boy, was I fucking wrong.” I laugh as I start to pace, feelings bubbling up and boiling over. “She’s my step-sister! Off limits. No matter how much it killed me, I knew that and respected it.” I grab a handful of my hair. “Then the world had to go fuck me hard by making us scent matches. And before I could do anything about it, she was gone.”
“Why didn’t you go after her?” Carson asks. “She’s your Omega.”
“She’s mystep-sister.” I stop pacing and glare at him. “I was just entering the KP and starting my career on one of the best teams in the league. My father was the coach, for fucks sake! You think the world would be so accepting of a player on the Royal Alphas scent matched to his step-sister? The things they would have said, the light they would have painted my family in. I didn’t want to ruin my career before it started. I didn’t wantmy dad to lose his job or tarnish his reputation. I couldn’t have cared less about my step-mother, that bitch can eat rocks. But I would have lost my fucking mind if they said anything bad about Addie. I knew why she left, she wanted to be out of the spotlight and live her life, be herself without her evil mother and the world breathing down her neck. I would have kept her from doing that.”
“So what, you just spent the past six years living your life like she didn’t exist?” Reid asks. “As if your scent match wasn’t thousands of miles away from you while you lived your life, and she lived hers? How could you do that to her? Did you mess around with other women? Because trust me, we’ve seen the articles.”
My chest heaves as anger rises. “I’ve never, not fucking once, touched another person, man or woman, since finding out Addie is my Omega. I want to make that fucking clear. No one, not a single breathing being, can compare to her.” I suck in a lungful of air, feeling my body shaking. “Every day was hell. I put all my time into hockey. I lived and breathed it, and made it my whole life, because if I kept busy, it hurt a little less. Hockey kept me from thinking about her or second-guessing my career. Every single fucking time.”
“So why now? What changed? Was it because she found Alphas? That she was going to move on? Did it take her starting a pack to get your head out of your ass?” Reid asks.
“Partly,” I growl. “I always planned to be with Addie. It didn’t matter what she was doing in life or who she could be packed up with, I always planned to find her and make her mine.”
“When you were done playing hockey, though, right?” Reid shakes his head. “That’s messed up.”
“I know,” I snarl. “Trust me, I fucking know. I was young, dumb, and confused. I had so many people expecting so much from me. So many people to worry about. I wasn’t thinkingstraight. I was thinking about how to protect the people who mean the most to me.”
“And what, hurting yourself in the process?” Carson asks.
“I was protecting her.” I point to Addie. “I didn't matter. She did.”
“You should have let me make the decision myself.” Addie’s low, sweet voice has all of our heads snapping to the side.
“Addie,” Her name comes out as a quick breath as I rush to her, dropping to my knees at her bedside. “Addie, baby. How are you feeling? Does your head hurt?”
Addie stares at me, her blue eyes locking on mine.
For a second, I think she might still be dazed, but then I see it, her pupils dilating, a little whimper stuck in the back of her throat, and her nostrils flaring as, finally, for the first time, she’s smelling me.
