I moved my hand to his lap.
Not dramatically. Not with the attention-seeking, look-at-me-being-supportive energy that would have made both of us cringe. Quietly. My palm settling against his thigh beneath the crossed forearms, the contact hidden from the room’s view by his posture, the warmth of my skin against the fabric of his sweats communicating, through the physical language that had always been more fluent between us than the verbal:I’m here. You’re safe. Say the thing.
The effect was immediate. I felt it in the fractional easing of the muscles beneath my palm—the quadriceps releasing a tension they’d been holding, the posture softening by a degree that was invisible to the room and seismic to the man producing it. His frosted-pine scent settled. The whiskey note warming. The anxiety that had been riding the sharp edge of his steel diminishing as my touch anchored him to the present and to the woman beside him and to the specific, wordless assurance that whatever he said next would not change the hand on his leg.
We shared a look. Brief. Loaded. The kind of eye contact that communicated a full conversation in compressed format:Are you okay? — No. — Are you going to do this anyway? — Yes. — I’m staying.
He sighed.
And he told them.
The abbreviated version. The clinical, fact-first, emotion-managed summary of a man who had spent his life converting vulnerability into efficiency—stripping the story to its structural elements and delivering them with the controlled, report-style cadence of a captain briefing histeam on a tactical situation rather than a man confessing his deepest medical and emotional struggles to his packmates for the first time. The hyperstimulation diagnosis. The testosterone levels. The biological demand for an Omega that the blockers suppressed the response to but not the need for. The previous Omega—the manipulative one, the one whose name he still wouldn’t speak—and the night that had driven him to pharmaceutical management. The decision to start the blockers. The side effects that had accumulated over two and a half years of consistent use. And the decision, recent and ongoing, to taper off.
“I just decreased the dose,” he said, his voice flattening into the specific, clinical,these-are-medical-facts-not-emotional-disclosuresregister that he maintained by force of will rather than genuine detachment. “Teetered down. Which is why I’ve been having more frequent nosebleeds and had a panic attack earlier today on the locker room floor.”
I turned my head. Sharply. The rotation carrying the specific,you-did-not-mention-thisenergy of a woman who had been provided a medical update that was missing a significant data point.
“You had apanic attack?”
He frowned. The expression defensive, minimizing—the reflexive,it-wasn’t-that-badcontraction of a man whose relationship with his own vulnerability was adversarial and who interpreted concern as a challenge to his capacity rather than evidence of others’ investment.
“It’s fine. Luka was there.” He glanced at the goaltender on my other side. The look carrying the brief, acknowledging,you-held-me-together-and-I-haven’t-said-thank-you-but-this-look-is-the-closest-I’ll-getweight that their dynamiccommunicated through eye contact rather than language. “Wasn’t as dramatic as it could’ve been. I still have a headache, but the doc said I’ll deal with withdrawal symptoms at decreasing severity as the weeks progress and my testosterone levels try to regulate.”
He paused. The jaw tightening once more before the final, most intimate piece of the disclosure was extracted from behind his teeth.
“Which should help with the…issues with ejaculation and performance.”
The sentence was delivered to the floor rather than the room—a concession to the specific, mortifying,I-am-discussing-my-sexual-dysfunction-in-front-of-my-packmatesreality that his pride was managing through averted eye contact and the hope that the clinical phrasing would depersonalize the disclosure enough to make it survivable.
Maddox’s expression was steady. Absorbing. The enforcer processing the information with the quiet, nonjudgmental,this-changes-my-understanding-and-I’m-adjustingcomposure that made him the pack’s emotional bedrock.
Renzo spoke quietly. His dark eyes carrying a softness that the playboy’s usual expression didn’t include and that the man beneath the playboy was now permitting to surface.
“So you didn’t want to join the heat,” he said, “not because you didn’t want to. But because it’s been significantly harder for you to be aroused because of the blockers. The desire was there, but the body couldn’t deliver.”
Kael nodded. Slowly. The confirmation carrying the weight of a man who had just been accurately diagnosed by someone other than himself for the first time and who wasdiscovering that being understood was simultaneously relieving and terrifying.
Maddox rose from the couch. Disappeared into the kitchenette. Returned within thirty seconds carrying a glass of water and two Advil, which he placed in Kael’s free hand—the one that wasn’t resting beneath my palm on his thigh—with the quiet, unsentimental,this-is-what-you-need-so-take-itefficiency of a man whose caretaking operated through action rather than commentary.
Kael muttered, “Thanks.”
Took the pills. Drank the water. The transaction small, practical, unglamorous—and precisely the kind of pack behavior that no registration form captured and no judge evaluated: the Alpha who noticed the headache before the captain mentioned it, and who addressed it without being asked.
When the conversation settled—the disclosure absorbed, the context distributed, the pack’s understanding of its captain’s medical and emotional landscape expanded from partial to comprehensive—I returned to the notepad.
The strategy had been assembling itself in the background of my consciousness throughout the conversation, each disclosure adding a variable, each revelation refining a parameter, the analytical mind that had choreographed competition programs and navigated federation politics and survived two years of solo strategic operation now applying itself to the most complex, most personal, most consequential planning exercise of my life.
“Six weeks,” I said. The words carrying the specific, operational,this-is-the-timelineauthority of a briefing entering its directive phase. “The next six weeks, we go absolutely ham with training. Every session on the schedule. Everyconditioning block. Every technical review. No distractions. No drama. No reacting to provocations. Anyone talks shit—we ignore it. Anyone stirs trouble—we walk away. We become the most boring, most disciplined, most locked-in pack on this campus.”
I tapped the notepad.
“The only content the media gets of us during training camp is footage of five athletes working harder than everyone else in the program. That’s it. No public displays of pack affection. No social media activity beyond training updates. No material for speculation, gossip, or narrative construction. We become invisible everywhere except the ice, where we become impossible to ignore.”
Renzo leaned forward on the desk. His dark eyes bright with the strategic,I-see-where-this-is-goingfocus of a man whose hockey mind had identified the play developing three moves ahead.
“Then,” I continued, feeling the strategy click into place with the satisfying, mechanical precision of a well-fitted blade being locked into a boot, “when the Games start, we flip the switch. Quick pack dates in visible locations. Being seen in public together without minding who’s watching. Holding hands. Casual affection. The specific, deliberate,look-at-us-being-a-real-packenergy that social media devours and that the tabloid cycle amplifies into national conversation.”
I met their eyes.
