3
RAFF
I'd been with the Frosthaven Cutters for two weeks and was no longer the guy who had to ask where the recovery room was. I knew which shower stalls had decent water pressure, which parking spots didn't get blocked in by the equipment truck, and that the third practice jersey in the stack was always the least worn.
Practice was brutal compared to the Glacier Saints, but afterward, I was a better player and not just exhausted. Axel had backed off the mentoring talk and settled into a rhythm of giving me a nod when I did something right and a look when I didn't.
The cafeteria was busy after morning practice. Half the team was crammed in there loading up their plates. The food had been great since I'd arrived, but something had changed in the past week. Whatever was coming out of that kitchen had now been taken up a notch.
Angelo was already at a table with two other guys when I grabbed a tray. He waved me over. He did every day whether I wanted company or not. The guy was impossible to dislike, andhe was interested in people. He remembered everyone's name, asked about their day, and listened to the answer.
I was heading toward him when I glanced through the open door that led into the kitchen. After fourteen days, I recognized the kitchen staff, and there was someone new, moving between the prep stations. He was wearing a white double-breasted jacket making him stand out among the kitchen hands, suggesting the kitchen was his domain. He was focused on something in front of him and didn’t glance up as I peered through the gap.
One of Angelo’s table mates must have followed my gaze. “New chef,” he said when I sat down. “He started last week and has an excellent reputation.”
I glanced back toward the kitchen entrance, but the guy had moved out of view.
“I met him.” Angelo had a mouthful of food. “His name's Thorne. He’s quiet and keeps to himself.” He stabbed a piece of chicken. “Makes the best steak I've ever eaten, though.”
It sounded as though Angelo wanted the guy to be his new best friend. I wasn’t sure how that would work out with my outgoing teammate and a reserved chef. But chefs came and went. When the Glacier Saints actually had a chef, they’d never stayed for long. We’d gone through four in two seasons because nobody wanted to cook for a team that couldn't win.
I ate, talked strategy with Angelo and the others, and forgot about the new chef until I went back for seconds.
The line had thinned out and most of the team had cleared off. I was at the serving station reaching for a clean plate when someone came through the kitchen door and stopped a few feet from me to talk to one of the kitchen hands. He was talkingabout a delivery schedule, but his scent hit me, and I almost toppled head first into the crockery.
My wolf who was bored with the talk of human food had been snoozing since practice, but he howled deep in my belly and almost knocked the breath out of me. He clawed at my insides and repeated one word.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
The plate slipped from my hand, and my wolf’s reflexes made sure I caught it before it hit the counter. My pulse was racing so fast it could have been an F1 competitor. Each nerve ending was alight, and my beast was more attentive than he had been since Bodie died.
He wanted out, to take his fur in the cafeteria and claim this person who smelled like he belonged to us and was everything we'd been starving for. I gripped the edge of the counter and forced him down, telling him we were surrounded by mostly humans. We’d be causing more than an uproar if I became a wolf.
But there was something underneath the mate scent. It was down deep and buried like a splinter beneath my skin. Unlike the scent that captured my heart, this roiled my belly, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was familiar and yet secondhand, but it was woven into Thorne. Other shifters probably wouldn’t pick up on it, but I’d spent most of my life breathing it in.
It was my brother, Bodie. Not him in the flesh, because he was dead, but it was his scent, and it was part of this human, this new chef. I didn’t have an explanation for why he smelled of my late brother.
The joy my beast and I felt at getting our mate faded, was stomped on, and if it’d been in the kitchen, it would have curdled, similar to milk that was left out.
Thorne looked away from the kitchen hand and our eyes met. I noted his gray eyes, and he gave me a polite nod, the kind he'd give any stranger. But his gaze was wary, and he visibly tensed as he ran his eyes over me.
“D-Do you n-need anything?” I’d never heard him speak before, but he was rattled. Or perhaps the poor guy had a stutter.
I was torn by two instincts, the one where I gave him my everything and the other where I wanted to be anywhere but close to him. Why did he smell of Bodie? Was he taunting me somehow? My wolf was pulling me toward him, though he too could scent his brother wolf. But I recoiled. The room spun around me, and I gripped my stomach, fearing I was going to be sick.
“No.” It was one word with a sharp edge that was more like a snarl.
His expression changed. He narrowed his eyes as he assessed me, and I could only imagine what he thought. He turned toward the kitchen without another word.
I abandoned the plate and walked back to the table where Angelo was scrolling through his phone. I plonked myself into the chair and stared at the table.
Angelo set his phone aside. “You look like you just got checked into the boards.” He laughed. “Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?”
I waved away his question.
“You went to get more food and came back empty-handed looking as if you wanted to punch someone.” Angelo leaned forward. He dropped the easygoing act. “Raff, talk to me. What happened?”
I wanted to say that I'd just scented my fated mate in the cafeteria and my wolf was losing his mind. But that the guy made my skin crawl at the same time. It didn’t make sense, but also, Angelo was human, so I couldn’t say any of that.
