Page 3 of Full Body Hit, Part 1

He flopped into the passenger seat in the car, blinking slowly.

“Well,” his mom said as she closed her door, “you don’t need your scent to play.”

Chase nodded. He was supposed to feel better about that, but he didn’t feel anything at all.

***

Chase was thrown into wakefulness, his body running at a thousand miles per hour. His hands clenched the sheets of his bed as his gaze darted around his gloomy room, heart racing, breath coming quick.

There was nothing there. No danger. Whatever it was that was making him feel like this was deep inside the folds of his intestinal lining. It was making him sick.

He sat up, blanket pooling on his lap. He took a breath. Another. His hands were barely shaking. Sleep clung to him in a sticky substance, but at least it wasn’t the debilitating exhaustion of earlier.

He looked at his phone. It was seven in the evening. He’d been unconscious for five hours.

He lay down again, closing his eyes as the events of that morning replayed, images already distorted and unsure.

These would be the last days he’d be able to scent anybody…at least until he mated, which he couldn’t even imagine happening.…Maybe when he was in his thirties. What would it be like to have presented but have no scent? Would it feel empty? Like he was going through the world missing a piece?

He swallowed. It didn’t matter. Like his mom had said, he’d be able to play hockey. The rest was bullshit.

That thought settled on his skin in small, painful sparks. That should be enough. What else was there but hockey?

He dragged himself to his feet, somnambulating to his wardrobe. He crouched, reaching to the deepest corner and carefully slipping something out.

He scuttled back to his bed, hands trembling.

He’d gotten the vacuum-sealed jersey in his hands by a fucking miracle. Had signed up for a raffle and won it—not just a signed jersey, but a game-worn one from the player he’d admired since he’d started watching hockey.

Auston Mazdaki.

Auston had been drafted first overall by the Baltimore Beasts thirteen years ago. His stickhandling was legendary. There was a penalty shot named after him—the Mazdaki. Chase had imitated it more times than he could count—a fake to the right, a sharp drawback, and a top-left-corner shot that always left the crowd roaring.

The fact that Auston was the most beautiful Alpha he’d ever seen helped, too. Of Persian descent, he looked like royalty. His dark eyes glittered, broad mouth showing perfect teeth despite being in the league for so long. His strong jaw and wild black hair completed the picture. He was tall and thick and strong, and Chase had been jerking off to videos of him since he’d found out what his dick was for.

The jersey in his clutch was his prized possession. He hadn’t opened it yet, scared that he’d mar it somehow. Taint it by touching it. Not even his mom knew he had it; he’d never told her, aware that she’d use it to punish him somehow.

He’d always wondered what it smelt like. Was waiting to present to get a whiff of it so he would know what the Alpha’s sweat was really like, pheromones and all.

This was his last opportunity. Once the treatment took its course, he wouldn’t be able to smell any designation at all.

He knew the smell would probably be unpleasant in the state he was in—everyone smelt rank to him, to the point of making him throw up. The sacrifice would be worth it, though.

He closed his eyes. The plastic wrapping crinkled. He took a sniff, making sure the menthol had been rubbed off completely. Took hold of the tab that would open the package.

One. Two. Three. He pulled. He breathed.

Holy. Shit.

His body exploded into life. Fire engulfed him, every nerve in his system singing—yes.

Spit filled Chase’s mouth. Fuck. God. Light was filling him up to the brim, every inch of skin awakening, prickling with stardust.

His core ached, dick hardening, slick coating his backside.

Fuck. Fuck, that smelt good. It was reshaping his brain. Reshaping him.

He sealed the bag again as best he could, rolling the edge into itself—he was going to burst if that scent invaded him any longer.