Claimed By the Goalie Alpha (Sunshine & Snarls #4)

Chapter 1

ONE

RENARD

I had three hours until game time, just enough time for my walk.

The route never changed. I parked at the north end of the park, followed the main path along the water for one mile, looped back through the tree-lined section and ended at my car.

Thirty-seven minutes, give or take. It got my body moving without exhausting me and cleared my head of everything that wasn't hockey.

I'd been doing this walk before every home game for the past eighteen months. My save percentage had gone up twelve points since I started and I wasn't messing with that.

I locked my car and started down the path. The park was quiet for a Wednesday afternoon with a few joggers, some people on benches reading or staring at their phones and nobody in my way. I settled into the rhythm, in through the nose, out through the mouth and let the sounds of the city fade.

We were playing the Crown City Comets tonight.

They'd beaten us twice already this season and Coach had made it clear a third loss wasn't acceptable.

I ran through their shooters in my head and their tendencies I'd studied on film.

Their right winger liked the top corner and their center liked to hold it and shoot low.

I visualized my glove closing around the puck.

The path curved along the river. The arena was visible across the water from here, which was part of why I'd chosen this route. It was a useful reminder of what the walk was for. Everything was exactly how it always was until I rounded the bend and headed straight into bedlam.

Dogs! There had to be at least six of different sizes, all on leashes that were currently tangled into a knot that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated dogs. In the middle of it was a guy about my age, laughing as he tried to sort out the mess though he wasn’t succeeding.

"Okay, okay, everybody calm down." None of the dogs were listening. A small terrier was yapping at a golden retriever, a beagle was straining toward a squirrel it had no chance of catching and a husky had decided to go in the opposite direction of everyone else.

They were blocking the entire path.

I stopped. "Excuse me."

The guy looked up and I got my first clear look at him. He had dark brown eyes and a smile that hadn't faded despite the pandemonium surrounding him. His hoodie said Dog's Best Friend in blue letters, which seemed either ironic or aspirational given the current situation.

"Oh, hey! Sorry, just give me a second." He tugged on one of the leashes, which made the knot worse. "Cooper, no. Daisy, stop pulling. Guys, come on, work with me here."

"I need to get past." My routine was in tatters and I was agitated. The visualization had evaporated and everything was wrong.

"Yeah, totally, I just need to—" He yanked on another leash and somehow the knot tightened further. "Okay, this is not supposed to happen."

A chocolate lab decided I looked interesting. It lunged toward me, pulling the guy forward and dragging two other dogs with it.

"Bailey, no!" He stumbled, fighting to keep hold of everything.

The lab jumped up and planted both muddy paws squarely on my chest.

Gods, no. I tried to push the dog away but the terrier thought we were playing and launched itself at my legs, and the golden retriever joined in, and that was when the beagle's leash snapped. The dog took off straight for the trees.

"Shit! Cooper!" The guy thrust the remaining leashes at me. "Can you hold these for one second?"

Before I could say no, I was holding five leashes attached to dogs with absolutely no interest in standing still. The guy took off after the beagle, yelling, "Cooper, come back here!" over his shoulder.

This was a nightmare.

The dogs pulled in different directions and tangled around my legs. I was supposed to be preparing for tonight's game. Instead I was standing on a public path covered in mud, held hostage by someone else's animals and watching my carefully constructed pregame routine fall apart in real time.

And then a scent hit me. Lush, something like ripe fruit, and it sliced through the wet dog and park dirt to fill my lungs.

My wolf woke. Mate.

No. That’s not possible. Not here in the middle of this.

But the scent was unmistakable and it was coming from the direction the guy had run. The same guy who'd just demolished my entire afternoon. He was human and had absolutely no idea what he'd just done to me. Instinct had me wanting to follow him but I shoved that down hard. This was not the time.

"Got him!" His voice came from the trees and a moment later he emerged with the beagle tucked under one arm and grinning as if he'd won something. "Sorry about that. Cooper's an escape artist."

He jogged back over and the scent got stronger. I handed over the leashes and when our hands touched, something punched my chest and I was sweating. A human would never understand what just happened.

And yet his eyes widened. Maybe he'd felt something too, even if he had no idea what it was.

"You should control your dogs." I winced as I said it because I sounded like the grumpy guy who lived on my street.

Grumpy? Yes. Old? Nah. I was in the prime of life.

"I know, I know. It's just that I usually only have three or four at a time, but one of my coworkers is sick and I'm covering her route." He was rambling and still smiling despite everything. "Anyway, sorry for blocking your path. And for the muddy paw prints."

My shirt was covered in mud and dog hair. My jeans had paw prints on them and I smelled like a wet dog.

"I have a game in three hours." I needed to go.

"A game?" His face lit up. He jerked his head toward the arena. "Are you a hockey player?"

"Goalie." I stopped myself there. "I need to finish my walk."

"Right, yeah, of course." He stepped aside, pulling the dogs with him. Most of them came willingly. The terrier tried to lunge at me again. "Sorry again! Good luck tonight!"

I walked past him and clenched my jaw while my hands fisted at my sides. My wolf was insisting I go back and figure out who he was and say that his scent had turned my life inside out.

I didn't. I had a game.

Our mate is more important than a hockey game.

I finished the walk but it was useless. I couldn't focus on visualization.

All I could see was the hoodie that had been too big and how he had his sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

And a scent that made me want to forget every plan I'd ever made.

Climbing into the car covered in mud and running late, I was completely rattled.

This was going to be a disaster of a game.

I played the best hockey of my season, maybe my career.

The Comets came at me hard from the opening whistle, testing me early with three quality shots in the first five minutes.

I stopped all of them. Their right winger tried the top corner twice—I'd watched him on film—and both times my glove was already there.

It was as though the game had slowed down, and every play telegraphed a half-second before it happened.

In the first period I made eight saves and twelve in the second, including a breakaway that should have been a goal.

In the third period they got desperate and came harder. I made ten saves, two of them sprawling stops that had the crowd on their feet. The final score was 3-1 and the team crowded around me after the buzzer as if we'd won a championship.

Coach pulled me aside in the locker room. "That was the Renard I drafted."

I sat in front of my locker after everyone else had cleared out, still in my gear, trying to make sense of it. I'd spent eighteen months perfecting that walk, routine and the careful mental preparation. The one day it got completely torn apart, I played the best game of the season.

I already knew why and so did my wolf.

I thought about those brown eyes and muddy paw prints. Then there was his scent and the heat that raced through me when we touched. He was covering for a sick coworker, so that wasn't his normal route.

My wolf said we could go back to the park tomorrow and see if he was there again. I wasn’t doing that but even as I said it, I knew I was lying.

I needed to see him again and find out if that scent, those eyes and that laugh in the middle of chaos were real, or if I'd somehow imagined how they'd made everything in me go quiet and loud at the same time.

That was what I told myself. But his smile was already burned into my memory.