Dylan
I lean against a pull-up bar, surrounded by The Foundry’s familiar haze of chalk, old canvas, and stale alpha pheromones. The dull, repetitive thud of fists on leather thrums in the background. I’m between sets, my hands wrapped but un-gloved, watching my phone screen.
It’s a recording from three days ago—a local streamer had tried to corner Levi after his most recent fight, digging for a malicious angle on our recent match instead of the one he’d just won by a country mile, implying my victory was a fluke driven by a momentary lapse in his focus.
He’d delivered it with that classic, obnoxious tilt of his chin that makes sweat break out on my brow.
“How many times are you gonna watch that video, kid?” Marcus’s rough voice barks from behind me.
I jump slightly, turning off the video quickly. Marcus gives me a wry look, his familiar scent flaring with a hint of amusement. I haven’t told him anything about Levi and I, but he’s been giving me subtle, knowing looks every five minutes since the interview came out. It’s unnerving.
Beside him, Max and Jed are leaning over a clipboard, pretending to log inventory but watch my expression with blatant, unhidden curiosity.
Even Cassius—our silent, six-foot-six heavyweight giant—is standing near the free weights, his massive arms crossed over his chest, his unreadable gaze fixed on the front doors.
The gym is quiet today, mostly cleared out for a private tour. A tour I’d had to spend the last forty-eight hours begging Marcus to allow.
Everyone’s head turns to the front doors as they swing open.
The line of defense forms naturally. Marcus straightens up, his shoulders broadening.
Max drops the clipboard onto a stool with a clatter.
Jed stops chewing his protein bar, his eyes narrowing, and Cassius shifts his weight, his presence expanding until he looks like a mountain carved out of stone.
It’s like watching alphas prepare for battle, their reaction to the unfamiliar, warm linen scent permeating the space the polar opposite of mine.
Levi steps into the gym.
Levi took much less convincing than Marcus; he’d called me out of the blue a week after my rut ended to ask me about setting up a meeting, sounding strangely uncertain, like he completely expected me to shut him down despite me being the one to suggest it.
It’s one of the only times I’ve not heard him be entirely confident about something.
It had made me wonder… if maybe I wasn’t the only one that had spent the week after my rut dissecting every conversation we’d had, searching for scraps of possibility in every interaction.
Levi stops a few paces inside the door. He shrugs off his jacket, his green-flecked eyes sweeping over the line of hostile, unblinking trainers before landing on me.
A lazy, familiar smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, though I can see the slight tension in his shoulders.
He knows exactly what kind of den he’s walked into.
“Salut, mes amis,” he says brightly, his accent thick and smooth as he saunters over to us. “Did somebody die? You all look like shit.”
I rub my temple. So much for building bridges.
Nobody moves. Marcus stares him down, his tobacco scent turning sharp and territorial. Max clears his throat, a low, warning rumble.
“Drop it, guys,” I say, stepping forward to stand closer to Levi. “He’s here because I asked him to come. He’s considering a change of camp.”
Marcus doesn’t break eye contact with Levi, but his jaw relaxes a fraction.
“A change of camp,” Marcus repeats. “He’s a top-tier cruiserweight fighting out of a rival establishment in the city.
If he trains here, Dylan, you two can’t fight each other on standard cards anymore.
The only time you’d ever step into a ring together professionally would be if a championship title was on the line.
You’d be giving up a lot of good press, both of you. ”
“I know the rules, Marcus,” I say quietly, stopping a few feet away from Levi.
“Me too,” Levi chimes in, taking a step closer to me, totally ignoring the four terrifying men watching his every move.
“I am tired of training with little boys. I want trainers who are less… how should I put this? Less fucking horrible. And sparring partners who match my skill.” He glances at me, his gaze dropping to my wrapped knuckles before snapping back to my eyes, a secret, wicked spark dancing in the green depths.
“And yes, we lose some press, this stupid fucking rivalry they have made out of nothing—”
“I mean, you stirred up the rivalry, dude,” Max interjects, getting a smirk from Levi in return.
“But you get another championship level fighter on your books,” Levi continues, unfazed.
“You already have your huge, scary guy over there winning belts,” he gestures towards Cassius, who gives him a stern look.
”And Dylan and I are both headed to the big leagues.
I will get there first, probably, but he will follow.
It would be bad business for you to turn me away, and you know it. ”
Jed lets out a loud, sudden snort, breaking the suffocating tension. “Well, the French kid’s got balls, I’ll give him that.”
Max shakes his head, a reluctant grin breaking through his gruff exterior. “He’s small, Jed. Probably thinks he can duck through a vent if things go sideways.”
“I am not small,” Levi huffs, turning his sharp gaze toward Max, his competitive pride instantly flaring. “I am streamlined. It is called efficiency of movement, mon ami. You should try it. It might help with that slow left hook I saw on your old tapes.”
Max’s eyebrows shoot up, before he lets out a booming, appreciative laugh. “It’s going to be a laugh a minute with you around, huh?”
Even Cassius lets out a low, rumbled huff that sounds suspiciously like approval. Marcus watches the interaction, his gaze shifting from Levi’s defiant stance to the quiet, protective way I’m lingering just a half-step in front of him, and he gives me another one of those goddamn looks.
“You’re sure about this, Dyl?” he says seriously.
“I’m sure,” I say. “It’s good for the gym. It’s, uh—it’s good for me.”
I notice Levi’s gaze shift to me out of the corner of my eye, but I keep my eyes trained on Marcus as he nods curtly. Marcus glances at Max, who gives him a thumbs up, and Jed, gives an affable shrug.
Marcus sighs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, but the uncertainty is gone from his face. “Okay, you’re welcome here if you want to jump ship. But if you bring drama into my gym, or you fuck with Dyl, I’ll throw you out myself. Understood?”
I feel my cheeks heat up at Marcus’ protective jab, the meaning behind his words clear to me—and Levi, if the amused little eyebrow wiggle he gives me is anything to go by—but thankful that it seems to go over everyone else’s heads. For now, at least.
“Oh, I will bring drama,” Levi says, his cockiness back in full force. “But don’t worry, you will like it. It will make us all lots of money.”
“Jesus, don’t let him anywhere near Alex,” Marcus murmurs as the others laugh. “Those two would be a nightmare together. Okay, do you want me to show you around, or shall we skip straight to the paperwork?”
Levi finds me in the locker room forty-five minutes later, leaning against the lockers easily and watching me towel dry my hair.
“Disappointing,” he says. “I was hoping you would be naked.”
“Five minutes too late, I’m afraid,” I grin. He looks so good in just his hoodie that it’s hard to keep my scent under control in the small space. “How’d it go?”
“Well, I am almost officially a member of The Foundry,” he says, a warm, genuine grin spreading across his face, and my heart jumps. “I just have to sign the contract.”
“Damn. I think it’s a good decision.”
“Yes, well. At least I know they train good fighters here.”
He gives me a pointed look, and I grin, throwing my towel in the laundry and pushing my hair back, not missing the admiring way Levi’s eyes follow the movement. “Was that… was that a compliment? From Levi Bastien?”
“Bah non, Dylan, did you think I mean you? No, I was talking about that enormous, terrifying alpha who does not speak, the one who could probably crush you like a bug.”
I roll my eyes. “Cassius could eat either of us for breakfast.”
He takes a step closer to me, and I swear I can smell the spike in his scent too, an edge of something unsettled lingering underneath his usual smell, his voice dropping lower. “Tell me, Dylan. Does your trainer know that we are fucking?”
The question is so blunt it makes a sudden, awkward laugh bubble up out of me. “No! I—” I hesitate. “Maybe. I haven’t told him. Why, did he say something?”
“No, he just kept giving me these looks,” Levi says, giving me a startlingly accurate impression of the exact look that Marcus has been aiming in my direction all week.
“He kept saying ‘don’t fuck with Dylan’, and ‘this is not a game’.
These types of things. I felt like I was getting a speech from your papa. ”
I cringe, although I’m grateful that Marcus is looking out for me. “He can be kind of intense, I know, he just…”
“He is a good friend,” Levi says solemnly. “But…”
My stomach drops. “What?”
Levi winces, brushing a stray hair off my forehead and muttering something frustratedly in French. He sighs heavily. “I cannot sign the contract without knowing where we stand. Your intense friend is right.”
Dread creeps into the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” he smooths the crease between his brows, placing an unusually tentative hand on my hip. “I mean that I have been a little crazy since I left your apartment.”
I chuckle weakly. “Crazy how?”
“Ah, you are not going to make this easy for me, uh?” he says.
“I liked being with you, Dylan. In your apartment. Not just the fucking, but also—being in bed with you, and feeding you, and sitting on your sofa together. And before I left, when we watched that show with the strange people buying storage thingys—”
“Storage units,” I say, blood rushing in my ears. We’d watched a straight two hours of it before Levi left the morning after my rut broke, even though he couldn’t stop complaining about how terrible it was. “You mean Storage Hunters?”
“Oui. I liked that, too.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Shut up, please, Dylan, I am trying to do something embarrassing.”
“Okay.”
He sighs. “I did not know if the things you said, about us training together here, and not wanting other alphas… I did not know if they were real. You were on your rut. Sometimes we say things we do not mean when we are in rut. But I—I wanted them to be real. This is what made me a little crazy.”
His fingers curl a little tighter around my hip, and my breath hitches. He frowns at me, and I realize I’m just staring at him with a wild smile on my face and my heart nearly beating out of my chest.
“You can stop shutting up now,” he clarifies.
“I meant it,” I say gruffly, bunching my fists in the soft material of his sweater and pulling him closer.
“All of it. I want you to train here. I don’t want other alphas.
I want you. In my apartment, and on my sofa, and in my bed.
I haven’t figured out exactly why you make me feel the way you do yet, but I know I don’t want it to stop. ”
Levi cups my jaw, his scent blooming warmly with relief and happiness. It smells so fucking good. “I also do not want it to stop.”
“Full disclosure, I went a little crazy too,” I admit. “I thought I’d said too much. I thought maybe you were put off by my—by me being so—” I frown, “—so un-alpha.”
Levi groans dramatically. “Again with the un-alpha. What made you think I was put off? Was it when I came for the 10th time in two days? Or maybe when I licked the cum off your abs and called you perfect? Was that it?”
“Jesus, Levi—” I squirm under his gaze, flushing when his grip tightens on my jaw, turning from gentle to firm in an instant and sending a wave of heat through me.
“I will keep doing these things until you understand that you are a perfect alpha, however you like to be treated in bed. Now, come here, mon loup.”
He closes the gap between us, letting out a low growl when my hands tangle in his hair as he kisses me like he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since he left my apartment three weeks ago.
“So, you’ll sign the contract?” I murmur against his lips when we pull apart, his hair ruffled and our chests heaving.
He steals another chaste kiss. “I will sign the contract.”
“The media and the other fighters in our division will probably speculate. If we start going out together in public, training at the same gym…”
Saying it out loud sets off a pang of anxiety in my stomach, but Levi is as unbothered as ever, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Let them speculate. I do not give two shits, Dylan. We do things our own way. We’ll fuck with them, it will be fun.”
“Fun,” I repeat, smoothing my hands down his torso. I meet his eyes, and he’s so handsome it almost hurts to look at him. “Do you want to come back to mine and watch more shitty television?”
He grins, wide and real and beautiful. “Yes, Dylan. That is exactly what I want.”