Chapter 30
Timber
Asnarl tears from me as I lunge for the fucker who bumped into me.
We get knocked around all the time during games, but this isn’t the day to fuck with me. It’s not the week. It isn’t the entire fucking year for anyone to come within two fucking feet of me, or I’m going to tear their fucking throats out.
“Fuck you!” he spits as my glove connects to his helmet and he stumbles back into the wall with a crash. We got into it with the Rochester Rutters at their home arena earlier in the year. But now we’re playing in Nashville, and we’ve all got grudges.
I have him pinned, and I’m not letting go.
I don’t give two shits who he is, just that I can take my anger out on him.
The Rutters are Kane’s old team. They were the ones he played for when he smashed up my face, before he joined the Scorpions just to piss me off. The Rutters used to be careful around me, but their whole team is a rotating door of players, so most of them have forgotten that time. But I haven’t.
His black hair is enough. Even though his uniform is bright yellow and he looks nothing like him, it’s as if Kane is there, and I roar as I throw another punch.
He lifts his stick, ramming me in the chest, knocking the wind from me. I’m not going anywhere.
When I skid backward, I pin my toe into the ice, screeching as it digs in to stop myself from sliding too far. All so I can kick off and surge at the Rutter again.
But he’s waiting for me, and he drops his stick and sends his weight backward as he lifts his knee to ram it into my thigh.
Pain bursts through me, but it’s nothing worse than the ache that stabs my heart with every beat.
The Rutter grabs my helmet, holding me tight as he jerks me, hurling me to the left, and I tumble down onto the ice again.
My vision fills with solid white. I press my gloves against the surface as I find my fight again.
But I’m so fucking ruined I don’t even have the energy to growl. I used it all up attacking that guy.
Before I can stand and make another attempt, the ref is there, and I’m skating off toward the sin bin. I don’t give a fuck. None of this shit matters anymore.
Because Kane isn’t here, and no one has any idea where he’s gone.
We turned up at the rink today for the next game, and after an hour, there was still no sign of him. Every person who called just got his voicemail. No one’s seen him since yesterday, and one of the team assistants even drove over to his house to find it all locked up with no car in sight.
There’s been no reports of traffic accidents or anything else that might have happened to him. He’s just disappeared.
And it makes everything ten times worse, because it’s the only time I actually fucking need him.
I’ve already laid into him for knowing about Luke and Ollie and not telling me. I want to stay furious at him. But did he really betray me when he didn’t have any loyalty to me in the first place?
Just because we got hot and heavy once and he kept saying he wanted to be a pack, all I could think about was his dopey face whenever he talked about Ollie.
And then my stupid jealousy would spark up again.
It’s not just because Ollie looked so fucking in love with him when I saw them together that it hurt. It’s that I've been left out of their relationship. They had their own life together, and I was just the dumbass who couldn’t scent her and let her suffer, as Kane said.
Apparently, this is somehow my fucking fault, even though she was the one who tricked me.
I’m sitting in the penalty box, watching the game, sighing like a moron. I only have five minutes to stew before they’ll let me back on the ice. But I wish Kane and I were stuck in the sin bin together so he can chatter and tease and distract me.
It’s pathetic that I miss them both after what they’ve done.
I don’t even know if they plotted it together because it happened so fast. It could have been some plan Kane came up with to fuck with me, and Ollie was in on it all along. Like his way to get payback for all the times I’d gone for him on the ice. Or maybe it was Marilyn's grand plan all along.
This whole thing is bullshit because my body and heart fucking ache, and I can’t sleep a wink. I even tried to watch the recording of what had happened between Ollie and me, only to find out the kitchen island blocked us from the camera. And it’s better that way.
I want to find her and at least apologize for flipping and turning into a crazy alpha who used force instead of words.
Now that I’m not acting like a fucking rage-fueled manic whose mission is to eat her out, I can tell her plainly what I’m feeling instead of that hurried mess where I almost went into rut.
But I don’t know where she lives, or who her friends are. She never told me about her family or her life before she moved in with me.
The Luke or Ollie I knew is just a snapshot of a whole person I claimed to love. And it’s all fucking bullshit.
“Holtz!” Ares yells from the edge of the penalty box. “Stop daydreaming and get your ass over here!”
I swear I can hear my muscles creaking because I’m so tense. But I hoist myself up, clash eyes with the guy who shoved his knee in my thigh, and give him a stare that promises I’ll level him if he even gets close.
***
“What the hell are you doing?” Ares snaps as he looms over me. I sit on a bench in the Scorpions locker-room, my shoulders slumped, wondering if there’s any fucking point anymore when I feel like this.
This is why I never wanted to get involved with omegas.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I shrug.
“A good—" He cuts himself off as he scowls. "For fuck’s sake, Timber! I thought you and Kane had worked your shit out? He’s not even here, and you’re still fucking around.”
I flinch as if it actually matters if he’s here or not. Who gives a fuck about him anymore? He’s on Ollie’s side, they’re both going to pack up, and I’m going to be left behind in the dirt because I’m so pathetic that they didn’t even bother to ask if I’m okay after all this.
Ares sighs as he runs his hand over his bald head, and I stare at him blankly.
“I haven’t seen you look like that for a few years,” he growls. “So, what the fuck happened?”
I blink at him, because there’s no point in saying anything. What can Ares do? When I left my ex-wife, all they did was create a barrier around me to stop her from getting to me. But Ollie is the one who left me.
“Is it because of Marilyn? I know she’s been on a mission lately. If it’s too much for you, I can talk to her about it. You know she’ll understand.”
I shake my head. “It’s too late for all of that,” I mumble.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I cross my arms and drop my gaze to the floor like it’s my enemy.
Ares hunches down, one hand on my knee, glaring straight back at me from underneath.
“Timber, I’m seriously worried about you. Last time you got into this state, it took us months just to get you to even talk to us. The only reason we ever saw you was because you were still determined to play.”
I meet his gaze, and I realize I’d been so wrapped up in Ollie and Kane that I forgot I have people who give a shit about me. Those who don’t want anything from me, either.
Even though Marilyn forced me into this, she would have listened if I’d seriously told her no. Not that that would have changed anything that happened, but at least there were people who had been with the team long enough to understand.
Just as I open my mouth to tell him part of the story while searching for a way to explain how I met ‘Luke’, Ares’s phone peals from his left hand.
He flips it over, and our eyes widen as Kane’s name appears.
He instantly answers.
“Kane, where the hell are you? What’s going on?”
My arms fall to the bench as I lean forward, my heart rate rising as worry floods me.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh,” Ares grunts as he stands. I want to yell at him to put it on speakerphone so I can at least hear his voice.
Ares’s hard gaze snaps to mine. “Sure, he’s right here,” he says gruffly as he holds out the phone.
I nearly groan because I’m so fucking tired, and something tells me there’s going to be drama as soon as I answer it.
“Hey, baby, how’s it going?” Kane purrs in my ear. I grit my teeth at the relief that sweeps through me.
“What are you doing?” I ask quietly. “I can’t believe you missed a game. Do you know how fucking serious this is?”
“Oooh, I love it when you swear. It gives me tingles all over.”
“Kane!”
There’s a pause before he sighs. “I’m at the hospital. I’m sick.” He coughs, but it sounds so fake that not even a kid would believe him.
“What!?” I shoot up from the bench, still falling for it, because there’s a sliver of a chance he’s telling the truth. “What the hell? Which one?”
Ares looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head.
“I’ll only tell you if you promise you’ll come and see me,” he hums.
“Kane, stop fucking around and tell me where you are.”
The phone goes dead the second he says the name, and panic tears through me.
“What’s going on?” Ares asks as I slap the phone back into his hand.
“I don’t know, but I have to go.”
“Am I coming with you?”
“I get the feeling I’ve got to do this myself.”
“I’m right here if you need me,” Ares says, waving his phone, and I nod as I take off.