Chapter 4 #2
Cal, with his desperate need to please everyone and his fear of standing alone. The way he folds himself into whatever shape the people around him need, losing pieces of himself with every accommodation. His mother's expectations, maybe, weighing on his shoulders until they're permanently bowed.
And me.
Me, with my silence and my secrets and my apparent inability to want what every Alpha is supposed to want.
An Omega. A pack. A bond.
I'd accepted it, honestly. Made peace with the possibility that I would go through life observing from the outside, watching others find what I never could. Writing stories about love and connection that I'd never experience firsthand.
Pathetic, maybe. But peaceful. A quiet kind of resignation that felt almost like contentment if I squinted hard enough.
And then today happened.
She happened.
I stop walking, tilting my head back to look at the darkening sky. The first stars are beginning to appear, pinpricks of light against the deepening blue.
Her scent.
Mon Dieu, her scent.
Warm vanilla sugar. Frosted rose petals. And underneath it all, a hint of fresh ice that made my blood sing.
It wrapped around me like a promise when I draped my jersey over her shoulders. Settled into my lungs like it belonged there. Made my Alpha instincts, dormant for so long I'd forgotten they existed, wake up and take notice.
Mine.
That was the word that echoed in my head when I looked at her. Standing there in the concessions area, drenched in blue slushie and defiance. So damn beautiful it hurt to look at her.
Mine.
I've never felt that before. Never understood what the other Alphas meant when they talked about the pull, the need, the all-consuming desire to protect and claim.
I understand it now.
Which is terrifying.
Because Mabeline Mae Rose doesn't look at me and see a potential mate. She looks at me and sees a ghost from her past. Another face in the crowd of people who hurt her.
Can I really blame her?
I think about her appearance. Really think about it, now that I have space and quiet and no angry packmate pacing holes in the floor.
Those hazel eyes, flickering between fear and fury in the locker room. Brown and green and gold, like autumn leaves caught in amber. The way they'd widened when Rafe cornered her, then hardened when she decided to fight back instead of flee.
The soft curves hidden under that borrowed jersey. My jersey. Number 31, with my name stretched across her shoulders like a declaration.
The freckles across her nose that darkened when she blushed. The way her chestnut hair had escaped its messy bun, curling around her face in damp tendrils. The plush lips that had pressed together in determination when Vanessa tried to humiliate her.
She's beautiful. Objectively, undeniably beautiful. The kind of beauty that's earned through survival rather than genetics. Soft and sharp at the same time, like a rose with thorns you don't notice until they draw blood.
But it's not her beauty that captivates me.
It's her spine.
The way she didn't back down from Rafe, even when he was towering over her, naked and growling and radiating enough Alpha energy to make most Omegas submit on instinct. She'd lifted her chin. Met his eyes. Called him "Captain Naked" like she wasn't even slightly impressed.
Brave.
Or reckless.
Maybe both.
I resume walking, my thoughts spiraling.
I can tell she's been hurt. It's there in the way she holds herself, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. The way her shoulders stay tense even when she's trying to appear relaxed. The flinch she tried to hide when Vanessa's name came up.
The shadows that pass across her face when she thinks no one is watching.
What kind of bullying did she go through?
I know what Rafe and Cal were like as kids. They've told me, in bits and pieces over the years of our reluctant friendship. Late-night confessions fueled by exhaustion and the strange intimacy of hotel rooms on away games.
The pranks that went too far. The nicknames that stuck like brands. The casual cruelty that children are capable of when they haven't yet learned empathy.
Nerdy MaeBell, go to hell.
That's what they used to chant. Rafe admitted it once, his voice rough with something that might have been shame. An entire classroom of kids, following his lead because he was the golden boy even then.
They're different now. Or at least, they're trying to be.
Rafe channels his aggression into hockey, into being the best captain the team has ever seen. Cal uses his need for approval to help others, tutoring struggling students and volunteering for every charity the school offers.
They're assholes, yes. But they've laid off on bullying. Especially bullying women. Especially bullying Omegas.
These days, they're more interested in fucking them and moving on than emotionally tearing them down.
Which isn't exactly better, but at least it's not the same.
Me?
I can't stand bullying.
Hate it. Despise it. Feel it burning in my gut like acid whenever I witness it.
Because I know what it's like to be on the receiving end.
You wouldn't think Alphas would be targets. We're supposed to be the predators, not the prey. The strong ones, the dominant ones, the ones everyone else fears.
But I was quiet. Small for my age until a late growth spurt hit me at seventeen. More interested in books and writing than sports and posturing. I spoke with an accent that made me stand out, a shy French-Canadian kid in a sea of loud American confidence.
Easy prey for anyone looking for a target.
The other Alphas at my old school made my life hell.
Called me weak. Called me defective. Said I wasn't a real Alpha, just a pathetic excuse for one who should have presented as something else.
They pushed me into lockers hard enough to leave bruises.
Stole my notebooks and read my stories aloud in mocking voices.
Spread rumors that I was secretly an Omega pretending to be more than I was.
And Bastien?
My older brother, who should have protected me?
He was too busy being one of them. Too busy climbing the social ladder on the backs of people like me.
His own brother.
I survived by becoming invisible. By shrinking myself down until I barely took up any space at all. By burying everything I felt so deep that no one could use it against me.
It wasn't until two years ago that things changed.
Coach Moreau found me on the ice one night, shooting pucks into an empty net like my life depended on it. He watched me for a while without saying anything, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable. Then he offered to train me.
Goalie training. Weight training. Mental training.
Everything I needed to rebuild myself from the ground up.
The quiet kid who got shoved into lockers is gone now.
In his place is someone stronger. Someone who can stop pucks that would break other players. Someone who's learned that silence can be a weapon, not just a shield.
But some scars don't fade with muscle mass.
Some wounds are invisible. Carried in the way you flinch when someone raises their voice. In the way you always check for exits. In the way you never quite believe anyone when they say they're on your side.
I round a corner, lost in thought, and that's when I see her.
Mabeline.
She's standing at the end of the hallway, near the administrative office I vaguely remember from orientation. The golden door gleams behind her, and the setting sun through the windows paints her in shades of amber and rose.
Her luggage is beside her, and I have to suppress a wince at the sight of it.
That bag has seen better days.
Better decades, actually.
It's a rolling suitcase that looks like it went through World War I, barely survived World War II, and is currently held together by sheer stubbornness and what appears to be duct tape in at least three places.
The handle is crooked, leaning dramatically to the left.
One set of wheels is missing entirely, replaced by a makeshift fix involving what might be bottle caps.
The fabric is faded to an indeterminate gray that might have once been blue or green or possibly maroon.
She brought her entire life to Valenridge in that?
But it's not the luggage that makes my feet stop moving.
It's the two guys standing in front of her.
I recognize them immediately. Alphas from the senior hockey team. Bastien's teammates. The kind of guys who wear their varsity jackets like armor and think their athletic status gives them permission to hit on every Omega they encounter.
Miguel Webb and Tyler Ross Denim. Both of them are tall, muscular, and radiating that particular brand of confidence that comes from never being told no.
They're standing too close to her. Invading her space in that way Alphas do when they're trying to establish dominance. Their scents are probably washing over her, sandalwood and pine and whatever else they douse themselves in, trying to overwhelm her senses.
Mabeline's expression is carefully neutral, but I've learned to read people. It's a survival skill, cataloguing micro-expressions and body language to predict threats before they materialize.
The slight tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers grip the strap of her bag a little too tightly.
The almost imperceptible lean backward, creating distance without retreating.
She's not impressed.
Or interested in the matter…
And based on the set of her jaw, she's about thirty seconds from telling them to fuck off in increasingly creative ways.
Should I intervene?
She's not my Omega. She's not my anything. I have no right to—
I'm walking toward them before I consciously decide to move.
My feet carry me down the hallway with purpose, my posture shifting from relaxed to alert. The Alpha in me, the one I thought was broken, rises to the surface like a creature emerging from deep water.
My scent sharpens, snow-dusted evergreens taking on an edge that warns without words.
Her eyes move first.