Chapter 16 #2
I hate that my worth is always conditional. Always dependent on the next performance, the next demonstration, the next act of brilliance that temporarily convinces people I am not the helpless Omega they assumed I was.
I grit my teeth.
But I know I can beat him.
And I am going to do exactly that.
The anger shifts, transforming from resentment into fuel. The same fuel that used to propel me through competitions, through auditions, through every moment on the ice where the world expected me to fail and I chose to fly instead.
But I do not want to spend my life around people who belittle me.
That is the whole reason I left. That is the entire point of starting over.
I am not here to prove my potential to someone who will always use my born traits against me.
I did not choose to become an Omega. This is the path that was chosen for me, and I need to be around people who do not just accept it but allow me to blossom and thrive within it.
So beat him. Beat him clean. Beat him fast. And then go to the library, because your education matters more than any Alpha's ego.
"SET!"
Coach Mercer's hand rises higher.
I lower my center of gravity, coiling my legs beneath me. Beside me, Rafe mirrors the position, his broad frame angled forward, his gray eyes locked on the distant boards with predatory focus.
The arena holds its breath.
I can feel them all watching. The team on the boards, sticks gripped tight.
Sage clutching Archie's arm. Etienne standing at the goal with his hands pressed against the glass.
Cal with his arms crossed, his amber eyes sharp and unblinking.
Vanessa and her group, some sneering, some curious.
Coach Lizzy and Miss Phillips side by side, identical expressions of anticipation on their twin faces.
Everyone is waiting to see if the Omega can beat the captain.
"GO!"
I shoot off the line like a bullet leaving a chamber.
Rafe explodes beside me, his first three strides powerful and aggressive, the raw force of an Alpha built for straight-line speed.
His blades chew into the ice with deep, gouging strokes that launch him forward with brute efficiency.
He is fast. Genuinely, undeniably fast. His stride is long, his power immense, his training evident in every calculated push.
For the first half of the rink, I keep pace with him.
Deliberately.
I match his speed stride for stride, my blades cutting the surface with shorter, sharper strokes that sacrifice power for control.
I can feel the vibration of his skating through the ice beneath me, the thundering percussion of an Alpha at full force.
His shadow stretches beside mine on the gleaming surface, larger, broader, the silhouette of someone who has spent his life being told he is faster and stronger and more worthy than anyone beside him.
The crowd is screaming, their voices echoing off the rafters in a wall of noise that vibrates through my bones. I can hear individual shouts breaking through the chaos.
"Come on, Mae!"
"Let's go, Captain!"
"SMOKE HIM, MAEBELL!"
That last one is Sage, unmistakable.
We cross the halfway line neck and neck, and I feel Rafe's pace increase.
He is pushing harder, digging deeper, his breath coming in sharp bursts visible in the freezing air.
He expected to be ahead by now. I can read it in his posture, the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his stride lengthens with urgency instead of confidence.
He thought this would be easy.
It is not going to be easy.
The halfway mark passes beneath my blades, and I calm my breathing.
Inhale through the nose. Slow. Controlled.
Exhale through the mouth. Release the tension in my shoulders.
Loosen my grip on the stick. Let my legs do what they have been trained to do since I was four years old and my father first put me on the ice with blades too big and a helmet too heavy and told me to find a single point on the boards and skate toward it with everything I had.
Focus on a single target, Mae. Block out everything else. The crowd, the noise, the fear, the doubt. Just one point. And skate forward with all your might.
It is risky in games. In real competition, there are obstacles, defenders, angles to monitor, bodies to avoid. But a straight race with no barriers is perfect for this technique.
I lock in.
My eyes fix on a single point where the far boards meet the ice.
And I let go.
My strides shift. The controlled, pace-matching rhythm I maintained for the first half transforms into the sprint that made my father's coaches cry.
Short, explosive pushes that barely let my blades leave the surface, each one building on the last, each one faster than the one before.
My body drops lower, my core tightens, and the wind hits my face with a force that steals the breath from my lungs.
I use my agility. My slight frame. The weight that I have always been self-conscious about becoming the greatest advantage I possess, because there is less of me to move. Less mass to accelerate. Less resistance against the air that is now screaming past my ears.
Everything becomes a blur.
The lights overhead streak into lines. The boards in my peripheral vision dissolve into a smear of white. The screams of the crowd merge into a single, roaring frequency that vibrates through my skull.
I am flying.
Not skating. Not running. Not performing.
Flying.
The way I used to before the world told me I was not allowed to have wings.
The boards rush toward me, growing larger with a speed that my brain registers as alarming. I need to stop. Need to brake. Need to dig my edges in and skid to a halt before I slam into the plexiglass at a velocity that will leave a dent in either the boards or my skeleton.
I shift my weight to initiate the stop.
"PUCK!"
The shout comes from behind me. Multiple voices, overlapping, frantic.
My brain stutters.
Puck? What puck? Where?
Before I can process the warning, my left skate catches on an object that should not be on the ice. The impact is minuscule. A tiny collision between my blade and a stray puck that someone left on the surface, the force barely enough to register as contact.
But at the speed I am traveling, barely enough is more than sufficient.
My balance shatters.
My left foot kicks out from under me, my right ankle overcorrects, and suddenly I am not flying.
I am falling. Hurtling forward with all the momentum of a full sprint and none of the control to stop it.
The boards are rushing toward me, a wall of plexiglass and metal that is going to make impact in approximately one second.
Multiple people curse behind me. Gasps erupt from the stands. I hear Sage scream my name. Cal's voice, sharp and panicked. Etienne shouting in French.
And Rafe.
"FUCK! Mae!"
His voice is raw. Stripped of every layer of arrogance and mockery and cruelty, reduced to pure, instinctive fear for someone he claims not to care about.
I close my eyes.
I brace for the boards. For the impact that is going to hurt, badly, that is going to bruise and possibly fracture and definitely leave me regretting every decision that led to this moment.
But the boards never come.
Instead, I crash into a body.
The collision arrives with a screech of skates against ice so sharp it reverberates through the entire arena. Someone has thrown themselves between me and the wall, planting their blades and bracing for impact with a solidity that absorbs my full-speed momentum like a human wall.
"Oomph."
The grunt vibrates against me as I slam into a chest that is broad and firm and covered in a jersey I do not recognize.
Arms wrap around me instantly, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away, cushioning the residual impact with a strength that keeps both of us upright despite the force that should have sent us both crashing.
I am in shock.
My heart is hammering so hard it feels like it might shatter my ribcage. My hands are gripping fabric I did not consciously reach for. My legs are trembling from the adrenaline dump that is flooding every cell in my body with the chemical aftermath of almost dying.
And then the scent hits me.
It does not arrive gently.
It crashes into me like a freight train, slamming through every defense I have, bypassing my conscious mind entirely and detonating in the most primal, instinctive part of my brain.
Vanilla ice cream.
Rich, creamy, decadent vanilla blended with a masculine musk that is warm and dark and intoxicating.
Underneath that, layers I cannot fully separate.
Sandalwood, maybe. Aged leather, but softer than Rafe's.
The clean bite of cold air after a winter storm.
All of it woven together into an aroma that makes my entire body react in ways I have never experienced.
My skin tingles.
Not just where his arms are touching me.
Everywhere. From my scalp to the soles of my feet, every nerve ending wakes up simultaneously, standing at attention with an urgency that borders on painful.
Heat floods my belly, my knees weaken, and a longing so intense it feels like grief blooms in my chest.
What is this? What is happening? Why does this scent feel like being wrapped in the coziest pajama set ever created and falling asleep in a bed made of clouds?
Why do I want to curl into this stranger's arms and never move again?
Why does every cell in my body feel like it has been waiting for this exact aroma my entire life?
My head whips up.
The eyes that meet mine are stormy gray.
Familiar.
Achingly, impossibly familiar.
The same shade as Rafe's. The same depth, the same intensity, the same mercurial quality that shifts between silver and steel depending on the light.
But these eyes are different. Older. More lived-in.
Carrying a weight behind them that speaks to years of experience that Rafe has not yet accumulated.
I take in the details with the frantic speed of a brain trying to process too much information at once.
Dark red hair. Not ginger like Archie's but a deep, rich auburn that catches the arena lights and reveals hidden streaks of dark blonde woven through the strands. It falls across his forehead in a way that mirrors Rafe's hairstyle but with a slight curl that softens the edges.
The face is similar. The bone structure, the sharp jaw, the high cheekbones.
But where Rafe's features carry the sharpness of youth and unresolved anger, this face has settled into its angles.
Matured. The lines are more defined, the expression more guarded, the overall impression one of someone who has been through storms and decided to stop running from them.
He is taller than Rafe by an inch or two.
Broader through the shoulders. His body beneath the unfamiliar jersey is solid in a way that suggests consistent training without the bulky aggression of a hockey enforcer.
There is a calm to his physicality that Rafe does not possess, a stillness in the way he holds himself that speaks to discipline rather than dominance.
Everything about him echoes Rafe.
And nothing about him is Rafe.
Bastien.
This is Bastien Laurent.
Etienne's older brother. Rafe's former packmate. The ghost that haunts every conversation, every argument, every crack in this fractured pack. The man whose name makes Rafe flinch and Etienne withdraw. The absence that defines them all.
And he just caught me mid-flight and stopped me from shattering against the boards like I weigh nothing.
He is looking at me with the same shocked recognition that I imagine is plastered across my own face. His arms are still wrapped around me, holding me steady against his chest, and neither of us has made any move to separate.
One eyebrow rises slowly, curiosity replacing the initial surprise.
"Scent match?" he whispers.
Two words.
Two words that restructure my entire understanding of my life.
I blink, my face flooding with heat so fast I must look like a tomato in a hockey jersey.
His voice wraps around me with the same devastating effect as his scent, making every nerve ending rise in pure, electric excitement.
Low and rough and warm, carrying a timbre that vibrates through my bones and settles in a place beneath my navel that I am not prepared to acknowledge in public.
His word finally clicks.
Scent match.
A scent match.
The biological phenomenon that occurs when an Alpha's pheromone signature and an Omega's pheromone signature align so perfectly that the body recognizes its counterpart on a molecular level.
It is rare. Extraordinarily rare. Most people go their entire lives without encountering their scent match, settling for compatible pairings that are pleasant but lack the visceral, bone-deep, cellular recognition that a true match produces.
A true match feels like coming home.
Like finding a piece of yourself you did not know was missing.
Like the universe looked at two people and said, these two. These two belong together in a way that transcends choice and logic and circumstance.
And I am standing in the middle of a hockey rink, wearing another Alpha's jersey, another Alpha's helmet abandoned on the ice beside me, with my arms gripping the chest of an Alpha I have never met who smells like everything I have ever wanted and never known how to ask for.
Holy fucking shit.
HE is my scent match?!