Chapter Twenty-Two
Beau
I’m still inside her. Still locked deep, knot pulsing, her body wrapped tight around mine like we’re made for this.
And maybe we are.
But that doesn’t mean I meant for it to happen like this.
I exhale through my nose, jaw tight, heart pounding so loud it drowns out everything else. She’s limp beneath me, her bare back rising and falling with each wrecked breath, neck flushed and bitten where I—fuck.
Where I claimed her.
I claimed her.
The realization drops heavy in my gut, cracking through the haze of rut like a warning bell.
I didn’t just lose control—I gave in. Fully.
Viscerally. There was no restraint, or rational thought: just sheer and utter instinct, along with need, and the unbearable scent of another alpha on what I already knew was mine.
Now, that’s exactly what she is.
Emery shifts slightly, her body flexing against mine, and a soft moan escapes her lips.
“Still with me?” I rasp.
She hums, warm and breathless, and turns her head just enough for me to see her face. Her cheeks are pink, and her lips swollen. There’s a dazed little smile tugging at her mouth, and something fluttery in her hazel eyes that I’ve never seen before.
“I think I broke you,” I mutter, only half-joking.
“You did,” she whispers, dreamy. “It was great.”
She’s smiling, but guilt and heat churn together in a way that feels dangerous.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say after a beat, my voice lower now, threaded with something that almost sounds like regret. “I mean: I didn’t plan for it to happen like that.”
Her smile doesn’t fade.
“I know.”
I press a kiss to her shoulder, then rest my forehead against the curve of her neck. Her scent is everywhere—ours now—but I still catch the echo of him.
Connor.
Fuck.
“You’re sore,” I say quietly. “From earlier.”
“Mhm.”
“I should’ve—”
“Beau.”
She cuts me off gently, turning her head until her lips brush my temple.
“I liked it. All of it.”
That shouldn’t make me hard again. Not when I’m still knotted inside her, and especially not when we’re barely through the fallout of my fucking rut.
But it does.
“You let him knot you.”
It’s not a question. I already know.
She nods slowly. “Yeah.”
My pulse kicks. I feel it everywhere—in my chest, my cock, my fucking blood. But she’s tucked into my arms, purring like she won a game I didn’t know we were playing, and I swallow hard.
“I didn’t do it to provoke you,” she says. “I didn’t even realize until I walked through the door and you looked at me like that. And then…” She swallows. “It was like I woke something up.”
“You did,” I rasp, voice gone hoarse. “Fuck, Emery. You smelled like him. You had him in you.”
“I know.”
“I could taste it.” My hand tightens on her hip, my knot twitching, still locked deep inside her. “I went fucking insane.”
“I could tell.”
There’s a beat of silence: the kind that feels like something coiled and waiting.
And then she adds, voice low and almost teasing:
“You didn’t… hate it though.”
I lift my head.
Her eyes are on mine, and there’s a glint there now—mischief, maybe. Or invitation.
“No,” I admit, my voice darker now. “I didn’t.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“You’re saying you liked me getting knotted by one of your teammates?”
“I’m saying,” I murmur, leaning in until my nose brushes hers, “that I don’t mind the idea of you with them.”
Her breath catches.
“But not without me.”
Her eyes go wide, lips parting.
“I wouldn’t let them touch you unless I was there. Unless I was part of it. Unless… unless I made sure they knew whose omega you were.”
“Beau…”
The sound of my name from her mouth like that—soft and reverent, practically ruined—makes every feral instinct in me roar again.
“You want that?” I ask. “You want to be fucked by my whole team with me watching? With me helping?”
Her breath stutters, and I feel her clench around me.
“I wouldn’t mind the sound of that,” she whispers.
Fuck.
I groan, head dropping to her shoulder again.
“You’re going to ruin me.”
Her hand finds mine where it rests on her belly, lacing our fingers together.
“You’re the one who lost control,” she murmurs.
I chuckle into her skin, low and guttural.
“And you’re the one who liked it.”
Her grin turns wicked. “Damn right I did.”
*
By the time I shut off the shower, my skin is raw.
I’ve scrubbed until the steam burns my lungs and my shoulders ache from standing under the spray too long, but it doesn’t matter. I know it before I even reach for a towel, before I drag it down my chest and over my arms.
She’s still there.
Her scent isn’t loud or blatant, but it’s threaded through me in a way soap can’t touch.
The thought settles heavy and certain in my chest as I dress, pulling on clean clothes that should smell neutral and don’t.
I pause at the door longer than necessary, bracing myself before stepping out into the cold morning air.
Snow crunches under my boots, the sky washed pale with early light, and the drive to the Icebox passes in a quiet blur.
My shoulder feels solid when I grip the wheel. Despite the exertion last night, Emery’s work has been doing its job, and my body knows it.
What it doesn’t know is how to pretend nothing else has changed.
The locker room hits me all at once when I push inside: heat, sweat, tape, coffee, and alpha presence layered thick enough to taste. Conversation stumbles as I enter, not stopping outright, but shifting; thinning, as though everyone’s instincts have lifted their heads at the same time.
Dylan glances up first, then Marco. Theo’s eyes sharpen as he looks me over, reading more than posture or gait. And Connor…
Connor goes still.
His jaw tightens, eyes flicking over me with a precision that tells me he already knows what he’s scenting. His shoulders square, scent flaring sharp and defensive before he reins it back in.
Yeah. They feel it. Not the details, but the change. The quiet certainty that something fundamental has shifted.
I don’t comment. Instead, I move to my stall and start taping my shoulder, slow and methodical, giving my hands something to do while the room hums with restrained curiosity. Voices pick back up: lower now, glancing around the thing no one’s naming.
Then the door opens again.
Coach Phillips steps inside, clipboard tucked under one arm, coffee in hand. The room settles the way it always does when his presence lands, and his eyes sweep the space once before locking on me.
“Out,” he says, though his voice is calm and steady. “All of you. Ice. Now.”
I don’t need him to confirm the obvious: that he’s not talking to me.
There’s a beat of silence, and Connor’s gaze flicks to me again, but no one argues. Skates scrape against the floor and sticks clatter as one by one, the room empties, noise rolling down the corridor toward the rink until the door swings shut behind the last of them.
Coach sets his clipboard down on the bench and takes a slow sip of his coffee before looking at me again—really looking this time, not at my posture or my shoulder, but at me.
“Well,” he says at last, exhaling through his nose, “that answers a few questions I was hoping I wouldn’t need to ask yet.”
I straighten without thinking.
Old reflex. Old habits.
“I needed to speak to you.”
“I figured,” he replies. His gaze flicks over me, sharp and practiced. “You smell like her, Wolfe.”
There’s no edge to it, nor is there any judgment: just fact, delivered the way he always delivers them.
I nod once, and my throat tightens.
“It… happened.”
Coach rubs a hand over his face, thumb pressing briefly into his temple like he’s working through a headache that’s been brewing all morning.
When he looks back at me, there’s frustration there, but it’s layered with something steadier underneath.
“She’s been here for a few weeks,” he says quietly. “A. Few. Weeks.”
“I know.” The word comes out low, weighted. “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t go looking for it, either. I didn’t even realize how close to the edge I was until it tipped.”
He watches me for a long moment, eyes searching my face like he’s trying to decide whether I’m being honest, or whether I even know myself well enough to be.
“This isn’t some careless mistake,” he says. “You’ve claimed her, Beau. You’ve claimed her, and she’s staff. She’s an omega. She’s living in your house.”
“I’m aware,” I reply, gritting my teeth instinctively. “And that’s exactly why I’m standing here instead of pretending it didn’t happen.”
That earns me another look. It’s different, this one: assessing, but also personal.
Coach sighs and lowers himself onto the bench across from me. The room feels smaller like this, the way it used to when I was younger and he’d sit me down after a bad penalty or a worse decision.
“I knew something was coming the moment she walked into this place,” he admits. “You don’t miss things like that when you’ve been around as long as I have. I just hoped I had more time before instincts got tangled up in it.”
“They didn’t just get tangled,” I say. “They settled.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I spent most of my life shutting that part of myself down,” I continue, the words pulling loose before I can stop them. “Didn’t have the luxury of figuring out what I wanted, just what needed doing. Someone had to hold things together, and it wasn’t going to be my dad.”
Coach’s jaw tightens.
“You grew up fast,” he says. “Too fast.”
“I never learned how to trust my instincts,” I say. “Just how to control them.”
He nods slowly. “Control’s not the same thing as understanding.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy, but not uncomfortable.
Finally, he asks the question I know has been sitting on his tongue from the start.
“She wanted this?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Fully. Clearly. I would never—”
“I know,” he cuts in gently. “I didn’t ask because I doubt you: I asked because I care about her. And because I care about you.”
That lands harder than I expect.
“And are you happy?” he adds.
The question catches me off guard. Not because I don’t know the answer, but because no one ever asks me that.
“Yes,” I say after a beat. “Kinda terrified, if I’m fully honest, but… yes.”
Coach leans back, studying the ceiling for a moment before exhaling.
“Alright. Then we can work with that.”
My shoulders ease a fraction.
“You understand what this means,” he continues. “For the team. For the pack dynamic. For the season.”
“I do.”
“And you’re not backing out when it gets complicated.”
“No.”
He nods once, decisive.
“Then we do this properly. With transparency, and boundaries, and respect.”
He stands, picking up his clipboard again.
“You’re still captain: that hasn’t changed. Which means you don’t just lead on the ice. You lead in how you handle this.”
“I know.”
He pauses at the door, hand resting on the handle. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
“You didn’t have a good model growing up, Beau. But you’ve built yourself into a damn good man anyway. Don’t forget that.”
My chest tightens.
“This pack is going to feel it,” he adds, glancing back at me. “Make sure what they feel is steady. Safe.”
The door closes behind him, and I sit there for another moment, the weight of his words settling deep, familiar and grounding all at once.
Then I grab my helmet and head for the ice—knowing that whatever comes next, I won’t be facing it alone.