Chapter 19 – VALEK
Chapter
Nineteen
VALEK
Humans bleed so easily.
Even alphas.
The mirror in my hotel bathroom confirms what I already know. That I look like shit. The gash above my temple has been closed with six neat stitches, already tugging painfully when I raise my eyebrows.
"Fuck," I mutter, prodding the swollen flesh. "Magnificent debut, Valek."
My first day with a new team, and I've managed to get my skull bashed in by a frightened omega with a fire extinguisher.
Not exactly the impression I intended to make.
I make my way to the hotel bed and lower myself onto the edge. I know I should be reviewing game footage. Learning the team's playbook. Preparing for tomorrow's practice.
Instead, all I can think about is her.
Honeysuckle and summer rain.
The omega's scent lingers in my memory, as vivid as if she were standing right in front of me.
I can almost taste it on my tongue.
I move to the mini-bar and extract a small bottle of whiskey. It's overpriced piss, but it'll do. I down it in one swallow, barely feeling the burn.
The pain medication they gave me at the arena is starting to wear off. My head throbs in time with my heartbeat, each pulse sending a fresh wave of agony radiating from the impact site. The doctors had been clear—no alcohol with the prescriptions they gave me, regardless of my alpha designation.
Oh fucking well.
The solution to my current predicament is simple. I need to find the omega again. Speak with her. Understand why she affects me this way. Then I can dismiss this ridiculous fixation and focus on what matters.
Winning and survival.
My phone buzzes again for the third time in ten minutes, insistent and irritating. Surely it’s the Ghosts’ drunken coach groveling and begging me to stay again. I'm about to hurl the phone across the room when the name flashing across the screen gives me pause.
Caleb.
Fucking perfect timing. As always.
My finger hovers over the screen for a moment before I swipe to answer. Might as well get this over with.
"What?" I mutter. The headache pulsing behind my eyes makes diplomatic niceties feel like too much effort.
"And hello to you too, brother dearest," Caleb's warm voice flows through the speaker, so earnest it makes my teeth ache. "I've been trying to reach you all day. Mom's worried sick."
Of course she is. She worries about everything, but especially her sons. Two by birth, one by choice. I'm the latter. The stray she took in when everyone else would have let me rot.
“I’m fine.”
“How’s the new team?”
“Peachy.”
“Are you at least trying to get along with them?”
“Of course. How's the bakery?” I ask, deliberately changing the subject. Caleb owns a small but thriving patisserie. The passion project of a beta who looks like he could bench press a car but spends his days piping delicate rosettes onto wedding cakes.
"Nice deflection. Business is booming," he says, allowing the change of topic. "I've hired two new bakers and we're expanding to the vacant space next door. Mom's recipe book is getting a workout. Her maple pecan tarts are still the bestseller."
I feel my lips twitch into what might almost be a smile if I didn't have a headache that's worsening by the minute. But I don't respond to that. Instead, I move back to the mini-bar, balancing the phone between ear and shoulder as I extract the final tiny bottle of spirits.
“Send my regards. Tell her I'm fine,” I say. “Settled in. The usual lies.”
"Your regards," Caleb repeats flatly. "How wonderfully formal of you. I'll be sure to convey the incredible depth of your emotional expression."
A reluctant chuckle escapes me. "Fuck off."
"Love you too, brother." The words are casual, genuine, completely uncomplicated by the tangle of jagged edges between us. Caleb says it like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Like loving me isn't an exercise in futility.
I end the call without responding. There's nothing I could say that wouldn't sound hollow or cruel by comparison.
I don't form attachments.
I can't afford to.
Attachments are weapons that can be used against you. A lesson I learned early and brutally before a well-meaning and equally well-to-do family of betas scraped me up like I was something to salvage.
Hockey was my adoptive father's idea. He thought it would channel my trauma. My aggression.
He was right.
The violence of the game suits me. The controlled chaos. The sanctioned brutality. A way to unleash the darkness without crossing lines that can’t be uncrossed. The ice is the only place where I feel something close to peace.
Even my shaky bond with my family is a weakness, and it’s one I've tried and failed to sever completely. One I keep at arm's length for their protection as much as my own.
So why does this nameless omega I don’t even know have such a hold on me after the briefest of encounters?
The concussion must be worse than I thought. That's the only logical explanation for this fixation. Head trauma making my brain malfunction. Basic alpha instincts misfiring in response to an attractive omega in a vulnerable state.
Nothing more.