Chapter 11
Oakley
Waking up used to be a tactical assessment.
For as long as I could remember, the first five seconds of consciousness were dedicated to a threat analysis.
Where am I? Is the door locked? Is the Wolf calm?
Is my father calling? It was a grim, militaristic way to start the day, born of a childhood spent walking on eggshells around a man whose temper could level a room.
But today, for the first time in twenty-two years, the threat assessment came back blank.
There was no threat. There was only... peace.
I opened my eyes, staring at the familiar wooden beams of my attic ceiling. The room was bathed in the pale, watery light of a Tuesday morning. The storm had passed, leaving the world outside silent and buried under three feet of fresh snow.
But inside, it was warm.
I shifted slightly, and the weight on my chest stirred.
Faye.
She was sprawled on top of me, her head resting on my pectoral muscle, her legs tangled with mine under the duvet. Her hair was a chaotic chestnut halo fanned out across my skin, tickling my chin. She was drooling slightly on my tattoo.
It was, objectively, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I carefully lifted my hand, tracing the line of her spine with my thumb. She murmured something unintelligible—probably about anatomy or caffeine—and snuggled closer, her breath hot against my skin.
I felt... light.
The constant, low-level static of aggression that usually buzzed in my skull was gone. The Wolf wasn't pacing or scratching at the cage. He was curled up, satiated and smug, guarding the precious creature sleeping on top of us.
She's ours, the instinct whispered. Safe. Claimed. Ours.
I looked down at her shoulder. The purple mark I had left there yesterday had darkened, a stark contrast to her pale skin. A wave of possessive heat rolled through me, followed instantly by a sharp spike of guilt.
I had marked her. I had tied her to me in a way that the Shifter world recognized instantly. Any wolf with a working nose would know she belonged to someone.
But to the human world? To the university? To the NHL scouts? To my father?
This was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Faye shifted again, blinking her eyes open. She looked disoriented for a second, then her gaze focused on my face. A slow, sleepy smile spread across her lips.
"Morning, Wolf," she whispered.
"Morning, Mouse," I rumbled, my voice thick with sleep. "You drooled on my forest."
She swatted my chest lightly. "I did not. I glow."
"You snore," I added, tightening my arm around her waist to keep her from rolling away.
"Lies and slander." She propped her chin on my chest, looking at me. The playfulness in her eyes faded slightly, replaced by reality. "What time is it?"
I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. "6:30. Practice starts at 8:00. You have Kinesiology at 9:00."
"We have to get up," she groaned, burying her face in my neck.
"Or," I suggested, running my hand down her back to cup the curve of her ass, "we could stay here. I'll lock the door. We can order pizza. We can hibernate."
"As tempting as that is," she said, pressing a kiss to my collarbone that made my toes curl, "I have an exam. And you have scouts watching."
Scouts. Right. The real world.
She sat up, pulling the sheet with her. The movement exposed the mark on her shoulder again. She caught me looking at it and self-consciously pulled her hair forward to cover it.
"We need to talk," she said softly. "About... logistics."
I sat up too, resting my back against the headboard. "Logistics."
"Oakley, we can't let people know," she said. Her voice was steady, practical. "Not yet. If the Dean finds out I'm sleeping with a patient, I lose my rotation. If Coach Varon finds out you're 'distracted' by the staff, he'll bench you to prove a point."
"He won't bench me," I argued weakly. "I'm the leading scorer."
"He will," she countered. "He's old school. 'Focus on the puck, not the puck bunny'."
I growled at the term. "You are not a puck bunny."
"To the outside world, I am," she said. "And then there's your dad."
The air in the room grew heavy.
"My dad," I repeated.
"You said he has spies," Faye said. "If he finds out... will he hurt you?"
"He can't hurt me," I said, my jaw tightening. "I'm bigger than him now. Stronger. But he can hurt you. He can pull funding from the department. He can ruin your career before it starts. He's... vindictive. He views humans as temporary amusements. If he thinks I'm serious about you..."
"He'll try to remove the distraction," she finished.
"Yes."
We stared at each other. The sunbeam between us felt like a line in the sand.
"So we hide it," I said, the words tasting like ash. "We pretend this isn't happening."
"In public," she amended. "In private..." She reached out, taking my hand and placing it on her knee. "In private, I'm all yours."
"I hate it," I admitted. "I want to walk you to class. I want to hold your hand in the cafeteria. I want to put my jersey on you and dare anyone to say a word."
"I know," she smiled sadly. "But we have to play the game, Oakley. At least for a little while. Until the season is over. Until you're drafted."
"Fine," I grunted. "Secret arrangement. Clandestine operations."
"It could be fun," she teased, trying to lighten the mood. "Like we're spies. Or star-crossed lovers."
"Star-crossed lovers usually end up dead," I pointed out.
"We're rewriting the ending, remember?" She leaned in and kissed me—soft, sweet, and promising. "Now go take a shower. You smell like sex and trouble."
"My two favorite colognes," I smirked.
But as I watched her gather her clothes and sneak out of my room like a thief in the night, the "fun" of the secret felt a lot more like a noose tightening around my neck.
The next three days were a blur of exquisite torture.
It turned out that pretending not to be obsessed with the person you were sleeping with was significantly harder than Calculus.
Everything was brighter. The ice at the arena seemed whiter, the puck moved slower, the air tasted cleaner. I was walking around with a permanent dopamine high that terrified me. I caught myself smiling at teammates in the hallway. I actually laughed at one of Riot’s jokes.
"Who are you and what have you done with the Captain?" Kael asked me at lunch on Wednesday, eyeing my tray which contained a vegetable that wasn't a potato.
"I'm focusing on nutrition," I lied. "Faye says I need more fiber."
"Faye says," Jax mocked, stabbing a sausage. "You quote her a lot for a guy who's just getting tutored."
"She's smart," I shrugged, burying my nose in my Gatorade to hide my expression.
But the hardest part wasn't the lying. It was the physical restraint.
We had established a system. No touching in public. No lingering stares. Professional distance in the training room.
It was hell.
On Thursday afternoon, I walked into the equipment room to get my skates sharpened. The room was small, smelling of rubber, metal shavings, and ozone. It was usually empty during the day.
I turned the corner around a rack of jerseys and ran smack into Faye.
She yelped, dropping a stack of towels.
"Sorry!" she gasped, bending down to pick them up.
I didn't think. I reacted.
I kicked the door shut behind me and locked it.
Faye straightened up, clutching the towels to her chest. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed. She looked around the cramped space, then back at me.
"Oakley," she whispered. "Someone will hear."
"I don't care," I groaned.
I crossed the distance in two strides. I grabbed her waist and hoisted her up onto the workbench, sweeping a pile of shin guards onto the floor with a clatter.
"Oakley!" she hissed, though her hands were already in my hair.
I stepped between her knees, burying my face in her neck. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the scent I had been starving for all day.
"You smell too good," I muttered against her skin. "I can smell you from the hallway. It's distracting the entire defensive line."
"That's just the laundry detergent," she breathed, tilting her head back to give me access.
"It's you," I argued, biting lightly at the sensitive cord of her neck. "I need a hit. Just a minute. I'm going through withdrawal."
"We're at work," she reminded me, though her legs were wrapping around my waist, pulling me flush against her.
"Nobody comes in here," I said, my hands sliding under her sweater to find the warm skin of her back. "Doc Miller is at lunch. Jax is in class. We have ten minutes."
"Ten minutes is not enough," she teased.
"I can do a lot in ten minutes."
I kissed her. It was hungry, messy, and desperate.
We devoured each other, tongues tangling, teeth clashing.
It was the release of hours of pent-up pressure.
Every time I had walked past her in the hall and ignored her, every time I had let her tape my ankle without touching her calf—it all poured into this kiss.
My hand moved to the waistband of her jeans.
"Oakley, wait," she gasped, breaking the kiss. She looked at the door. "Did you hear that?"
I froze. "Hear what?"
"Footsteps."
We both went still.
Sure enough, heavy footsteps were coming down the concrete corridor. They stopped right outside the door. The handle jiggled.
"Locked," a gruff voice grumbled. It was Stan, the equipment manager. An older bear shifter with a nose like a bloodhound.
My heart hammered against my ribs. If Stan smelled us... if he opened the door...
Faye’s eyes were wide with panic. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Must be on break," another voice said. A student assistant. "Come back later?"
"Yeah," Stan grunted. "Need to sharpen Ryker's skates before practice."
The footsteps retreated.
We stayed frozen for a full minute, listening to the silence return.
Then, we looked at each other.
The fear in Faye’s eyes morphed into something else. Adrenaline. Excitement.
She started to giggle.
It was a nervous, hysterical sound, but it was infectious.
"Oh my god," she whispered. "We almost got caught by Stan. He would have skinned you alive."