Chapter Sixteen
Rory
I knew the second I stepped back into the house.
Not because anything looked out of place. Not because Finn was whistling. And definitely not because of the suspiciously smug tray of double chocolate chip muffins cooling on the kitchen windowsill like a public relations stunt for guilt.
No—I knew because the house reeked of slick.
Omega slick.
Thick and syrupy in the air. Subtle but damning, like the world’s filthiest air freshener.
I stopped dead in the doorway and took a breath so sharp it nearly cracked a rib.
I’d been gone for two hours .
Two fucking hours. That’s all it took for this place to descend into hormonal chaos.
Finn didn’t flinch as I crossed the threshold. He’d turned his head over his shoulder, all sunshine and betrayal, holding a container of grapes like that was going to distract me from the fact that I could smell the imprint of an orgasm on his skin.
He opened his mouth, and I held up a hand.
“ Don’t .”
“I… made muffins?” he offered.
I stomped into the kitchen and reached for one. It was still warm as I bit into it.
And dammit —it was the best muffin I’d ever eaten in my life.
Bastard.
I glared at him while chewing, and I vowed to never leave this house unsupervised again.
*
The training pitch is just a short walk from the house. Ten minutes, tops.
Enough time for lesser men to shake off residual pheromones, rehydrate, and pretend they haven’t been complicit in omega-related chaos.
But I’m not a lesser man. I’m the captain.
Which is why I’ve been here since seven forty-five a.m.
Stretching. Hydrating.
Staring down the grass like it called rugby ‘ just a game .’
Because rugby is sacred, and someone has to take it seriously.
Jax arrives exactly on time; long strides, calm face, probably did seven hundred pull-ups in the woods on the way here just for fun. Finn bounces up beside holding the rest of the muffins he made last night in a large tupperware box.
“Morning, Captain!” he calls. “Do we want high-protein or emotional-support flavour?”
I do not dignify this with a response. He knows he’s on thin ice, and the muffins are the only reason he’s not already buried under the pitch.
Ollie and Ben wander over a minute later, mid-argument about creatine dosages and whether or not oat milk counts as real milk. Ben’s holding his gym bag upside down, Ollie’s shirt is inside out—
So, business as usual.
Nate and Marco arrive not long after, debating which of the older players might be secretly bonded without declaring it on the league registry.
( Their current theory? Coach Simmons. I refuse to comment. )
And then comes Theo.
Late. Again .
I don’t ask where his shirt went. I’ve stopped asking. I assume there’s a pile of them behind the hedgerow that he refuses to collect, out of some deep, personal philosophy about aesthetic airflow.
He saunters onto the pitch like he’s here to seduce the concept of sport itself.
“Morning, sunshine,” he grins at me.
“You’re late,” I snap.
“Don’t be like that. You know time is a social construct.”
I squint at him. “You dressed from the ground up and just gave up halfway, didn’t you?”
“It’s called balance, Captain. You might want to give it a try sometime.”
I inhale deeply.
Think of the muffins. Think of retirement.
The rest of the team’s already stretching, tossing balls, and arguing like toddlers on creatine. I start walking over with Theo, and then comes the whistle.
Coach Barnett emerges from the equipment shed like he was grown in a petri dish of testosterone and tactical shouting. He’s six-foot-something with a neck thicker than my thigh and a glare that’s legally classified as a controlled substance.
“Five laps,” he barks, already chewing gum. “Move like you didn’t spend the entire off-season crying into your overpriced oat milk and making thirst traps for TikTok.”
I’m running before he finishes the sentence.
Jax moves like a soldier in a nature documentary: efficient, silent, and probably conserving oxygen for war; while Finn bounds ahead like he’s chasing a squirrel. Meanwhile, Theo runs like the ground owes him money and he’s planning to flirt it back one stride at a time.
This is what I live for. Rhythm. Structure. Momentum.
No thinking. No scent. No distractions.
For twenty minutes, I am peace. I am power.
I am the alpha equivalent of a spreadsheet.
*
We’ve done sprints. We’ve done contact drills. We’ve done some kind of horrific uphill relay Finn called fun and I called an act of deep personal betrayal.
And now Coach has us in the middle of a high-intensity reactive sequence—which, for the record, is just chaos disguised as cardio.
Then—
“Rory.”
Stiletto boots. Sunglasses at full glare. Clipboard wielded like a weapon.
Evie.
I jog over to where she’s standing by the edge of the pitch, already bracing.
“Afternoon, boss,” I greet her.
Theo materialises beside me like a scent-triggered spectre.
“Evie!” he beams, hands on hips. “Finally—someone who recognises the artistic merit of my glutes.”
Evie doesn’t flinch. “You slow-mo lunged at the camera, Theo.”
“I slow-mo gave the people what they wanted .” He flashes her a grin. “You’re welcome.”
She sighs. “You know, Frankie already cut that video down as much as she could, and I still had to edit out two full minutes of you making bedroom eyes at your own reflection.”
“Brand awareness,” he shrugs. “This body is our most profitable asset.”
I groan. “Are we really monetising our quadriceps now?”
“Don’t knock it. Wexford brought in twenty grand in one quarter from targeted thirst-trap highlights and a gym wear collaboration,” Evie says. “Do you want a new water bottle or not?”
“What, so you’re confirming that you’re actually pimping out our thighs?”
“No. It’s strategic asset deployment,” she says smoothly. “And don’t look at me like that, Rory. I hate it just as much as you do, but the internet wants what it wants.”
Theo slaps a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t fight it, Captain. We could do calendars. Limited edition. Signed. Maybe with glitter.”
“Glitter’s a biohazard,” I mutter.
Evie ignores him. “How’s Frankie?”
I glance toward the far edge of the pitch, where the rest of the team are finishing drills. Frankie’s perched on a bench with one of the club’s interns—Harper, I think—tapping something into her phone, jaw tight.
“She’s… holding it together.”
Evie raises an eyebrow. The kind that says try again .
I sigh. “She’s brushing it off, but I know it’s getting to her.”
“She won’t show it,” Theo adds. “But she looked pale this morning. Didn’t touch her breakfast.”
Evie clicks her pen like she’s ready to use it on someone’s neck. “I told her not to read the replies, but I get it. Easier said than done.”
“Yeah. Even I read them. The first hundred were nice,” I mutter. “Didn’t expect the rest, though.”
Theo scowls. “It’s the same recycled omega hate. ‘ Who did she blow for the job? ’ That kind of crap.”
“Which is ridiculous given that she’s the reason we’ve doubled engagement in two weeks,” I say. “None of us had a following until she started filming thighs and telling us to smile.”
Evie hums, expression sharp. “That’s what worries me.”
“What, her talent?”
“No,” she says flatly. “The fact that someone is clearly trying to drag her down. And I have a bad feeling Denton Vale has something to do with it.”
Theo snorts. “What, they’ve pivoted to influencer sabotage now?”
Evie gives him a look. “You think it’s a coincidence that the bile started right after my meeting with them? It was only a few days later that she posted the Player Profile video that went viral. She’s making us look good, and Vale’s going to hate that.”
“Why her, though?” I frown. “She’s got nothing to do with any of it. Come at us, sure—but why Frankie?”
“Because it’s easy,” Evie says. “She’s new. She’s a young, pretty omega who’ll put in the work to figure out trends and what will go viral, and she’s walking around with four alphas who’d burn down the world for her. They see a threat, and they’re testing how far they can push it.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Theo’s jaw tightens. “I’ll dig through the accounts. See if there’s a link. If I find something—”
“You bring it to me,” Evie says coolly. “We’re not getting into a public pissing match unless we have proof.”
“And Frankie?” I ask.
“Protect her,” Evie says. “Keep doing your jobs, keep filming, and let the numbers do the talking.”
Theo nods. “We will.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” I say.
“I know,” Evie replies. “But that doesn’t mean she should have to fight this alone.”
There’s a beat of quiet between the three of us.
Then Theo—too casual to be casual—adds, “She’s settled in, though. More than I expected.”
I glance toward the pitch again. Frankie’s laughing at something Finn said, her hands flailing mid-story.
“She has,” I admit. “She’s got her routine. Her drawer in the fridge. Her mugs in the cupboard.”
“She’s in the routine, now,” Theo adds. “She’s part of the rhythm.”
“She’s not part of the pack,” I cut in automatically.
“Not yet,” Theo says without missing a beat.
Evie’s eyes snap to him. “Careful.”
He doesn’t flinch. “What? It’s not like any of us are pretending this is normal.”
“She’s your colleague.”
“And she’s living in our house,” he says. “Eating dinner with us. Sharing scent with us. Sleeping under the same roof.”
Evie narrows her eyes at him. “Is there any chance something’s already going on?”
I open my mouth, then close it again.
Theo snorts. “If there is, it’s professional. We make her tea and she edits our thirst traps. That’s it.”
Evie gives us both a long, unreadable look.
Theo adds under his breath, “Okay, so there might’ve been a moment involving Finn’s thigh. But nothing—”
“Enough,” Evie cuts in sharply. “We’re running a semi-professional club, not a fanfiction account. Jesus. ”
I rake a hand through my hair. “She’s good for the team.”
“No one’s disputing that,” she says. “But the closer she gets, the more likely something will blur.”
I glance back out toward the field again. Finn’s draped his arm across her shoulder, chattering to Jax.
She fits with them. With us .
I exhale slowly. “And what if—hypothetically—there’s a scent-match?”
Evie looks me dead in the eye and says, without a hint of warmth:
“Then god help us all.”
I watch as she tosses her clipboard into her tote, flicks her ponytail with deadly accuracy, and stalks away from the pitch with only a quick wave in Coach’s direction.
I stare after her, jaw tight. “She terrifies me.”
“She wants me,” Theo replies.
“Yeah. In a chokehold .”
“Hey,” he winks, “some women pay extra for that.”
He jogs back to the others, and I’m left alone with the fading scent of Evie’s alpha scent, a clipboard full of implied threats, and the creeping realisation that I might be the only person on this team who isn’t completely, clinically unhinged.
I glance around the pitch.
Jax is back in formation. Finn’s teaching Ben how to deep-throat a muffin without dying. And Theo’s now started doing calf stretches while calling over to Frankie and Harper.
Apparently, I’m the only one trying to keep this pack from collapsing into chaos, pheromones, and a sponsorship deal for thigh oil. Who knew?
I start walking toward them as Evie’s words swirl round my head.
God help us all.