BONUS CHAPTER FROM FALSE CATCH
CHAPTER ONE
Reese
The suppressants go down bitter. Wrong.
I dry-swallow the pill and glance at Bo’s reflection in the mirror.
He’s tugging on his team jacket, his jaw tight.
Three days on chemical control, and my body finally feels like mine again.
No more fire under my skin. No clawing ache in my chest. No instinct thrumming every time one of them breathes too close.
Just a hollow echo where something used to live.
“You don’t have to come to practice,” Bo says, not looking at me. “We could tell Coach you’re still feeling off.”
“I’m fine.”
The lie come out smoother every time. I’ve had practice, three days’ worth, trapped in a house with eight Alphas who can scent every lie I tell.
Bo’s eyes find mine in the mirror. “Reese.”
Just my name. But it lands like a stone dropped in deep water. The way he held me. The way I begged him to take me over and over again. The way we fit afterward with skin, heat, and trust like it was always meant to be.
The things I told him when I was too far gone to hold anything back.
I turn to face him. He watches me like I might bolt. Careful. Controlled. Like I’m something half-wild.
Maybe I am.
“The suppressants are working,” I say. “Everything’s back to normal.”
His mouth tilts in something that’s not quite a smile. “Normal.”
“Yes.”
"Nothing about this is normal, sunshine."
The endearment hits differently now. During my heat, he whispered it against my throat while I came in his arms. Now it sounds like a promise and a warning rolled into one. Both do something to me that I really shouldn’t be allowing right now.
Ignoring my own mental warnings, I step in close, tugging the edge of his collar straight.
He tries to keep his breath smooth, but it stutters when my fingers brush his neck.
Even now, three days at the house and almost a week since we had sex, he still shivers when I touch him.
Knowing I have that effect on him shouldn’t be this thrilling.
“We have to make it normal,” I murmur. “The team can’t keep acting like a pack of guard dogs every time someone looks at me sideways.”
“Can’t help it.” His voice drops an octave. “You smell different now.”
“I smell like pharmaceuticals and lake water.”
“No.” He leans in just enough for me to catch his alpha scent. Pine and crisp air and freedom. “You smell like mine.”
The word hangs between us, dangerous and true.
During my heat, when the suppressants failed and my body betrayed every secret I'd kept, the line between teammate and something else dissolved completely.
Bo was the one who stayed close when I needed anchor.
The one who held me steady through the worst of it.
I shift even closer. “Bo.”
His hands find my waist, gentle but possessive. "Yeah?"
“We need to be careful.”
“I know.” But he doesn’t let go.
“You know the others will notice.”
“They already have,” he says. “Jackson nearly put Beckett through a wall for mentioning you might move back to campus housing.”
“Jackson did what?”
“Sunshine. You’ve been here three days. None of us want you to leave.”
I know what he means. Not after they all scented me in heat. Not after I shattered and they caught every piece. Not after they figured out how far they’d go to keep me safe.
“I can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?”
It’s so simple, that question. But the answer isn’t. Because it looks bad. Because I’ll get too comfortable. Because pretending we’re just teammates only works when no one catches us acting like more.
Because I’m starting to like it here. Too much.
“Practice,” I say instead. “We’ll be late.”
Bo doesn’t argue. But he watches me like he knows I’m lying again. "Alright. But Reese?"
"Yeah?"
"Normal was never really an option for us."
He's right, and we both know it. But I'm not ready to admit what that means.
The kitchen is a battlefield disguised as breakfast.
Gray stands at the stove, flipping eggs like it's the only thing keeping him sane. His black hair is still messy from sleep, and there's tension in every line of his body. When I walk in with Bo, Gray's eyes find mine immediately, sharp and assessing.
"Sleep well?" The question sounds casual, but nothing about Gray is casual anymore. Not since he knotted me during my heat and looked at me like I'd hung the stars.
"Fine." Another lie. I barely slept, too aware of Bo's warm bulk on one side of me and the way I could hear Gray moving around in his room next door. Too aware that my suppressants might be working, but my body still remembers theirs.
Zane looks up from where he's demolishing a stack of pancakes. "Morning, sunshine."
The nickname makes Bo stiffen beside me, and I catch the way something shifts in Zane's expression too. Something that remembers the bus ride when everything started to go to shit, when the team needed to manage my failing suppressants and he volunteered to help. When he knelt between my legs and ate me out like I wasn’t just an omega that needed help. Like I was a woman that he wanted.
Neither of us has mentioned it since. But it's there in the way his amber eyes linger on my mouth, in the way his scent changes when I'm close. Three days, and they're already developing territorial reflexes.
"Where is everyone?" I ask, settling into a chair between Tyler and Eli. Safe choices. Tyler barely looks up from his textbook, and Eli just nods at me before returning to his coffee.
"Cameron's in the shower," Beckett says from across the table. "Jackson's probably still asleep."
"Jackson doesn't sleep anymore," Eli mutters.
"Jackson pretends he doesn't sleep," Tyler corrects without looking up. "There's a difference."
I'm about to ask what he means when Jackson appears in the doorway, looking like he hasn't slept in days. His dark hair sticks up at odd angles, and there are shadows under his eyes that make my chest tighten. He glances at Eli and there’s a brief flash of something like longing or regret before he wipes it away. I’m not entirely sure of their dynamic, but I’m well aware of the way two people who’ve fucked look at each other when they don’t want anyone else to know.
Then he sees me and stops moving entirely. Just freezes like a deer in headlights, and suddenly the entire kitchen goes quiet with a collectively held breath.
"Jackson." Gray's voice carries a warning.
Jackson's nostrils flare slightly, and I realize he's scenting the air. Testing to see if my suppressants are really working or if there's any lingering trace of heat. His eyes find mine, dark and unreadable, and something passes between us. Some acknowledgment that everything is different now.
"Reese." His voice is rough, like he hasn't used it in hours. "You're... okay?"
"I'm fine."
He nods once, sharp and decisive, then moves to the coffee pot. But I notice he gives me a wide berth, keeping the kitchen island between us. And I notice how he pours his coffee with shaking hands. Eli watches him, quiet concern in his posture.
"So," Beckett says, breaking the tension with forced cheer. "Anyone want to tell me why Coach texted at six AM asking if we needed 'support resources'?"
The kitchen goes dead silent.
Gray sets down his spatula. "He said what?"
"Support resources. Quote unquote. Which sounds suspiciously like code for 'I know something's up with your team dynamic and I'm fishing for information.'"
A full body shiver works through me. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. Obviously. But guys..." Beckett looks around the table, his expression unusually serious. "We need to talk about how this looks from the outside."
"How what looks?" Zane asks, but even his voice lacks his usual humor.
"All of us acting like we’re fresh out of puberty every time someone gets within ten feet of Reese. Gray snarling at that guy from the lacrosse team yesterday. Bo carrying her lunch tray like she's made of glass." Beckett's eyes find mine. "It's not exactly subtle."
Heat crawls up my neck. "I don't need to be handled."
"Whether you do or don’t is not the point." Gray turns from the stove, his steel eyes hard. "The point is we're drawing attention we can't afford."
"What kind of attention?" Tyler finally looks up from his book.
"The administrative kind," I say quietly. "The kind that asks questions about team policies and female coxswains on an alpha crew."
Everyone’s silent. No one wants to say the next part. About what happens to mixed teams that get flagged. About how fast the university can shut us down.
Cameron chooses that moment to walk into the kitchen, hair still damp from his shower. He takes one look at our faces and stops. "What did I miss?"
"Coach is asking questions," Gray says. "About team dynamics."
Cameron's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in his dark eyes. "What kind of questions?"
"The kind that means we need to be smarter about this," I say, standing up. "All of this."
"Smarter how?" Bo asks.
I look around the table at eight faces that have become more important to me than I want to admit.
Eight Alphas who risked everything to protect me during my heat.
Who are still risking everything, just by letting me stay here when there is someone stalking me who clearly wants to take us all down at the same time.
When the university authorities are clearly waiting for them to take advantage of the first opportunity.
"We go back to how things were before," I say. "Teammates. Nothing more."
The words feel wrong leaving my mouth, but they need to be said.
Gray laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You think we can just pretend the last week didn't happen?"
"We have to."
“Like hell we do,” Jackson says. “You think I can forget the sounds you made when—”
“Jackson,” Eli warns.
“No. She thinks we can all just unring that bell. But that’s not how this works.”
“We don’t have a choice,” I bite out. “If the school decides I’m a liability, I’m gone. We’re all gone.”