24. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When Eli sent me a text letting me know something was wrong with Artie, I didn’t see it for almost an hour.
Curling practice had been brutal with Coach Tyrus more irritated than normal with our progress and making sure we paid for it on the ice as he barked orders.
“You’d think we were in a hockey practice,” Raleigh grumbled in his thick Southern accent.
“Shh, don’t set him off,” Albie groaned as we finished another lap around the ice.
Not much actual curling seemed to be happening today and I wasn’t sure if anything would be happening for the rest of the week if we didn’t get our shit together.
“We wouldn’t be in this position if someone came to practice on time,” Albie continued, hissing over at the fourth member of our team who was lagging behind us.
At first, I thought he was talking about me. My memories of my old curling team weren’t all bad, but it was still hard to shake the last conversation we had where they laid out all of the ways I’d failed them.
But Albie’s words weren’t directed toward me. They were directed at the youngest member of our team.
“Who has curling practice at ten in the morning anyway? Back in Colorado ours didn’t start until after one,” Peter grumbled with a yawn.
He was the newest recruit that Colt pulled into what he hoped would be an all-star team when the time came for the next Olympics.
Judging by the dysfunction, though, that dream was still very far off.
“That’s not how it works here, man,” Raleigh bit back. “If they tell you to show up at ten, you show up at ten.”
In contrast to Peter, Raleigh was the most seasoned member of our team and had spent the past two months trying to get us all working together like a team should.
“Aw hell,” our coach grumbled loudly from the sideline. “That’s it for the day. Hit the showers and you all better be here on time or else you’ll never touch another stone again! That last bit is specifically for you, Peter!”
Peter, seemingly made of Teflon causing all of the coach’s words to bounce right off of him, just grinned. “Quittin’ time! Not a moment too soon because I have got a date.”
With that the lad skated off of the ice as if he hadn’t just caused the practice from hell for us.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Raleigh growled and tried to go after him, but Albie caught his arm.
“Not worth it, Ral, just let the system work him out the way it’s done for everyone else.”
I’d very quickly gotten the idea that there had been a constantly rotating door of potential curlers that had come through the Complex since the team was formed two years ago.
Raleigh and Albie were the core members that had stuck, but no one else seemed to work out.
After a beat, the two finally seemed to remember that I was still, in fact, right behind them and they both turned to offer me sheepish smiles.
“No offense, of course,” Raleigh told me as we stepped off of the ice and collapsed onto the bench together.
“None taken,” I said with a grin as I unlaced my shoes and pulled them off, groaning at how sore my feet were after that workout. “Though I might run screaming for the hills anyway if Tyrus does that again.”
Albie’s eyes widened. “Nope, you can’t leave us. Absolutely not.”
“We haven’t had a solid teammate like you in a while.” Raleigh’s groan was similar to mine as he took his skates off and chucked them at the half-wall. “And if you leave we’re stuck with Peter the frat guy.”
I laughed at that, reaching into my bag for my phone. Hopefully Artie wouldn’t be mad because I was running behind, though I highly doubted it.
In the few days since Enzo left for California, Artie had lingered longer at his practices talking to Ciara as much as he could.
I’d been trying to ignore the sneaking suspicion that he was fixating on her more than usual because he was so close to his heat.
But he swore up and down that it wasn’t his heat, but he was still running me ragged at night before appearing totally fine in the morning. Though this morning he was bright red like a cherry tomato and had insisted on going to practice anyway.
Turning my phone on, I frowned at the first text message that popped up.
I had given Artie’s figure skating coach Eli my number in case of emergencies and when his name appeared on the screen I had a sinking suspicion that said emergency was here.
ELI:Artie looked sick @ practice. Prob should check on him.
My stomach did a little flip.
“I’ve got to head out,” I muttered, shoving my shoes into my bag and nodding at the other two before hurrying on socked feet out of the ice rink.
The changing room was on the other side of the hockey stadium so it took another five or so minutes until I made it there and realized that I couldn’t feel Artie at all.
It took me only a minute or two to realize it was because he was intentionally shutting me out.
A thread of unease wound through me as I turned down the long hallway that was full of private changing rooms. The one Artie had been assigned was on the very end and before I even touched the door I could hear noises from within that sounded all too familiar.
For a split second I was worried he’d gone into heat and some random alpha had taken advantage of him. The thought made me want to hurl and I shoved the door open ready to defend my omega from the unknown attacker.
Pushing the door open, I nearly choked when Artie’s orange scent filled my nose as I stepped inside.
Charm, who’d been asleep in front of the door, lifted her head and shot me a pitiful stare.
“Go on outside, girl,” I murmured to her and the retriever got up and went to sit in the hallway.
Dropping my things as quietly as possible, I prepared myself to bark at whoever was messing with my omega.
And then I heard a muffled, feminine moan that was all too familiar.
Stepping around the tiled walls, I peered into the shower and a heavy sigh left me as I observed the scene in front of me.
It wasn’t some random alpha in the shower with my omega but Ciara straddling his waist, her slender back to me as her face was buried in the crook of Artie’s neck.
Artie, for his part, seemed completely pleased with himself as his chin lifted and he squinted up at me, probably realizing just who had walked into the changing room.
Peering around Ciara’s shoulder, I saw what I’d been fearing since I’d walked into the room a minute ago.
Ciara’s teeth were clearly buried in Artie’s neck, locked in as she stared at me with the wild eyes of an alpha in rut.
“Oh, mo leannan, what did you do?” My question came out in a rasp as the implications of it all settled heavily on my shoulders.
Stepping into the shower, I reached for the valve to turn it off, but Artie must have thought I was reaching for her because he squeezed her more tightly to his chest.
“She’s mine,” Artie hissed at me, clearly also out of his mind on the heat pheromones.
Crouching down, I put my hands up as placidly as I could manage. “I’m not going to take her away from you,” I promised, my mind racing to try and figure out some kind of solution to the situation in front of me.
“Ciara,” I tried, and got no response. “Mo ròs?”
I hadn’t used that nickname in so long that my voice cracked as I said it. But it seemed to work because Ciara’s brown eyes rolled in my direction with just the slightest hint of recognition before she growled at me, her teeth still locked in the skin of Artie’s neck.
Reaching out again, I sighed when they both flinched away from me, expressions hostile.
Apparently, I wasn’t going to be the one to calm either of them down today.
Standing, I turned and whipped out my phone.
There was only one other person in this entire complex who could potentially knock Ciara out of her rut long enough for us to get both of them out of here.
Hitting the call button, I waited until a female voice answered. “Hi, Aurelia? This is Leith Dougall. Do you happen to have Jae-Sun Park’s number?”
“Oh man,” Jae-Sun Park whistled as I let him into the changing room. “When you told me he was in heat I wasn’t expecting to walk into this.”
When I called him he’d just gotten out of hockey practice, so his clothing was still disheveled and his black hair was sticking up in all directions as he stood in front of me with his hands on his hips.
I’d only ever seen him from a distance but up close I could see exactly why Ciara liked him. He was a handsome fellow, but that wasn’t it. He seemed to take in everything he’d heard in stride, as if he’d been expecting all of this to happen.
“I’m Leith Dougall, sorry that our formal introductions have to happen like this,” I said, holding my hand out to him.
He shook it but his eyes were already going to the pair behind me. “I’m Jae-Sun Park, but most people call me Wiz. Ciara’s told me a lot about you.”
My eyebrows rose at that. “She has?”
I wasn’t sure why, but the idea that Ciara had talked about me with the alpha filled me with a mixed sense of excitement and dread.
Wiz nodded in the affirmative, his cheek dimpling as he smiled at me. “Yeah, we’ve been discussing what potentially joining your pack would look like, but it looks like these two have figured that out all for themselves without the rest of us.”
“This doesn’t make you jealous?” I asked, surprised. I wasn’t sure that, if the situations were reversed, that I wouldn’t be green with it if I saw my girlfriend wrapped up with another man. Even if he was an omega in heat.
Wiz shrugged. “The way it happened doesn’t seem ideal, but I wouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with her if I couldn’t handle all of this.” He gestured to the pair in the shower.
I opened my mouth, at a loss for words for a moment before I finally managed to choke out. “You’re oddly calm about all of this, so apologies if I sound shocked.”
“My parents raised me to communicate about things first versus reacting emotionally. Makes me a pretty good hockey player, and a pretty good boyfriend if I do say so myself.”
I couldn’t fault him there.
Wiz snagged one of the big fluffy towels that the changing room stocked and made a step in the direction of the shower.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They’ve both been… not all together nice when I’ve approached,” I warned.
Wiz shot me a grin. “Let me try it and if it doesn’t work we can figure out where to go from there—can you grab another towel for Artem?”
“We call him Artie,” I corrected him before grabbing a towel.
“Artie, then.” Wiz stepped into the shower where the pair was still locked together, Ciara’s teeth deeply embedded into Artie’s neck.
Despite the fact that they were now shivering from the lack of hot water pouring down on them, they still clung to each other as Ciara let out a growl, warning Wiz off from coming any closer.
But Wiz didn’t seem put off by her rejection. Instead, he crouched down low so they were eye level and offered her a soft smile.
“Hey there, gorgeous, what a situation you seem to have gotten yourself into, huh?”
Ciara answered his question with another growl, but Wiz just kept talking.
“I know you don’t want to leave him right now, but can I at least get you to loosen your jaw? You wouldn’t want to mangle that pretty bond mark you’ve made, would you?”
He continued to speak softly to her until her mouth slowly unhinged and she released Artie’s neck. Her mark was, even to my eyes, indeed very pretty where it was sitting just above mine. Once it healed up it would make a perfect match to his other ones.
For just one breath, I let myself feel excitement. Ciara was a part of our pack now, for better or worse, she was ours.
And then the reality settled in again. What would happen as soon as she came to her senses again? What the hell was I supposed to tell Enzo when I promised him that I would take care of Artie?
Letting another alpha bond him before we had any actual verbal discussions seemed to go against that promise almost to a T.
“There we go,” Wiz cooed as Ciara reached for him and he pulled her off of Artie’s lap, wrapping her up in the towel. The movement caused the omega to whine loudly at the loss despite being half asleep himself.
Recognizing that it was my turn, I stepped into the shower and wrapped Artie up in his own towel and pulled him close to my body, inhaling their mixed scents deeply.
“Aurelia says she’s got a car waiting for us at the west exit. We should cover them completely in towels, but I think most people are going to be gone for the day,” I told Wiz as we patted them both dry.
“And then what?” he asked, caressing Ciara’s sleeping face as it lolled against his shoulder.
“And then we take them back to our apartment.”
“Your apartment? Why?”
Wiz seemed so put together that I nearly forgot that he didn’t have an omega of his own.
“They need to stay together for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the bond to make sure it seals properly and he needs to be in his nest for the rest of his heat,” I said, nodding at my groggy omega.
Wiz considered my words before shrugging. “Makes sense. Can I come along?”
I just stared at him.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” he asked, glancing down at Ciara to make sure she was still sleeping.
Shaking my head I just stood with Artie in my arms. “No you didn’t say anything wrong. I just can’t believe the ease with which you’re accepting all of this.”
“Like I said, Ciara and I have pretty much already talked about this. She was about a week out from talking to you guys anyway, but apparently an omega’s heat waits for no alpha lady to work up her courage.”
With that, Wiz toed the door open, checked the hall, and hurried with Ciara for the doors where a car was waiting for us.
Charm was still in the hallway, her eyes locked on to Artie as I stepped out of the changing room.
“I think he may fit right in, what do you think, old girl?”
Charm’s head tilted and she let out a tiny bark, waiting for me to move with her charge so she could fall into step with us.
I’d need to come back and gather all of our things, but for now my goal was to get Artie into the car and figure out just how I was going to break the news to Enzo about our newest packmate.