Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
ROAN
Iwas going to kill Rhett.
Not in the fun, locker-room, “you dumbass” kind of way, either. No, this was more the how many strings I would have to pull to have his phone banned from league press lists kind of murder.
Because even hours later, the fallout from his little stunt hadn’t slowed. My phone continued buzzing with updates—half speculation, half denial, and somehow all fire.
And for what?
Some ego-fueled tantrum over Beckett fucking Rylan walking into our rink?
Get in line.
I stood outside Marchand’s office door, arms crossed, debating whether or not barging in without an appointment would be worth the blowback. The man had a knack for baiting power plays, and I wasn’t in the mood to be tested.
Not when every bone in my body was telling me to do something else entirely.
Go check on her.
I clenched my jaw, forced the thought out of my head. It was pointless. She’d made it clear—again and again—that she didn’t want that kind of attention. That we were not going to cross any of the lines she'd drawn.
But those lines hadn’t accounted for Rylan. Or the headlines. Or the look in her eyes earlier.
Something was wrong. Deeper than PR, deeper than press.
I didn’t need to scent it to know. Still, I didn’t move. I wasn’t going to disrespect her by pushing. No, I was just… going to make sure. Pivoting, I was already halfway down the hall, striding for her office.
Just a quick check. A knock on her door. A chance to offer—
"She's gone."
I turned even as I halted, immediately on edge.
Jay stood just down the hall, dark hair mussed from the wind, that same unreadable expression locked across his face.
“What?”
“She left,” he said simply. “Car’s gone. She packed up before she met with Marchand.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen.”
I didn’t move. Not at first. Rhett would’ve exploded—rushed out into the parking lot, scent wild and ready to fight a ghost. I held the reaction under my ribs like something sharp, pressing against bone.
“Did she say anything to you?” I asked.
Jay’s gaze didn’t flinch. “She said she needed to get on the road.”
That was it. Not where. Not why.
No heads-up. No promise to check in.
She just left.
And the air in my lungs felt heavier for it.
I rubbed the back of my neck, exhaling slow. “She say when she’s coming back?”
“No.”
Of course not.
“She looked…” Jay hesitated, then dropped his gaze for the first time. “Tired. She said she’d remember.”
That made no sense.
But it sounded exactly like her.
I ran a hand down my face, thinking.
Remember what? To take care of herself.
This wasn’t how she handled stress. She didn’t bolt. She worked—gritted her teeth, filed statements, steamrolled press, kept the world from spinning out. Leaving was not her default.
Unless something was wrong.
Really wrong.
I didn’t say any of that.
Instead, I asked, “Rhett know yet?”
Jay snorted softly. “Would we still be standing here if he did?”
Fair.
I stared at the empty hallway behind Jay. At the space where she should have been. Where I’d planned to find her—to talk to her. Not about boundaries or rules or any of the hundred reasons I kept my distance.
Just to ask if she was okay.
Now it was too late.
And the worst part?
I wasn’t sure she wanted any of us to follow.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said instead of the myriad of other thoughts I had.
“What about Rhett?” Were we going to tell him? That was what he really meant.
“Not tonight.” Mostly because I didn’t want to deal with him. “If he does something stupid—”
“When,” Jay corrected unhelpfully and I barely managed to restrain a glare. Jay wasn’t being combative, just honest. Normally, his steady personality and vibe were more than enough to soothe me at my worst.
Not today.
Not growling, I said, “When he does something stupid, we’ll have to manage the fallout and him.”
“You’re not in the mood.” Without a hint of irony, he nailed it with one sentence, so I just nodded. We walked in silence back to the locker room. Rhett was on the phone, but when I glared he mouthed “my brother” and I blew out a breath.
Talking to his family was fine. If I caught him talking to the press, I might break his phone then his jaw. The rising tide of fury threatened to boil me inside out. I grabbed my gear from the locker before jerking my thumb at the door.
Jay nodded with a flick of a look at Rhett. He was gonna keep an eye on him for us. Good.
“See you guys tomorrow.”
They had apartments in my building, all three of us owned the top floor. It gave us plenty of space, and security when we needed it. The separate apartments also allowed us our privacy when we wanted that too.
Right now, I needed it.
All the way to my SUV, however, I kept having to glance around. Cause there was a scent…
One I couldn’t quite identify, but it tantalized and teased right there at the edge of my comprehension. It was also making me crazy.
Maybe I should call someone… there were plenty of beta girls out there who wouldn’t mind a straightforward hookup. Maybe I could ease the ache in my stone hard cock, and get rid of some of this aggression.
No sooner did I get in the car than I dismissed the idea. As much as I could use the release, the idea of calling any of those women just didn’t appeal.
“Focus,” I told myself, resisting the urge to punch the steering wheel. “Focus on the playoffs.”
Maybe if I said it enough, it would work.
The next day, the agitation under my skin wasn’t any damn better. I stared at my phone for a solid minute. Her name sat at the top of my screen. Untouched.
No message typed. No call placed. Nothing but the weight of decision bearing down on my thumb like a trigger I wasn’t sure I had the right to pull.
Just check in.
That’s what I told myself. Simple. Professional. Polite.
But I knew better.
Calling her now wouldn’t be a courtesy—it would be a line crossed. One she’d never forgive if I made the wrong move.
Fuck me, that was the damn problem.
I don’t trust myself to make the right one anymore.
Not after dreaming about her all goddamn night.
Dreaming about the half-curve of her knowing smile, the glint in her eyes when she put me in my place or even better, when she got Rhett.
The husky sound of her laughter when something genuinely amused her.
The razor sharpness of her tongue when she was displeased.
It had left me so damn hungry for her, I woke with my hand outstretched and a roar in the back of my head because she wasn’t there.
Wasn’t where she should be. Where she belonged.
Except… Except that Wren Foster had never once even seen my bed much less been in it.
As attractive as she was, as playful and fun as she could be, that was a firm line she had always maintained. We could flirt, she would shut us down.
End.
Of.
Story.
All of a sudden, that was just not good enough. Fuck that ending. I wanted a better one. For her. For me. For us. I wanted…
That… that furious desire-fueled possessiveness was new. Too new. Too… consuming.
Before I could deal with that or even decide what to do with it, the locker room door cracked open and Ozzie stuck his head in. “Coach wants everybody on the ice. Ten minutes.”
I nodded. He was already gone.
Jay had disappeared down the hall right after we got here, probably headed back to suit up. Rhett was god knows where, hopefully not talking to another reporter. And I was still here, with a phone in my hand and a choice I wasn’t ready to make.
I dropped the phone in my duffel. Slammed the zipper.
We had a job to do.
Even if the walls were cracking under the weight of it.
Practice started stiff and fast, like Coach felt the tension too and wanted to bleed it out early.
Didn’t work.
The second the blades hit the ice, the mood soured. Fast.
Lines were sluggish. Energy was wrong. A couple of guys looked like they hadn’t slept. A few others were just pissed.
And I didn’t have to ask why.
Wren was gone.
For the first time in years, her absence wasn’t logistics. It wasn’t travel or a split meeting or one of her carefully compartmentalized “off-the-grid” days.
This was visible.
Speculated.
And some of these assholes thought they knew why.
“You see the damn photos?” Nate muttered when we skated by the boards. “Beckett and her, all cozy? Press calling it a ‘quiet lunch between old friends.’ Yeah, I bet.”
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to. Jay, on the far edge of our formation, looked like he might actually snap his stick in half.
But it was Akshay, of all people, who cracked first.
During our fourth drill, after a missed pass and a bad check, he spun on Nate hard.
“Maybe if you paid more attention to puck control and less to Wren’s love life, we wouldn’t be eating shit out here.”
Nate shoved him.
I got between them before it could escalate, arms out, voice sharp.
“That’s enough.”
Nate growled, low and hot. “She’s supposed to be our PR lead, not getting cozy with some rival alpha who’s about to take someone’s contract.”
The subtext hit the ice like blood.
His contract. Nate thought this was all about him.
I stared him down. “You think Wren’s the one making those calls?”
“She’s in the room.”
“Then you should know better than to question her loyalty.”
Nate’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t push further. He backed off.
Everyone did, eventually. We skated hard. Longer than usual. Coach pushed drills like he wanted someone to snap. He wasn’t subtle.
But I didn’t break.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t slam a stick or throw a punch or even check someone with a little extra weight.
I just did what I always did.
Held the line.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t burning underneath it.
By the end of practice, my muscles were screaming, my shirt was soaked, and my patience was damn near gone. I waited until the locker room was loud again—banter, slamming lockers, a round of trash talk starting up between the rookies.