Chapter 10 #2
No scent flare. No hesitation.
Just cold wit and sharper eyes.
I’d never seen anyone carry that much command without raising their voice.
More impressively, I’d never forgotten it. It was the rare alpha who could put me in my place so thoroughly. My dominance was just too damn much. I’d learned to temper it to make it easier for others, but with Wren?
She’d blown right through me like that breeze.
Even now, as I jogged across the lot and spotted Rhett’s ridiculous cherry-red muscle car parked half out of its lane, I remembered the way she’d tipped her head that first day. Measured. Like she could already tell I’d be trouble.
She’d been right.
If I didn’t stop these two idiots, we’d all be in deeper than we knew.
I caught them halfway to the car.
Rhett’s keys were already in hand, Jay a few steps behind, scanning the lot like he half-expected her to materialize out of thin air with her sunglasses in place and a familiar, if tolerant, smirk on her lips.
They hadn’t seen me yet, and for a second, I debated letting them drive off.
Let them make idiots of themselves, get it out of their system.
Then I saw the look in Rhett’s eyes—too bright, too wild. And Jay’s—cool, yes, but with the tightness of someone balancing a storm inside his ribs.
They weren’t just restless. They were about to do something very, very stupid.
So I moved.
“Going somewhere?” I kept it calm. Level. Like I was asking about lunch plans instead of stopping two grown men from detonating both their careers.
Rhett froze, his whole posture coiling, before he turned with that trademark half-grin that always meant trouble. “What, you gonna stop us, Captain?”
“Didn’t say that.” I slid my hands into my pockets, put on a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “Just making sure no one thinks the three of us are about to start a brawl in broad daylight. Bad for optics, you know.”
Jay got it immediately. His chin tipped, the faintest flicker of acknowledgment. Rhett, though—shocker—clearly wasn’t in the mood for subtle.
“Optics?” he repeated, voice sharpening. “You think I give a damn about optics right now?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You do. Or you will. After you cool off.”
I kept my tone easy, the kind that played well on camera, the kind Wren herself used when corralling one of us mid-meltdown. Hell, I’d learned it from her.
But Rhett just stepped closer. “She’s out there somewhere, Roan. Alone. And you’re telling me to cool off?”
“She probably needed space and a break.” If I had to deal with Marchand daily as well as the rest of us, I’d already be bald from ripping out my own hair.
“She didn’t say anything,” Rhett shot back. “That’s the problem.”
Jay’s head turned slightly toward me, a quiet warning in his eyes. He could feel it too, that edge creeping in under Rhett’s words, the kind that carried scent, power, challenge.
“Back off,” I said quietly. “You start digging without her permission, you’ll make things worse.”
“Worse than her disappearing?” Rhett’s laugh was sharp, disbelieving. “You really think she’d vanish like that without a damn reason?”
“I think it’s her call.”
“And I think,” Rhett said, stepping right up into my space, “you’re scared to admit what we both know.”
Jay murmured, “Rhett—” but it was too late.
Rhett’s smile turned wolfish. “What if she’s an omega?”
The words hit like a puck to the sternum.
My jaw locked. “What?”
He didn’t stop. “What if that’s why she left? What if she’s in heat right now—alone, trying to keep it together, because she didn’t want any of us to find out?”
My pulse roared in my ears.
No.
No, that wasn’t—she wasn’t—
But every memory slid into place like dominoes lining up for the fall.
The calm composure that always felt a little too deliberate. The way she controlled her scent — or rather, the near absence of one. The edge to her voice when someone got too close. Her rigid boundaries, the refusal to ever let any of us step beyond that professional line.
And the one time, two years ago, when she’d vanished for a week mid-season, claiming the flu.
No one questioned it.
God help me, I’d dropped off soup at her building and left it on her doorstep because she wouldn’t answer the door.
Her voice, when she called to thank me later, had sounded… frayed.
Breathless.
Sweet.
The realization rolled through me slow and hard and primal.
If she was an omega—
If she was in heat—
Every instinct I’d spent years mastering suddenly wanted to claw free.
Rhett saw it. The faint widening of his grin said he did.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
My hand flexed at my side. “Watch yourself, Navarro.”
“Why? Because I said what you’re thinking?”
“Because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I said, even though my voice came out lower, rougher. Even though my body betrayed me.
“Enough,” Jay said, his tone low but firm as he stepped between us, calm as ice. “We’re not doing this here.”
Rhett’s jaw worked. He was breathing fast, too fast. I recognized that look. He was on the edge of a fight he’d regret. I’d make him regret it.
Gaze flickering between us, Jay maintained his neutrality. Though it was also peppered with his own tight anger and need. “You both need to remember who she is. What she means to this team. You think this helps her?”
That cut through. Barely.
Rhett looked away first, swore under his breath, then chucked his keys against his own car hood. “Fine. Whatever. You’re the captain, right? So lead.”
I exhaled slow, steady. My heart hadn’t slowed at all.
Jay looked at me a long second before he said quietly, “You believe him?”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to. Because now that I’d tasted that idea, really felt it, I knew the truth. The truth I’d let her conceal with—whatever she’d used—and respected her boundaries. If she was in heat, and she’d taken leave for it—no, none of that mattered. What mattered was if she needed us.
Needed me.