Chapter 11 #2
I shot a look back Rhett, his mouth twitched like he was biting down on something he probably shouldn’t say. Damn. I was almost impressed by his restraint, but I was absolutely stunned at Roan’s absolute audacity.
It wasn’t just the boldness of Roan’s tone—it was the calm. He didn’t sound like a player making a request. He sounded like a man who’d already made a decision.
“This coming from you?” Coach finally said, voice tighter now. “You’re the one who always wants more ice time—”
“I’m telling you,” Roan said flatly. “This isn’t negotiable.”
“Four days, Whittaker? We’ve got the damn playoffs—”
“And we’ll be ready. We always are. But if you push them now, you’re going to break something. Or someone.”
Coach didn’t respond right away. We all waited—me, Rhett, and Roan—locked in that thin strip of highway sound and the background hum of Bluetooth static.
“You’re skating a fine line, Captain.”
Roan’s hands didn’t tighten on the wheel. His voice didn’t shift. He just said, “I know. Thanks, Coach.”
Then he ended the call.
No one said anything for a minute after that.
Then Rhett, voice low from the back, said, “Guess that’s why he gets the ‘C’.”
Roan didn’t answer.
But I saw the twitch of his jaw. The way his eyes didn’t leave the road. He wasn’t patting himself on the back.
He was bracing for the next step.
“Address,” he said and Rhett didn’t fuck around, he read it off and at the next traffic light, Roan entered it into the car’s navigation.
It gave us four hours and forty-one minutes to arrival. Goddamn that seemed like forever. As fresh agitation ripped through me this time, it was accompanied by an almost impossible sense of tranquility that paved over the restlessness vibrating in my blood.
Because whether Roan admitted it or not—we were heading straight into a storm named Wren. As eager as I was, I found that I could wait because I knew she’d be at our destination.
Time would tick down to us seeing her.
The longer we were in the car, the more the silence felt like it might crack open.
Roan hadn’t looked at either of us since we got on the highway. His hands never left ten-and-two, knuckles rigid, jaw sharp.
Rhett, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped moving since we left. His leg bounced, fingers drumming against his thigh, and every so often he let out a long, frustrated breath that made my temples throb.
“You need to calm down,” Roan said without looking at him.
“I’ll calm down when we know she’s safe.”
“She’s not stupid, Rhett.”
“Didn’t say she was. I said she’s alone.”
The corners of Roan’s mouth tightened before he said, “And we don’t know if she even wants us there.”
I leaned my head back against the seat. “Would either of you have stopped me from going?”
Roan cut a sideways glance at me.
“Exactly,” I muttered. “So stop acting like you have the high ground.”
No one replied.
The car settled into another tense quiet. My fingers itched for my phone, not to track her—there was nothing to track—but to hear her voice, to do something. But she hadn’t answered a single message. Not even the last one I sent that wasn’t a question, just a promise: Whatever it is, I’m here.
Still—nothing.
Rhett’s voice cut into the silence again, softer this time. “You think she’s scared?”
Roan’s grip on the wheel shifted.
I said, “I think she’s hiding something that hurts. That doesn’t mean she’s scared.”
“I think she’s in heat.”
Roan’s jaw flexed.
I closed my eyes, because hearing Rhett say it again still made something shift in me.
I’d been to enough heats—been there for omegas in the worst and best ways—to know what the scent of one did to an alpha. Hell, even to a beta.
And Wren…
If that was what was happening—if she’d been masking it this whole time—
The burn in my chest wasn’t lust. Not really. It was something deeper. Thicker. Older.
I didn’t want her because of a heat. I wanted her because she was Wren. Complicated, disciplined, terrifying Wren. With her steel trap mind and mouth full of dry fire and that fucking scent—whatever part of it she’d let through over the years—it always hit harder than it should’ve.
Now I wondered if that was deliberate. If we’d only ever gotten what she allowed.
Rhett’s knee bumped the back of my seat. “It’s like I can feel us getting closer.”
“Then keep your shit together,” I said without opening my eyes.
“You gonna tell me you haven’t felt it?”
“I didn’t say that,” I muttered. “I said keep it together.”
That was the difference between me and them.
They burned loud. I burned quiet.
Even now, while I kept my body still, my thoughts were anything but. Images flickered behind my eyes, all of them her—pacing her office, hair pulled up tight, lips red from biting back her temper, her scent caught in the thread of her scarf.
I didn’t need to see her slicked and needy and gone to know what I wanted.
I wanted her here. In her chair. In control. Snapping at us in that low, cutting voice of hers like she always did.
If she was in heat and hiding it, then she was scared someone would see her come undone. That someone might find out what she really was.
Maybe that someone had already tried. Anger flash-fired through me with brutal effect.
Roan spoke suddenly. “Rylan doesn’t touch her. That’s not up for debate.”
The car went even quieter.
I turned my head toward the window and said, “Agreed.”
Rhett’s voice came low. “He tries, I’ll kill him.”
Roan didn’t argue.
Neither did I.
The truth of that silence was heavier than anything we’d said.