Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Dominic
“Fuck!”
The TV explodes against the wall, plastic shattering and glass raining across the lounge room floor.
I stand back and watch as the frame cracks straight through the plaster before crashing to the ground almost in slow motion, and all I can do is sigh.
It’s been five hours since our entire world was turned upside down, and this is just another thing I have to add to the ever-growing list of shit I’m going to have to replace.
Sasha stalks through the room like the unhinged fucker he is, looking for somewhere to put all the rage that’s been eating away at him since what happened earlier.
His shoulders are tight beneath his shirt, his scent thick with that bitter edge that only seems to appear when his grief begins to morph into something ugly, and his eyes are wild enough that I’m half expecting him to put his fist through another wall before the night is over.
None of us could have prepared for the fresh hell that awaited us after practice.
We all knew Coach Gilmore’s replacement had been in the works.
The board had only been able to keep the team afloat for so long before someone had to step into his role.
It is an answer we needed if we wanted to keep the team running smoothly.
Was the outcome of that unexpected? Yes.
We had assumed they’d at least sell it to somebody.
I had figured they’d bring in some rich asshole who knew more about numbers than they did hockey.
Only that’s not what happened.
Coach Gilmore left his legacy to his daughter, and that makes perfect sense to me. Unlike Sasha, I had no real issues with the man, so I can’t say I was angry about the decision. He did his job, and in turn, we did ours.
He seemed to treat his staff fairly, ran an excellent training program and ensured the facilities always remained up to date with the best equipment that money could buy. From the outside looking in, he seemed like the kind of man people respected. The kind of man people admired.
But it's the shit hidden beneath the surface that people don’t see.
The things that go unnoticed because evil rarely announces itself. It smiles, shakes hands, and poses for photographs in expensive suits and donates to charities while everyone talks about what a stand-up guy it is.
What the media, the fans and everyone else mourning the loss of a great man don’t know is that Coach Gilmore is the reason Sasha is currently smashing through every single item we own.
Something he’d never do without cause. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned after loving the unhinged fucker for as long as I have, it’s that Sasha doesn’t destroy things for no reason.
For all the darkness living inside him, he isn’t cruel for the sake of being cruel.
No, every shattered piece of glass and broken wall surrounding us is simply the aftermath of a wound that should have never existed in the first place.
One reckless mistake was all it took to turn a once loving father into something unrecognizable, and the boy who should have been protected paid the price for it.
Patrick Gilmore dodged a career-ending injury by tripping Sasha’s father, sending him headfirst into the boards and leaving him with Post-Concussion Syndrome.
A condition that stole the man Sasha loved and replaced him with a cruel piece of shit who eventually turned all that anger onto the only person who was too young and too loyal to walk away.
And I feel every ounce of that anger like it’s my own.
As his mate, I don’t have a fucking choice. Not that I’d want one. His grief is mine. His rage is mine. His vengeance is my wrath.
Because if it wasn’t for Patrick Gilmore, Sasha wouldn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night.
Wouldn’t flinch whenever someone raises their voice.
Wouldn’t stare at old photographs with that hollow look in his eyes, mourning a father who died long before his body ever caught up.
It’d been too easy to follow him down this path and to stand beside Holden while he arranged for his hacker to pull every piece of information we could possibly want on our new Coach.
Her number. Her address. Her favorite coffee order.
Every little detail there is to know about her was placed into the palms of our hands because I’d do anything for Sasha, and at this point, crossing lines stopped feeling like crossing lines a long time ago.
It's why crawling through her window and taking a photo of her showering felt so easy.
Why satisfying my curiosity had felt even easier.
She had a body that was just begging to be knotted, all soft curves and sinful lines, the dip of her back melting perfectly into a full ass that would take me so fucking well if fate hadn’t decided to play the cruelest joke imaginable by making her my scent match.
Our scent match.
Still, she’s a fucking goddess. A vision sent to torment me.
The answer to prayers I stopped making years ago.
One that I will have to destroy. It's a damn shame, really. Because before I knew whose blood ran through her veins, before her name turned the happiest moment of my life into something rotten, I had looked at her and watched every little piece fall into place in real time. I found myself wondering what she’d look like carrying our marks.
What she’d sound like screaming our names as we filled all her holes with our cum.
And now, all I can think about is how cruel all this is.
Not what we’re going to do to her, but the fact that we… her…us…can never be.
A big fuck you to fate from me.
All because her Daddy was a piece of shit.
I just hope that Sasha lets me knot her at least once.
I want to know what it feels like to finally have the one person fate intended for us, to have her wrapped in our scents and wearing the proof that we were there, if only for a fleeting moment before she breaks around us and we snuff out that pretty little light behind her eyes.
It’s selfish. Cruel. But those things share the same bed, if you ask me.
Sasha reaches for the trophy shelf, his eyes settling on the first cup he won for the team, and within seconds, I’m there, wrapping my arms around his waist and hauling him backward, holding him tightly against me even as he fights my grip.
He practically drags me across the floor with the force of his rage, but I don’t budge.
“Let fucking go!” he growls, swinging his elbows back in an attempt to dislodge me. One catches me in the ribs, pain blooming across my side, but I’ve spent too many years loving the bastard to let something as trivial as a bruised rib stop me.
“No, Sasha! That’s enough!” I hiss back, digging my heels into the floor as I feel him gain another inch with every violent twist of his body.
“I need to fucking…” he trails off as Holden walks into the room, naked as the day he was born, not a single ounce of shame in the little menace as his gaze sweeps over the shattered glass and broken television before settling on the Alpha currently trying to drag me across the room with him.
Despite the situation, my eyes can’t help but drift lower, Holden’s heavy cock swinging between his legs, the size impressive for a Beta.
Holden blinks once, taking in the rest of the destruction surrounding him before lifting a single eyebrow at the Alpha, now frozen in my arms.
“You need to fuck,” he says simply, like he hasn’t just walked into the biggest meltdown he’s had in years.
I can feel Sasha teetering on the edge of a rut, something he’s spent most of his adult life fighting whenever grief consumes him this way, his cock already beginning to respond to instincts he hates almost as much as he hates the memories that trigger them.
I hate seeing him this way. The way his body reacts, turning pain into something primal, his instincts demanding release when all he really wants is for the ghosts haunting him to shut the fuck up for five minutes.
Holden walks over to the only remaining couch that thankfully escaped the borderline feral Alpha’s rage, dropping to his knees in the center of the cushions with all the confidence of someone who knows exactly what he is doing and precisely what kind of effect it has on the two Alphas watching him.
With anyone else, I’d tell them to get the fuck out.
Not because I’d be worried for myself, because Sasha has no control when he’s like this, completely lost to the beast inside of him.
The one born from years of torment and pain.
The beatings, the burns, the starvation that saw a young boy become nothing but a shadow.
Something inside of Sasha finally begins to settle, the rage that had been coursing through his body giving way to something infinitely easier for the two of us to survive.
I release a quiet sigh of relief, knowing the rest of the house is at least safe for now, before returning my attention to our Beta.
Holden.
The man’s ass curves perfectly, those teasing little shakes of his hips more than enough to tell me the little menace knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s practically purring as he baits both the beast and his handler.
The growl that erupts from Sasha’s chest is all animal, the sound reverberating through the room and sending a shiver down my spine.
Sasha takes a slow step out of my arms, crossing the room with the patience of an apex predator, his eyes fixed solely on the smug Beta kneeling before him, as if there isn’t a cataclysmic mess surrounding us, like shattered glass and broken walls are nothing more than muted background noise.
Holden shakes his ass again, a sinister smile creeping onto his face.
“Come get me, daddy.”
A fresh growl rumbles through Sasha’s chest, rough and possessive, the beast in him latching onto the challenge like it had been waiting for permission to emerge. I can’t help but smile.