Chapter Seventeen
Lennon
Ican’t pinpoint the exact moment everything changed. The moment my life stopped belonging to me. At first, I hadn’t noticed it. I had been far too oblivious, focused on work in the days that followed them.
Sasha, Holden, and Dominic.
The claiming.
Because that is what it was. They claimed me.
Not in a traditional way. Not with a mating bite of the side of my neck and a knot swelling my pussy.
But with the jagged cuts from the blade of a skate.
The pain was unimaginable as Dominic carved himself into my skin.
I think what surprised me more than anything was the pleasure that came along with it.
The way slick had seemed to seep from my cunt, drenching Holden in my essence.
I had been forced to anchor myself so that I didn’t completely lose my mind.
They had almost destroyed me.
What is even worse, though, is that I enjoyed it. The feeling of being claimed in such a brutal, primal way sang to something inside of me. Something new and foreign, but exciting all in the same breath. Something that still, weeks later, has me filled with need.
But amongst that, I also feel confused.
Because there has been nothing more physical.
No more lingering touches. No more moments in equipment rooms. No more late night visits to my office.
If anything, they have grown distant. Watching me from afar.
I had thought that night would change something between us.
Maybe it did in some way. But not the way I was expecting.
That look of ire I had become so used to seeing in Sasha’s eyes had changed.
There was still an anger there, one that I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind, but there was this heat too.
One that had every single nerve ending set alight in my body.
I could feel Holden’s stare lingering on me during every practice.
It was heavy and held the prospect of something more that never came.
But it still made me feel undeniably lost. Lost to him.
A feeling always ended up in breathy moans, an arched back, and a hand with a box of toys that didn’t quite do what I knew he could.
And Dominic? Fuck. Just the thought of him has my brain doing three-sixties. Out of the three men, I didn’t think that he would be the hardest to read. But he is. Every time I think I can get a read on him, his expression changes before he leaves the room again, giving me a whole lot of nothing.
The blaring of the horn echoes through the arena, startling me out of my thoughts.
Right. The game.
With twenty-eight wins and only four losses to the season so far, I have never been more proud of myself or the team that I inherited.
While the losses sting, the feeling of seeing our name at the top of the Eastern Conference scoreboard is a huge achievement.
One that the media is already saying will go down in history.
Not only for a female coach to be so successful, but it is also a feat for a female coach to be such a success in their debut year.
I haven’t let the headlines get to me. While some have been positive, there have been far more who have questioned me and my ability. Even more so at the first game we lost.
Ronnie tried to remind me that I am not solely responsible for the team's success that night. They also carry a sense of responsibility for keeping the scoreboard in our favor.
I watch as Sasha and Burk work alongside each other, fighting to keep the Storm out of the defending zone. Eventually, Sasha makes a steal, passing the puck on to an awaiting Carver, who takes it back into the offensive zone.
I watch with bated breath as he runs through the play we have been practicing all week, one that I wasn’t sure if they would ever get the hang of.
But with sheer fucking luck, Carver pulls his stick back before sending the puck straight into the left side of the goal, seeing the first points on the board for the night.
I cheer, giving Carver an approving nod as he comes back over to the bench after a quick celebration.
Looking down at my board, I call off Sasha, Holden, and Smith, sending out Tyson, Boone, and Harry in their place.
I wait for the usual look of disdain from Sasha as he meets my eyes. But it isn’t there.
There is something different about him tonight. Really, there has been something different about him all week. It's almost as though someone flipped a switch inside of him. Like he has come to some kind of realization.
One that I’m clearly not privy to, but for some reason, feel as though I am in some way involved. Because of the look in his eye, it changes every time I have found him looking at me this week.
“Sasha?” I question as he steps over the boards.
I feel like I've waited forever for something from him. So much so that I expect he will just turn his back and ignore me, like he normally would.
“I…” he begins, trailing off with a quick shake of his head as he glances over at Dominic, who is sitting a few spaces down from me. “I need to speak to you tonight about something. Do you think you could meet us at our house?”
A deep frown settles between my brows. After weeks of some kind of mix between silent treatment and distant flirting with little more than five words spoken between us, Sasha suddenly wants to talk?
I know that I am a fool for saying yes, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Intrigue wins out in the end.
This may be the only way I can get answers.
We are only minutes into the third period, up by one point, when something in the air changes around me.
It is subtle at first, but as the seconds pass, I turn, trying to find the cause for my sudden rise in hackles.
At the entrance to the bench guarded by a security guard, there is a man is talking animatedly. And he is pointing towards me.
I don’t know what it is about him, but I know I need to speak to him.
Forgetting the game that I know I should be watching, I walk over to the security guard and the man.
“Can I help you, Sir?”
“Lennon, I need to speak with you. I have information you will be interested in knowing.”
I frown. There is something about this man that gives me pause. For a moment, I had considered that he might have been a crazed fan trying to get access to the players. Or maybe someone in the media is trying to get some kind of inside scoop.
“It's about your father.”
Now that sparks my attention. Giving a short nod to the security guard whose name I can’t quite remember, I step through the door separating us, coming out into the hall that leads to the player tunnel.
“Okay…” I drawl, waiting for the mysterious man to finally reveal himself and whatever information it is he thinks he has on my Dad.
“My name is Brett Welsh. I am related to Cameron Welsh. Is that name familiar to you?”
I shake my head, never having heard of either man. He nods, almost solemnly.
“I had thought as much. Cameron, my brother, was mated to your mother.”
I give Brett a confused look. “I’m sorry, but I think you may be confused. My mother was mated to my father, Patrick Gilmore. She died during a very traumatic childbirth.”
Brett scoffs dryly, “Is that the story he told you? No, Lennon. Your mother was very much alive after she had you. In fact, her birth was completely complication free.”
“I don’t understand,” I mutter, as something in my chest begins to tighten. Who the fuck is this man, and why is he telling me this stuff?
Brett’s face saddens, one of pity as he turns his head to the side. “Patrick Gilmore is not your father, Lennon. He may have raised you, but he wasn’t mated to your mother. He is not listed on your birth certificate.”
My mind refuses to accept it. The words don’t just crack the foundation of my life, they shatter it.
Every memory I have of Dad crashes into me all at once.
His hand steadying my first pair of skates.
The pride in his smile when I stepped behind the Cardinals' bench for the first time. The way he always called me his greatest achievement, his legacy. Was any of that real? Did blood matter when he was the man who bandaged scraped knees, celebrated every milestone and tucked me into bed each night? Or had I spent my entire life mourning one parent while unknowingly losing another? My surname. My inheritance. My place within the Cardinals. Everything I have ever believed about myself suddenly feels borrowed, like I’ve spent my entire life wearing someone else’s name.
Their dreams. If Patrick Gilmore isn’t my father, then who the fuck am I?
This has to be a joke. Right? There is no fucking way that my father wasn’t mine. He loved me. He gave me a good childhood. I had never wanted for anything. Never felt like a part of me was missing, even though I had longed for the love of my mother.
The confusion must be evident on my face. Brett—the man that might very well be my uncle if he is to be believed—places a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry that this is how you had to find out.”
I shake my head, “Why now? Why not when I was younger?” I say, humoring him for a moment.
Brett drops his hand from my shoulder, “I had tried to look for you everywhere. After Marie and the pack were murdered, we searched for you for years. But it was like you were gone. Disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Murdered. My mother. My parental pack.
I can’t help but feel disbelief, even though something is screaming in me that what Brett is saying is factual. I just can’t wrap my head around it. Why would my Dad hide something from me like this if it is to be believed? And why now?
“Look,” Brett sighs before handing me a business card, “here is my card. Take it, and once you have processed it, give me a call. But if you want to know more, I suggest you ask Pack Ars Mortis.”
Without another word, Brett turns, leaving me absolutely reeling over the information that has all but been dumped on me.
And just because that isn’t enough, Sasha, Holden, and Dominic as well.
I turn back to the ice, finding the one person I didn’t know I needed. Sasha.
Any kind of ire that had once become familiar to me is gone. There is nothing but deep sadness and panic.
He knew.
No.
He fucking knew every single word that Brett just sent to me. He knew the one thing that would completely turn my life upside down, and he said nothing. No matter what kind of ire he feels for me, he still hid the truth from me. One that I had every right to know.
Every strange look across the rink. Every conversation that ended just a little too soon.
Every question they never answered. Every time I caught Dominic watching me with that guilt buried so deep behind his eyes.
Every teasing smile from Holden that almost never reached his eyes.
The things I thought I knew about them. I thought I was just starting to learn to read them.
None of it had been confusion on their part.
None of it had been a coincidence. They had been carrying the truth while watching me build a life here on nothing more than a lie.
A legacy that never truly belonged to me.
A lie they kept from me. Not one fucking word of the truth despite the thousands of chances. They wanted this. They did this on purpose. Why else would they keep this from me?
Panic crawls up my throat.
I can’t be here.
I need to leave.
I hand the clipboard off to Blake, my assistant coach. He gives me an odd look but takes it anyway.
“Here, I…” I trail off as the lump in my throat stops me from talking. Swallowing roughly, I try to calm myself down. At least enough that I can get the fuck out of here. “I need to leave.”
Turning, I run straight into the chest of Dominic. He fucking knew. He knew right along with Holden what Sasha knew. I just know it. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. The look on his face gives away just how right I am about that.
Motherfuckers.
“Lennon…” he begins, but I stop him with a raised hand.
“Don’t you fucking dare try to stop me, Dominic. And fuck you. Fuck you for knowing and not telling me. Fuck the lot of you.”
I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest as some kind of last-ditch effort to hold myself together.
“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this kind of hatred from your pack, but I know I don’t fucking deserve it. You can all go and fuck yourselves.”