Chapter 17 #2
Standing at full height, holding an Omega in his arms with the ease of someone carrying a stack of textbooks, my brother cuts an imposing figure.
Taller than me by two inches. Broader through the shoulders and chest, his build the kind that comes from disciplined training over many years rather than gym vanity.
His dark auburn hair is pushed back from a face that shares my bone structure but wears it with a calm authority mine has not earned.
The stormy gray eyes are identical to mine, but they carry a weight behind them that comes from living a life I know nothing about in a country I have never visited.
The silence in the arena is so complete I can hear the refrigeration units cycling beneath the ice.
Raphael looks at Coach Mercer.
"Apologies for the late arrival. My flight was delayed by three hours out of Charles de Gaulle.
" His voice carries effortlessly, the French accent lending a gravity to his English that makes my own speech sound like sandpaper by comparison.
"Let me bring her to the nurse's office to get that knee examined. Make sure nothing is compromised."
Before anyone can respond, Vanessa's voice shatters the silence like a champagne flute dropped on marble.
"Who the HELL are you?"
She is sputtering. Actually sputtering, her mouth working faster than her brain can supply words, her manicured hands gesturing wildly at Raphael like she is trying to conjure an explanation from the freezing air.
"Why do you look like Rafe? Are you his cousin? His clone? Why are you holding her like that? Who gave you permission to just pick people up? This is a university, not a romance novel!"
Raphael turns his gaze toward Vanessa.
He looks at her.
Up.
Down.
And his expression shifts into the most complete, devastating, bone-dry display of boredom I have ever witnessed on a human face.
Like she asked him to recite the periodic table backward and he cannot be bothered to engage with the request on any level.
Not hostile. Not rude. Simply, profoundly, entirely uninterested in everything she represents.
He says nothing.
The silence stretches. One second. Two. Three. Five. Long enough for Vanessa's sputtering to die in her throat, her flush deepening from indignation to embarrassment as the entire arena watches her question dissolve, unanswered, into the cold air.
Coach Lizzy sighs from the sidelines, her pink ponytail swaying as she shakes her head with a familiarity that suggests she has seen Raphael pull this move before.
"Now come on, Captain Calder. Be friendly. I know that is not how you treat the French Omegas back at the club."
Captain Calder.
"CALDER?!"
The name erupts from approximately fifteen mouths simultaneously, the volume enough to make the overhead lights tremble in their fixtures.
Every head in the arena swivels from Raphael to me, then back to Raphael, then back to me again, the tennis match of confused gazes making me feel like a specimen pinned under fluorescent glass.
They stare at me for at least three solid, excruciating seconds. Searching my face for confirmation. For denial. For any reaction that will explain why a man who looks like the premium version of their captain is standing on the ice holding an Omega like he just stepped out of a film.
Then they look back at Raphael.
Captain. She called him Captain Calder. Which means he captains a team.
In Paris. Captain of what? They do not play hockey in France.
Do they? That is not a thing. French people play football and drink wine and argue about cheese.
They do not lace up skates and smash into each other on frozen surfaces.
Do they?
The answer arrives before I can finish spiraling.
"Raphael Calder."
He lets his name roll off his tongue with the full weight of his French accent, every syllable precise and deliberate, the kind of pronunciation that makes English sound clumsy by comparison.
The arena goes quiet once more, captivated by a voice that commands attention without ever raising its volume.
Then he glances at me.
Directly at me.
And the look he gives me is so thoroughly unimpressed that I feel it in my spine.
Like he assessed everything I am in a single glance and found the total unremarkable.
Like returning to the country where his younger brother lives was not even a significant enough event to warrant preparing an expression of acknowledgment.
"Rafe's older brother." He says it like a footnote. An afterthought. My existence reduced to a descriptor appended to his introduction. "Captain of the Br?leurs de Loups. Paris Wolves. Semi-professional league."
He pauses, letting the words detonate across the arena.
"Happy?"
Captain of the Paris Wolves.
Semi-professional.
He has been playing hockey. In France. At a competitive level. Captaining his own team while I was over here assuming he was buried in textbooks and croissants, completely unaware that my brother was building a career in the same sport that I have staked my entire identity on.
He is not just smart. He is not just the gifted Beaumont son who conquered academia. He is a hockey captain. A leader on the ice. The same title I hold, except his comes with a French accent and international experience and a team name that actually sounds intimidating.
Every early morning practice. Every bruise and fracture and concussion I powered through. All of it was anchored in the belief that hockey was the one arena where Raphael Calder did not exist. The one sport, the ONE thing I thought was mine.
And he took it without telling me.
The speechless silence that follows his introduction is the longest of my life.
Raphael, clearly unbothered by the wreckage his presence has caused, turns his attention back to the coaches.
"I will be back in fifteen minutes. Let me make sure that..."
He pauses.
Looks down at Mae.
The girl who has been staring up at him with an expression that wavers between awe and absolute mortification, her hazel eyes wide, her cheeks crimson, Cal's jersey rumpled against his chest where her fists are gripping the fabric.
"What is your name?" he asks, and the softness in his voice is so jarring compared to the dry arrogance of thirty seconds ago that it catches me off guard.
Mae blinks.
"Mabeline Mae Rose," she says, and her voice is barely above a whisper. Not the breathlessness of exertion. The breathlessness of a woman who is being held by a man whose scent is rewiring her brain chemistry in real time, and she cannot for the life of her figure out how to act normal about it.
She has never sounded like that. Not with Cal. Not with Etienne. Not during any of the bickering or the banter or the bold declarations she has hurled at every Alpha who crossed her path since moving in.
She sounds undone. Completely, thoroughly undone by a man she has known for less than a minute.
Raphael lets the name sit on his tongue, rolling each syllable with his accent until it sounds like a verse written specifically for this moment.
"Sweet Mae Rose." A smirk crosses his face that mirrors mine so closely it makes my skin crawl. "With your scent, that is a pretty good name."
He says it almost to himself, murmured into the space between them like the rest of us have ceased to exist. Like the arena full of gawking students and bewildered coaches and one very unraveled younger brother does not matter because the girl in his arms smells like a universe he has decided he wants to inhabit.
Her scent.
He is reacting to her scent. The vanilla sugar and frosted roses that have been haunting me since she moved in.
The aroma that clings to my car, my apartment, my every waking thought.
He is doing openly what I refuse to do. Acknowledging it.
Naming it. Letting it pull him toward her without the armor of denial I have welded around myself so tightly it has become indistinguishable from my personality.
And she is not pulling away. She is not cracking a joke or delivering a cutting remark or kicking him in the groin. She is lying in his arms with her fists in his jersey and her face the color of a sunset, looking at him like he is the first Alpha she has ever genuinely wanted to look at.
She never looked at me like that. Or Cal. Or Etienne.
That realization burns more than I am willing to admit.
"I will be taking Mae Rose to the nurse's office," he announces, already gliding toward the exit with her cradled against him. His skating is effortless despite carrying another person, his balance immaculate, every stride steady and sure.
He reaches the gate.
Pauses.
Turns his head just enough to speak over his shoulder, his gray eyes finding mine across the ice with a precision that feels surgical.
"And the winner is Mabeline, by the way."
The words land like a fist to the sternum.
"Next time, actually try to win instead of thinking you have some natural advantage going against an Omega with actual skill."
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
He does not wait for a response. Does not look back to assess the damage.
He glides through the gate and off the ice, carrying Mae Rose toward the tunnel that leads to the athletic facility, his auburn hair catching the fluorescent lights as he disappears with the effortless finality of someone who has never needed the last word because he already knows he won the conversation.
My heart is hammering against my ribs like a caged animal, every beat sending a rush of blood to my skull that makes the arena tilt on its axis.
This motherfucker.
Cal and Etienne exchange a single look, communicating an entire argument in one glance, before they follow without a word. Cal grabs his water bottle from the bench without breaking stride. Etienne unstraps his pads mid-skate, shedding the goalie equipment that will slow him down.
They are gone in seconds.
Following my brother.
Following the Omega.
Leaving me at center ice with my pride in pieces and more questions than I have carried in my entire life.
Sage and Archie share a loaded glance near the boards, an unspoken debate passing between them. Sage takes a step toward the exit, but Coach Lizzy calls out.
"You two stay put for now. They have got her handled. I need to discuss some things about the upcoming schedule."
Sage frowns but relents, crossing her arms tightly. Archie slides his glasses back on with the quiet resignation of someone returning to civilian identity after a brief, exhilarating stint as a weapon.
The arena buzzes with the aftermath, conversations breaking out in every direction, the story of the past twenty minutes getting retold and embellished in real time.
"Dude. His brother is hotter. That is genuinely tragic."
"And a captain? In France? Do the Calders just collect captain titles like trading cards?"
"Did you see the way he looked at Mae? Like she was the sun and he had been living underground."
"Did you see the way he looked at Vanessa? Like she was a parking ticket."
"Bro, I am DEAD."
"Does this mean Rafe is the less talented sibling? Because honestly..."
"Shut up, he is right there."
"I know. I want him to hear me."
But I hear none of it.
I am standing in the middle of the rink, my stick hanging limp in my hand, staring at the tunnel that swallowed my brother, my packmates, and the Omega whose scent still lingers in the freezing air like a ghost that refuses to leave.
I lost the race.
An Omega beat me across the ice in front of my entire team, my coaches, and the girl who has been on my arm for months.
She proved to every person whose opinion matters to me that she is faster than their captain.
And I did not even get to process that humiliation before Raphael materialized, caught the winner mid-flight, and carried her off the ice while publicly announcing my defeat.
Vanessa appears beside me, her jasmine perfume clashing against the lingering traces of vanilla and roses that refuse to leave the arena air. Her hand finds my arm, her nails pressing into the fabric of my jersey with the urgency of a woman who senses her territory shifting.
"Rafe. Babe. Who WAS that? Are you okay?
You look like you have seen a ghost. Actually you look like the ghost looked back and told you it was disappointed in you.
Should I be worried? Should WE be worried?
Is he staying? Is he single? Wait, why did he look at me like that?
Was he unimpressed? He was totally unimpressed.
There is no way an Alpha that attractive is straight and available. The universe does not work like that."
I shake her hand off without looking at her.
"Leave me alone, Vanessa."
"But..."
"I said leave me alone."
My pheromones must be radiating hostility with enough force to register as a warning, because she backs away without a third attempt, her heels clicking against the rubber mats as she retreats to the safety of her figure skating group.
I drop my stick.
The clatter echoes through the arena. Sharp. Final. The sound of a captain whose throne just grew a second seat he never agreed to share.
Why is he here?
Why now?
What does he want with Valenridge, with this rink, with the Omega who was supposed to be a temporary inconvenience and has somehow become the center of gravity for every Alpha in her orbit?
And why does watching him hold her feel like losing a game I did not know I was playing?
I am not just a loser in this race.
I am standing here, alone at center ice, questioning why my older brother is here at Valenridge University.