“You care.” He made it sound like a damn accusation.

  “I manage.” I clipped the words off, kept them absolutely neutral without a hint of skin in this game. His. Mine. Anyone’s.

  He smiled again, but it was slower this time. Not a smirk—something almost genuine. Almost. I refused to let him fool me.

  “I missed this,” he said softly. “You pretending not to care. Me knowing better.”

  My throat tightened. I hated that it almost sounded real. That my body felt hot and restless and wrong, and that the shift in my scent was no longer subtle—not in this enclosed space, not with an alpha tuned to me the way Beckett always had been.

  But I kept my expression cool.

  Professional.

  Unshaken.

  “You have five minutes,” I said. “Then I need to get back to my team.” I let the emphasis linger on the word my. Not enough to dare him to act, but more than enough to send the message. The Howlers were my team.

  Not him.

  He leaned back again, all lazy confidence. “Five minutes is more than enough.”

  I smiled, sharp and cold. “I’ve heard that about you.” If he wanted to let his guard down and leave me an open shot, I would definitely take it.

  That finally shut him up—for a beat.

  Long enough for Marchand to step back inside, smiling like he hadn’t missed a damn thing.

  “Everything good in here?”

  I stood, already gathering my things. “Depends on your definition.”

  Marchand looked at Beckett, then at me. “Let’s reconvene soon. This is just the beginning.”

  I hated how certain he sounded.

  How much he believed he’d just won something.

  I was halfway to the elevator when I heard my name.

  “Wren.”

  I turned, fixing the neutral expression back onto my face like armor. “Yes, Adrien?”

  Marchand stepped into the hallway with the air of someone who'd already decided how the next week would go. His smile was pleasant. Polished.

  Predatory.

  “I’ll need you on-call for the next few days,” he said smoothly. “If things go the way I’m hoping, there will be optics to manage. Interviews to coordinate. Headlines to… massage.”

  Which meant he expected Beckett to accept the offer and wanted me ready to spin gold out of gasoline.

  “Unlikely,” I said. “I’m due for a few days off. Cleared it with admin weeks ago.” Even with the playoffs coming. We had a little over ten days until the first playoff game. Originally, the down time was just so I could decompress before going hell for leather. We had time. Before it had been time I needed. Now, it was time I had to have. No way I could survive coming off them here. No way in hell. Not. Negotiable.

  Marchand tilted his head slightly, as if surprised I’d say no to him. “You can push that, can’t you?”

  “I can’t,” I said, keeping my tone easy. “I’ve got appointments.”

  That wasn’t a lie. Just not the kind he thought.

  His smile faltered just a hair.

  “Wren—”

  “I’ll be available for written statements if things move forward. Otherwise, I trust you’ll use your years of experience and good judgment not to let him blow anything up before I’m back.”

  I pressed the elevator button and held his gaze. Few others could maintain with Adrien Marchand. I’d noticed that. Even the other owners, all alphas in their own rights, tended to backoff. Flick their eyes away, just once, but still away.

  I didn’t.

  Never had.

  Right now, he’d irritated me enough to make a point that he couldn’t make me back down. It was the only thing alphas understood when they weren’t getting their way. When the doors slid open, I stepped inside by walking backwards just two steps. Not once did I look anywhere else, even when his nostrils flared and a flush touched his face.

  Two steps.

  Then my phone buzzed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Then in a flood.

  Time elongated, but Marchand’s irritated inhale was enough. I won that skirmish.

  I glanced down—half dreading, half curious—and saw the first message.

  Jana (CBC):

  You need to get ahead of this—somebody just dropped Beckett’s name as a Howlers prospect and it’s going viral. Was it you??

  I blinked. Just before the elevator doors closed, Marchand’s phone went off.

  So did Beckett’s.

  Simultaneously.

  Shit.

  Another message lit up my screen.

  Colin (team comms):

  Wren. Damage control. NOW. CBC, TSN, and Vultures’ press all blowing up. What the hell happened?

  Then another⁠—

  The doors opened to the ground floor and I strode out, before I checked the next message.

  Jana:

  Looks like Navarro stirred the pot? Some “innocent” question and now the rumor is everywhere. You better get ahead of this before it spirals.

  I stopped dead in the hallway.

  People were already looking at their phones. Whispers floating. Somewhere nearby, a monitor was playing a segment I didn’t even need to see to know it was about us.

  About Beckett.

  About him coming “home.”

  Too late to get ahead of it now.

  The wildfire had already ignited.

  I was standing in the middle of it, one step from meltdown, one tick from exposure, with exactly zero backup.

  My suppressants were already trickling out of my system.

  My control was slipping.

  And now the press had blood in the water.

  Perfect.

  Chapter

  Five

  JAY

  The waitress had freckles and fangs, her braid looped into a knot at the base of her neck, and a wedding band that glinted every time she reached for a glass.

  Omega. Bonded. Her arms were tatted up and on full display. Her scent said happy, safe, fuck off, claimed—in that particular cocktail only true mating could pull off.

  So, of course, Rhett flirted with her anyway.

  In the harmless way.

  “Baby, if you ever want to switch teams⁠—”

  She whacked him with a bar towel before setting down our drinks. “Navarro, if you want to keep your kneecaps, you’ll cut that out.”

  I smirked into my water. Roan gave a huff that might’ve been a laugh. Barely.

  Rhett held up his hands. “I’m just sayin’. I’d treat you right.”

  “You’d treat me pregnant,” she shot back, already turning toward the booth behind us.

  Roan scowled. “Do you ever shut up?”

  “Why would I?” Rhett said, sipping his soda like he hadn’t just joked about knocking up a bonded omega in a public bar.

  The place wasn’t packed, but it was full enough and familiar. A half-dozen guys from the team were posted at the long high-top near the back, beers in hand, posture easy. That tension you only noticed when you knew the difference between casual slouching and barely-contained rage.

  I noticed.

  Then, I noticed everything. Especially the shift in the air when someone’s phone lit up. A mutter. The scrape of a stool. Then⁠—

  “Yo, what the fuck is this?”

  Roan looked up instantly. Rhett did too, slower, but alert.

  I didn’t move.

  Yet.

  The guy who’d spoken—Devon Laskey, winger, third-line grinder, built like a truck and just smart enough to get pissed when his spot felt threatened—was shoving his phone toward the others. Everyone leaned in.

  Dammit.

  I knew before they even said it.

  Before Roan’s phone buzzed.

  Before Rhett’s did.

  Before mine did.

  Group Text – Team PR & Captains:

  CBC Sports BREAKING: Former Vultures captain Beckett Rylan spotted at Howlers Arena. Sources say reunion with PR manager Wren Foster may be part of the pitch.

  There was a photo.

  Of Wren, in the owner’s box, gaze on Beckett.

  Framed like a date. Posed like a fucking scandal.

  “Oh, hell no,” Devon growled. “They’re gonna bring that asshole back? What, so they can bench me during playoffs? Is that the plan?”

  “Relax,” Roan said.

  “Relax?” Devon snapped. “You see this shit? She’s practically drooling over him. You think this doesn’t make her look compromised?”

  That did it.

  Rhett sat up so fast his glass nearly spilled. “Watch your mouth.”

  “I’m just saying⁠—”

  “Say it again,” Rhett said, voice low and sharp, dimples gone, brown eyes gone flat. “Call her compromised one more time.”

  Roan was already moving. “Enough.”

  But I was watching everything. The bar. The other guys. The waitress freezing mid-step, sensing the shift. The way Devon’s nostrils flared as he scented the alpha heat rolling off Rhett and started bracing like he might throw a punch.

  I stepped in before he could.

  “Let’s not pretend you care about Wren’s professionalism,” I said calmly. “You care about your contract.”

  Devon’s gaze snapped to me.

  Good.

  “Don’t make this about her,” I added. “She didn’t leak the story. She doesn’t want him here.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know her better than you do.” Of this, I had zero doubts.

  My certainty made him blink.

  Even Roan looked at me—quick, sharp. Like I’d said too much.

  Maybe I had.

  But I wasn’t about to sit here and let Wren take the hit for a PR ambush we all knew was Marchand’s style. That photo didn’t leak by accident. And it sure as hell didn’t leak from her.

  Rhett was still bristling beside me, but at least he wasn’t standing. Roan’s jaw was tight enough to crack.

  Devon muttered something under his breath and stalked off toward the back.

  Roan finally broke the silence. “Well,” he said. “That blew up faster than expected.”

  Rhett raked a hand through his hair, then cursed and leaned back in the booth. “She’s gonna kill me.”

  I didn’t disagree. But something else was tugging at me. Something colder. It wasn’t just about Wren’s image. Or Beckett’s smug attempt at a return.

  It was the scent shift I’d clocked earlier—subtle, strange, wrong. Not bad. Not even unpleasant.

  Just… new.

  When the food hit the table later, and none of us touched it right away.

  Roan pushed his grilled chicken salad around like it had personally offended him. Rhett picked at fries and muttered to himself. I ate my burger, because someone had to act like a functioning adult.

  None of us said what we were really thinking.

  Wren.

  That photo.

  That smirking bastard sitting across from her.

  The quiet calculation in Marchand’s timing.

  Ten minutes later, we paid and left, the late-afternoon sun hitting too hard as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. The air was crisp, brittle with early-season frost. The kind of cold that teased snow but hadn’t committed yet.

  We walked a half block in silence.

  Then Roan said, “You shouldn’t have called the press.”

  Rhett didn’t even look at him. “I asked a question.”

  “You started a fire.”

  “Which was already lit.” Rhett finally turned to face him, steps slowing. “You really think Marchand wasn’t planning this already? That Wren wasn’t going to get dragged into it no matter what?”

  “I think making it worse didn’t help her.”

  “Yeah? And hiding away in your fucking corner does?”

  Roan stopped walking.

  Dead stop.

  The two of them faced each other like opposing lines on the ice, shoulders squared, postures tight. People passed by without stopping, but the tension crackling between them was magnetic—pulling, stretching, sharp.

  “She set boundaries,” Roan said, voice low. “We respect them.”

  “And if respecting them means letting her get eaten alive by press, or Beckett, or Marchand?” Rhett’s voice dropped too. Not volume, but his tone. Rough, raw. “You gonna keep standing back and letting her handle it all alone?”

  “She’s always handled it,” Roan snapped.

  “Yeah,” I said, stepping between them before they could escalate further. “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”

  They both looked at me.

  Not angry.

  Worse.

  Guilty.

  Roan turned first and started walking again. Slower this time.

  I didn’t move. Just stood there with Rhett while Roan created distance like he always did—quiet, cold, deliberate.

  “He’s not wrong,” I said eventually. “You’re not either.”

  Rhett made a frustrated sound. “Then what the hell are we supposed to do?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Not right away.

  Because the truth was, I didn’t know.

  Wren Foster was the most self-contained person I’d ever met. Not just cool under pressure—untouchable. She handled interviews like combat. Skated around flirtation like it was sport. Shut down rumors with a raised brow and the threat of a headline no one wanted to explain.

  And her scent?

  Controlled.

  Perfectly modulated.

  Never inviting. Never angry. Just… sharp. Clean. Professional.

  The first time I met her, I’d assumed she was an alpha. The kind who chewed up anyone who tried to put a leash on her and spat out the bones.

  She still felt like that now.

  Even knowing what I knew—or what I thought I knew— and right now, something niggled at the back of my mind. A fact that wanted me to notice it but I couldn’t quite see the shape of it.

  It wasn’t like alpha/alpha pairings didn’t happen. Hell, alpha/beta did too, more than most people talked about. We were raised on mating charts and textbook biology, but instincts didn’t always play by the rules.

  Still.

  Wren had never allowed any of us—even Roan—to get close enough to pretend.

  Every line she drew was carved in stone. And every time one of us stepped too close, she pushed back. Calm. Brutal. Final.

  And now?

  Now, for the first time, she looked like she might break.

  Roan was already a full half-block ahead, walking fast enough to outrun guilt, maybe.

  Rhett finally shoved his hands in his pockets and exhaled hard. “I just want to help her.”

  I nodded. “Then stop making this about what you want.”

  He flinched.

  Didn’t deny it.

  Didn’t argue.

  Just turned and followed Roan toward the arena.

  I waited a beat before walking after them, eyes scanning every reflection in the glass, every alert on my phone, every tightening thread in the fabric of this team.

  Because something was unraveling, and for once, I wasn’t sure Wren could hold it all together.

  Not without tearing herself apart.

  Roan stalked through the front entrance like the glass doors had personally offended him. Rhett was two steps behind, radiating heat like a furnace with a blown seal.

  I didn’t rush to catch up.

  They had fire.

  I had questions.

  More, something gnawed at the back of my mind like a dull toothache. A shadow I couldn’t quite pin down.

  I followed them into the lobby, let the motion sensor close the doors behind me, and slowed even more once we hit the east corridor. The heavy chill of the rink’s back halls settled in—concrete, fluorescent lights, the faint chemical sting of gear soap and wax.

  The guys peeled off toward the locker room, voices low and tight, likely picking up the same argument from earlier.

  I didn’t follow.

  Not because I wasn’t pissed.

  I was.

  But anger didn’t solve things.

  And it didn’t explain the itch under my skin.

  Where was she?

  Everything I knew about her said she hadn’t vanished. She didn’t. It just wasn’t who she was. Others might go for duck and cover when the shit hit the fans, not Wren. She orchestrated. She directed. She held the team like string between her fingers and made us all dance whether we knew it or not.

  But right now?

  She was gone.

  And I didn’t like it.

  Not the silence.

  Not the space she left behind.

  Not the scent trail so faint it barely clung to the corners of the hallway.

  I caught it near the PR office. Not the clean, crisp notes I was used to—but something older, deeper. Like ozone before lightning. Like leather in heat.

  I paused. Breath stilled. That was the thing, wasn’t it?

  I wasn’t an alpha. Never had been. I didn’t ride the highs of instinct, didn’t lose control in scent-drunk spirals or rage spirals or rut. My head was always clear. Always focused.

  Except now it wasn’t.

  There was something different in her scent.

  Subtle.

  Wrong.

  Or… maybe too right.

  My hand brushed the edge of the office door. Locked. Empty. But her scent had been here, curling like smoke around the furniture, warming the air in a way I hadn’t noticed before.

  My pulse ticked up.

  Annoying.

  Unnecessary.

  But not unfamiliar.

  Because at the end of the day?

  I fucking liked Wren. Not just respected. Not just wanted to protect. I liked her.

  Liked the way she knew how to say no without ever saying the word. Liked that she was smarter than half the coaching staff combined. Liked the way she dressed like she could gut you with her heels and make you thank her for it.

  So, yeah, I wanted to be her friend.

  If she’d let me.

  But lately…