Page 2

Chapter two

Raider

Nausea pulls me out of my restless sleep, and I try to peel open my eyes, only to stop moving when the stabbing in my head gets more painful. When I do manage to focus, the room spins alarmingly, and I have to swallow the mouthful of saliva that fills my mouth.

How much did I drink last night? Fuck, I haven’t been this stupid in a long time.

I sit up gingerly and swing my feet off the bed. I remember being at the pub, drinking, the conversation with the coach, and then that horrible, terrible idea.

Cold horror slouches down my spine, leaving me feeling weak and panicked. I groan, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes as if that could keep out the horrible memory that slowly starts to unfurl.

Flashes of it slam into my brain, her smile, the nuts across the table, the way she slowly rocked on my thigh.

FUCK! What the hell did I do? And why am I alone?

I stand up but stop dead when I see a piece of paper stuck to my closest. It’s my handwriting.

“Please, no,” I murmur in a rasp. I read the words out loud, mumbling them in dawning horror. “Remember to feed it.”

I get a sinking feeling, such a bad, bad, sinking feeling. The plan was to have a conversation with her, to ask her for help. She was just so much more attractive, and I remember wanting to do all the things to her, including sink my teeth into her and fuck my life up properly.

What did I do ?

I reach for the handle. My hands shake, and I pause, trying to find my courage. Just staring at the door makes me want to vomit.

Please don’t be a dead body.

I yank the door open. It happens in slow motion. The end of my life. My career. All of it.

Inside, glaring back at me, is Ryann Smith. My coach’s niece.

I think a dead body would have been better.

Duct tape is half off her mouth, and I reach out and peel it the rest all the way off.

“Hello, Cowboy. Do you remember me?” she says in a tone that is colder than the rink I love so much.

I run like the hounds of hell are on my tail and slam into a bedroom down the hall. Unlike my small, dark room, this one is light, airy but still masculine. In the huge, king-size bed are two lumps. I jump in the middle of them and burrow in.

“Ugh! Raider what the hell!”

I shiver uncontrollably as I realise what’s going to happen. My career. It’s over. I’m looking at jail time. How will Kit and Callan survive without me?

I can’t go to jail.

I bury my face in the pillow as someone leans over my back, walking his fingers up my spine.

“Daddy, I think our baby has been a very naughty boy.”

Kit’s lips graze my nape, and his dark chuckle makes me feel even worse. The familiar fabric and fruit gum scent washes over me, soothing me slightly.

“Talk to me, baby. Have you been naughty like Kit says?”

I hate them sometimes. Kit and Callan are my pack mates. I knew it the minute I met them when we were fifteen years old. I don’t care what anyone else says. They are mine, and I am theirs. Our pack dynamic differs from most peoples in that Kit and Callan are almost co-dependent on each other, while I’m much more independent. No one knows we’re together. And I date to hide that we’re a pack.

I’ve denied and lied and done everything I can to make sure that people don’t see us as a pack.

But we are. They are my closest friends, the loves of my life. I’d do anything to protect them.

Which is why I feel so bad. I really messed up this time.

Callan rolls towards me, smiling with all those dimples that drive me wild. I lift my head and look at his sleep-tousled blond hair. His sky blue eyes twinkle at me in amusement that I’m loath to erase. His scent is so different from Kit’s. Parchment and tea that reminds me of all the libraries I would find him in in school. All those secret moments of protecting our young romance hiding in places no one would find us.

“How bad is it? Are we looking at the Great Locker Room Incident?” Callan murmurs.

I wince. My own peppermint scent flaring in the air strongly with my distress.

“Oh, you killed thousands of dollars worth of equipment with that mistake,” Kit purrs and wiggles up, pulling my head into his lap.

“I didn’t know it would be that powerful!”

“Leaving the soap in your locker was probably not the smartest move,” Callan reminds me for the thousandth time.

I grumble as Kit strokes my hair. Kit is small for an alpha, almost feminine. His androgynous appearance is the reason he got bullied so hard in school. His light chestnut hair has a slightly red sheen and looks perfect, even when he gets up from bed. It just appears artful. And his clear green eyes see more than he ever lets on. The freckles make him look younger than our twenty-eight years. He’s just not strong, not dominant. He can be, but he hates it. Kit hates being an alpha, so he pretends he’s not. And that’s okay with Callan and me, and no one else’s opinion matters.

“It’s worse!” I mumble loudly and turn my head into Kit’s thigh.

I feel Callan sit up behind me. “How bad? Like Emily 07 bad, or are we looking at The Great Pyramid Debacle?”

I wince at the reminder of my early mistakes. “How was I supposed to know that Dwayne would break up with her?”

Kit chuckles.

“I love you, Raider Raines,” Callan sings in a high, squeaky voice, imitating the humiliating memory of Emily Summons, who took my faux interest as a love declaration and reciprocated by singing a love song to me over the PA. Poor Dwayne was humiliated and spent the last two years of high school beating me up.

“It’s worse!” I shout and wince at the sudden silence.

“Worse than that?” Callan asks in concern. “What could be worse than that?”

I scramble off the bed, watching as they rise and follow me. Callan pulls on a pair of pajama pants while Kit pulls on boxers.

“Raider-”

I hold up a hand and look up at the ceiling, struggling with the burning in my eyes.

“Whatever it is, it will be okay,” Kit murmurs with so much compassion that I just know I don’t deserve him.

I let out a sob and shake my head. “I can’t fix this. Nothing can fix this.”

Kit reaches out, grabbing my face. He’s shorter than me but so much bigger of a person than I am where it counts.

“What is it?”

“It’s better if I show you.”

I turn and lead them out, looking at the floor when Wren opens his door and raises a judgmental eyebrow.

“Raider?”

I flinch and walk past him.

Callan and Kit follow me into my room and, by the scent of the pomegranate that fills my bedroom, so, too, does Wren.

I stop, staring at the open closet door.

Fear skitters up my spine.

Kit moves around me, searching the room. He looks back at me and shakes his head.

“What?”

Callan, though, is slowly moving past me, his mouth opening and closing, eyes locked on the source of my intense shame.

“Raider,” Callan freezes, swallowing hard. “Oh, no, what have you done?”

Wren pushes past me and stops dead, staring into the dark hole. He cuts his gaze back to me, and all I can see is the disapproval in his eyes.

Yeah, I let you all down. I know it.

“You’re meant to fuck them, not tie them up and put them in closets.”

I look back at the dark rectangle of my undoing. She glares back at me.

“Who is that?” Kit shrieks. “Who is she?”

“Oh, Raider,” Callan almost whispers.

“Hello, whilst I appreciate how novel this is, I haven’t been to the toilet in hours, and I’d really like to go.”

Her voice cuts through the compounded shock in the room.

“Untie her, right now!” Callan barks at me.

His alpha bark that he seldom uses pushes heavily on me, trying to make me obey. I fight instinctively, and then give in and untie her.

She stands up with a groan.

“Look, Ryann-”

I look up just in time to see the fist coming for my face. She hits hard for a girl. Hard enough that everything fades to black, and I fall into the abyss.

I wake a second time this morning in my bed with a doozy of a headache. I look around in confusion and jerk when Callan shoves something at my face.

I put up a hand to protect myself and catch the wrapped bag of ice.

“You are an idiot sometimes, but I’d love to be inside your brain when you do these things so I can figure out what’s going on with you and how to stop it.”

I sit up and put the ice on my face.

“Do you know-”

“Yes, we know that she’s Ryann Smith, your bloody coach’s niece. What the actual fuck, Raider?”

I wince and hunch down. “I didn’t think, I just panicked.”

“But why? What happened that you went from I’m-happy-I’ve-got-a-wonderful-game-to-play to holy-hell-I-think-I’ll-nuke-my-life-and-commit-a-fucking-felony?”

I close my eyes. “My uncle.”

“Your uncle? What uncle? Wait, you don’t mean Typhor? That crazy bastard who runs Alpha Labels? Ryn’s father?”

I nod my head. “Yep, that one.”

“What about him? He hasn’t hurt Ryn, has he?”

Lia had sat on a video chat with us and told us in very graphic detail what has happened to Ryn a few weeks back. No one knew Typhor was that violent with his daughter or wife. I knew he was trying to sell her, and that was bad enough that I was trying to reach out to Mirakill MC to see if they could kill him, discreetly, but everything happened too fast, and then I thought she was gone, safe.

“No, he hasn’t hurt Ryn.” I drop the ice on my bed and drop my head in my hands.

Callan sits beside me and waits. He always has this ability to just wait and get the words out of me.

“He threatened my coach.”

Callan stiffens. “What?”

“I overheard them speaking. He’s offered the coach a lot of money to bench me. Or conversely, an entire world of pain if he refuses.”

Callan exhales roughly. His fingers bite into my thigh. “Oh, Raider.”

“Stop saying that!” I shout and get up and start pacing. “I didn’t know what to do, and she was there, and I was just meant to bring her home and talk to her, ask her for help, and it just all went pear-shaped. I just started drinking to give me courage and to calm down, and then I woke up.”

Callan pats my thigh. “All right, let’s speak to her, tell her what’s going on. Maybe she will be reasonable.”

“Do you think so?”

“No, but I want to try, anyway.” Callan sighs. “And then we need to call Kelly.”

“No!” I burst out.

“Raider, he has to know. If not him, then your dad. They are the only ones who can stop Typhor.”

“No, absolutely not! I don’t want them in my life, and I don’t want them to know anything.” Panic turns my blood sizzling, and I see spots. I spit out the words frantically. Hell, I’m aware I’m overreacting, but the combined blast of shame, guilt, fear, and rage I get when I think about my family has me feeling even worse. “Callan, I will handle this.”

We stand up, and, with Callan beside me, we walk downstairs to where she’s sitting on the couch with her arms folded over her chest. I feel like I’ve run a marathon.

Our lounge has a big, cream, leather U-shaped couch with a chaise. There’s a plush, dark cream rug in the middle of the lounge with a rectangle coffee table made out of oak. An open arch allows access to the stairs and leads to the kitchen and laundry. And a second wider arch leads to the dining room. On the far side is a corridor leading outside, the entranceway to the house and front door and Callan’s office, which is locked. There’s a big TV on the wall where we sit and watch hockey or movies.

Ryann Smith lifts those violet eyes and hits me with a glare that has a physical effect on me. I feel like I’ve been struck again. Her hair is a deep auburn colour, and her skin is tanned and seems to glow with health. I know from last night that her body is toned and athletic, not too curvy but in all the right places. It’s not just her appearance, though, it’s the way she doesn’t seem to care what people think. It’s the desperation in her eyes, it’s the aura of strength that surrounds her like a titanium wall. She is fascinating and more beautiful than I remember. She takes my breath from my lungs with just her presence.

“I’m sorry.”

She lifts her chin.

“I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I did it. I just panicked.”

Callan sits down beside her and explains in very simple language.

She listens intently, and then shakes her head.

“So, you want to let this go?” Kit asks hopefully.

Ryann stares at him and turns to me. “You want me to agree never to speak of it, to say it was just a game?”

I tentatively dip my head in a nod.

She chuckles, throws her head back, and really laughs. It continues on for several moments. When she stops, I don’t feel well .

“Not a chance. As soon as you release me, I’m going to go find my uncle. Tell him I came for a surprise visit, and I’m going to tell him what you did. You’ll be kicked off the team and arrested, and you’ll deserve it.”

I panic.

I can’t explain it. This year is my last year, I just need this one. I can’t lose it yet.

“Then you’re going to have to stay our prisoner!” I growl.

“Raider!” Kit shouts in dismay.

Callan groans.

Wren pauses, watching us with a coffee in one hand and a burrito in the other.

He shakes his head and walks by as if he can’t be bothered with us.

I want to strangle him as hard as I want to throttle her.

“Fine. Keep me as your prisoner. See if I care.” Ryann tosses her hair and sits back, almost daring me to do something.

But I think, staring at my new prisoner, I might have done enough.