SCENTLESS OBSESSION: THE HOCKEY ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN OMEGA

Chapter 4—Claws Against Reason

Visenya's POV

He stood three steps away in his game jersey with his hands in his pockets, looking at me like I was the next goal he planned to score.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"It's on your press pass." He nodded at the card around my neck. "Visenya Hale, student press. I'm Caevor."

"I know who you are. Everyone in this building knows who you are."

"Good. Then we can skip the part where you pretend you don't." He smirked like he already won. "Give me your number."

I stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"Your number. I'm busy, you're busy, so let's not waste time."

"No."

The smirk slipped. "No?"

"It's two letters. I'm sure someone has said it to you before."

"Half the girls on this campus would kill for me to ask."

"Then ask one of them." I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder. "Some of us have deadlines instead of fan clubs."

I walked away, and inside my head my wolf lost her mind.

"What are you doing?" Wynter cried. "Go back! That's him!"

"He's an arrogant jerk."

"He's our mate!"

"He's nothing."

"Wait." Caevor's voice cut down the hallway, and the swagger was gone. I stopped. "Sorry. That came out wrong. I'm not good at asking for things."

I looked over my shoulder. He rubbed the back of his neck, and for once he looked like a person instead of a poster.

"I'd like to talk to you, Visenya. Can I have your number, please?"

Wynter practically whimpered. I sighed and held out my hand for his phone.

"One rude word," I warned as I typed it in, "and I block you."

"Understood."

I walked out of the arena telling myself it was just a phone number.

***

By the end of the week it was a problem.

He texted that same night, and the next morning he was leaning against the wall outside my ethics lecture like a lamppost with a jawline.

"Are you stalking me?"

"I was in the area he said."

"Nobody is ever in the area of the journalism building."

"Then I'm a pioneer." He handed me a coffee. "Black, two sugars."

"I drink lattes."

"Noted," he said, and the next day it was a latte.

He showed up in the student cafe and dropped into the chair across from me while I was typing my match report.

"This seat is taken," I said. "By who?" "By my laptop's feelings." He stayed anyway, and the worst part was that I stopped telling him to leave.

He waited outside the exit after my press wrap-ups too, hands in his pockets, asking how the report went like he actually wanted to know.

"You smiled," Wynter hummed in my head, sounding far too pleased with herself. "I felt it."

"I did not smile." I kept my eyes on my laptop screen so nobody would catch my face doing anything suspicious.

"You smiled at his terrible joke about the penalty box."

"It was a good joke, and I'm allowed to appreciate a good joke."

"Mate," she sighed, like that settled everything.

"Stop saying that before I start answering you out loud and people think I'm insane."

Wynter only purred, and I ignored her for the rest of the afternoon, which lasted until Mikayla found me.

She and four friends cornered me by the library steps, all perfect hair and matching smiles.

"Visenya, right? The scentless one." Mikayla tilted her head with a smile so sweet it made my teeth hurt. "I'm Mikayla, Caevor's future Luna. I thought we should meet before you embarrass yourself."

"Congratulations on the title." I shifted my bag on my shoulder and kept my voice flat. "Is there a reason you blocked the steps?"

Yes, there is." Her smile thinned as she stepped closer. "Stay away from Caevor. He's mine, and the whole campus knows it, so you're crossing a line, you pathetic little reporter.

Walk away now, or you'll regret what hits you."

"I'm covering his team, Mikayla. It's my assignment, not a hobby."

She laughed, and her friends laughed right after her like they were waiting for their cue, which they probably were.

"Then cover it from the bleachers. Girls like you don't belong near an alpha." Her friends giggled on cue. "A girl with no scent shouldn't even be breathing the same air."

My face burned, but I lifted my chin. "Are you finished, or does your clique have more lines?"

"For now." She flicked her hair and left, and her friends trailed after her like ducklings.

That night I texted Caevor before I could talk myself out of it. We met outside the arena, and I asked him straight.

"Who is Mikayla to you?" I asked, trying to sound like I was only curious.

His jaw tightened and he went quiet for a second. "What about her?"

"Nothing." I shrugged and looked away so he couldn't read my face. "It's just that I see her at every game, draped over the boards and screaming your name like you belong to her."

"She throws herself at you every chance she gets, and I'd like to know what she is to you before I get dragged into whatever that is."

I left out the steps, the clique and the threat, because I wanted to hear his answer without handing him mine.

He let out a slow breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Mikayla is just some girl who pushes herself around me. Our families keep talking about an arrangement I never agreed to, and nothing has been confirmed. She's not my problem, so don't make her yours."

He said it so flatly that I believed him. A wealthy girl with an obsession and a clique was something I could handle, and my shoulders relaxed for the first time in days.

***

After that I stopped counting how many times we ended up in the same place.

Late practice sessions turned into walks to the library, and lectures turned into me laughing at his terrible hockey puns.

Somewhere along the way I stopped rolling my eyes when he called himself the best player on campus, and Wynter noticed every single change.

"You like him," she sang in my head, completely shameless about it.

"I like his coffee orders," I muttered, pretending to read my notes.

"You like his arms too."

"I have never once looked at his arms."

"Liar," Wynter laughed. "You looked at them yesterday for a full minute."

I finally told Sage and Zella over lunch, mostly because Wynter wouldn't let me keep it to myself. I barely finished saying we'd been hanging out before Zella dropped her fork.

"Hanging out as in Caevor Huxley? The Caevor Huxley?" she screamed, and half the cafe turned to stare.

"Lower your voice, please."

"Absolutely not." Sage grabbed my wrist across the table with wide eyes. "He walks you to the library and brings you lattes? Visenya, the whole campus would trade a kidney for that."

"He only brings them because I told him the first coffee was wrong."

"He changed his order for you!" Zella clutched her chest like she might faint. "I need a minute, and then I need every single detail."

"Also," Sage added, holding out her palm with a smug grin, "you owe me a coffee. It hasn't even been a month."

I groaned into my hands while they squealed, and Wynter hummed like she personally won the bet.

***

One night the final session ran late and the rink emptied until it was just the two of us and the sound of my pen scratching.

He waited without complaint, then walked me home through the quiet campus, our footsteps loud on the pavement and the air cold enough to make me shiver.

Neither of us said much. Wynter paced under my ribs and the silence stretched tight between us.

We stopped in front of my door, and I fumbled for my keys just to give my hands something to do. "Well, this is my place. Thanks for walking me home."

"You don't have to thank me. I wanted to." He leaned against the doorframe, and for once there wasn't a trace of a smirk on his face.

Then he stepped closer until I had to tilt my head back to look at him. "Visenya, I don't chase girls. They chase me, it's how things have always worked."

"You've mentioned that," I said, my voice coming out weaker than I wanted. "Loudly. Several times."

"I'm chasing you." The words came out low and rough, like they cost him something. "I don't know how to do this any other way."

My heart slammed against my ribs, and Wynter howled so loudly inside my head that I almost pressed my hands over my ears.

"You said you don't chase girls," I said, my voice shaking more than I wanted. "So what exactly are you doing?"

"Let me finish." He cut me off, his voice dropping low. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since the night you walked into me. I don't know what this is, but I know I want it, and I want you."

My throat went dry, and Wynter was pacing so fast inside me that I could barely think.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said quietly, but he didn't leave. He stepped closer until I could feel the warmth rolling off him, and he looked at me for one long moment.

I felt it hit both of us at once, that restless pull neither of us could stand anymore, and I could see him fighting it in the tight line of his jaw.

Wynter clawed at me from the inside, and I had nothing left to hold her back with. That was when we both lost it.

His hands slid into my hair as I grabbed the front of his jacket, and his mouth crashed against mine, hot and desperate, and heat tore through me so fast my knees nearly gave out. Neither of our wolves was willing to fight it anymore.