The Alpha's Decision
Chapter One: The Alpha's Decision
Nora's POV
"You're shaking," Coach Reyes said, gripping my shoulder as the final horn blasted through the arena.
"I'm fine," I said. "Go celebrate with your team."
"My team? Nora, that whole game plan was yours. Every line change, every—"
"Coach. Go."
He laughed and jogged toward the bench pile-up, leaving me alone at the boards. Then the moon came through the open roof panels, and my whole body lit up like a struck match.
"What—" I gasped, grabbing the boards.
My wrist burned. I yanked back my sleeve and stared at a silver mark spreading across my skin.
Across the ice, Grayson dropped the trophy. It clattered against the surface, forgotten. He was staring at his own wrist, then up, scanning the crowd, until his eyes landed on me.
"No," he said, loud enough that I read it on his lips. "No, no, no."
I couldn't move. The pull in my chest reeled me toward him, and judging by the way he stumbled forward two steps before catching himself, he felt it too.
"Bennett," he said when he reached me, breathless, his pine-and-snow scent wrapping around me. "Tell me you don't feel that."
"I feel it," I admitted.
"That's not possible."
"Apparently the Goddess didn't get your memo."
He almost smiled. Then a camera swung toward us.
"Grayson Knight, can you confirm—" a reporter shouted from the board.
"Not now," he snapped.
"Is that your mate? The strategist? The one who—"
"I said not now."
I touched his arm. "It's fine. Let them look."
"It's not fine," he murmured, only for me. "Do you know what they're going to say?"
"I have a pretty good guess."
"Nora—"
"Don't," I said. "Don't do that face. I've heard every joke already. I don't need you flinching too."
"I'm not flinching."
"You stepped in front of me like you were ashamed."
"I stepped in front of you to protect you."
"From what? Cameras? Or from being seen next to me?"
"Grayson!" His father's voice cut through the crowd, sharp as a whistle. "A word. Now."
Grayson didn't move at first. "Not right now, Dad."
"Now," his father said, stepping onto the ice with two sponsors trailing him.
"Excuse me," Grayson said to me, and walked away.
"Grayson," Finn said, loud enough that I caught it. "Don't do this. You felt the bond. I saw your face."
"You don't understand what's at stake," Grayson said.
"I understand exactly what's at stake. I just don't think it's worth what you're about to do."
"This isn't your decision."
"No," Finn said. "It's hers too. And you're about to make it without her."
A reporter shoved a microphone toward Grayson before he'd even reached the podium. "Grayson, the entire arena witnessed mate marks appear on your wrist tonight. Can you confirm the Moon Goddess has chosen your mate?"
"There's been a mistake," he said.
The arena went silent in the way only thousands of people holding their breath at once can manage.
"A mistake?" the reporter pressed. "Can you clarify?"
"The marks appeared," Grayson said, his voice steady in a way that made my stomach drop. "But I don't accept this bond."
I heard myself laugh, short and disbelieving, before I could stop it.
"Grayson," Finn said behind him, low and furious. "Don't."
"I reject Nora Bennett as my mate," Grayson said, louder now, like he needed the whole arena to hear it clearly the first time so he wouldn't have to say it twice.
Someone in the crowd laughed. Actually I laughed.
"A werewolf Alpha, fated to that?" a voice behind me said, not even bothering to whisper. "The Goddess must've been drunk."
"Look at her face," another voice said. "She actually thought he'd claim her."
"Nora," Finn said, appearing at my side. "I'm sorry. He's not thinking straight. He's terrified, that's all this is."
"He had a choice," I said. "He made it."
"Let me walk you out of here."
"I can walk myself out."
"Nora—"
"Finn." I made myself look at him so he'd hear me properly. "You're the only person on that bench who's been decent to me all season. Don't make me regret remembering that."
He stepped back like I'd struck him. "That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant. I just don't have room for kindness right now. It only makes the rest of it hurt more."
I turned and walked the tunnel alone. A security guard fell into step beside me near the locker rooms.
"You good to get to your car, miss?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Nobody ever does after they get humiliated on national television."
He didn't laugh, but his mouth twitched like he wanted to. "For what it's worth, half the arena thought he was an idiot."
"Tell the other half that."
"They'll figure it out eventually."
"I don't have time to wait for it."
He walked me as far as the garage door anyway, even after I told him twice he didn't need to. My phone kept buzzing in my pocket the entire way. I didn't check it. I already knew what it would say, in a hundred different versions, from a hundred different strangers who had decided everything about me in the space of one rejected bond.
I sat in my car in the dark for a long time before I trusted myself to drive.
I had no idea yet how far that humiliation would travel, or how many people had been counting on exactly this outcome long before tonight.
