MY HOCKEY ALPHAS' SHARED OBSESSION

Chapter 4

WREN'S POV

I did not scream, which surprised me almost as much as the wolf did.

I sat frozen on the bench, every instinct telling me to run, while something the size of a small horse padded closer across the ice, claws clicking softly with each step, eyes burning that same impossible gold.

"Roman," I whispered, not sure if I was asking a question or saying a prayer.

The wolf stopped three feet away and lowered its massive head, almost like a bow, watching me with an intelligence that no animal should have had.

"You're really him," I said. My voice shook, but I did not move. "Aren't you."

The wolf huffed, a sound that was somehow unmistakably a yes.

Light shimmered around him, folding and reshaping faster than my eyes could track, fur receding into skin, the shape of him stretching upright until Roman knelt on the ice in front of me instead, breathing hard, very human, and very naked.

I looked away fast, heat flooding my face. "Do you have clothes somewhere?"

"Under the bench," he said, sounding amused despite everything. "Second shelf."

I found a folded pair of sweatpants and tossed them without looking, listening to the quiet rustle of fabric before I dared to turn back around.

"Okay," he said, sitting beside me now, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. "You can look. I'm decent."

I looked. He was, mostly, though decent felt like a generous word for a man still catching his breath with his chest bare and gold eyes locked on my face like he was waiting for me to bolt.

"I need you to say something," Roman said quietly. "Anything. The silence is worse than whatever you're about to say."

"Give me a second." My hands were shaking in my lap. "I just watched you turn into a wolf. I think I'm allowed a second."

"You're allowed as long as you need." He said it gently, though I could hear the tension underneath, like he was bracing for me to run even while giving me permission to.

"How long can you stay like that?" I asked. "As a wolf?"

"As long as I want. Longer if I'm angry." He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion showing through for the first time. "It gets harder to hold the human shape the more emotion is involved. That's part of why I needed you to sit down earlier. I could feel myself slipping."

"Slipping because of me?"

"Because of what almost happened to you," he said. "If Finn's ankle had actually been serious, if you had needed to call for help we could not explain, that would have been a very different night for both of us."

"Are you all wolves?" I finally asked. "Cassius, Dax, Finn, all of you?"

"All of us. Every player on this roster." He hesitated. "It's not something we chose to hide from cruelty, Wren. It's survival. Humans who find out do not usually live long enough to tell anyone else."

My breath caught. "Is that a threat?"

"No." His hand covered mine, warm and steady. "Never from me. I would die before I let anyone hurt you over this, but I need you to understand the danger is real. Not from us. From what happens if the wrong people learn what we are."

"What are you, exactly? A team of wolves, or something bigger than that?"

"A pack," he said. "This team is a cover for what we really are underneath it. Blackpine has been our territory for three generations. The rink lets us run fast and hit hard in front of thousands of people without anyone asking uncomfortable questions about why."

"That's either brilliant or terrifying."

"Both, most days." A faint, tired smile crossed his face. "Standish isn't just a doctor, either. He's pack, sworn to protect our secret with his life if it comes to that. Ingrid too."

"Ingrid is a wolf?"

"Ingrid is pack. Not every wolf shifts, not anymore, not in every bloodline. But everyone in this building would die before they let word of us reach the wrong ears."

"Who are the wrong people?"

"Hunters. Rival packs who would use you against us." His jaw tightened. "People who have hurt women exactly like you before, just to get to men exactly like me."

I turned to look at him fully, and the closeness of it hit me harder than it should have, his bare chest, the heat rolling off his skin, his eyes holding mine like nothing else in the arena existed.

"Why me?" I asked softly. "Out of everyone you could have hired, why let me get close enough to find any of this out?"

"I didn't let anything happen," he said, voice rough. "I fought it. The moment you walked into that hallway, something in me recognized you before I even had your name. I have spent three days trying to convince myself that meant nothing."

"Did it work?"

"No." His hand slid to my jaw again, the same gesture from before, except this time neither of us pretended it was only comfort. "It has never worked less in my life."

The air between us went thick and warm, his gaze dropping briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes like he was asking permission he was not used to asking anyone for.

"Roman," I breathed.

"Tell me to stop," he said, voice low, "and I will. I need you to know that. Whatever I am, I am not a man who takes what isn't offered."

I did not tell him to stop.

Every rational thought I owned was telling me to put distance between us, that I had known this man for three days, that he had just admitted to being something out of a story I never believed in until an hour ago. None of it mattered as much as the way his thumb traced my jaw like he was memorizing it.

"I shouldn't want this," I whispered.

"I know." His forehead dropped to rest against mine, breath unsteady. "I've told myself the same thing since the hallway. It hasn't stopped a single thing I've felt since."

His mouth found mine slow at first, careful, like he was still giving me every chance to pull away, and when I did not, the careful part of him seemed to break apart completely. His hand slid into my hair, angling me closer, and the kiss deepened into something hungry, something that made the cold arena around us disappear entirely.

"This is insane," I whispered against his mouth.

"Completely," he agreed, not stopping.

A low growl broke through the moment, not from Roman, but from somewhere behind us, and we broke apart fast to find Dax standing at the edge of the ice, arms crossed, jaw tight with something that looked dangerously close to jealousy.

"Dax," Roman said, rising slowly, putting himself half in front of me without seeming to think about it. "This isn't the time."

"It's exactly the time." Dax's gold eyes flicked to me, and for the first time since I had met him, there was nothing playful in them at all. "You weren't the only one who felt something the second she walked into that hallway, Roman. You don't get to decide this alone."

"Nobody is deciding anything alone," Roman said, low and warning.

"Careful, Captain," Dax said, voice tight. "Pack law says you don't get to claim her without the rest of us getting a say."