The Hockey Alpha Captain's Secret Heir

4

ELENA

~Six years later~

Six years is long enough to become a different person, if you work hard enough at it.

“ Mama, look! ” Wyatt holds up a drawing that's mostly scribbled orange crayon and a shape that might generously be called a wolf, if you squint and love the artist as much as I do. “ It's you! ”

“ It's very cute… ” I crouch down to his level at the kitchen table, and he beams at me like I have handed him the moon instead of the most ordinary compliment in the world.

' He gets that from his father. ' Luna's voice is soft, the way it always is when she says anything about Wyatt. ' That easy joy about small things. '

I don't answer her. Six years and I still flinch a little whenever she brings up Damon, even in passing, even about something as harmless as our son's smile.

Our son. Even now, even after six years of being the only parent Wyatt's ever known, the word "our" still catches somewhere in my chest.

“ Eat your breakfast before it goes cold. ” I nudge his bowl of cereal closer, and he attacks it with the enthusiasm only a five-year-old can bring to soggy cornflakes.

The apartment is small. It’s just one bedroom, and not much, but it’s mine, in a way nothing back home ever fully was, not even the room I grew up in.

I check the clock over the stove. It’s six-forty. I need to have him at daycare by seven-fifteen if I want to make it to the arena in time for morning skate.

' You could have picked an easier job. ' Luna says it the way she always does, half-joking, half-serious. ' Somewhere that doesn't smell like forty different wolves every single day. '

‘ I picked the job that pays well enough to keep us fed and doesn't ask too many questions about my past. ’ I remind her.

Working as an assistant to a coach of a professional ice hockey team was not the plan when I fled six years ago. But shifter blood runs through professional athletes more than most humans realize.

That’s why they need someone who can read a shifter's healing rate correctly, who doesn't panic when someone's temperature runs four degrees hotter than a human's should. They need someone who understands why certain players need certain accommodations around the full moon.

And an assistant who understands all that becomes valuable fast, and valuable people don't get asked too many questions about where they came from.

It also means I spend my days around exactly the kind of world I ran from. I have made my peace with the irony, though.

Wyatt finishes his cereal, and I help him wear his shoes and jacket. He asks me why the moon is silver and the sun is orange all the time in between. He asks me why the plants are all green and not blue, red, or yellow.

I answer what I can. I deflect what I can't.

Then suddenly, he pauses and grabs my finger. “ Mommy, will Daddy come for me on this birthday? ”

I pause, my gaze flickering towards his innocent, wide eyes. Six years have passed, and I still have not figured out how to explain to a five-year-old why he doesn't know his father, and every year the questions get a little sharper, a little harder to redirect with a snack or a change of subject.

“ I don’t know, Baby. I will ask him. ” I force a smile on my lips.

Like my good baby, he nods and doesn’t ask me about it again. But I know, once he comes back, he will ask the same question again.

' He will want real answers eventually. ' Luna doesn't say it unkindly. She just says it the way she says all the things I don't want to hear but need to.

‘ I know. ’ I tell her, and mean it, and still have absolutely no plan for when that day comes.

I get Wyatt to daycare with four minutes to spare and kiss the top of his head before he runs in.

I make it to the arena parking lot with just enough time to grab coffee before the morning skate starts. My phone buzzes as I am walking in. It’s a text from my boss, Coach Mallory.

Coach: Big news to share. Meeting at nine.

I don't think anything of it. I have absolutely no reason to think anything of it.

I tuck the phone into my pocket and head inside, coffee in hand, morning sun catching the arena's glass front like nothing in the world is about to change.

But I am a fool. If I had known what kind of disaster was waiting for me…I would have dropped everything and ran in the opposite direction.