Rejected by my Hockey Alpha, Claimed by His Rival

Chapter 4 The Photo I Never Took

Sloane.

My wrist still felt warm where his fingers had been, and that made me angrier than anything else that morning.

I walked away from Torin fast, the camera bag banging against my hip, my heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat. He had no right to grab me like that. He had no right to ask me anything about my life, not after he had thrown me out of his without a single explanation eight years ago.

"You don't get to be jealous," I muttered to myself in the empty hallway. "Not after what you did."

I found an empty corner near the equipment room and stood there until my hands stopped shaking, then I raised my camera and forced myself to work, because work was the only thing I trusted right now.

I shot the team stretching out on the ice, sticks tapping in rhythm, breath fogging in the cold air. I shot the coaches shouting drills from the boards. I shot a rookie falling flat on his back and laughing about it, and for a few minutes the anger in my chest cooled into something more like focus.

Then I noticed Bastian.

He skated close to Torin during a break, said something low that made Torin's jaw tighten, and glanced over his shoulder straight at me. I lowered my camera slowly, caught watching, and he skated over without any hesitation at all.

"You are the photographer," he said. It was not really a question.

"Sloane Hargrove."

"Bastian Vale." He studied me for a second, something careful behind his eyes. "Torin's brother."

"I figured." I lifted my camera slightly, half a shield, half a warning that I was working and did not want conversation. "You look like him."

"People say that a lot." He did not skate away. "You two have history."

"That is not really your business."

"Everything about my brother is my business," he said, and there was an edge in his voice that reminded me sharply of Torin, protective in a way that made something in my chest ache before I could stop it. "Whatever happens between you, be careful. This season already has enough weight on it without old wounds tearing it open."

"What does that mean?"

He glanced toward the far end of the rink, toward a cluster of assistant coaches talking in low voices, and lowered his own. "The Marauders are not just a rival team, Sloane. There is history between our packs going back further than hockey. Kade's people and ours have been circling each other for years. Whatever you saw this morning between Torin and you, it is not only about the two of you."

Before I could ask what he meant, a whistle blew, and he skated off toward the drill line without another word, leaving me standing there with my camera hanging forgotten at my side.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to shake the feeling that I had just been warned about something much bigger than a broken heart.

I was packing up my gear near the rink entrance when the doors opened, and a voice I recognized far too easily called my name across the lobby.

"Sloane."

I turned, and there he was, Emrys Kade, in a dark coat that looked far too expensive for a man supposedly just passing through, hands in his pockets, that same easy smile on his face like the whole world existed to entertain him.

"What are you doing here?" My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.

"League business. Boring stuff, contract meetings, the kind of thing that puts a man to sleep." He glanced around the lobby, at the Rangers logo painted across the far wall, at the security guard who was clearly deciding whether to intervene. "I did not expect to run into you."

"You expect a lot of things that are not true," I said. "This is not a coincidence."

Something flickered behind his eyes, gone as fast as it came, replaced by that same charming smile. "Maybe I just wanted to see you again."

"Try again."

"Fine." He stepped closer, lowering his voice enough that only I could hear it. "Maybe I wanted to see how deep you were already in with the Rangers before I decided how much I trusted you."

"Trusted me with what?”

He did not answer that. He just studied my face for a long moment, like he was weighing something he had not fully decided yet, then reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with a gentleness that did not match anything else about the last twenty-four hours.

"Be careful in this building, Sloane," he said quietly. "Not everyone here wants the same things they say they want."

Then he turned and walked out through the doors before I could ask him a single question, leaving me standing in the lobby with my pulse racing and no answers at all.

By the time I got back to my apartment that night, my head was pounding with everything the day had thrown at me: Torin's hand on my wrist, Bastian's warning, Emrys appearing out of nowhere with cryptic half-sentences that meant nothing and everything at once.

I made tea and sat down at my desk to back up the day's footage, because at least that was something simple, something I understood completely.

I plugged in my memory card and opened the folder, scrolling through practice shots, wide shots of the ice, close-ups of sticks and skates and Bastian's protective glare from earlier. Normal work. Familiar work.

Then I saw a folder I did not recognize.

It sat at the bottom of the card, unlabeled, dated the night before. My stomach turned cold as I clicked it open, because I knew exactly what I had shot last night and none of it should have included this.

A single photo loaded onto my screen.

It was me, sitting at the bar, laughing at something, my drink halfway to my mouth, captured from an angle across the room I never would have chosen myself. I checked the timestamp with shaking fingers.

It was taken twenty minutes before Emrys ever sat down beside me.

I had not taken this photo. I had never handed my camera to anyone that night. It had never left my bag, not once, not for a single second.

Someone else had been in that bar with a camera aimed at me before Emrys Kade ever said a word, and whomever it was had somehow found their way onto a memory card I never let out of my sight