Theo POV

The drive to Dominic Vale's penthouse felt unbearable.

Rain hammered against the SUV windows hard enough to blur the city into streaks of gold and white light. But I could barely focus on any of it because all I could focus on was him. Cedar, smoke, and expensive cologne layered over that unmistakable Alpha warmth that settled deep into my lungs every time I breathed. With the suppressants leaving my system, everything felt worse. My thoughts turned heavy and tangled beneath the heat spreading slowly under my skin.

I hated it. I hated how good he smelled.

The silence stretched thick and suffocating while Dominic drove with both hands tight on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched hard enough for tension to flash across his face every time headlights passed over it. He had barely looked at me since we left the arena, and somehow that only made me more restless.

"You okay?" he asked eventually, his voice low.

No. "I'm fine," I lied.

The strain in my voice ruined the lie immediately. His gaze flicked briefly toward my trembling hands before returning to the road. I shoved them beneath my sleeves.

A thought slipped out before I could stop it. "You should've reported me already."

Dominic let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. "You really think that's what I want?"

"Yes," I said.

Why wouldn't he? He was the league's Alpha captain. Reporting me would have been the logical choice. Instead, he had dragged me into his car like I belonged there.

Streetlights flashed across his face as the SUV slowed at a red light. His expression looked harder than usual, controlled in a way that felt deliberate.

"League security would destroy you," he said finally.

There was no cruelty underneath the words. No disgust. Just the truth, delivered like it cost him something to say it plainly. My throat tightened, and I turned toward the window before he could notice.

***

The elevator felt too small with both of us inside it.

Heat curled painfully through my bloodstream while the confined space trapped the smell of cedar and smoke around me completely. My skin felt feverish and oversensitive, enough that even fabric brushing against my waist hurt. I flinched once without meaning to.

Dominic noticed immediately, and a thought surfaced that I had absolutely no defense against.

Three years of face-offs, collisions, and Dominic Vale staring at me across the ice. I had spent all that time convincing myself it was rivalry, adrenaline, aggression—anything except the truth. The suppressants had helped the lie survive. They had allowed me to pretend my pulse only jumped around him because he was dangerous.

Not because some part of me had wanted him to notice me.

The elevator doors opened before the realization could settle, and I stepped out too quickly.

***

Dominic shut the apartment door behind us and finally turned toward me fully for the first time since we left the arena. Then he froze.

His gaze moved slowly down my body before settling on the blood soaking through the front of my jersey near my ribs. Concern tightened his expression instantly, and somehow that felt worse than disgust would have.

"Sit down," he said quietly.

"I'm fine," I repeated.

That Alpha tone slipped into his voice when he said my name next, low and warm enough for my instincts to react before my brain caught up. My legs nearly gave out halfway toward the couch.

Dominic caught me before I hit the floor. Strong arms closed around me carefully, one hand steadying my waist while the other supported my back. The moment his hands touched me, heat surged through my body hard enough for a sharp breath to escape before I could stop it.

Dominic went completely still.

I jerked backward immediately. "Don't touch me like that," I snapped.

His expression tightened. "How am I touching you?" he asked.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

That was the humiliating part because he was not doing anything wrong. My body was simply reacting anyway. It always had. Every collision against the boards, every face-off where he leaned too close, every moment Dominic got within reach of me on the ice, I had spent years pretending none of it meant anything.

Now the suppressants were gone, and my instincts had stopped lying to me.

***

Dominic crouched in front of me once I finally sat down. That was a mistake because now he was directly between my knees, smelling like cedar and winter smoke and dangerous Alpha warmth.

"We need to get the gear off," he said.

"No," I whispered.

His gaze lifted slowly toward mine before dropping once more to the blood staining my ribs. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Everything inside me stopped.

No one had ever promised me that before. Not doctors, not coaches, not Alphas. People spoke about Omegas carefully, possessively, cruelly, but never gently. Never like it was simply the truth and nothing else. My throat tightened so fast it hurt.

Dominic must have seen it happen across my face because his expression shifted into something softer, something that had no business existing between rivals. My name sounded different in his mouth than it ever had on the ice. I looked away before he could notice that I almost believed him.

That was the worst thing that had happened to me all night, worse than the broken injector, worse than the heat, worse than Dominic Vale knowing exactly what I was. Because sitting there on his couch with his hands still warm against my ribs, I understood something that six years of suppressants had been carefully hiding from me.

I had wanted someone to say those words to me for a very long time. And I had never once let myself know it until now.

The truth settled inside me quietly and irreversibly, the kind that does not leave once it arrives. Then, before I could remember every reason I had spent six years making sure this never happened…

I leaned into his hands.

The moment I realized what I had done, fear twisted violently through my stomach. This was too close and reckless. Exactly how people ruined themselves.

But Dominic did not pull away. He did not say a single word. He simply stayed there, steady and warm, like he had already decided something I had not caught up to yet.

And that terrified me more than any of it.