Page 151 of The Price of Ice

“No,” Kallen agreed, opting not to mention how often he’d wanted to bite at Levy’s throat. It was the opposite of instinct, or was supposed to be, and more to the point, it wouldn’t activate any bonds done that way. It was just a line he had to hold back not to cross. Most alphas wouldn’t have even been comfortable with hickeys, but Levy loved when Kallen sucked on his neck. Maybe there wasn’t any point to holding it, except not to take from Levy what he wasn’t willing to offer in turn.

Being an omega didn’t have many upsides—though lure had turned out to be a hell of a bonus—but this was one of them. It was Levy’s sole responsibility to hold back from claiming him, and they both knew it. Kallen’s role was to trust him, and it’d become easier, especially on days when Levy’s own faith in himself wavered. But it wasn’teasy.

For either of them. He knew both of them would have gladly swapped, or, ideally, shared the loads.

But those were fantasies too.

They had chosen their life together instead; with the difficulties of not bonding, their peculiar approach to sex, their perhaps extreme devotion to their careers, the philosophicalarguments and the weekends playing hockey with people who had never sold their souls for the privilege.

It was a great life, full of joy, but it wasn’t perfect. And it couldn’t heal every scar their past had left on them. But even when Levy didn’t want Kallen to hold his hand, he knew he still had the power to hold himself together, to be his own oasis and wait for his lover to remember he was there.

His alpha sighed, shoulders dropping. “Sorry,” he said again, but this time Kallen didn’t argue. “I got all...” He rubbed at the bite, grimacing. “I freaked out.”

Kallen offered a hand again. This time, Levy took it, burrowing close again. “It’s cool,” he promised.

“It was good news,” Levy added. “I don’t know why it got all...”

“Big news, though.” He dragged some pillows to the headboard until he could sit against it, his lover safely in his arms. “It could change everything.”

The tension all over Levy’s body wasn’t something he could rub off by petting him, but he let the silence stand until Levy broke it, “Do you want to?”

It was a big question. Did he want to go back to playing professionally? He was only twenty-five years old, he could have another ten or fifteen years on the ice. It would mean getting back into his training, of course, and just because teams were expected to transition to rosters that contained at least three non-alpha players for the next ten years, it didn’t mean it would be easy to get a spot. There were omega and beta kids coming of age this year who might have chosen another path who would now go for it.

He smiled at the thought—he’d trained some of those kids in lure himself. “Nah, I have got other plans.”

Levy lifted his head from his chest to meet his eyes, his own were wide and shocked. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kallen assured him. “I’m happy. I love my job. The weekend league is enough hockey for me.” He caught the flutter of dark eyelashes. “But it’s cool if you want to.”

“I...” Levy licked his lips. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted at last.

Kallen thought about it; Levy going back, travelling all the time. He’d miss him when he was away all over the continent, and maybe he’d even be a little jealous. But he could live with it. No, more than that, he could behappywith it. If it made Levy happier, Kallen was all for it, no questions asked except maybe if he could apply to the hometown team first.

“Hey, if you are willing to give up bread for most of the year...” he joked, kissing him on the side of the head he could reach.

Levy snorted. “I’ll just do more reps.”

ONCE THEY HAD SHOWEREDand eaten, Kallen had opened up the chat group for the staff at the Omega Centre, which was still part of Fair Sport but operated at different levels to support omegas in other areas of life as well. To honour their name, Fair Sport now also had meetings for alphas—it’d been Levy’s idea, and he was still friends with most of the guys from the first iteration.

The chat was overflowing with gifts and happy cursing, and Leo had already begun planning a party. The kid he’d once trained had become a certified lure coach himself—a qualification they’d pushed to create with the help of tribal elders from the Eastern Islands—and he was in charge of the introductory classes while Kallen dealt with the more advanced ones and training coaches.

He wondered if Leo would jump at the chance to play professionally. It was difficult to be as ecstatic as he’d fantasisedwith the prospect of so many changes—most of the people around him had fought for years to change the law, it stood to reason that a lot of them would take the chance now that it had.

And Kallenwashappy for them, but he was a little reluctant too. For him, the work he did had become too important to leave behind, and hockey had somehow faded into the background. He wasn’t even that surprised the answer had come to him so easily; he’d worked for hockey for a good decade, hard and constant, and he’d loved it fiercely. He still loved it. But he’d worked to learn lure for the last six years and unlike hockey, that work had paid off in spades—his salary might not have had as many zeroes, but he was treated with respect and, most of all, he’d finally got what he’d imagined a hockey team would give him—a community to support and be supported by.

But Levy had the same thing at his job, where the kids were fanatical about him and his colleagues were always inviting him out like they couldn’t get enough of him during work hours.

And he was still thinking about it.

Kallen was a bit surprised when his phone rang. It was Taylor.

“Hi, everything okay?”

His boss snorted. “Everything isgreat, haven’t you heard?” There was an edge to his voice that Kallen caught but didn’t dare guess at.

“Yeah, it’s—”

“Look,” Taylor interrupted, even more out of character. “I know it’s a time for celebration and obviously Iamhappy. But we are not reallyjustFair Sport anymore, you know? And what we are doing, I think it’s more important than just getting omegas fair treatment in the field. And—”

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