Page 62 of The Price of Ice

He shook his head again. “No, I should— I should have listened. About... about the sex, and the alphas.”

He’d not even made it a year with the team, he realised, and had to cover his face as he lost the battle with his tears, a hacking sound escaping and then another, not quite muffled by his palm even when he bit it. He’d given it his all, and it wasn’t enough.Hewasn’t enough.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I— I tried, I swear I tried, but—” He cut himself off, remembering his father’s firm directive that there were no buts.

“Don’t be sorry,” his mum told him, her own voice heavy with sorrow. “You did everything you could. I know that and your father knows that.”

Kallen tensed up.

“He does, Kallen. I’ll make him tell you in person, but believe me that he knows how much he’s asked of you. Just to—” She stopped, exhaling slowly. “You want to tell me what happened? Or do you want to come home first?”

Come home, he thought. Except he wasn’t sure where that was.

“Can you... Can you just listen?”

He wasn’t looking at her, couldn’t bear too, but he still sensed the hesitation before his mother spoke her promise, “Yes.”

And so, he’d told her, how his teammates hurt him sometimes, but he’d been told it was alpha hormones out of control. How he’d been pushed to forgive Vandy, how Yrovsky leaving him in need of medical attention had been seen as normal, how even forced sex outside of heat was a consequence of his own actions because he’d become close with one of his teammates. How it felt every time he was told that he wasn’t entitled to respect despite all the promises of protection and honouring, how if he was the soul of this team, then the team was rotten to the core. “And now I can’t play at all,” he finished. The tears had stopped, he just felt numb, empty, done.

It took him a minute to think to look at the screen again. His mother wasn’t crying, though her eyes were red, instead she looked one step away from blazing up. Her throat worked visibly when their eyes met. “I’m coming to get you.”

And it was supposed to be impossible for an omega, but he felt her will in every sound, so powerful he couldn’t have denied her even if he’d wanted to.

Was this what lure felt like? He wondered, as something crumbled in his head. For all the power behind it, it was nothing like alpha will, instead it was a door opening in his cage.

An invitation that he would be mad to refuse.

So, he didn’t.

Chapter 25

Brad had gone home for the day and Levy still wasn’t back, and Kallen was seriously considering reusing the water bottle. He’d miscalculated how much water he’d drunk, or maybe it’d been the smoothies with green tea Brad had made after his workout. A proper one where he’d lifted weights in the gym downstairs. After talking to his mother, it’d been work out or get drunk again.

The key in the lock made him straighten, body leaning forward on instinct. He pulled himself back, sighing. He wasn’t even that embarrassed anymore to ask for help getting on his chair. Brad had mentioned if they set up bars in the toilet, he wouldn’t even need help moving from the chair to the toilet seat. But Kallen had dismissed it, it felt too much like giving up.

And now...

Levy came straight to him, helping him without fuss. It didn’t make it hurt any less, what he’d lost. And it didn’t help that he knew he’d never had anything at all with Levy, that it had just been a bit of good fun between friends.

Afterwards, he was bracing himself to tell Levy what he’d done, but they barely made it to the kitchen when his friend said, “So, Benny talked to me today. He wanted to know why you weren’t coming to training and games.”

Kallen let go of the wheels. “What?”

Levy shook his head, turning around and leaning back on the edge of the counter, arms crossed over his own chest. “He saidMcKinley told them you had fucked up and no one was allowed to talk to you. Or to ask me.”

Kallen stared at him, heart battering his chest and mind flying in a hundred different directions. “I don’t...”

“I know,” his friend agreed. “It’s nuts, like... Everything about this is so fucked up. I tried not to talk about you to the team because...” He waved at Kallen’s body. “Well, it’s private, isn’t it? And I figured you’d tell them whatever you wanted. But, like, no one’s been talking to you?”

Kallen shook his head.

“Fuck,” Levy spat. “That’s so— I had no idea! You must have felt like shit. Even when I just hurt my elbow everyone kept checking on me. We areteam. What the fuck does that even mean if—” He cut himself off, probably realising what itdidmean. He was fighting it, Kallen could see that.

But he knew too.

I’m sorry,Kallen thought. It wasn’t his fault, but hewassorry Levy had lost this too.

He was glad Benny had defied the rules to ask after him, but it was only a small ray of sunlight in the darkness. Johnson could have come by; it wasn’t like McKinley had spies in the building, and Johnsonknewwhat their captain had done to Kallen. Not all of it, but enough.

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