Page 81 of The Price of Ice

“My parents wouldn’t buy me one till I wasfifteen,” Analisa said with a sigh. “So really, not that meaningful if you think about it.”

“I’m glad we ran into each other,” Kallen told her sincerely, and he managed not to startle when she casually leaned in for a half-hug. Of course it was normal for omega friends to touch each other casually, but until he’d met Brad, Kallen hadn’t had any contact with other omegas.

He’d been completely isolated from the people who’d have understood. The people who could have pointed out how deep he was in and helped him out of it. Was that an accident too or how Team Management wanted it to ensure he didn’t deviate from their plan?

HE HAD ANOTHER COUPLEtexts from Levy when he checked his phone after dinner. The first one was a photo of a lasagna that made his mouth water despite the fact that he’d just eaten. The second was a text he couldn’t parse [Now can carb out in peace.]

Almost on autopilot, he switched out of the screen onto the search engine. The name of his former team was enough to bring up the answer he half dreaded. The White Cats had been eliminated from the semi-finals in a series of bad games. The first one had been Kallen’s last, and since then they had managed to eke a couple wins, but not enough to compete with teams that were performing well regularly.

He could guess what he’d find when he opened the article. It was inevitable, after all, the narrative was soobvious. The reporter wasn’t outright blaming him for the loss, but he did say that once Kallen had stopped playing, the spirit had gone out of the team.

It was a toss-up if it was laughable or true. The team hadn’t even checked if he wasalive. Apparently, they’d been under orders not to, but shouldn’t that have worried themmore? Especially Johnson and Alexei, who’d known what had happened to him. At the same time, he didn’t think they were all psychopaths, maybe Johnson felt so bad about being a cowardly shit that it’d thrown him off his game.

He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume his presence on the ice could be that essential, though he was one of their top forwards and even if he’d been out on an injury, it could have destabilised the dynamic enough to—Enough, he commanded himself. None of it mattered, he’d made a decision and he was going to live with it, because it was still the best choice he could have made for himself. The choice he’dneededto make because he couldn’t trust anyone else to protect him instead.

Levy must have thought he knew, it was easy to feel that way when you were truly immersed in the game. And it made sense, really. They had beenhis team. He’d dedicated most of his waking hours to getting them the Cup, and now he’d missed that they’d lost.

And he didn’t even care. Worse, he was a little glad that it’d been taken from them.

Like they had taken it from him.

But of course not Levy. Levy had done his best in fucked up circumstances and he’d protected Kallen as much as he had been able. At least the second time around.

[Tough one] he texted [But so jealous of your lasagna]

[Tx. Will save you some :)]

For the first time it occurred to him that there had been no reason for his mother to make him a side of green vegetables instead of feeding him the potatoes his parents had had for dinner. He didn’t need to keep up his muscle mass, or... His throat closed up and he dropped the phone next to him on the sofa.

“Son?”

He blinked, realising the living room had gone dark around him.

His dad was frowning and suddenly Kallen remembered what had happened the day before and dropped his gaze. “You wanna talk about it?”

Kallen shook his head. “The White Cats are out, I just saw it.”

“Yeah.” The slightly vacillation was very unlike his father. “They are. Teaches them to waste their MVP,” he added with some sharpness.

It wasn’t true and they both knew it, objectively. But it was still nice of his dad to say. “They’ll have all winter to regret it.”

Traditionally the most intense finals were played during the colder months, even sharper up north in Jiro, to keep everyone active during the harsher season of the year. Besides if they’d tried to play that many games back-to-back in the heat of summer, players would have dropped like flies.

He rubbed at his own arms, feeling the muscles there. He’d lost some of it during his convalescence, but he was still prettystrong, and he hated the idea of losing that. All those hours of hard work. “Do you still have the basement set up?”

His dad nodded. “Of course, your old man does his reps every morning. Just like I taught you.”

Kallen flashed him a smile. “Good to know. Might join you tomorrow.”

KALLEN NEARLY WALKEDout. He might have if the heavy door hadn’t swung shut behind him.

It was hardly shocking that Mirel Evans was an alpha, lawyers in general tended towards the masculine end of the spectrum in both gender and phenotype.

“Do you want a chaperone?” the man asked, not moving from behind his desk. He’d stood up, presumably to offer Kallen a hand to shake.

It was something people did. They weren’t in dark ages, alphas and omegas could shake hands.

Kallen faltered, pulse still too fast, trying to parse what he was feeling besides alarm.

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