Page 4 of Power Shift

“If you break your body against the boards, you’re going to be out for a long while.”

“I knew what I was doing,” I say with a half-smile.

“If you say so.”

Landon might be my pack leader, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be right about absolutely everything. And even if he tried, we wouldn’t let it slide for long. Naming any one of us as leader wasn’t a choice we made easily or even wanted to do in the first place.

Society requires things to be a certain way, though. And honestly, without some sort of leader, we probably would have collapsed already. Landon as pack leader was an easy choice for us to make when it came to choosing someone years ago.

Not only is he the biggest in size of all of us, but his alpha pheromones can be so intense that they’re borderline nauseating. I’ve only heard his bark once in my entire life, and it was years ago when we were only teenagers.

Standing about three inches taller than me with his skates on, Landon frowns around his mouthguard and wiggles it around. The cleanly shaven expanse of his jaw strains as he gnaws down on the guard and pops it back into his mouth.Without another word, he knocks the blade of his stick to the backs of my thighs and takes off.

Ronan eyes us curiously, his hulking shoulders snapping straight as he lingers by the other defenseman. His dark, piercing brown eyes ask the question he’s too far away to speak.

Are you all good?

I give him a gloved thumbs-up and skate around the net, avoiding looking at Dash where he lingers, pretending to wait for the next puck to block. The final member of our pack and the team’s goalie is always a bit too eagle-eyed. Maybe that has to do with his gentler beta nature. Being surrounded by three alphas every single day does that to a person. He’s been the one holding us together for years, but surely, I can’t be the only one feeling the cracks starting to grow.

I feel more on edge today than I have in a long time. My quick pace on the ice isn’t exactly the safest, so I can’t blame them for the lectures I’m about to hear at home.

It’s like I can feel something brewing in the air. A glinting tip of a freshly sharpened knife poised above us. Every day, it drops another inch, contact inevitable.

Our coach blows his whistle, and I sweep up a puck from along the boards, toying with it as I skate toward him and the other players who’ve beaten me back. Ronan keeps his distance from the rest of the team, hovering a few feet away. I settle at his side and tuck the puck between my skates.

The speech Coach gives us is the same as always. We’ve got a pregame skate tomorrow morning before we play at home in the evening. Don’t stay out late and show up hungover. Don’t be giant knotheads, honestly.

It’s easy enough for most of us—the majority who take the sport seriously.

“You nearly smashed into the boards,” Ronan grunts quietly enough for just me to hear.

“But I didn’t.”

“You’re not a risk taker.”

“Maybe I’m changing.”

He flexes his hold on his giant stick and tugs off his helmet before shaking his head and stretching his neck. Without his helmet on, the onyx-black hair he keeps neatly buzzed is exposed alongside the diamond stud in his ear that he refuses to take out. With how often he’s begun fighting during games, I have very visceral nightmares of him having it torn out.

My packmate is as stubborn as he is broody. There’s no way to convince him to do anything he doesn’t want to. Not even Landon can command him to do much unless he wanted to piss us all off with his bark.

“Something’s up with you,” he says.

“Dash swapped my decaf out with his espresso this morning.”

He stares at me for a beat longer, not giving away a single thought before turning to Coach. It’s the Ronan special.

“Right.”

“I didn’t swap anything,” Dash puts in, heaving a breath beside us.

The only beta in our group narrows his eyes as he inspects me, seeing everything. I huff a sigh and focus on the only member of our pack who hasn’t joined our little huddle.

Landon stands by Coach, absorbing every word he’s saying. Many people assume his concentration is coldness, but I know better. All three of us do.

Minutes later, we’re dismissed and stepping into the locker room. I crinkle my nose at all the different pheromones brewing in the hot, sweaty room. The scent blockers blowing through the air ducts are pretty useless in situations like this. We’re too sweaty for anything to be masked well.

“Reeks in here,” Ronan mutters, shucking his clothes off at lightning speed.

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