The Alpha Captain Gave My Home to His First Love

At nineteen, I walked away from college to follow a rookie hockey player no one expected to become Alpha.

I packed Carter's road bags, iced his shoulder after losses, and learned exactly what food kept his wolf steady before a game.

When teammates laughed at our tiny apartment and my cheap recovery meals, Carter called me the only home he needed.

Three years later, he wore the captain's C, I wore his mate mark, and a positive pregnancy test waited inside our anniversary gift box.

Then Carter brought his injured first love, Sienna, through our front door without warning.

He gave her our bedroom because she needed the safer shower.

I moved my clothes into the guest room and told myself it was temporary.

That night, I heard them stop outside the nursery Carter and I had built together.

"You kept this room?" Sienna asked.

"Not anymore," Carter said. "You need it more than we do."

"And Lena?"

"She'll understand. She always does."

***

Carter dropped his away-game luggage on our hardwood floor, the thud echoing through the foyer. I barely noticed the black duffel. My attention went straight to the metal brace locked around Sienna's right leg.

I stood beside the dining table with my phone open to our anniversary reservation. Next to it sat a small gift box tied with a silver ribbon. Inside was the positive pregnancy test I had taken two days ago.

Tonight was supposed to be the night I told my husband we were finally having a baby.

I had already rehearsed how I would hand Carter the box after dessert. I had even booked the corner table where he first asked me to move in with him.

"Sienna's building elevator is out," Carter announced, shrugging off his team jacket. "Her surgeon doesn't want her using stairs. She'll recover here until she can bear weight."

He spoke the way he did in the locker room when a line change had already been decided.

I looked at Sienna. She leaned on two crutches, pale beneath the carefully applied makeup. Once, before Carter and I met, she had been the rising figure skater everyone expected him to mate. Then a rogue attack shattered her knee, she left Ashborne for surgery, and Carter built a new life with me.

At least that was the story I had believed.

"Did you have the staff prepare the guest room?" I asked.

Carter's gaze traveled toward the staircase. "The master suite is safer. It has the curbless shower, the wider doorway, and enough space for her brace at night."

For a second I thought I had misunderstood him.

"The master suite is our bedroom."

Sienna shifted awkwardly. "I can stay at a hotel, Carter. Really. I don't want Lena displaced because of me."

"A hotel doesn't have Pack security or a healer on call," he said. "This is temporary."

"Then she can use the downstairs guest suite. No stairs. Private bath."

"The shower has a lip. Naomi specifically said no unnecessary fall risks."

I folded my arms. "So your solution is to move your wife out of her own room without asking her."

His jaw tightened. "My solution is to keep an injured Pack member from ending up back in surgery. Why does everything have to become a territorial fight with you?"

Four years ago, Carter and I lived in a studio apartment three blocks from the arena. When his shoulder swelled after games, I woke at three in the morning to replace ice packs and tape his joint before practice. He used to bury his face against my neck and tell me I was the only home he needed.

Now he was using the word safety to explain why someone else deserved my bed.

"It's our anniversary," I said.

Carter glanced at the phone on the table as if he had forgotten the date entirely. "We can move dinner."

The reservation confirmation blurred for a moment.

Sienna lowered her eyes. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize," Carter told her immediately. Then he looked at me. "Lena understands priorities."

The little silver-ribboned box suddenly felt ridiculous.

A housekeeper appeared at the edge of the foyer. "Alpha Carter, should I move Ms. Hart's clothes to the downstairs suite?"

Ms. Hart. Not future Luna. Not his mate. Just the person whose closet needed clearing.

"Only what she needs for a few weeks," Carter said.

"Stop." I held up a hand. "No one touches my clothes. I'll move them myself."

Carter exhaled through his nose. "Fine. But Sienna needs to lie down."

He took her overnight bag before she could protest and climbed the stairs beside her, one hand hovering at her back.

I stayed in the foyer.

The anniversary reminder on my phone chimed at six.

I canceled the reservation.

By seven, I had moved enough clothes into the downstairs guest suite to make it functional. Carter came in while I was hanging my work jackets in the narrow closet.

"You didn't have to do all this tonight," he said.

I turned. "You told the staff to move me. When exactly was I supposed to wait?"

"You're making this sound permanent."

"You brought your first love home and put her in our bedroom on our anniversary. Tell me which part I should describe more gently."

His expression sharpened. "Sienna is not my first love right now. She's an injured athlete and a Pack member I failed to protect years ago."

There it was. The guilt he never admitted still owned him.

"And what am I?"

Carter stepped closer. "My mate. Which is why I expect you to understand me better than anyone."

The answer should have reassured me. Instead, it sounded like a job description.

A knock came from the open doorway. Sienna stood there in one of Carter's old team sweatshirts, the hem nearly reaching her knees.

"Sorry," she murmured. "The master shower worked. Thank you, Lena."

My eyes dropped to the sweatshirt. I recognized it. Carter had worn it the night he proposed.

"Where did you get that?"

She looked down. "It was in the closet. Carter said I could borrow something loose so the brace wouldn't catch."

Carter rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "It's just an old sweatshirt."

Of course it was.

Everything was just a room, just a shirt, just a temporary arrangement when it belonged to me.

Sienna's phone rang. She glanced at the screen. "It's the physical therapist."

Carter took the call when her crutches made it difficult. He listened for less than a minute before turning toward the hallway.

"She needs daily parallel-bar work and a stationary bike," he said after hanging up. "The therapist wants a dedicated rehab room on this floor."

"Use the basement gym."

"No stairs."

I already knew where his eyes would go before he looked past me toward the room across the hall.

The nursery.

The room with the crib he had assembled himself.

The room where a silver moon mobile waited above an empty changing table.

Carter pointed toward the closed door.

"We'll clear that one in the morning."