The Hockey Alpha Bullied Me, Then His Wolf Claimed Me

Jackson had left the ice without shifting after that roar. At two in the morning, I found the match, hunched over the laptop in Professor Okafor's lab with my photos open beside the pack medical archive.

The burn on Jackson's pads wasn't random. The twisting lines around the wolf's head formed a training rune, an overload sigil designed to force a shift past its natural limit. It had been banned by the Pack Council six years ago after two Alphas burned out their wolves completely.

Someone had put it on him. Or he'd put it on himself.

By Saturday's game, I had a risk form filled out, signed, and folded into my back pocket, addressed to Professor Okafor and Dr. Reyes.

I didn't get to deliver it.

Blair caught me in the tunnel during second intermission. She plucked the paper from my pocket like she'd known exactly where it was and unfolded it with two fingers.

"'Possible overload rune exposure. Recommend immediate removal from play.'" She laughed. "Wow. You're really that jealous?"

"Give it back."

"So you can bench my boyfriend in the third period of a tied game?" She folded it into a tiny square and tucked it into her bra. "Get over him, Madison. It's embarrassing."

The third period started at 2–2. Jackson's line went out first.

He was wrong from the opening faceoff. His crossovers were too wide, and his left skate kept dragging like it belonged to someone heavier. When he turned, his shoulders rolled half a beat late.

The crowd didn't see any of it. They saw him steal the puck at the blue line, cut through two defenders, and rip a shot into the top corner.

The scoreboard flipped to 3–2. The arena exploded.

Tyler was on the bench beside me with his ankle wrapped. He was cheering until he saw my face.

"What?"

"Look at his hands."

Jackson's gloves were steaming.

"That's adrenaline," Tyler said.

"That's not adrenaline. It's a spell burning through his wolf."

---

The final whistle blew with the Wolves still up by one.

Jackson didn't celebrate. He snapped his stick across his knee, both halves splintering, and dropped them on the ice. Then he was gone down the tunnel, shoving past the trainers, heading away from the main locker room toward the old auxiliary one nobody used anymore.

I grabbed my first-aid kit and ran.

Blair was already there, her back against the door, phone up and filming herself.

"Babe's just decompressing," she was saying to the camera. "Big win, big emotions—"

"Move," I said.

She lowered the phone. "You don't get to touch him. You don't even get to be on the bench."

From the other side of the door came a sound like metal tearing. Then a thud that shook the frame.

I dropped to my knees and looked through the gap at the bottom. Light was crawling across the tile floor. Glowing lines that branched and twisted like veins, the same pattern I'd stared at for three nights straight.

They were spreading.

I yanked out my phone and called Dr. Reyes. He picked up on the second ring, shouting over noise.

"Madison, I've got Kowalski's kid with a skate laceration. I can't leave him, he's bleeding—"

"Jackson's in the auxiliary room. He's shifting uncontrolled. It's the overload rune from his pads, I can see the marks on the floor. I'm certified in low-intensity resonance. Professor Okafor trained me."

A beat of silence.

"Do it," he said. "You're authorized. I'm two minutes behind you. If it gets worse, you get out."

I hung up and stood. Blair still hadn't moved.

"Move, Blair. If you love him, stop treating this like a photo op."

Her face went red. For a second, I thought she'd fight me. Then something inside hit the door hard enough to rattle it, and she flinched away.

The handle was locked. I pulled the work-study key ring off my belt, found the one marked AUX, and went in.

---

The mirror over the sinks had shattered. Glass glittered across the tile like frost. I had left the door ajar, and Blair still had her phone raised in the hallway.

Jackson was crouched on the bench in the middle of the room, his jersey half torn off. His hands weren't hands anymore. Black claws had punched straight through the wooden bench and pinned him there like he was holding himself down.

The rune burned on his chest, right over his heart. Gold light pulsed through the lines with every heartbeat, too fast, way too fast.

"Get out," he said. His voice was doubled, a growl under the words.

"Dr. Reyes sent me."

"I said get out, Madison."

He knew my name. He'd used it.

I knelt on the cold tile in front of him and opened my kit. Gauze, saline, a cooling pack. None of it would matter if I couldn't slow down that rune.

The air was thick and hot. Cedar and frost rolled off him so strongly it drowned out the antiseptic, and my own lavender, and everything else.

"I'm going to touch your chest," I said. "It's going to feel strange."

"You'll get hurt."

"Then don't hurt me."

I pressed my palm flat over the rune.

His skin was fever-hot, hot enough that my instinct screamed to pull back. I kept my hand there and slowed my breathing the way Professor Okafor had drilled into me. Match the frequency, then lower it. Never force.

Silver-blue light seeped out from under my fingers.

Jackson snarled. His claws ripped free of the bench, and his hand closed around my wrist.

I braced for it.

He didn't squeeze. His grip shook, claws curved just above my skin, holding on without cutting.

"It burns," he said through his teeth.

"I know. Don't fight me, Jackson. Follow my heartbeat."

I pressed harder. The cold started in my fingertips and crept up my arm, my body pouring heat into him to pull the fire out. My teeth started to chatter.

Jackson threw his head back and howled.

Something inside my chest howled back.

It was faint and thin, but real. The thing that had scratched at me on the ice wasn't scratching anymore. It was awake, and it was answering him.

---

The gold drained out of the rune line by line. His claws shrank back into fingers. The fur along his arms faded until he was just a man again, gasping, sweat running down his throat.

He sagged forward, and his forehead dropped against the curve of my shoulder.

I froze, my hand still on his chest.

"Mine," he mumbled into my neck.

It was barely a word. Rough and half asleep.

"Jackson—"

I tried to pull back, to give him space, to give myself space. My legs didn't work. My frozen fingers couldn't feel the tile when I reached for it, and I slid sideways toward the broken glass.

His arms caught me before I hit the floor. He pulled me into his chest, his whole body curling around mine like he could fix the cold by holding on hard enough.

"Mine," he said again, clearer this time, turning his head toward the door. "Don't let her leave."

The door crashed open. Dr. Reyes came in with his bag, Tyler limping behind him.

"Jesus. Madison, are you okay? Jackson, let her go so I can check her."

Jackson's arms only tightened.

Over his shoulder I could see his captain's armband lying on the tile, torn and forgotten in a puddle of melted frost. Below his collarbone, just under the fading rune, a mark lit up on his skin.

A wolf's pawprint. Silver-blue. The exact color of the light that had come from my hands.

It glowed for one heartbeat, then sank into his skin and disappeared.

Inside my head, for the first time in eleven years, my wolf spoke.

Mate.