~003: Who is she?

Ronan

My joints ache before I even roll out of bed, running a pack and being a captain sure drains a lot of energy.

It’s been three days since the meeting with the Council and I’ve barely slept through the nights. Not because I don’t want to... trust me, I’d give anything for just a few hours of dreamless, undisturbed sleep — but my body won’t let me. My bones feel like they’re grinding against each other. My lungs can’t seem to fill the way they used to.

I splash cold water on my face in the locker room sink and grip the porcelain edges like they’re the only thing keeping me upright. My reflection looks like shit. My eyes are bloodshot. The veins in my neck pop with the tension I keep forcing down. I’m exhausted in a way that sleep won't fix.

“Ronan?” Liam pokes his head around the doorframe, his brows drawn tight. “You good?”

I grunt and wave him off. “Fine.”

It’s a lie. But the kind I’ve been repeating so much, it rolls off my tongue before I can think. But thank the goddess he disappeared without arguing.

I slap the faucet off harder than necessary and storm out of the locker room before anyone else walks in.

We’re supposed to be having a friendly scrimmage today. Just with the team. I shouldn’t even be playing with how my body’s spiraling, but no one dares tell me to sit out. I lace up my skates, ignoring the tight pull in my chest, and head for the rink.

The cold air hits me the second I step onto the ice.

I breathe it in. It feels like knives.

I push off anyway. Muscle memory kicks in even when everything else screams. I skate like I always have — dominant, fast, surgical — and the guys try to keep up, bless them. Coach doesn’t say a word. Probably scared I’ll rip his throat out if he so much as blinks wrong.

“Ronan, you sure—”

“I’m fine,” I cut in, my voice sharper than necessary.

Max skates backward beside me for a few seconds, trying to read my expression. He won’t find much. I keep my walls up, thick and locked.

The puck drops. We play.

And for a while, I almost forget that something’s wrong with me. Until it hits again.

Mid-rush down the ice, my vision blurs. The stick in my hand slips just slightly and the world tilts, sharp and disorienting. My knees wobble, and my throat closes. I can’t breathe.

Shit.

I fake a trip to get off the ice without anyone noticing too much and slam into the boards. I lean over the railing, sucking in air that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, my heartbeat hammering like a war drum in my skull.

But then I was suddenly hit by a scent.

It slices through everything. The air. The noise. The sweat. It hits me so hard my stick nearly slips from my hand.

That scent.

Warm vanilla mixed with something sharper. Wild berries? No—lavender? No, it’s both. Clean but intoxicating. Familiar but not. My heart jumps. Like a punch. No...

*Mate.*

My feet freeze.

For the first time in months, Darko growls in my head. It's faint—like a ripple across dead waters—but I feel it. That pull. That damn magnetic pull that's supposed to bond us for life.

I suck in another breath, trying to catch more of it, eyes scanning the crowd of cheer squad bouncing on the sidelines in identical school colors.

“Ronan, you good?” Josh calls from behind me.

I ignore him. My eyes narrow, trailing from one ponytail to the next. One of them. She’s here. She’s fucking here. And I don’t even know which one she is.

“Yo, Ronan!” Casen’s voice, louder now. He skates up beside me. “You’ve been standing there like a statue. You see a ghost or something?”

I nod slowly, then lie. “Something like that.”

He frowns but knows better than to press. Not when I look like this. Not when my eyes probably scream murder and mate all at once.

“Get your head back in the game. We’ve got five minutes left.”

“I’m fine,” I snap, pushing off with my skates. But I’m not fine. I’m burning from the inside out. That scent is playing tricks with my body.

Darko tries again—like a gasp—but he fades out just as fast. The pain that shoots through my chest after that almost knocks the wind out of me. I clench my jaw, pretending I didn’t feel it. I can’t fall apart here. Not in front of the pack members, they will know... Not in front of the team. Not when half the pack thinks I’m some untouchable Alpha with an unbreakable wolf.

We didn't even finish the game before I decided to leave, I had scored two goals I don’t remember making. And Sasha tries to corner me before I leave the field, but I dodge her with a grunt and a tight smile.

“Babe, you okay?” she asks, reaching for my arm.

“Later,” I mutter, yanking away.

Her mouth drops open in offense but I don’t care. I need air. I need to think. I need to figure out how the hell my mate just showed up out of nowhere and why the bond feels like a lifeline and a knife to the chest all at once.

I head to the locker room, still in full gear. Casen’s talking to Coach, distracted. I should tell him but...I don’t want company right now.

The locker hallway is quieter than usual. The hum of the fluorescent lights. The thud of my boots. My breath still uneven.

Who is she?

One of the cheers. That’s all I know. But which one? I didn’t get close enough to catch a face. Just that scent that rocked me like a truck.

My hand brushes the locker handle but I pause. My nose tingles. My vision shifts slightly. I blink...

Shit.

A drop of blood hits the concrete. Then another. I touch under my nose and see red on my fingers.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter, stumbling back a step.

I’m not weak. This isn’t supposed to happen. I haven’t had a nosebleed since I was twelve, and even that was because I punched myself during a spar.

But this?

This is something else.

Another sharp pain stabs through my chest, like a knife twisting under my ribs. My knees nearly buckle. I catch myself against the row of lockers, jaw clenching so hard I hear it pop.

“Darko,” I whisper. Nothing. Not even the faint flutter from earlier.

“You son of a bitch, don’t go quiet now,” I growl, sliding down to sit on the cold floor.

I swipe my nose again. Still bleeding. The pressure in my chest is building like a storm cloud, thick and choking. I know what this is. Bond shock. My body reacting to my mate. But the pain shouldn’t be this bad. Unless—

Unless Darko’s worse than I thought.

Unless finding my mate this late is backfiring instead of helping him stabilize.

I pull my hoodie off, using the sleeve to soak up the blood, and let my head fall back against the locker.

“You couldn’t pick a better time to wake up, huh?” I whisper, voice tight with sarcasm. “Just had to do it mid-practice. Real considerate of you.”

Still nothing.

“You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? Waiting till I smell her to twitch and then leaving me to bleed out in a damn hallway.”

The hallway’s quiet. My voice bounces off the metal walls like a bad echo.

Fuck, I wish Casen wasn’t talking to Coach. If I knew it would get this bad, I would have told him...

I press a hand to my chest. The pain radiates now. Down my arms. Up my neck. It’s like fire in slow motion. My vision swims.

“Okay,” I hiss. “Okay. Just breathe through it.”

But it’s not working.

My limbs start to feel heavier. Like something is pulling me down, anchoring me into the floor. The hoodie sleeve is soaked now.

I try to stand. Bad idea. The second I do, the whole hallway tilts like I’m on a damn boat in a storm. My legs give out. I slam back against the lockers, then crumple to the floor again.

“Darko...” I try one last time. It comes out a whisper. A plea. Not like me at all.

But the hallway’s spinning. *Casen, my locker now* I manage to mindlink Casen...

The scent from earlier floats back into my memory—warm, sweet, soul-piercing. Whoever she is, she just stirred up something inside me that might have already been too broken to fix. My body hits the cold floor hard.