Chapter 1: The Hit

Chapter One: The Hit

The puck slammed into the boards with a crack that echoed through the arena like gunfire. The impact shuddered up Jax Harlan’s spine, but he didn’t flinch. He never did. That was the job. Be the wall. Take the hits, give them back harder, and make damn sure the other team remembered your name the next time they thought about skating too close to your goalie.

Tonight it was the Ice Wolves.

Their captain Ronan Kane had been in Jax’s space since warm-ups. The guy skated like he owned the ice, all controlled power and cold precision, movements economical and lethal. During face-offs, Jax caught Kane watching him from across the red line, dark eyes sweeping his line like he was sizing up prey.

Rivalry bullshit, Jax told himself. Nothing more.

He crouched for the next draw, stick down, skates biting into the ice. The ref dropped the puck and chaos exploded. Jax surged forward, shoulder-checking one of Kane’s wingers clean out of the play. The crowd roared—home ice advantage for the Stormbreakers—but the sound barely registered over the blood pounding in his ears.

Then it happened.

Kane came out of nowhere, low and fast, driving his shoulder into Jax’s ribs like a battering ram. Jax twisted at the last second, turning it into a glancing blow, but it still knocked the wind from his lungs. They slammed into the boards together, bodies colliding hard, helmets clacking.

For a split second, they were chest to chest. Face shields inches apart.

Jax smelled it before he felt anything else.

Sharp. Sweet. Cedar smoke threaded with honey and something electric, like heat lightning cracking the air before a storm. It hit him low in the gut, twisting tight and pulling hard. His vision tunneled. The lights flared too bright. The roar of the crowd dulled to a distant hum.

His skin prickled beneath his pads, heat flooding his body as if someone had poured boiling water down his spine.

What the fuck?

Kane froze.

Just for a heartbeat but Jax saw it. Those storm-gray eyes widened behind the cage. Kane’s nostrils flared, pupils blown wide. His grip on Jax’s jersey tightened, fingers digging in like he needed the anchor.

Then the pain hit.

It bloomed in Jax’s core, deep and cramping, radiating outward until his limbs burned. His knees buckled. He caught himself on the boards, breath tearing in and out of his chest. Sweat poured down his face, soaking his underlayer.

His scent glands fuck. They throbbed, swollen and hot, leaking something they had no right to be leaking.

No.

No way.

He was twenty-eight. Three months past his birthday. Betas didn’t present late everyone knew that. He’d taken every test, every blood draw since he was fourteen. Beta. Clean. Ordinary. Safe.

Nothing that made you vulnerable on the ice.

But the heat ripping through him now wasn’t beta.

It was omega.

Full. Brutal. Undeniable.

The ref’s whistle shrilled, slicing through the moment. Play stopped. Teammates swarmed him, shouting his name. Jax shoved them back, staggering toward the bench. His vision swam, every breath dragging more of the scent into his lungs his own scent, blooming like a goddamn flower in the middle of a fight.

He barely made it to the tunnel before his legs gave out. Dropping to one knee, he pressed his glove to his neck, right over the gland pulsing hottest. A medic was already there, crouching, shining a light in his eyes.

“Harlan? Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Jax couldn’t answer. His throat locked tight, words stuck behind clenched teeth. Another wave crashed through him, slick heat pooling between his thighs beneath all that gear.

Humiliating.

Impossible.

From the ice, the announcer’s voice crackled over the speakers. “Penalty on Kane roughing. Two minutes.”

Jax looked up through the tunnel entrance.

Ronan Kane stood on the ice, helmet off, dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He wasn’t moving toward the box. He was staring straight at Jax, chest heaving, eyes locked on him with unnerving intensity.

Like a predator that had just caught a scent.

Or something sweeter.

Jax’s stomach lurched as Kane’s alpha scent hit him strong and dark, pine and smoke and raw dominance. It wrapped around him from twenty feet away, heavy as a claim.

No.

Jax forced himself upright, leaning hard into the medic’s grip. “I’m fine,” he rasped. A lie. “Just got the wind knocked out of me.”

The medic didn’t buy it. “You’re burning up. We’re taking you to the locker room. Now.”

Jax let them half-carry him down the tunnel. Behind him, he felt Kane’s gaze like a brand seared between his shoulders.

He didn’t look back.

But deep inside, in the primal part of him that had just woken up screaming, Jax knew one thing with brutal certainty:

This wasn’t over.

Not even close.