Pucked On Ice

Hello readers,

This story contains light omegaverse elements, specifically the alpha and omega dynamic between characters. Please note that this is not connected to werewolves, shifters, or any supernatural mythology in any way. There are no transformations, no heats, no mpreg, and no fantasy world-building. Think of it simply as a biological personality dynamic where alphas are naturally dominant and commanding, while omegas are more reactive to that energy. Everything else is grounded in the real world. Just two rival hockey players, one rink, and a whole lot of unresolved tension. Enjoy 😊

Riven

His hand closed around my throat the moment my last teammate walked out.

One second I was alone in the locker room, still coming down from the high of the final buzzer, and the next I was shoved against the metal lockers with Kael Dravin’s fingers locked around my neck like he owned it.

Like he owned me.

“I’ve warned you, haven’t I?”

His eyes were red. Not the tired kind of red. It was the kind that comes from somewhere much darker, much less rational. He was fuming, his jaw tight, his whole body radiating the particular heat of an alpha who had decided that consequences were someone else’s problem tonight.

My feet barely touched the floor.

I wanted to grab his wrist. Wanted to pry his fingers off one by one and make him regret every single one of them. But I knew better. I’d always known better with Kael, even when every other part of me refused to back down. He was an alpha who was built differently and wired differently, and right now with his hand at my throat and his eyes that color, one wrong move was all it would take.

So I held still. And I hated myself for it.

“Stay away from my sister.” His voice dropped low, which was somehow worse than the yelling. “If you don’t want to lose your head, stay away from May. Son of a bitch.”

He released me.

I dropped back onto my feet and immediately bent forward, one hand braced on my knee, coughing hard and beating my fist against my chest. My face was burning. My neck throbbed where each of his fingers had been.

“If I see you with her again,” he said, and I could hear him straightening behind me, could hear the calm settling back over him like a coat he was putting on, “I will kill you. I don’t care where we are. I don’t care if it’s right there on that rink.”

His footsteps crossed the locker room.

The door opened. Then, it closed.

I stayed bent over for another few seconds, breathing through it. Then I straightened, turned and looked at the empty room around me. He’d walked in, pointed at every single one of his teammates with one sharp look, and they’d filed out without a word. Alphas were like that — they didn’t need to raise their voice to clear a room.

I hated that about him most.

Mother fucker, I exhaled.

I reached for the water bottle on the bench beside me and drank half of it in one go, the cold cutting through the heat still crawling up my neck. The Bulls had won tonight — 5 to 4 in the final minute, a goal I’d set up myself — and somehow I was the one sitting in an empty locker room feeling like I’d lost something.

The door opened again. This time it was my teammates filtering back in, still buzzing from the win, their voices loud and overlapping.

“Hey.” Dex appeared first, dropping onto the bench across from me, his eyes scanning my face with the particular attention of someone who already had a guess. “What happened?”

“What did he say?” someone else called from across the room.

“Are you alright?” That was Finn, quieter than the rest, reading me the way he always did.

“Yeah,” I said. I picked up the water bottle again. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nobody pushed. That was the thing about the Bulls — they were loud and chaotic and completely incapable of being on time for anything, but they knew when to let something go. A few of them tapped my back or shoulder on their way past. The celebration resumed around me, easy and warm, and I let it exist without me for a little while.

I showered, changed and pulled my bag over my shoulder and pushed out of the locker room into the corridor.

The cold hit me the moment I stepped outside.

It was snowing gently and slowly. It seemed like it had just started. I pulled my headphones up over my ears, adjusted my bag strap and had taken exactly one step toward the parking lot when I saw May.

She was standing just off the path, her dark hair dusted with snowflakes she hadn’t bothered to brush off, a bright smile already breaking across her face the moment she saw me. She lifted her hand and waved like we were old friends running into each other somewhere pleasant and not standing outside an arena where her brother had just tried to end my life.

I stopped.

Looked left. Looked right. Scanned the lot, the entrance, and the shadows near the building.

Shit.

I rubbed my nose, my eyes darting around the parking lot one more time.

No sign of him.

May closed the distance between us before I could manufacture a reason to walk away, her smile the kind that had no idea it was causing problems.

“Hey?” I kept my voice low, taking one small involuntary step back.

“Congratulations on winning tonight’s game!” she said, like the score hadn’t nearly given me a heart attack in the final minute.

“Yeah.” I kept my face neutral, my voice flatter than the ice we’d just left. “Thanks.”

She was already digging through her bag. I watched her pull out a small box and extend it toward me, and something in my chest did something unhelpful.

I looked left and right, then back at her.

“Have it! It’s a present for winning.”

“No," I shook my head. “May. Take it back.”

Her face collapsed immediately — bottom lip out, eyes going soft and wounded in that way that was probably completely unintentional and somehow still incredibly effective. “What? Why?”

I exhaled. Long and slow and utterly pointless. “I just don’t want it, okay?”

I turned.

Her arms suddenly came around me from behind so fast I genuinely didn’t process it until they were already locked tight, her chin digging into my back with the quiet determination of someone who had absolutely made up her mind.

“May.” I grabbed at her arms. “What are you—”

“Take the gift and I’ll let you go.”

She wasn’t moving. I pulled at her arms again, mildly, and she simply held tighter. For someone her size this was unreasonable.

“Fine.” I stopped, dropping my hands in surrender.

“Promise?”

“Yes, May. I promise.” I looked up at the falling snow and questioned every decision I had ever made.

She released me and handed over the box. I took it.

“I’ll take my leave now,” I said.

“Already?” Her hand found mine before I’d moved an inch. “You can’t just leave without at least looking at it.”

I stared at her hand on mine. Then at her face — open, hopeful, completely unaware of the fact that her brother had his fingers around my throat twenty minutes ago.

I opened the box.

The necklace sat against dark velvet. It was a simple chain and had a small pendant.

“So, do… you like it?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t, actually. My brain had stopped cooperating somewhere between seeing it and understanding why it looked so familiar. I stood there in the snow with the box open in my hands and my thoughts going somewhere I had no business letting them go.

“Riven!” She shook my arm hard.

I blinked and looked up at her.

“I’ve been calling your name. What are you even thinking about right now?”

I just swallowed.

“See?” She grinned. “You love it. You’re literally speechless.”

I swallowed again.

The necklace was identical to Kael’s.

Same chain. Same pendant. The same one he wore to every game, every practice, every press conference. The one he reached for after every goal automatically, without thinking, lifting it briefly, and kissing it, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I closed the box.