Chapter 172: The scent in here... It’s yours?

​Miller stumbled backward into the doorframe, his hands flying up in complete self-defense. "We’re going! We’re going!"

​"Hold on," I choked out.

​My voice was nothing but a gravelly rasp, barely louder than a whisper, but it stopped everyone in their tracks.

​Reid turned his head back, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck strained, his eyes silently pleading with me to let him throw them into the hallway. But I couldn’t. If they walked out that door right now in sheer panic, the entire locker room—the entire league—would know by noon.

​I forced my weak, trembling upper body to sit up against the sofa pillows, ignoring the agonizing flare of soreness in my lower back and hips. I pulled the oversized T-shirt taut around my neck, trying to cover as many of Reid’s dark, aggressive bite marks as humanly possible, though the heavy, undeniable scent of his frozen pine mixed with my lingering orchid pheromones hung in the air like a thick fog.

​I looked Russo and Miller dead in the eye, channeling every single ounce of authority I had left as Captain Evans, even while sitting half-bare in my winger’s living room.

​"Shut the door, Russo," I said, my voice steady, cold, and deadpan despite the terror clawing at my throat. "Lock it. And sit down."

​Russo swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically between Reid’s murderous scowl and my pale, bite-marked face.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, he pushed the front door shut until the electronic lock clicked into place. Neither he nor Miller moved an inch closer, standing in the entryway as if stepping onto the living room rug would set off an explosive.

​"Cap..." Miller whispered, his voice cracking, his fingers twitching at his sides. "You’re... the Omega? The scent in here... it’s yours?"

​"Yes," I said bluntly, leaving zero room for speculation, zero room for them to construct their own narrative. "It’s mine."

Russo squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing the bridge of his nose as if a sudden, violent migraine had hit him. "Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. Ten years... you’ve been in the league for ten years as a Beta, Cap..."

"And I intend to finish my career as one," I cut him off, my gaze hard and unyielding. "What you are looking at right now does not leave this room. Do you understand me?"

"Cap, I know you care for the team and all but why would you go this far?" Miller asked, looking genuinely confused. "Why would you let the rookie rip you apart like this? He went into a rut and you... you just let him—"

"I let him do this to me not because I’m a caring captain but because I’m his Omega." I finally confessed. "Reid is my boyfriend. If not me, who else would he share his rut with?"

​A heavy, suffocating beat passed.

​Russo squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing the bridge of his nose as if a sudden, violent migraine had hit him. "Ah, so... The rumors were actually true. All this time, he’s known that you’re an Omega? That you’ve been deceiving the league? And you two have been what? Playing house?"

​"Yes," I answered without a single flicker of hesitation.

​The silence that followed was absolute, terrifying in its weight.

​Panic, sharp and cold, began to coil around my chest. My fingers dug into the fabric of my sweatpants under the shirt, my mind racing through every single nightmare scenario that had kept me up for ten long years. If they talked, everything was over.

​"Please," I choked out, the raw vulnerability slipping through my carefully built defenses for the first time. "If the league finds out I’m an Omega... our records for the last ten years will all be scrambled. Everything we’ve built, every game we’ve bled for... these semifinals won’t even matter. They’ll void our victories."

​Miller looked like he had been struck by lightning, his jaw slack as he processed the sheer magnitude of what was at stake.

​"I can’t lose my career," I continued, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it locked down. "I don’t want to step down from the ice. I don’t want all of our effort—yours, mine, the entire team’s—to go to waste over this. I am asking you, as your Captain, for the sake of our careers and for the sake of the game we love so much... do not speak about this with anyone."

​The stakes hung in the air between us, impossibly high. We were teammates. We had gone to war on the ice together in hundreds of games, taking hits for each other, bleeding on the same ice, sharing every victory and crushing defeat.

​Russo let out a long, shuddering breath, staring at me in complete disarray. "It just... it surprises me, Cap. How can an Omega play this sport? Cap, how are you so strong?"

​I swallowed against the raw ache in my throat, holding his gaze firmly. "Because I had to be. Because I love the feeling of being in the ice. I love this sport. But... the ice doesn’t care what my secondary gender is, and neither did I. On the rink, I’m your Captain. That hasn’t changed."

​Miller rubbed his face with both hands, shaking his head slowly as the reality settled over them. "Fuck, Cap... we’ve played on the same line for three years. We’re not throwing you under the bus. We’re not throwing our own team under the bus either."

​"You have my word, Cap," Russo added, his expression softening into something fierce and solemn. "We didn’t see anything. We came back for the clipboard, couldn’t find it, and left. End of story. Not a soul hears about this."

​Reid let out a slow, heavy breath beside me, though his hand remained clamped protectively over my shoulder. "If a single rumor starts circulating, I’m coming for both of you."

​"Nobody’s talking, McCoy," Miller grunted, raising his hands in absolute surrender before grabbing Russo by the jacket. "We’re going. Get some rest, Cap. See you at practice."

​They swiped the keycard, backed out into the hallway, and pulled the heavy door shut behind them.

​The moment the electronic lock clicked into place, the air rushed back into my lungs. I let out a broken, shuddering sigh, my strength completely evaporating as I collapsed sideways against Reid’s broad, warm chest.

​Reid immediately wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his heart, his lips pressing a fierce, lingering kiss against the top of my head.

​"I’m sorry. I didn’t think they would find out like this. Your secret... more and more people are finding out about it," he grumbled into my hair, his chest heaving with heavy, guilt-ridden breaths.

​I gripped his shirt, my fingers digging tight into the fabric as I clung to his body, taking in the grounding, steady warmth of his chest.

​It seems the small crack from the start is beginning to widen, splintering slowly through the foundation I had spent a decade building.

First it was Reid, then Edward’s lingering threat, and now Russo and Miller. Every time I thought I had sealed the truth back into the dark, another tear ripped through the fabric of our secrecy.

The fortress that used to feel ironclad was starting to feel like a house of cards waiting for a single gust of wind to blow it down.

​"It wasn’t your fault," I rasped softly, resting my chin against his collarbone, staring blankly at the far wall of the living room. "They came back for a clipboard. Neither of us expected them to use a spare keycard."

​"It doesn’t matter," Reid growled quietly, his fingers tangling into my messy hair, his thumb stroking my temple with possessive, protective rhythm. "I promised I’d keep you safe, Kain. I promised I’d shield you from all of it. And now two of my own line-mates are walking around holding your entire life in their hands."

​"They’re our teammates, Reid," I whispered, though a cold, persistent tremor was still running through my belly. "They care about the team. They care about the cup. They know what happens if my identity gets out—the league cancels our season, our records get wiped, and everything we’ve bled for disappears. They won’t burn down their own careers just to spread gossip."

​"I don’t trust anyone with you," Reid muttered, his voice dropping into that dark, low tone that belonged strictly to his Alpha instincts.

He buried his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling the sweet, lingering mix of my orchid pheromones and his heavy pine. "If either of them so much as breathes a word of this... if anyone tries to take you off my ice..."

​"They won’t," I interrupted, nudging my forehead against his jaw to force him to look at me. "And right now, we have bigger things to focus on. We have four days before Game 2. I have to be able to skate, Reid. I have to stand up, put my armor on, and command that locker room like nothing happened."

​Reid stared down into my eyes, the fierce, volatile edge in his grey irises slowly softening into something painfully tender. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine, his hot breath brushing across my lips.

​"How are you going to explain the morning drills to Coach tomorrow?" he asked softly, his hand resting flat against my lower back, right over the ache that was still radiating down my thighs. "You can barely walk to the kitchen."

​"I’ll figure it out," I said, a faint, tired smirk tugging at the corner of my lips as I leaned up to press a soft kiss against his mouth. "I’m the Captain, McCoy. Making excuses for my star winger’s chaos is practically in my contract."