Page 79 of Puck & Her Blades

He looks surprised. “I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you.”

“I’ll help you train.”

Something that I don’t understand flickers across his expression.

“A team is a family,” he says. “You’re part of that it seems, as much as you’re my pack. So, if you need anything, then you can come to me.”

I glow.

He says family, but I haven’t figured him out yet.

He was adopted by Roarke, but I’m sure that was simply as a way for Roarke to control the best hockey player and get him under his authority.

Who was Jackson’s first pack? Was he also abandoned or rejected?

There’s almost nothing in the press about him, apart from the fact that he was in the system, until he was adopted at seventeen by the Blade pack. I even spent two hours looking him up on the web, but there was less on there than there was about me.

I ended up being faced with my tumble in the World Championship endlessly repeated on social media to comedy music or with Alpha commentary about Omegas being put in their place.

At least it’s put fire in me about why I need to get back to skating.

I jangle my bracelet. “I’m a Rej. It’s not the same.”

Jackson arches his brow. “Isn’t it? Around here, I get the say on that. Nothing matters to me more than the Blades. Winning the Alpha Cup would be the pinnacle of my career. I've never had anything but hockey. I’ve spent my entire life dedicated to it. It’s all I know. If we win this game tomorrow, then we’ll only need one more win to get us through to the finals and, well, everything rests on the finals.”

His gaze is cool, but his words blaze with a deep passion that I recognize.

I admire his dedication.

To my shock, however, Jackson slides one hand to the back of my neck and the other to my waist. Then he lifts me over the boards.

I squeak, as he drops me onto the ground, steadying me as I almost overbalance.

I stare up at him in shock.

Then he presses me against the boards, caging me. “But I’d give up all of it — the chance at the Alpha Cup, my career, and the acclaim — if it meant that my pack was safe. If you were, then I’d never play hockey again.”

He means it.

I lost everything that he’s talking about, when I broke my leg.

Does he have any idea what he’d be sacrificing?

“You shouldn’t say bullshit like that.” My gaze is anguished. “You’re Jackson Blade: The legendary Ice King.”

“Bullshit, is it, Omega?” To my shock, Jackson’s cool cracks. I never expected there to be such molten depths of emotion running underneath his mask. He’s a seriously dominant Alpha but he’s one who’s in pain. “My other Omega has been bombarding my phone with hourly messages about you. He’s desperate to have you moved into his room in Blade House. He’s selected you as the female Omega for our pack, and it seems Ash has as well. When did you win him over?”

Shit, I don’t want to keep secrets, but at the same time, I don’t want to hurt Jackson by admitting what I overheard in the locker room.

I lick my lips. “Is this about the whole heart sign thing?”

“It’s about the fact that if it’s not my Omega messaging me, then it’s my Beta. They’re both fucking obsessed. I can see why.”

My breath catches. I stare into his cool eyes.

“Then why don’t you select me?” I demand. Hell, I didn’t mean to say that, when this Alpha is standing so close that all I can see is his tie. He’s so tall that if I don’t raise my head, I can’t even see his face. “I know that you have an asshole dad as Head Alpha, but you must be a millionaire in your own right. Can’t you fight him over this?”

When he doesn’t immediately reply, I peer up at him.

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