Page 56 of Fresh Ice
There, in that warm place filled with Levy’s scent, Alonso drifted off peacefully.
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Another one of nature’s great jokes was that Alphas had far fewer ruts than Omegas had heats—one or two a year compared to the four or five cycles Omegas usually had to go through.
Ruts were infamous for being short but brutal. Some league Alphas played through them, although that custom had fallen out of popularity with time.
Alonso liked to think he was putting in the work day by day to not be so self-centred, but he hadn’t given Levy’s rut much thought. He’d brought knotting up in the heat of the moment, but that had been quickly repressed after the fact. It wasn’t until Levy brought it up that Alonso realised this was something that could affect them both.
“Hey, so, uh…” Levy started, “my rut’s next week.” They were both sacked out on the couch, some nonsense show in the background as they scrolled through their phones.
Alonso’s gaze snapped up, brain buffering for a few seconds. “What?”
“My rut. I’ve got it planned for the days off next week,” Levy repeated. League Alphas took regulators instead of suppressants to time their ruts, so of course Levy would have planned ahead for it.
“Oh.” Alonso wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to that.
“Yeah. So. I don’t know if you wanna…stay. Or if that would trigger your heat. Or if, you know, you don’t wanna deal with that,” Levy said.
Alonso felt heat run through him, a wildfire. “You want me to spend it with you?”
“I mean, only if you want to. I’d never presume or anything.”
“Oh. Yeah, I mean…that sounds good. I changed my suppressants, and I have new emergency ones. You won’t trigger anything.” He’d made sure to stress the importance of that to the doctor his dad had put him in touch with.
Levy frowned. “Is that gonna hurt you? Like, are those bad for you?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Cool.” They locked eyes, the tension between them pulsing.
Alonso was bursting with questions, but they didn’t bring it up again. He’d never even dreamt of spending a rut with someone, didn’t know what to expect beyond the obvious.
Would Levy be aggressive, like some Alphas got? Not in a dangerous way, but an increased intensity?
The thought of it made Alonso shudder.
Levy’s scent was already thickening during the game before their day off, their teammates chirping him mercilessly. Alonso was lucky that a lot of Alphas had only one rut a year during summer, saving him from questions he wouldn’t be able to answer.
Alonso didn’t know how he didn’t get hard through the game against the Grizzlies. Levy had apresence, and being on a line with him, watching his neat plays and hard hits when he smelt likethat, was torture. All he could do was lock it down and concentrate on his own play.
They won by a single goal, and Levy’s smile afterwards was feral.
Hungry.
Gabby approached Alonso after they’d all showered and dealt with the press. “Hey, you wanna stay at mine this weekend?”
Alonso blinked. “Huh? Why?”
Gabby tilted his head towards Levy, who was sitting in his stall on the other side of the room, staring at them darkly. “I wouldn’t peg Levy as the type of guy who’ll attack another Alpha in his space, but I’ve been wrong before.”
“Oh. No, it’s okay. He’s had a pseudo-rut around me. We’re good,” Alonso said, hoping he wasn’t giving away how hard his heart was pounding.
“Okay,” Gabby replied, stretching the word out dubiously. “Call me if you change your mind, or just come over.”
“Will do. Thanks, Cap.”
Gabby nodded, walking away, and Levy muscled into Alonso’s space as soon as he signalled that he was ready to go.
