Page 9 of Broken Ice
And, because life was wonderful and Beau was God’s favourite, the first time he slipped into heat around them was on the road. During the middle of practice.
One second, he was goofing off with Tinny as everybody rehydrated, and the next, he was on one knee, clutching his stomach and groaning as if he’d been shot.
“I—I didn’t do anything!” Tinny stuttered above him, but Beau was too busy having his intestines stabbed by a thousand knives.
“Em,” someone said, panic in their voice, and then a body was pressing him into the boards—not possessively, but protectively, shielding him from the rest of the arena.
“Don’t fucking touch him.” The voice was lanced through with an Alpha’s growl, so deep and thick that it made Beau shudder.
Beau stuffed his nose against the person’s stomach. Holyfuckdid that smell good. His head swam with it, cramps dying down enough for him to regain his senses.
“Let me up,” Beau croaked.
Torres—because the person warding everybody away was definitely Torres—moved at once, gripping Beau’s forearms and helping him to his feet.
“I’m fine,” he said to the group that had collected around him. “It’s normal, it’s just bad cramps. I need to get to the hotel, though.”
White hovered nearby, although Torres’s scent went crazy when the coach got too close. “Okay. Let’s get you to the locker room, and we’ll contact Phil,” White said.
Torres’s smell got even worse. “Who the fuck is Phil?”
“Torres,” Beau snapped. “Locker room. Let’s go.”
Torres, who had seemingly turned into a voice-operated machine—got moving, hustling Beau through the tunnel.
“How can you stand my scent, dude?” Beau chirped. “You know that just because you’re the only one who hates how Ismell doesn’t mean the others are going to attack me, right? You can tone down the protective Alpha schtick.”
What a day to discover that Torres was one of those Alphas who took packdeadlyserious. Beau had noticed from the beginning that the guy had a way with the team that was reminiscent of how things worked in the old days when everybody lived in smaller communities, tight-knit and loyal to each other.
Nowadays, a lot of people didn’t even refer to pack, especially Americans. Beau’s Québécois dad came from a culture that valued scent-marking to bring people together as one.
Beauwassurprised that Torres had so thoroughly accepted him as part of that, going as far as withstanding what was probably a hell of a smell to protect Beau from…well, nothing in particular, but it was the thought that counted.
They got to the locker room in one piece, Beau dropping onto the bench at the stall he’d been using. He sat there for a moment, breathing through the pain that was ramping up again.
No. He could do this. Phil would get him, and he’d go to the hotel, and he’d stay in his room. Alone.
His hands were shaking so badly it was a struggle to unlace his skates. Beau didn’t have the strength to protest as Torres knocked them aside and did it for him.
Beau ground his forehead against his knees, pressing on his abdomen, willing the cramps away.
“What do you need?” Torres asked, voice rough.
“Shoes. Phil.”
“Who’s Phil?”
“I need to be taken to the hotel. He was lucky enough to be assigned the job.”
Torres put Beau’s shoes on his feet. “I’ll take you.”
“We’re in Halifax. You don’t have a car.”
“Does Phil have a car?”
“Yes. He gets a rental in case this happens. I’m a very expensive asset, don’t you—” Beau wasn’t sure if the last bit was comprehensible. A hand made of magma had just gripped his uterus and was sizzling it into a lump of burning flesh.
Beau blinked online an undetermined amount of time later. Oh, there was the disorientation. Where was he? He needed to get his mom—something was wrong with him. Maybe he had food poisoning again and he was about to shit his brains out.
