Chapter Text
In hindsight, Shane thought that maybe he shouldn’t have introduced himself to Ilya Rozanov after all.
Maybe Shane had let his professional curiosity get the better of him, because this wasn’t going the way he’d planned at all. After playing at a level so far above his peers for so long, the knowledge that there was another player, and a fellow rookie, at that, who could go toe to toe with him.
Well, it’d been an intoxicating thought. Being the first omega to rise this high in professional hockey circles was bad enough, but being one so far above the skill level of anyone else had made him untouchable, in more ways than one.
Shane was lonely, and he’d secretly hoped he’d met his match in Ilya Rozanov, maybe even a friend.
The cold reception he was currently receiving was quickly disabusing him of that notion.
Shane’s first impression of Rozanov was that, even scowling hunched over his cigarette as he was, he looked more like a grecian statue than a man, the planes of his face so beautifully harsh they might as well have been carved by stone.
Those same planes only softened ever so slightly when Rozanov finally noticed him.
This was a terrible idea.
A sentiment that only strengthened the longer Shane stood there, palm stuck out in greeting, his smile sliding off his face as Rozanov continued to stare silently back.
“Uh, hey,” Shane said, summarily mortified now. “I’m –”
Rozanov’s exasperated exhale cut him short. “Yes, I know.”
He was taken aback only for a moment. Right. His shoulders slumped. Of course he knows who I am.
As much as Shane tried to block out the chatter that his own presence inspired, the same obviously wasn’t true for his peers. Shane was the first omega to play hockey at their level, or the first one who’d been allowed to, at least – and on the cusp of being drafted to the MLH, of course Rozanov knew who he was.
Don’t suppose Rozanov spent all night Googling everything about me, though, he thought with no small amount of weariness.
Rozanov continued ignoring his outstretched hand in favour of looking past his shoulder. Is he looking for someone else to talk to? He thought, reluctantly amused despite himself.
In this dilapidated, hidden nook outside the rink, there wasn’t a single other soul around – and he’d know, he’d triple-checked as much for himself before following Rozanov out there.
“This is,” Rozanov said, eyes finally sliding back to Shane. “A surprise.”
It wasn’t the first time Shane had heard Rozanov speak, though the tinny speakers on his hand-me-down Sony Ericsson had not done his voice justice. A low, heavy baritone, his Russian lilt seemed even more pronounced in person, so thick it took Shane a moment to fully register the words.
Unperturbed by Shane’s silence, Rozanov’s tongue slipped through parted lips to give the tip of his cigarette a delicate lick – an entirely subconscious motion, if his bored stare was anything was anything to go by.
Shane forced his gawping mouth shut, before his brain caught up with his ears. “What is?”
Ilya settled back against the peeling concrete behind him, his lackadaisical manner at odds with the calculating eyes examining him from head to toe, gaze only pausing to stare at length at Shane’s still outstretched hand –
Jesus Christ. He’d been so starstruck by Rozanov, he’d forgotten to put his arm down. His social skills weren’t anywhere near as honed as his hockey, but even if they had been he knew there was no way to play that off.
Grimacing, Shane awkwardly dropped his arm –
Through a plume of cigarette smoke, a black and white blur broke through the haze and caught Shane’s retreating arm.
“Hey!”
The moment their fingers touched, a short, sharp burst of static electricity singed across his flesh, sending a white hot streak from the tip of his ring finger, all the way up to his heart. Ouch.
Alarmed by the static shock, it took several stunned beats of his pounding heart to register that Ilya fucking Rozanov was now holding his hand.
In broad daylight, at a game. Shane stared at their tangled fingers. Another man, and a fucking alpha, at that –
“Is surprising,” Rozanov repeated again, with all the carefree insouciance of someone not currently holding another man’s hand out in public. “That omegas like you are walking around without chaperones, Shane Hollander.” He shook Shane’s limp hand, thumb stroking the meat of his palm to touch the thin skin of his wrist. “I did not think I was allowed to touch.”
He punctuated that with a single, unnerving thumb pressed right against the hummingbird flutter of Shane’s radial pulse. There was no need to take his pulse; alpha hearing was keen enough to easily hear his racing heart, and they both knew it.
Rozanov had a point; there weren’t many omegas as old as Shane who hadn’t already been collared and bonded to an alpha, or at the very least legally contracted to one. Shane sometimes wore a collar to avoid the inevitable staring and pearl clutching that came with walking around without a chaperone, but he hadn’t thought it was necessary for the International Prospect Cup.
“I…was just coming to introduce myself,” Shane said, then winced, because that was not the fucking point, Hollander. Tugging at their joined hands, he scowled. “And it’s not the 1950’s, I don’t need a chaperone – you might be surprised to know omegas are also allowed to vote now, too.”
Rozanov smiled around his cigarette, but otherwise offered nothing more than a disinterested, “Hn, okay,” before he finally released him.
Unbelievable. Hiding his tingling hand by his side, Shane resisted the urge to shake out the odd sensation. Only a few seconds into enduring the intensity his laconic gaze, Shane wasn’t sure if he wanted to beat a hasty retreat, or linger a little longer in his presence.
Taking a wary step back, he muttered, “Good luck with your game.”
Rozanov was smiling now, and that was somehow more alarming than his initial aloofness. Shane tolerated another few seconds of excruciating silence before he turned away with a huff.
Ilya Rozanov’s thick accent did nothing to conceal his amusement as he called out after him, “Yes. You will be needing it.”
What an ass.
He ducked his chin to hide his grin. “You wish.”
+
“That is the omega?”
Ilya Rozanov bristled at his father’s acerbic tone, fingers flexing reflexively as he zeroed in on the rookies lazily batting pucks into the net below.
The International Prospect Cup had long since ended, but even now Shane Hollander remained on the ice, casually skating alongside a handful of other stragglers whose names Ilya hadn’t bothered to commit to memory.
And why would he? None of them had bothered making an impression, let alone introduce themselves to Ilya personally like Hollander had.
Even hours later, standing in shadows high above the rink with his father and a veritable hoard of Russian bureaucrats, Ilya still felt the heat of the omega’s palm print burned into his hand like a brand.
By his father’s side, Ilya’s old coach let out a grunt. “His technique is surprisingly graceful,” he muttered, with a reluctance so palpable it might as well have been coerced at gunpoint. “Omegas usually take better to figure skating…”
It was a benign enough comment on the surface, if not for the insulting implication lurking beneath it.
Truth be told, Ilya had similarly wondered about Hollander’s history when he’d first noticed him on the ice. His agility and grace was unlike any other rookie he’d seen – he cut across the ice like he was floating above it, the puck seemingly magnetised to his stick’s blade as he weaved through the other side’s defenders like they weren’t even there.
Russia had won the tournament, but Ilya had still stepped off the ice wholly unsettled.
The most he’d ever heard about Hollander had began and ended at his omega nature, or more specifically, how his presence was supposedly a danger to the integrity of the MLH’s future as a whole.
That he was the first, and only, omega with a chance to be drafted into the league in its entire history was hardly the most interesting thing about him, not when he played like that.
Father’s lip curled in his periphery. “It’s a disgrace, letting this half-breed mutt participate.”
Whether he was referring to Hollander’s Japanese heritage, or his status as a male omega wasn’t entirely clear, but knowing his father Ilya hazarded it was likely both.
He shifted on his feet, discomfited by the growing pit in his stomach threatening to sour his team’s earlier victory.
If by some miracle Hollander was drafted, it was true that he likely wouldn’t last a season. The league was not a place for an omega, no matter how talented he clearly was, let alone someone who didn’t fit the conventional mould of a white, North American alpha.
He is pretty, though. Ilya mused, And very strange. It would be a shame not to play against that awkward, earnest omega again, but deep down he knew it would be for the best.
Male omegas might be astronomically rare, and far less revered than their female counterparts, but Hollander would surely make a handsome enough mate for any alpha who eventually pursued him.
Though being relegated to a pretty trophy and plaything for an alpha who owned you in every sense of the word was hardly a fairytale ending, it was a better fate than most male omegas could hope for.
It’s a waste. Ilya gnashed his teeth at the thought.
It might not be true freedom, but there were few in the world who had that luxury. Ilya certainly didn’t, and he was an alpha with far more inherent advantages than an omega could ever hope for.
No, a life better suited to his nature would be a better fate – far better than the nightmare he’d inevitably face in the league.
+++
It was only a few months before Shane saw Rozanov again – far sooner than expected, but the MLH wasn’t about to wait until the season started to capitalise on their supposed rivalry.
Or so he’d thought, because apparently the MLH wasn’t the reason he was geared up on the ice, with a face full of makeup slowly melting beneath the heat of the massive key lights beaming down on his skin.
No, Ilya fucking Rozanov had apparently set this little advertising campaign up, and the implication of that was terrifying to grapple with.
It’d only been a few months since they’d both been drafted, and after coming second to Rozanov, it felt like he couldn’t turn a corner without being reminded of the smug Russian who stole first draft pick from him.
“Are you listening to me, Shane?”
No, Shane thought, dragging his eyes away from the sight of Rozanov posing for the camera to meet his mother’s shrewd stare.
“Did you see that note I left you? Tom Ford reached out.” She picked a speck of lint off his shoulder with a frown. “They make beautiful pieces, and they’d be interested in working with you to create their first line of collars for men…”
Shane grimaced. Is there even a market for that?
“I don’t need a collar.” It was a familiar refrain, and he braced himself for the inevitable argument.
Mom ran a tight ship, but ultimately let Shane veto any deals if he felt strongly enough about it. His refusal to wear a collar on the ice was proving to be one issue she wasn’t willing to drop.
And as predicted, she didn’t take his refusal well. “It’s too dangerous to go without. This isn’t your peewee hockey team anymore; these guys aren’t going to go easy on you.” She flattened her hands against his collarbone, voice lowering meaningfully as she spoke, “They bite, Shane. A lot.”
The way she was talking, she was acting as though he wasn’t well aware of that already.
Shane’s lip quirked up. “I know, and a little collar isn’t going to stop that.” That went down like a tonne of bricks. “I’ve been bitten before, mom,” he added with a sigh.
But her eyes were already glazing over in deep thought. “We haven’t done an allergy test since last summer,” she argued. “Alpha venom gets more potent with age, I’ll see if we can book you in next week…”
He stiffened and thought, Absolutely not. It’d been hard enough getting this far, if the MLH caught wind of a potential allergy to alpha venom…
I won’t even make it to my first game.
Although both alphas and betas outnumbered omegas by a massive margin, there was an even rarer subset of his kind, ones who were deathly allergic to all alphas but their own – the only omegas capable of forming an unbreakable mating bond with another alpha.
Imprinting. He stifled a scoff.
Though there were apparently a handful of those omegas that existed in the world today, Shane still wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t just a myth made up to increase the value of some poor omega’s marriage contract in a bygone era.
“I’m not allergic, mom.” He lifted his chin, and said with a voice forged with steel, “And I’m not wearing one.” But the sight of her stunned expression had him quickly back pedalling, and he tried for a reassuring smile. “Besides, they’re not supposed to use venom when they bite anyway. They get big penalties for that.”
She looked ready to argue, but something in his expression had her eyes softening. Unperturbed by her defeat, she barrelled down a new line of inquiry.
“How’s the implant?” She squeezed his upper arm, and that was all it took for his face to flush pink.
“Mom.“
Pheromone blocking medication had come a long way in recent years, and while they were more than enough to suppress his scent and heats, the Metros had insisted redundancies were necessary before he’d be allowed on the ice.
Which was how he ended up with the thin, rod-shaped implant sitting beneath the skin of his left inner arm, and a tiny scar that earned him more than his fair share of knowing smirks from the team.
It was a device meant for omegas who had trouble with more frequent heats, ones who’d otherwise spend their adult lives perpetually pregnant without the device – not meant for professional hockey players trying to avoid unwanted attention on the ice.
No, the implant felt more like an insult than a medical necessity.
+
When Ilya slipped into Shane Hollander’s hotel room hours later, he was subsumed with a sense of inevitability.
That was likely because he’d been scheming for weeks – months, he corrected inwardly – to see Shane again, but still, no one could blame him for that. He could only live off those visions of Shane panting and sucking on his water bottle for so long, before he had to take matters into his own hands.
And now…
Now, Ilya had him right where he wanted him. Pressed against the wall and so warm and real beneath his palms, he let his hands roam up Shane’s naked flank, smiling at poorly stifled whimper.
Before long Ilya’s eyes caught on the shadow of Shane’s arm, where a thin line of scar tissue marred his skin just above his elbow.
An implant? Ilya blinked, mouth inordinately dry. Really?
It made no sense, the sight of that particular device was completely incongruous with the image he had of Shane in his mind – a buttoned up, prudish, flighty man, one who was apparently using an implant favoured only by the most untamed, concupiscent omegas.
His narrowed eyes slid up to admire Shane’s swiftly reddening cheeks. Interesting.
“This is your first time with man?” Ilya posed it as a question, though the answer was clear in the awkward, uncertain way Shane tensed beneath his touch, in the inexpert way he’d swallowed his cock only minutes earlier.
Not that Ilya was complaining – he hadn’t lied when he’d said that Shane’s sloppy eagerness had almost set him off. Between that, andthe way his dark eyes flattened into twin pools of flat colour the way only an omega’s could, it was a combination tailor made to drive Ilya to the brink.
God, he might come just thinking about it.
“Well?” Ilya prompted again. When Shane nodded, he added with forced evenness, “And you’ve never had an alpha?”
A light flush warmed Shane’s cheekbones when he muttered, “No.”
Really? Ilya paused, eyes darting to the implant and back. Then why do you need that?
“That’s not –” Shane cut himself off, shoulders stiffening as he averted his gaze. “The implant is a second redundancy - in case I forget my suppressants…”
He smiled in the face of his babbling, until the rabbiting flutter of Shane’s heart drew his eye to the thrumming pulse at his throat, and Ilya was swooping down to press slow, wet kisses down his neck. He stopped just short of the tiny mound of flesh swelling at the juncture of his shoulder and throat, lips skirting dangerously close as he nosed around it with an inquisitive noise.
His mating gland.
Ilya wasn’t as precious about avoiding that spot as most alphas were – as far as he was concerned, the taboo of touching it was half the appeal. So long as he didn’t bite him there, touching it shouldn’t be a problem.
“It’s fine,” Shane stammered. “Just, uh, don’t bite, obviously –”
Obviously. Rolling his eyes, Ilya wasted no time wrapping his lips around the throbbing nub, chuckling when Shane melted into his arms with a haggard gasp.
Even neutralised by suppressants, the scent of Shane’s arousal was a heady thing, just as potent at his throat as it would be between his legs, and Ilya pressed his body flush to his as he greedily lapped at his gland.
So swollen and warm beneath his tongue as it was, Ilya would’ve feared Shane was on the cusp of heat if he hadn’t seen that little implant with his own two eyes. With that thing nestled safely beneath his skin, no one would ever trigger a heat in Shane Hollander.
Ilya’s nose wrinkled at the thought, eyes growing heavy as his tongue swirled delicately around his pulsing gland.
He should probably have some misgivings about touching an omega’s mating gland so freely – even if the risk of accidental damage or bonding was minimal, it was generally agreed among alphas that touching one you had no intentions of biting was supremely disrespectful to the alpha who’d eventually claim it.
Ilya decided he cared more about pulling those sweetly surprised noises from Shane’s mouth now, than he did some faceless alpha who might be offended that Ilya had touched what wasn’t his.
Finder’s keepers, he thought, lips curving into a satisfied smile.
With his mouth still pressed to his neck, an abrupt pressure radiating in his gums was his only warning of impending disaster, and he ripped his face away before his fangs could lengthen and pierce the skin of Shane’s throat.
Shit.
He swallowed the glut of venom pooling on his tongue, smiling at Shane to conceal his own surprise. That’s never happened before.
Unwilling to ruin the moment, he pushed his trepidation down and busied himself with ripping Shane’s jeans open instead.
“What about you? Have you been with a…” Shane’s question petered away as Ilya worked the denim down his thighs.
Ilya didn’t limit himself in that way – alphas, betas, omegas, man or woman, none of it mattered to him the way it did for others, though finding an unattached omega wasn’t exactly a common occurrence.
Shane wasn’t the first omega he’d slept with, but he was the first male one, and he told him as much, watching the pleased smile form on his face with an answering one of his own.
+
I have no idea what I’m doing.
It was a thought that haunted Shane throughout the night, but if Ilya shared in that sentiment, he didn’t show it.
If anything, with the way Ilya bucked into his mouth, hair fisted tight in Shane’s hair, he seemed quite taken with his amateurish second attempt at sucking his cock.
Not for the first time that night, he thought, What am I doing?
If anyone caught them like this, it’d be game over for both of their careers. The MLH’s contempt for any sexuality that diverted from the norm was well known, and two star rookies sleeping together wouldn’t go down well.
Even if half the league thinks I’m a woman anyway –
“Fuck, Hollander.”
Rozanov’s moan was punctuated by his cock rippling ominously beneath his tongue, and Shane’s eyes slipped closed as he focused on maintaining his steady pace. He was only just getting into a rhythm, jaw adjusting to the girth and pressure of Ilya’s cock filling his mouth, when the hand in his locks abruptly pulled him off.
What?
Shane’s protests quickly died as Ilya began fisting himself at a brutal pace, and his eyes bugged when he noticed the rounded protrusion swelling at the base of his cock.
His knot? Shane licked the saliva from his bottom lip, mind curiously light. He didn’t think alphas were capable of knotting outside of a heat–rut cycle, but then again…
He flushed. Maybe that’s just a porn cliche.
Shane was barely spared a moment to watch him ride out his release, before Ilya was cleaning himself off and swinging his legs off the bed.
He jolted as though he’d been slapped, because he knew alphas had a reputation for selfishness in bed, but he hadn’t expected –
“Your face,” Ilya snickered, casting a sly look over his shoulders that seized oddly at Shane’s frozen expression. “I would not leave you like that,” he said, with a dark sort of sincerity that was as touching as it was unsettling.
Shane shivered, chalking up the strange, formal declaration as a quirk of their language barrier.
It should’ve been terrifying, watching Rozanov’s smirking face descending down his body, the razor sharp tips of his fangs peeking out between his lips. He paused only to plant teasing kisses down his abdomen, skirting deliberately close to the leaking line of Shane’s cock.
He barely registered his own hand moving until he found himself cupping the side of Rozanov’s cheek, thumb hovering just shy of his cupid’s bow.
“How do you.” Shane’s voice seized when Rozanov took his thumb between his lips. “How do you keep them out of the way – your fangs, I mean?”
Rozanov merely sucked him down to the first knuckle, lidded eyes glinting playfully at Shane’s hitched gasp, before he pulled off with a parting graze of teeth. “The same way you did,” he said. “It is… instinct?”
Oh. God, Shane hadn’t even factored them in when he’d gone down on Rozanov – his canines only made themselves known in great fits of anger or arousal, the same as an alpha’s, yet they so rarely appeared that he sometimes forgot he even had them.
His own ignorance was mortifying, and the yawning gap between their levels of experience was only becoming more apparent with every stupid question Shane let slip, but Rozanov didn’t seem to be put off by it at all.
So caught in his own head, it took a torturous, featherlight brush of Rozanov’s thumb stroking the underside of his shaft to snap him back to attention.
“Can I?” Rozanov whispered, holding his parted lips a scant few inches from Shane’s crown. “I can give demonstration?”
Shane blinked dumbly down at him. “What?” He breathed.
He eyed his wet lips that hovered so achingly close to his cock. Does he mean…? He’d thought Rozanov was about to jerk him off, and the fact that he might be offering to suck him off hadn’t even entered the realm of possibility in his mind.
Alphas didn’t do that for anyone – not even for mates, and certainly not for a lower rung male omega like Shane.
This doesn’t make sense.
At Rozanov’s impatient grunt, Shane began nodding, even as he rushed to reassure him, “You don’t have to do that –”
But Rozanov was already descending down, bright eyes trained on Shane as he enveloped his tip without hesitation, a hand unseen gently stroking the base of his shaft as he swallowed him down in one, smooth stroke that had Shane seeing stars.
The sudden shock of wet heat enveloping his cock punched a ragged noise from his lungs, and he scrabbled to pet at Rozanov’s curls that bounced from the force of his bobbing head.
“You shouldn’t…” Between the relentless, wet suction of his lips and the sharp intensity of Rozanov’s gaze, Shane’s half-hearted objections quickly died on his tongue.
The wet squelch of his throat mingled with Shane’s increasingly breathless noises, making for an obscene symphony that filled all four corners of the room, and the sight of Ilya Rozanov, the corner of his full lips smiling around his length at his expense would be a vision burned behind his eyelids for the rest of his life.
An alpha – his greatest rival, a natural enemy to both his own kind, as well as the team – glutting himself on his cock without a single iota of shame.
I’m…
None of it made sense, and yet every delicious, suctioning pull, every clever twist of his tongue around his length – it was all very real.
Something hot and tight behind his navel threatened to give way, and it was only the gentle thrum of Rozanov’s finger stroking his nipple – a move that sent an answering wave of sensation to his cock – that told him his orgasm was approaching far sooner than expected.
Oh, no.
He thought that maybe he should warn him, but all that escaped him was an incoherent gasp as Rozanov throated him with increasing intensity.
It was only the telltale, iridescent shimmer of something pooling at the corners of Rozanov’s swollen mouth –
Alpha venom. His primordial hindbrain bleated, Run, run, run, he’s going to claim you if you don’t run!
– it was the sight of that which finally sent Shane rocketing over the edge.
“Oh fuck, oh, fuck, wait.”
He pulled hard at Rozanov’s curls, clenching his own pelvic muscles hard to stave off his release as he tried in vain to pull out, but Rozanov only bore down on him with a low rumble that resonated directly along his twitching cock.
Too late.
Shane slapped a hand to his mouth to stifle his cries, vision blurring on the sight of Rozanov’s hungry eyes as he flooded his mouth in a series of violent pulses right along his tongue.
Holy shit.
Body spent, he sagged in a dead heap with all the grace of a marionette cut free of its strings, blinking sleepily at the hotel ceiling until Rozanov’s self-satisfied face eventually swarmed above him. He jolted at the sudden slant of his lips against his own, before he lost himself in the novel sensation of Rozanov’s warm tongue stealing inside his own mouth, chasing the shared, sinful flavour of their arousal with a soft moan.
Everything about what they’d done was wrong on so many levels, yet when Rozanov broke their kiss and flopped back to the pillows alongside him, Shane could only muster a dazed smile.
Even by the time the buzz of endorphins began to ebb, Shane’s lurking anxieties didn’t have space to fester – Ilya had already assured him multiple times over that he wouldn’t reveal what they’d done together, and that would have to be enough.
Worrying his bottom lip, he watched Rozanov leave with his heart lodged deep in his throat, and hoped he hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
There’s nothing to be gained, Shane thought, clicking off the lamp with a frown. For an alpha like Rozanov to tell anyone about this.
“Too late now,” he mumbled.
Alone in the quiet dark, with Rozanov now far beyond his own reach, his word would have to be enough.
+
With the taste of Shane’s release lingering on his tongue, Ilya walked out the door less than an hour after he’d arrived, his mood far more subdued than it ought to be.
It had been good – more than good, it had been beyond his wildest expectations – but it wasn’t something Ilya could indulge in again. He wasn’t one swayed so easily by instinct, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could fuck an omega on a regular basis without consequences.
Who said anything about this happening again?
All they’d done is suck each other off, but Ilya wasn’t deluded enough to think they could risk anything more.
Too dangerous.
The piquant taste of venom mingling with Shane’s cum stirred a lazy thrum of lust in his gut, and he was already considering the quickest path back up to Shane’s floor when he caught himself with a scowl.
Fumbling with his lighter, he quickly ignited a cigarette, if only to remove Shane’s flavour from his tastebuds.
But even after chain-smoking three sticks down to their ends, beneath the bitter ash and nicotine on his tongue, Shane Hollander still remained.
Ridiculous.
Wary of the drunken stragglers roaming the streets, he muttered in Russian beneath his breath, “It can’t happen again.”
The more distance he put between himself and Hollander’s hotel room, he almost convinced himself that he believed it.
+
As the start of season approached, Ilya’s conviction wavered –
Stupid, perfect, gorgeous omega, Ilya cursed. With your stupid little freckles – they’re probably fake, too; painted on with makeup. No one looks like that.
– And it didn’t help that he couldn’t seem to escape Shane if he tried.
While the wider reaction to Shane’s drafting had been mixed at best, if not downright hostile at worst, whoever was managing him had done an impressive job turning the public perception in his favour. They’d put his pretty, freckled face in front of every camera that would have him – and his awkward, staid charm silenced most of public outrage that his initial announcement caused.
Using his omega wiles, he mused with a tiny smirk. Ilya had first-hand experience with that, but no, he suspected the change was less about the public’s obsession with omegas as a whole, and more likely a result of something innate in Shane’s character.
The change to Ilya’s own resolve was subtle at first, and he hardly realised his own renewed preoccupation with Hollander until he found himself counting down the days until their first match against the Montreal Metros.
An arch voice that sounded disturbingly like father bellowed across his consciousness, You have a game. Ilya checked his watch. …In one hour. Focus, you lazy cretin.
Ilya was halfway through gearing up for that very game – their first match of the season, not against the Metros, but the Toronto Guardians – when the meandering conversation drifting through the locker room finally caught his attention.
“Watch out for Keane, tonight. He’s a biter,” Matthews warned to the room at large, and a chorus of groans followed.
Dylan Keane.
Ilya hadn’t had the misfortune of playing against him before, but his reputation was etched in the weary faces of every Raider who’d met him on the ice previously.
A biter.
Biting was allowed by alphas in the league, and it was only considered slightly riskier than body checking, so long as contact wasn’t prolonged, excessive –
Someone groaned, “That nutcase uses venom, doesn’t he?”
And so long as venom wasn’t used. Despite the name, it wasn’t particularly harmful to betas or alphas, but the act of injecting a potent concoction of a player’s pheromones – the same aphrodisiacal body fluid used to subdue an omega before mating – was not an insult other alphas took lightly.
Stephenson bristled in Ilya’s periphery. “If that fucker tries that, I’ll gut him.”
“Wouldn’t worry too much,” Roberts, the oldest player on the team, interjected from the far side of the room. “If he bites anyone, it’ll be the betas.” He offered a wry smirk to their beta goalie, who only looked up from their phone long enough to stare blankly back. “He knows better than to go after alphas – not worth the penalty time.”
Coward. Ilya schooled his expression before disgust curled his lip.
He was busy slipping his jersey over his head, when Stephenson’s voice sent a frisson of unease down his spine.
“Isn’t Toronto playing the Metros next?”
That gave Ilya some pause. They are?
“Little Shane Hollander’s first match, isn’t it?” Someone else – Matthews, he thought – chimed in, voice shaking with a mean-spirited chuckle. “Oh, he’s so fucked.“
“Place your bets – ten bucks says he won’t last one game before someone puts him in his place – no, actually, I take that back; I think Keane’ll have ripped out his gland in the first twenty minutes.”
An impressed whistle followed. “Je-sus.”
Ilya clawed his arms and head through his jersey, yanking it across his chest protector with gritted teeth.
“That’s a shame,” Roberts sighed. The sharp looks from the team only earned them a careless shrug. “What? An omega’s an omega, they’re all basically women. End of the day, still feels like fucking a pussy once they’re wet enough, anyway.”
Ilya would’ve almost preferred a renewed chorus of vitriol from the team in response; anything but the contemplative leers that settled across their expressions.
“You speakin’ from experience, man?”
“I’m just saying, you guys are missing out.” Roberts did a double-take at whatever he saw on Ilya’s face. “C’mon Rosy, don’t tell me you ain’t thought about it before,” he drawled. “He’s your rival.”
Thought about it? Ilya’s head cocked sideways. I’ve had him in ways you could only dream of.
A snide thought intervened, Your dreams don’t count, Rozanov.
Well, he’d had Shane once, only as far as a single blow job, but the details hardly mattered when he had no intentions of sharing even a single moment with another living soul.
But their expectant, searching eyes on him demanded a response. He was too new to challenge the hatred spreading like poison throughout the team, his English too clumsy to articulate the cold rage stealing over his heart –
Despite the narrative brewing within the press, Ilya had no issues with Shane Hollander. But one secret blowjob between them didn’t mean he’d throw himself to the wolves on his behalf.
No, none of this is your problem.
“Is risky,” Ilya droned, letting the sharp tips of his fangs peek over his sneering mouth. “Why would I waste time on an omega I don’t want to keep?”
The ensuing jeering cacophony tolled like a death knell in Ilya’s ears, and he endured the goodnatured slaps on his shoulders with a well-practised smile, even as he wondered why his mother’s cross, usually a warm, comforting anchor, felt inordinately cold against his breast.