Page 1 of Claimed By the Goalie Alpha
ONE
RENARD
I had three hours until game time, just enough time for my walk.
The route never changed. I parked at the north end of the park, followed the main path along the water for one mile, looped back through the tree-lined section and ended at my car. Thirty-seven minutes, give or take. It got my body moving without exhausting me and cleared my head of everything that wasn't hockey.
I'd been doing this walk before every home game for the past eighteen months. My save percentage had gone up twelve points since I started and I wasn't messing with that.
I locked my car and started down the path. The park was quiet for a Wednesday afternoon with a few joggers, some people on benches reading or staring at their phones and nobody in my way. I settled into the rhythm, in through the nose, out through the mouth and let the sounds of the city fade.
We were playing the Crown City Comets tonight. They'd beaten us twice already this season and Coach had made it clear a third loss wasn't acceptable. I ran through their shooters in my head and their tendencies I'd studied on film. Their right wingerliked the top corner and their center liked to hold it and shoot low. I visualized myglove closing around the puck.
The path curved along the river. The arena was visible across the water from here, which was part of why I'd chosen this route. It was a useful reminder of what the walk was for. Everything was exactly how it always was until I rounded the bend and headed straight into bedlam.
Dogs! There had to be at least six of different sizes, all on leashes that were currently tangled into a knot that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated dogs. In the middle of it was a guy about my age, laughing as he tried to sort out the mess though he wasn’t succeeding.
"Okay, okay, everybody calm down." None of the dogs were listening. A small terrier was yapping at a golden retriever, a beagle was straining toward a squirrel it had no chance of catching and a husky had decided to go in the opposite direction of everyone else.
They were blocking the entire path.
I stopped. "Excuse me."
The guy looked up and I got my first clear look at him. He had dark brown eyes and a smile that hadn't faded despite the pandemonium surrounding him. His hoodie saidDog's Best Friendin blue letters, which seemed either ironic or aspirational given the current situation.
"Oh, hey! Sorry, just give me a second." He tugged on one of the leashes, which made the knot worse. "Cooper, no. Daisy, stop pulling. Guys, come on, work with me here."
"I need to get past." My routine was in tatters and I was agitated. The visualization had evaporated and everything was wrong.
"Yeah, totally, I just need to—" He yanked on another leash and somehow the knot tightened further. "Okay, this is not supposed to happen."
A chocolate lab decided I looked interesting. It lunged toward me, pulling the guy forward and dragging two other dogs with it.
"Bailey, no!" He stumbled, fighting to keep hold of everything.
The lab jumped up and planted both muddy paws squarely on my chest.
Gods, no. I tried to push the dog away but the terrier thought we were playing and launched itself at my legs, and the golden retriever joined in, and that was when the beagle's leash snapped. The dog took off straight for the trees.
"Shit! Cooper!" The guy thrust the remaining leashes at me. "Can you hold these for one second?"
Before I could say no, I was holding five leashes attached to dogs with absolutely no interest in standing still. The guy took off after the beagle, yelling, "Cooper, come back here!" over his shoulder.
This was a nightmare.
The dogs pulled in different directions and tangled around my legs. I was supposed to be preparing for tonight's game. Instead I was standing on a public path covered in mud, held hostage by someone else's animals and watching my carefully constructed pregame routine fall apart in real time.
And then a scent hit me. Lush, something like ripe fruit, and it sliced through the wet dog and park dirt to fill my lungs.
My wolf woke.Mate.
No. That’s not possible. Not here in the middle of this.
But the scent was unmistakable and it was coming from the direction the guy had run. The same guy who'd just demolished my entire afternoon. He was human and had absolutely no idea what he'd just done to me. Instinct had me wanting to follow him but I shoved that down hard. This was not the time.
"Got him!" His voice came from the trees and a moment later he emerged with the beagle tucked under one arm and grinning as if he'd won something. "Sorry about that. Cooper's an escape artist."
He jogged back over and the scent got stronger. I handed over the leashes and when our hands touched, something punched my chest and I was sweating. A human would never understand what just happened.
