Claimed on Ice: Marked by the Rival Captain novel by AuroraDreamer

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In professional hockey, Omegas are banned. Theo Maren has a secret: he is an Omega, and he must hide it to survive.
For six years, Theo has pretended to be a tough Alpha. He uses heavy medicine and strict control to hide his true smell. No one suspects him.
Until his worst rival breaks his medicine injector on the ice.
Dominic Vale is the league’s golden Alpha. He is the captain of the rival team, and he has been obsessed with Theo for years. When Theo’s medicine fails during the championship game, Dominic is the only one close enough to smell him.
They spend one wild night together. Terrified of what they did, Theo runs away before sunrise. He leaves Dominic with a permanent bite mark on his shoulder and an empty bed.
Two years later, Theo comes back to the hockey league.
He is colder and quieter now. And he did not come back alone.
To protect Theo from a dangerous scandal, Dominic forces him into a secret marriage contract. Publicly, they are still enemies fighting on the ice. Privately, Theo lives in Dominic’s apartment and sleeps in his bed.
Theo thinks Dominic just wants to control and protect him. But Dominic wants more.
Because Dominic just discovered that the two-year-old boy with Theo’s eyes… also has his Alpha scent.
And this time, Dominic refuses to let his mate run away.

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Claimed on Ice: Marked by the Rival Captain Chapter 1 Illegal Scent

Theo POV

I have always hated championship games because they change people into someone you barely recognize.

The arena was loud around me. Thousands of voices were shouting against the glass so hard that I could feel the vibration every time my skates moved across the ice. The overhead lights made everything look really sharp under the scoreboard that was hanging above us like a verdict waiting to happen.

IRONCLAW TITANS. 3. NORTHCREST ROYALS. 3

There were forty-three seconds left. One goal would end the game.

I bent low at the face-off circle. I held my stick tight while cold air was burning through my lungs. My muscles felt like they were being held together by adrenaline. Under my gear, suppressant patches were on my skin. I was used to them by now.

Across the ice, Dominic Vale was watching me. He always did.

For three years, I pretended not to notice it during press conferences, airport interviews, and crowded hallways outside locker rooms. Dominic looked at people like he was quietly taking them apart piece by piece, but somehow, he always looked at me longer.

Under the arena lights, I could see him perfectly. Sweat was making his hair look dark beneath his helmet, and his shoulders looked broad beneath the Royals jersey, built from years of playing hockey. His jaw had clearly been broken once. It healed slightly crooked in a way that only made him look more dangerous. His hazel eyes were locked on mine.

He said, “Try not to cry when we win this game, sweetheart.”

I laughed under my breath. “Try not to break a hip, grandpa,” I said back to him.

He was twenty-eight years old, and irritating him had become one of my favorite things to do.

The referee dropped the puck. Everything became instinct. I moved before the thought could catch up. The puck was on my blade as the crowd erupted around us. I cut past the Royals defenseman fast enough for cold air to slice against my face.

I only needed one opening, half a second, and one clean shot.

Then Dominic Vale hit me.

The collision was strong. It threw me hard into the boards. The glass shook behind me as air vanished from my lungs, and the puck disappeared somewhere down the rink. For one disoriented second, all I saw were the arena lights.

Then I felt it. The injector beneath my gear shattered.

I was filled with dread as cooling liquid soaked across my ribs beneath my compression layers. I knew exactly what would happen next. Heat started beneath my skin, subtle enough that nobody else would notice but impossible for me to mistake. My scent glands reacted immediately. Panic twisted low in my stomach as warmth spread through my bloodstream.

Not enough for the crowd to notice. Not enough for my teammates.

Enough for an Alpha standing fifteen feet away.

I pushed myself upright quickly, my chest heaving beneath my gear. I needed to leave before my body betrayed me. Dominic grabbed my arm before I made it two steps.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his grip tightening slightly around my arm.

The second he touched me, my entire body reacted. I tore my arm free immediately.

“Do not touch me,” I said.

The sharpness in my voice cut between us. Dominic narrowed his eyes as he studied me carefully. I skated away before he could stop me again.

The game continued around me in chaos. Bodies slammed against the glass while coaches shouted over screaming crowds and skates carved across the ice, but I barely registered any of it. My heartbeat felt wrong inside my chest, fast and painfully uneven. Beneath the arena air, something faint and sweet slipped through my skin despite every suppressant still in my system.

Fear settled heavily inside me, quiet and certain.

I turned toward the bench. I skated harder, ignoring my coach shouting my name behind me along with the final seconds that had mattered more than anything only minutes earlier. None of it mattered now. The only things that existed were the hallway, the locker room, and the emergency suppressant buried inside my bag.

I had maybe five minutes left.

Somewhere behind me, swallowed by the roar of the arena, the buzzer sounded for sudden-death overtime. I never looked back.

The hallway blurred as heat spread deeper into my bloodstream. Stress always made crashes worse, and knowing Dominic Vale had been close enough to notice made everything unbearable in ways I refused to examine too closely. I shoved through the medical bathroom door, locked it behind me, and collapsed onto the tile floor. My hands shook as I tore through my bag, sending bottles and rolls of tape scattering across the ground.

Then finally, I found it. Relief washed through me so quickly it almost made me dizzy as I stared at the emergency suppressant in my hands.

Footsteps echoed outside the door. Controlled. Unhurried. Familiar enough to make my stomach drop instantly. It was the kind of recognition your body felt before your mind could deny it.

A quiet knock followed, deliberate and polite in the way dangerous people often were.

“Theo,” Dominic said through the door, his voice low and calm.

Pain twisted sharply through my chest. Maybe if I stayed still, he would leave.

“I know you’re in there,” he added quietly. There was no uncertainty in his voice.

The suppressant felt ice-cold in my hands while silence settled outside the door. Then I heard him inhale slowly and deeply, the kind of breath that sounded older than restraint itself.

Alphas only breathed like that for one reason.

Suddenly, Dominic Vale no longer sounded like my rival captain. He sounded hungry.

My stomach tightened as another wave of heat rolled through me, sharper this time. Outside the bathroom, Dominic let out a sound in his throat, restrained and rough like he was losing a fight with himself.

To my absolute horror, my body answered him anyway.

Claimed on Ice: Marked by the Rival Captain Chapter 2 Locker Room Door

Dominic POV

The moment I smelled Theo on the ice, part of me went still somewhere deeper than thought.

One second, I was skating toward him, focused on the game and the seconds bleeding off the clock. The next, something sweet cut through the smell of blood, sweat, and ice. It was faint, sharp, and completely wrong for a hockey rink.

Anyone else would have missed it completely. I did not.

My body reacted before my brain caught up. Every instinct I had went unnaturally still for one sharp second before turning violently possessive hard enough to knock the breath out of me.

Mine.

The thought hit so hard I nearly lost my balance on the ice. The intensity of it unsettled me immediately. This was Theo Maren. My rival. Not someone my body should have recognized this quickly.

It made no sense.

Theo played hockey like he had been built for violence, reckless and impossible to intimidate. I had never cared whether he was an Alpha or Beta because it had never mattered before. But I knew what an Omega smelled like, and Theo smelled exactly like one.

I watched him skate away while panic showed clearly in every movement he made. His gloves were gone, his helmet already off, and tension pulled hard through his shoulders in a way that had nothing to do with the game anymore.

Something was wrong.

A teammate grabbed my shoulder as the buzzer sounded overhead and the arena erupted around us, but I barely heard any of it. Theo had already disappeared down the tunnel, looking terrified, and I was moving before I consciously decided to follow him.

The hallway split into three directions past the tunnel entrance, but I did not stop to think about where he had gone because I did not need to. A faint sweetness drifted through the air, wrong for a place like this.

I followed it automatically.

The thought arrived and refused to leave. If I was right, Theo Maren had spent six years surviving like this through suppressants, patches, and injectors taped beneath hockey gear inside a league that would destroy him the second it learned the truth. He had survived this alone for years.

Part of me wanted to drag him straight to medical before this got worse. The other part already knew I was not letting anyone near him.

The maintenance corridor outside the bathroom sat nearly empty because championship chaos had dragged everyone back toward the ice. Security, medics, and press handlers moved in the opposite direction, leaving the hallway silent except for Theo’s scent and the uneven sound of his breathing through the locked door.

I stopped outside the bathroom near the locker rooms. I did not need confirmation to know he was inside. Theo’s scent slipped beneath the door, and my lungs tightened around it immediately.

“Theo,” I said.

Silence answered me. His breathing remained audible through the door, uneven enough to immediately put me on edge.

I knocked once and kept my voice low. “I know you’re in there,” I added.

No answer came. The sweetness in the hallway deepened. My hands closed into fists at my sides because if I could smell Theo through a closed door, any Alpha walking within twenty feet of this corridor could smell him too.

I pressed one hand flat against the metal. “Theo, open the door,” I commanded.

Several long seconds passed before his voice finally came through the other side, quiet and stripped raw.

“Go away,” he whispered.

He sounded wrong, breathless, and shaking.

I had seen this before while playing overseas in Russia. Omegas in suppressant crashes. His suppressants were not simply failing anymore. His body had already moved past the point where another dose would do anything.

“Did your injector break?” I asked.

Silence followed before Theo finally answered. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“Open the door,” I said.

“No,” he shot back.

The word came too fast, and the strain underneath it made my jaw tighten. I forced myself to breathe evenly while keeping one hand against the door.

A few seconds later, his voice came again, quieter this time. “I just need another suppressant,” he muttered. “That’s all. I just need-”

“They aren’t working anymore,” I interrupted.

A broken sound answered me from the other side.

I rested my forehead briefly against the metal while tension pulled tightly through my shoulders. Inside the bathroom, something crashed against the tile floor before Theo swore sharply under his breath. Then his breathing changed.

A second later, his scent flooded the hallway in a dense wave sweet enough to sharpen my vision instantly. I sucked in one hard breath and held it. Then Theo made a sound through the door, soft and broken enough to strip away the last of my restraint.

Whatever restraint I still had disappeared after that.

I grabbed the handle, found it locked, and drove my shoulder into the door hard enough for it to slam open against the interior wall. Theo stumbled backward before catching himself against the sink with both hands.

I stood there staring at him.

He looked like someone who had been holding himself together for far too long and had finally run out of strength. Sweat soaked through his hair while his face burned flushed beneath the harsh bathroom lights. His chest rose unevenly beneath partially removed gear, and when his eyes met mine, they carried the desperate look of someone trying to decide whether fighting or running was still possible.

Beside his knee, the broken injector pen lay on the floor in two pieces. I stared at it briefly.

Six years of suppressants, lies, discipline, and exhausting control had come down to a shattered injector on a bathroom floor. Something angry twisted hard through my chest, not at Theo but at the fact that he had survived this alone for so long.

Then Theo hit me all at once, and whatever rational thought I still had disappeared instantly.

The bathroom door still hung crooked on broken hinges. Theo was still bleeding onto the floor. My entire body burned with instincts I barely recognized anymore. And the only thing I knew with absolute certainty was that I was not calling anyone. I was not reporting him.

Taking Theo home was a terrible idea. I did it anyway.

The decision was already made before I fully understood it, and that terrified me more than anything I had ever experienced on the ice.

Claimed on Ice: Marked by the Rival Captain Chapter 3 Don’t Touch Me Like That

Theo POV

The drive to Dominic Vale’s penthouse felt unbearable.

Rain hammered against the SUV windows hard enough to blur the city into streaks of gold and white light. But I could barely focus on any of it because all I could focus on was him. Cedar, smoke, and expensive cologne layered over that unmistakable Alpha warmth that settled deep into my lungs every time I breathed. With the suppressants leaving my system, everything felt worse. My thoughts turned heavy and tangled beneath the heat spreading slowly under my skin.

I hated it. I hated how good he smelled.

The silence stretched thick and suffocating while Dominic drove with both hands tight on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched hard enough for tension to flash across his face every time headlights passed over it. He had barely looked at me since we left the arena, and somehow that only made me more restless.

“You okay?” he asked eventually, his voice low.

No. “I’m fine,” I lied.

The strain in my voice ruined the lie immediately. His gaze flicked briefly toward my trembling hands before returning to the road. I shoved them beneath my sleeves.

A thought slipped out before I could stop it. “You should’ve reported me already.”

Dominic let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “You really think that’s what I want?”

“Yes,” I said.

Why wouldn’t he? He was the league’s Alpha captain. Reporting me would have been the logical choice. Instead, he had dragged me into his car like I belonged there.

Streetlights flashed across his face as the SUV slowed at a red light. His expression looked harder than usual, controlled in a way that felt deliberate.

“League security would destroy you,” he said finally.

There was no cruelty underneath the words. No disgust. Just the truth, delivered like it cost him something to say it plainly. My throat tightened, and I turned toward the window before he could notice.

***

The elevator felt too small with both of us inside it.

Heat curled painfully through my bloodstream while the confined space trapped the smell of cedar and smoke around me completely. My skin felt feverish and oversensitive, enough that even fabric brushing against my waist hurt. I flinched once without meaning to.

Dominic noticed immediately, and a thought surfaced that I had absolutely no defense against.

Three years of face-offs, collisions, and Dominic Vale staring at me across the ice. I had spent all that time convincing myself it was rivalry, adrenaline, aggression-anything except the truth. The suppressants had helped the lie survive. They had allowed me to pretend my pulse only jumped around him because he was dangerous.

Not because some part of me had wanted him to notice me.

The elevator doors opened before the realization could settle, and I stepped out too quickly.

***

Dominic shut the apartment door behind us and finally turned toward me fully for the first time since we left the arena. Then he froze.

His gaze moved slowly down my body before settling on the blood soaking through the front of my jersey near my ribs. Concern tightened his expression instantly, and somehow that felt worse than disgust would have.

“Sit down,” he said quietly.

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

That Alpha tone slipped into his voice when he said my name next, low and warm enough for my instincts to react before my brain caught up. My legs nearly gave out halfway toward the couch.

Dominic caught me before I hit the floor. Strong arms closed around me carefully, one hand steadying my waist while the other supported my back. The moment his hands touched me, heat surged through my body hard enough for a sharp breath to escape before I could stop it.

Dominic went completely still.

I jerked backward immediately. “Don’t touch me like that,” I snapped.

His expression tightened. “How am I touching you?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

That was the humiliating part because he was not doing anything wrong. My body was simply reacting anyway. It always had. Every collision against the boards, every face-off where he leaned too close, every moment Dominic got within reach of me on the ice, I had spent years pretending none of it meant anything.

Now the suppressants were gone, and my instincts had stopped lying to me.

***

Dominic crouched in front of me once I finally sat down. That was a mistake because now he was directly between my knees, smelling like cedar and winter smoke and dangerous Alpha warmth.

“We need to get the gear off,” he said.

“No,” I whispered.

His gaze lifted slowly toward mine before dropping once more to the blood staining my ribs. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Everything inside me stopped.

No one had ever promised me that before. Not doctors, not coaches, not Alphas. People spoke about Omegas carefully, possessively, cruelly, but never gently. Never like it was simply the truth and nothing else. My throat tightened so fast it hurt.

Dominic must have seen it happen across my face because his expression shifted into something softer, something that had no business existing between rivals. My name sounded different in his mouth than it ever had on the ice. I looked away before he could notice that I almost believed him.

That was the worst thing that had happened to me all night, worse than the broken injector, worse than the heat, worse than Dominic Vale knowing exactly what I was. Because sitting there on his couch with his hands still warm against my ribs, I understood something that six years of suppressants had been carefully hiding from me.

I had wanted someone to say those words to me for a very long time. And I had never once let myself know it until now.

The truth settled inside me quietly and irreversibly, the kind that does not leave once it arrives. Then, before I could remember every reason I had spent six years making sure this never happened…

I leaned into his hands.

The moment I realized what I had done, fear twisted violently through my stomach. This was too close and reckless. Exactly how people ruined themselves.

But Dominic did not pull away. He did not say a single word. He simply stayed there, steady and warm, like he had already decided something I had not caught up to yet.

And that terrified me more than any of it.

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