My Alpha Captain Chose Her Over Our Baby

Lena's POV

"She's down! Sienna's down!"

The shout cut through the Portland Frosthawks' open practice. I dropped my clipboard and ran for the rink gate, my medical bag striking my hip with every step.

Sienna Blake lay near the top of the right circle, one hand locked around her knee. Her custom white skate had caught in a deep groove carved across the ice. A forward moving at her speed should have glided over a shallow rut. This one had been softened from below, then split beneath her blade.

Carter Voss reached her before I did. The Frosthawks' captain dropped to his knees and spread his shoulders between Sienna and the spectators pressed against the glass.

"Clear the ice," he barked. "Get the emergency team."

I stepped through the gate and knelt beside them. "Carter, move your arm. I need to check circulation before anyone lifts her."

His hand closed around my wrist. "Don't touch her."

"I'm the team physician."

"And you are not treating her."

The rejection landed harder because no one around us knew what he was to me. For three years, Carter had shared my home, my bed, and a mate bond hidden beneath the collar of my scrubs. In public, I was Dr. Lena Hart, another employee. He had insisted secrecy protected his sponsorships and his position as heir to the Voss pack. I had believed him long after belief became humiliation.

"If her knee is unstable, carrying her could worsen the damage," I said.

Sienna made a broken sound and buried her face against Carter's chest. That was enough. He lifted her before I could stop him and strode off the ice while cameras flashed beyond the boards.

I stayed behind for one second, studying the groove. Frost feathered its edges, but the center looked wet and gray. I touched a gloved fingertip to it and caught the sharp chemical scent of industrial de-icer.

Ten minutes later, the medical suite felt less like a clinic than a hearing room. Sienna cried on the examination table while Carter paced beside her. Grant Thorne, the Frosthawks' general manager, entered with a tablet under one arm and a sealed plastic bottle in his hand.

"The refrigeration service corridor was opened twelve minutes before practice," Thorne said. He put the tablet on my desk. "The access system recorded your staff badge."

I stared at the timestamp and the ID number beneath it. "My badge never left my neck. I was preparing the team's injections with Nurse Bell."

"The camera covering that corridor lost its feed for nine minutes," he continued. "Security found this in your locker."

The bottle carried the same warning symbol used on the arena's concentrated melting agent.

"That isn't mine."

"Your badge. Your locker. Your access level," Carter said. His expression had gone cold enough to freeze the room. "How much more do you expect us to ignore?"

I looked at him, waiting for the smallest sign that he remembered who I was. "You know I would never hurt a player."

"I know you've resented Sienna since she returned to the starting lineup."

"Resented her?" I almost laughed. "Tell them why that accusation makes no sense."

His jaw tightened.

Tell them we're married, I wanted to say. Tell them I am your mate, not a jealous employee trying to win your attention.

Carter looked away first.

Thorne reached for the lanyard around my neck. Carter beat him to it. He pulled hard enough to snap the plastic clasp, then held my credential in his fist.

"You're suspended from all clinical duties pending a league investigation," he said.

"On evidence any competent investigator will recognize as planted?"

Sienna whimpered. "My leg is burning."

I turned automatically toward the monitor. Her heart rate had risen, but not dangerously. She gripped the outside of her knee and let her breathing grow ragged.

"The old nerve injury," she gasped. "It's spreading again."

"Start a regional block," I told Nurse Bell.

Sienna shook her head violently. "Blocks don't work on lunar nerve damage. The specialist said only Moon Blood can stabilize it. The clinic used its last reserve during the preseason."

Her wet gaze shifted to me.

My stomach rolled. I had blamed the nausea on the smell of disinfectant and an empty breakfast. Now dizziness crept along the edges of my vision.

Carter followed Sienna's stare. "You are a registered Moon Blood donor."

"Not today." I pressed a hand to the counter. "I feel sick, and we haven't completed a screening."

Nurse Bell hesitated beside the collection kit. "Captain, league protocol requires current hemoglobin and pregnancy testing before a full draw."

"Run the samples while you collect," Carter ordered. "This is an emergency."

"It is not an emergency until we confirm neurological decline," I said. "Her pulse is stable. Her foot is warm. She has full sensation."

Sienna cried out and arched off the table.

Carter stepped close enough that only I could hear him. "Refuse, and I give the badge logs, the missing footage, and the chemical bottle to League Security tonight. By morning, every team in the country will think you tried to cripple a player."

"You would destroy my career to force blood from me?"

"You caused this. You will make it right."

For one terrible second, the mate mark below my collarbone burned as if it agreed with him. My wolf recoiled from his command, but years of obedience had trained me to mistake surrender for loyalty.

"One standard collection," I told Nurse Bell. "No more."

She seated me in the donor chair and tied the tourniquet with unsteady hands. Dark, silver-flecked blood filled the tubing. Carter stood near Sienna, his back to me. He never asked whether the room was still spinning. He never noticed when my fingers went numb.

When the bag was full, Nurse Bell removed the needle and rushed the blood to Sienna's IV line. Thorne followed Carter into the hall to manage the waiting press. The lock clicked behind them.

Sienna counted to three before sitting up.

Her tears stopped as cleanly as a faucet turning off.

"You still think the bond makes you special?" she asked.

I pressed gauze to my arm. "You used my badge."

"A cloned credential is easy when the captain gives me access to every restricted floor." Her smile sharpened. "The bottle was easier. You never lock your locker."

"You cut the camera feed."

"My manager did." She leaned closer, the transfusion line carrying my blood into her vein. "Carter didn't need proof. He only needed an excuse to choose me in public."

I pushed myself upright. "You faked the nerve crisis."

"Prove it."

The floor tilted. I reached for the counter and missed.

The door opened as my knees gave way.

"Lena!" Dr. Elias Arden caught my shoulder before my head struck the tile. He shouted for fluids, then grabbed the unfinished screening report from the printer.

His face changed as he read it.

"Her hCG is positive," he said. "She's pregnant."

Nurse Bell went white.

Dr. Arden looked at the empty collection bag hanging beside Sienna's bed, then down at me. "How much blood did you take?"

No one answered before the lights disappeared.