Andrew Minyard had learned that fear changed shape when his meds were gone.

It wasn’t loud anymore. No whispers, no flinching jokes, no sideways glances paired with nervous laughter. It was quiet—heavy, suffocating. People didn’t test him now. They avoided him altogether. An unmedicated Alpha with Andrew’s reputation wasn’t something anyone wanted to provoke, especially not when he didn’t bother with the maniac grin that used to warn them he was about to bite. Now he just stared. Blank. Empty. Worse.

Exy didn’t matter to him. It never had. He was brilliant at it anyway, reflexes sharp enough to turn the goal into a dead zone, mind fast enough to predict a striker’s intent before they even committed. He gave the bare minimum because he could, because Kevin Day wanted him here, because Aaron did. Andrew didn’t care about the court or the crowd or the scent-heavy chaos of a stadium full of Alphas, Betas, and Omegas pressed too close together. He stood in the goal and did his job. That was the deal.

Off his meds, his head was louder. Eidetic memory was a curse when nothing dulled it—every face, every slight, every pattern filed away and catalogued. He didn’t speak those thoughts. He never had. People mistook his silence for emptiness. They were wrong.

Everyone stayed away.

Everyone except Neil Josten.

Neil was a problem in motion. A striker who ran himself into the ground like he didn’t care if he survived the match. A psycho Omega who took heat suppressants like candy and looked every Alpha in the eye like he was daring them to try something. Neil didn’t smell like fear when Andrew got close. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t soften his voice or lower his gaze. He was a headache, persistent and sharp, and Andrew hated how easily his attention kept circling back to him.

Andrew wasn’t a claiming Alpha. He didn’t mark Omegas, didn’t want bonds or permanence or anything that could be used against him. Sex was occasional, transactional, and forgettable. One night, no names, no promises. Neil, irritatingly, was the same. No Alpha. No interest. When people pushed, Neil shrugged them off with a flat refusal, said he didn’t swing, said Exy was the only thing that mattered. Andrew believed him—not because Neil was honest, but because he was consistent.

Consistency hid things.

That was why Andrew noticed him. That was why Neil was allowed into their orbit in the first place. Andrew didn’t do friends. He did leverage. He did deals.

Their conversations never pretended otherwise. Teasing edged into interrogation, interrogation curdled into something sharp and mutual. They didn’t like each other. They didn’t trust each other. Andrew catalogued Neil’s tells, the way his heartbeat spiked at certain names, the way his scent went thin when questions got too close. Neil, in return, watched Andrew like he was measuring the distance to a blade.

The deal was simple. Andrew would protect Neil—from other Alphas, from the league, from Riko and Moriyama's if it came to that. Neil would stay inside the lines Andrew drew. In exchange, Andrew took him in. Into the group. Into the shield formed by Aaron’s indifference, Nicky’s noise, Kevin’s obsession. Kevin Day had made the same promise, and Andrew had allowed it because Kevin understood ownership without romance. Control without sentiment.

Neil didn’t thank him. Andrew hadn’t expected him to.

On the court, Andrew stood still, blank stare locked on the field, while Neil burned himself out sprint by sprint. Somewhere between the roar of the crowd and the crack of the ball against his gloves, Andrew acknowledged the truth he didn’t voice.

Neil Josten was dangerous.

Not because he was an Omega without an Alpha. Not because he was fearless or reckless or broken in ways Andrew recognized too well.

Dangerous because he hid things—and Andrew Minyard never let problems he understood walk away unguarded.