But Elias—he’s still glowing.
And every man on this ice knows it.
The rink stills. The boys are catching their breath, sweat dripping, helmets half–off, when the sound of boots echoes sharp off the tunnel.
Coach Harrow.
Like a ghost. Like he always does—shows up when no one’s expecting him, cigar clamped between his teeth, clipboard tucked under his arm. He hasn’t touched these rookies more than five minutes since the season started, but here he is, watching me put Elias through hell.
His words cuts across the ice.
“You training my rookies for playoffs or yourself, Kade?”
Myrookies. The words almost make me laugh. He hasn’t bled with them. Hasn’t broken them down and rebuilt them until they can barely breathe but still keep skating. Hasn’t pulled them up off the ice when they collapsed and shoved them back in for more. No—those aren’thisrookies. They’re mine.
“Both,” I answer flat, meeting his stare across the sheet. My voice doesn’t rise, doesn’t waver. Calm. Final. Daring him to push.
The air goes heavy.
Elias almost moves—almost steps closer, almost folds behind me like a kid hiding from the storm. But he doesn’t. He remembers. Remembers who’s scarier. Remembers who he belongs to. He stays rooted where I put him.
Tyler, though—kid’s white as a ghost. His gloves twitch on his stick, sweat dripping down his temple like Harrow just asked him to confess to a murder.
The vets? They know better. They don’t move, don’t poke, don’t breathe wrong. They just stare, waiting, watching the standoff in the middle of the rink like it’s a fight they’ve all bet money on.
Coach’s eyes narrow, smoke curling out the side of his mouth.
My scar pulls with the smile I don’t bother to hide.
Let him push.
See how far he gets.
Coach squints at me, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth. The silence stretches long enough that the rookies start shifting on their skates, Tyler about two seconds from fainting.
Then Harrow barks a laugh. “Making killers out of them,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else, and turns on his heel. Clipboard tucked, boots echoing, cigar smoke trailing behind him as he vanishes the same way he came—like a ghost crawling back into the crypt.
The second the tunnel swallows him, Elias lets out a breath. Like he’d been holding it since Harrow walked in.
My gaze cuts to him. One brow lifts. “Scared, pup?”
He blinks at me. Then his lips twitch—half a grin, half a wince. “Of him?” His voice cracks, raw from the scrimmage. “Or you?”
The boys go dead quiet. Cole’s grin wobbles like he doesn’t know if he should chirp or get out of firing range. Tyler looks like he might puke again. Mats smirks faint behind his glove, and Viktor doesn’t move an inch.
I take one slow stride toward Elias, blade biting into the ice, and watch his throat work as I close the space.
I step into his space, blade cutting ice, my shadow falling over him.
“You should be scared of both,” I say. “But only one of us owns you.”
The words hang heavy in the air. The bench goes silent. Even Cole shuts up, sunglasses sliding down his sweaty nose as he waits for the fallout.
Elias huffs, lips quirking like he can’t help himself. “Why would I be scared of him? He doesn’t even know my middle name.”
Nathaniel.
Elias Nathaniel Mercer.
