So do I.
I don’t wait for Coach. Don’t look at the bench. I just vault the boards, blades cutting hard, sliding up right behind Elias at the circle.
The crowd roars. Wrath bench howls. Reapers bang their sticks against the boards like thunder.
Elias doesn’t look back at me, but his chest heaves, sharp and fast. He can feel me there. My shadow heavy over his back. My presence locking him steady.
The enforcer smirks through his cage. Taps his stick against the dot like he’s already decided where he’ll leave Elias’s blood.
I lean low, voice a growl sharp enough for Elias alone.
“Hold the draw, pup. Let me do the rest.”
Elias swallows. Hard. And for the briefest second, his lips curve into that reckless grin.
“Yes, sir.”
The puck drops.
The puck hasn’t even settled on the ice before my gloves hit the sheet.
Steel rattles as I drop the stick, hands snapping up, shoulders squaring. The Wrath enforcer barely has time to smirk before my fist collides with his jaw.
Impact.
Bone crunches under my knuckles. The barn detonates into noise—refs screaming, Wrath bench howling, our boys pounding their sticks like war drums.
He swings back, wild, heavy. Doesn’t matter. I’ve been fighting longer than he’s been skating. I slip it, drive another fist into his cheek, then his gut, then his mouth again for good measure.
Elias is gone from the circle—he did his job, won the draw clean, shoved the puck back to Cole who’s already streaking up ice. But my pup doesn’t skate off. I feel his eyes burning holes in me, green fire steady on my back while I dismantle the bastard who thought he could touch him.
The enforcer’s big, but big breaks slow. His swings turn sloppy fast, and I pin him against the glass, fists carving him apart until his head snaps back. Blood sprays across the ice, red against white.
Linesmen swarm. Whistles shriek. Doesn’t matter. I land one more.
Clean. Sharp.
He crumples.
They drag me toward the box, gloves off, knuckles split and burning. My breath is steady, calm, chest rising like I’ve just gone for a jog. The Wrath crowd boos loud enough to rattle the rafters. Our bench roars louder.
And Elias is grinning through his cage like he just watched God bleed.
Good pup.
The penalty box door slams shut behind me, glass humming with the roar of Wrath’s barn. Blood stings my knuckles,sweat dripping hot down my spine, but my breath is steady. The enforcer’s slumped against his bench, face leaking red, and I know every man in orange is thinking twice before coming near my pup again.
Elias skates by.
Curls plastered under his helmet, chest heaving, grin sharp through the cage. He doesn’t slow—just cuts tight against the box, blade hissing against the ice, stick tapping once against the glass in front of me.
I lean forward.
“How many goals can you get me while I’m here, pup?” My voice cuts low, sharp enough to pierce through the glass, for him and him alone.
His grin widens, reckless, buzzing like he’s lit from the inside. “As many as you want, sir.”
The words hit me harder than any Wrath fist ever could.
