I sink my teeth in, hard enough to make him yelp, not enough to draw blood. My eyes flick up, pinning him even as my mouth stays at his throat.
“They can write what they want. They can ask what they want.” My hand fists tighter on his thigh, hauling him higher, opening him wider. “But the second one of them tries to touch what’s mine?”
My lips brush his ear, slow, lethal.
“I’ll break every bone in their body and feed them their own teeth.”
His gasp turns into a whimper that cracks in the back of his throat. He clings harder, his nails digging into my arms, his hips twitching under me like he’s half terrified, half desperate to grind against me.
Good boy. He loves it.
I kiss him again, deep and filthy, swallowing the wrecked sound he makes as if I can brand my promises into his lungs.
Playoffs are coming like a storm, and the whole damn city knows it.
The headlines are louder every day—screenshots plastered across group chats, Cole reading them out loud in the locker room just to watch me turn red.“Golden Rookie or Captain’s Pet?”…“Reapers’ Center Wagging His Tail for Kade.”…“Is Mercer the Next Legend or Just the Captain’s Lapdog?”
I laugh sometimes. Pretend it doesn’t sink teeth in. But every time I’m sprawled out gasping under Damian’s weight later, his hand heavy on my chest, he tells me the same thing:let them talk.
Except he doesn’t let me skate easy. Not once.
If the vets chirp me soft or Cole tries to cushion me with his dumb jokes, Damian sees it. He cuts through the noise with that look and the next drill? It’s me and him. No one else.
Because playing against him is brutal. He doesn’t give an inch, doesn’t pull a hit, doesn’t soften the slam of his shoulder driving me into the boards. Every time I go down, the glass rattles, my ribs scream, my pride shrivels up—andthen I drag myself back up because he’s waiting. He wants me to come at him again. Harder.
I hate that it feels like blasphemy—throwing weight into him, stick snapping against his, trying to dig a puck out of his shadow. But then he grips my cage after practice, snarls“Good boy”against my ear, and I’m flying.
Days blur—ice, gym, bed—until my body doesn’t feel like mine, only his.
And I’ve changed. I see it in the mirror, in the glass at the gym, in the way my jersey clings to me now. I’m not the wiry rookie who showed up wide-eyed months ago. I’m something sharper. Meaner. Built out of bruises and drills and nights spent clinging to my Captain’s throat while he growls praise into my mouth.
The vets notice. They don’t go easy. They shove, they slam, they chirp me just as filthy as they do each other now. And I grin through it, spit blood back at them, skate harder. Because Damian won’t let me be coddled—and maybe I don’t want to be.
And Christ—every time I slam into him at practice, every time I push back, I feel it. I hate it. I love it. It’s all for him. Always him.
It’s supposed to be a scrimmage. Half-ice, controlled, clean. The kind of drill where the rookies run systems, the vets bark adjustments, and Damian skates like the devil but doesn’t actually murder anyone.
Supposed to be.
But the second the puck drops and I’m across from him on the circle, I know it’s not. His eyes lock on me through the cage, his jaw set like stone. His whole frame coils tight like he’s decided this isn’t practice—it’s war.
My throat goes dry. My gloves twitch.
The whistle shrieks.
He explodes off the dot like a freight train. Stick slaps, blade hooks mine, and before I can even think, his shoulder smashes into my chest. My lungs seize. The puck skitters away useless, forgotten, because all I see is him—pressing me flat into the boards, his breath fogging against my cage.
“Move, pup,” he growls, low enough for only me to hear.
I do. I lunge, wild and reckless, shoving back with every ounce of muscle I’ve built since he started breaking me down. My shoulder slams into his ribs, my blade claws at the puck, and for one beautiful second, he actually stumbles.
The bench erupts—vets howling, rookies hollering, Cole shrieking “CURLS WITH THE HIT!” like it’s Christmas morning.
I don’t have time to grin. Damian’s already recovered.
His stick hooks mine, his weight drives into me again, harder, enough to make sparks burst behind my eyes. My knees buckle. I still don’t fold.
The puck squirts free, somewhere between us, but neither of us is chasing it anymore. It’s not about rubber. It’s about blood.
