He shoves. I shove back. Bodies collide, helmets clack. Every stride is desperation, every slam is fire, every snarl is another promise he’ll wreck me later.
It’s brutal. Too brutal for a scrimmage.
“Jesus Christ—” Mats mutters from the bench.
“Cap’s gonna kill him,” Shane groans.
“LET HIM COOK!” Cole screams like a lunatic, banging his stick against the plexi.
Damian pins me again, glove in my cage. His voice is a snarl. “Hit me, Mercer. Or I’ll bury you here.”
My chest heaves. My throat works. And I slam back.
Full force. Shoulder to chest. Stick grinding against his until sparks almost fly. It’s filthy. It’s violent. It’s the hardest I’ve ever hit anyone.
The boards shriek under us. The bench loses its goddamn mind.
Then Viktor moves. Big bastard rises off the bench, steel grinding, like he’s actually going to step in before I break my spine. Mats’s glove shoots out, holding him back. “Don’t. He needs this.”
And Christ—they’re right.
Because Damian shoves harder, snarling against my cage, and I grin back through it.
And for half a heartbeat, he grins too.
He crushes me so hard the boards quake under our skates.
Practice finally ends with the whistle shrieking through the rink, the whole scrimmage collapsing in a mess of bodies and sweat.
The vets let us off the ice first. Probably because they want to watch me limp into the locker room like a lamb to slaughter.
I’m peeling off my gear, sweat stinging my eyes, when Cole starts it. Of course it’s Cole.
“Look at you, curls,” he cackles from two stalls down, sunglasses crooked on his nose. “Still alive after throwing yourself at Cap like a crash-test dummy. You deserve a medal. Or at least a tetanus shot.”
The room erupts.
“Christ,” Cole keeps going, throwing his shoulder into Mats, “did youseethe way Cap punished him into the boards? He’s gonna be eating glass for a week.”
I groan, dragging my jersey off, trying to hide my face in the fabric. My ears are on fire. My whole chest is flushed red—and it’s not just from skating.
Damian doesn’t rescue me. Of course he doesn’t. He’s sitting two stalls over, calm as stone, taping the split across his knuckles like he didn’t just try to bury me alive on ice. His eyes lift, pinning me where I sit trembling, and then—he smirks.
“That wasn’t punishment,” he says flat.
Every head swivels. My heart stops.
“Punishment,” Damian continues as he leans back on the bench, “is not letting him come for three days straight.”
The roomexplodes.
Cole howls so loud his helmet falls off the bench. Mats spits water everywhere, actually coughing. Tyler shrieks like someone stabbed him. Shane mutters a prayer he definitely doesn’t mean.
I’m dead. Dead on the floor. Or at least I wish I was, because my face is burning so hot it might combust. My whole body goes stiff, my lips twitch uselessly, and I can’t stop staring at the floor like maybe it’ll swallow me.
“OH MY GOD!” Cole screeches, sunglasses askew, pointing at me like I’m a crime scene. “CURLS ISSCARLET! CAP, YOU BROKE HIM!”
I slam my helmet over my head just to hide, muffled groan tearing out of me. “Kill me. Someone kill me.”
