At him.
Damian sits at his stall, shoulders heavy, hair damp and dark, his eyes lowered as he tapes his knuckles. White cloth winds around red skin, slow and steady, his fingers moving with that terrifying calm. Every strip of tape squeaks as it pulls, every wrap tightening, hiding the blood but not erasing it.
I can’t look away.
Not from the flex of his hand, not from the line of his jaw in the dim light, not from the faint smirk tugging at his scarred lip every time someone laughs too loud. He hasn’t said a word since the fight. Doesn’t need to. His presence fills the room more than all of us combined.
Third period.
The barn is a madhouse, silver-and-black claws pounding glass, voices like thunder shaking the rafters. 3–0, Reapers, and Haverton’s foaming at the mouth for blood. Their fanswant it, their bench needs it, and their captain—back on the ice, lip split, eyes wild—looks like he’ll carve me into pieces if it’s the only thing he does tonight.
Center ice.
I crouch low, stick tapping the dot. Shaw’s crouched across from me, hunched low, dripping violence. The ref’s arm is raised, puck trembling between his fingers.
On my left—Damian. Captain. Shadow.
On my right—Tyler, jittery, jaw tight, stick clamped too hard in his gloves.
Cole’s benched for this shift, shouting taunts from behind us, voice muffled through his vampire fangs.
The puck drops.
And it’s war.
Shaw lunges at me, stick stabbing for the draw, shoulder crashing into mine before the puck even hits the sheet. His breath is hot through his cage. “You’re dead, rookie.”
I laugh in his face. Loud. Too loud. “Not if I kill you first, grandpa!”
The puck skitters loose, sticks clashing, blades scraping. Shaw’s heavier, dirtier, he shoves, slashes, leans his full weight into me, trying to pin me down at the dot.
But Damian’s already there.
He rams into Shaw’s wingman, clearing space. “Move, Mercer.”
I move.
My blade snags the puck free, my legs tearing across the sheet. Haverton doesn’t wait—they come hard, three men collapsing in, sticks like knives, bodies like walls. The third period is vicious, desperate, every one of them slashing, clawing, hungry for a point on the board.
They don’t have any damn goals.
And they’re willing to kill for one.
I’ve got the puck, blade hot, legs on fire. Shaw’s breathing down my neck, two more Phantoms closing fast, but I’m still moving.
And then—pain.
White-hot, ripping up my arm.
A Phantom defenseman slashes straight across my wrists, stick biting bone through padding. My grip spasms, the puck slips loose, clattering into neutral ice. I curse, loud, raw, the sound tearing out of me as my hands go numb.
The Phantoms pounce.
They’re gone before I can even recover, streaking up ice, Shaw at the helm, his lip still bleeding, his eyes still locked on me like he wants to carve me open. One pass, two, a fake at Shane’s crease—
And it’s in.
The horn screams. The Haverton crowd explodes, glass rattling, hands pounding. 3–1.
