Click.
The puck drops and, of course, Elias wins faster than the Mauler can even register it, Elias has it gone—snapped off the draw, sliding it straight to me without hesitation. I catch, drag it wide, bait their defense just enough to make them bite, then fire it over the ice toward Cole, who’s tearing up the wing like he’s running from the devil.
“Curls, bury it!” Cole yells, grinning.
Elias is there catching and twisting and scoring as the horn shrieks and the black-and-red crowd erupts to its feet, screaming, the whole arena losing its damn mind around him. He skates into his turn, curls plastered to his forehead, mouthsplit in that feral grin he gets when the world is burning right and he’s the one holding the match, only to slam straight into a wall of red and gold.
Maulers.
They swarm before the goal light even finishes its spin. But before a single stick lifts, before the first glove drops, Cole and I are already there. I move in fast, hard, placing myself squarely between Elias and the Mauler who won’t keep his damn mouth shut. My shoulder slams forward, solid and unmoving. “Try it,” I growl.
Beside me, Cole leans on his stick like it’s casual and jams it into the Mauler’s skate with the most syrup-sweet voice I’ve ever heard. “Oops,” he hums. “Didn’t see you there.”
The Mauler stumbles off balance, arms flailing, ass slamming down on the ice. And Elias just steps back, still smirking, still shining like a golden menace.
The crowd’s unhinged, noise exploding from every section, fans climbing over each other to scream their lungs out. I can feel the heat in my chest as I skate back into position. Because this—this chaos, this noise, this claiming—it’s ours now.
End of first: 4–1 for Reapers.
Elias scored twice, Cole once, Mats landed a slapshot so hard it shook the boards, and the Maulers? They’re fracturing. I see it in their eyes. In the way their line changes get sloppy. In the way their fists tighten before their sticks. They’re cracking.
Which is why second period doesn’t start with puck drop. It starts with blood.
I’m on the bench, helmet off, gear loosened just enough to breathe, watching as the Maulers hit the ice like wolves—snarling, desperate, the worst kind. They’re behind and they know it, throwing weight like it’s a bar brawl, slashing calves, swinging elbows high, cross-checking like the rules don’t apply.Whistles come late. Hits come dirty. And every play’s meaner than the last.
Thank fuck Viktor’s back out there.
Elias is bouncing on his blades at center, high on adrenaline, body singing with contact, cheeks flushed, curls stuck to his skin, and that grin—God, that grin—like he’s daring the universe to hit him just so he can hit back. He looks like a fucking wildfire in skates. Ready to burn it all.
And I’m not with him.
Coach tossed in a vet on my wing to rotate the lines. Said I needed to breathe before I started swinging fists. And maybe he’s right. My jaw aches from clenching and my hands are already fists. I can feel it crawling under my skin.
Because they’re targeting him. And I see it. The way their enforcer drifts a little too close. The center taking shots after every whistle. That defenseman who won’t shut the hell up. They’re all circling him. Closing in.
And of course Elias chirps back. “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll start charging rent,” He snaps as he glares at the Mauler shadowing him.
Then it happens—crack, a sharp low slash that bites before the ref can even think to whistle, and by the time the sound finally cuts through the noise there’s already blood on the ice, bright and obscene against the white, not Elias’s but some poor bastard’s who thought he could get away with slashing Elias’s calf without Viktor noticing, which is the kind of rookie mistake you only make once, because Viktor levels him without a shred of hesitation, all Russian fury and cold vengeance detonating in a Reapers jersey as bodies crash and the message lands hard and final.
Bodies rise from their seats. The air goes electric. And I’m already halfway over the boards, murder in my bones, before Coach clamps a hand around my arm. “Wait.”
My head snaps to him, eyes slicing like blades.
“Let the kid handle it.”
I freeze. On the ice, Elias wipes sweat from his brow, tosses a glance over his shoulder at the blood, and smirks.
“Oops,” he chirps, tongue in cheek. “Should’ve kept your stick up.”
And the game continues. Blood on the ice. A brat loose at center. And the creeping certainty inside me that if one more of these red-and-gold fucks comes near Elias, I’m going to end someone before the third.
A Mauler—cocky, dumb, tired of being outplayed—throws his glove. Throws it. Right at Elias’s feet like he’s calling him out on the schoolyard.
Gasps ripple through the crowd. The refs start shouting.
I stand so fast I nearly vault the boards, my helmet in one hand, knuckles clenched white around the cage. I don’t hear Coach. Don’t hear the team. All I see is that Mauler posturing in front of Elias.
Elias laughs. “Oh,” all grin and teeth and goddamn chaos. “You wanna go, princess?”
