“I’d give up my skates for you,” Damian says, quiet and deadly serious, like he’s promising to tear out his own lungs if I asked.
My throat closes. And then I break, the sob slips out before I can choke it down. Ugly and real. I clench my fists in his chest, bury my face in his there, and sob.
Because he means it. Because I know what skating means to him. What the game means. What being Damian fucking Kade means. He’s lived this life longer than I’ve been legal. Bled for it. Fought for it. Built this team with his own fists.
And he’d give it up for me.
Slowly, I look up. My face is wet, cheeks blotchy, mouth trembling like I’ve been scraped raw from the inside out. Damian wipes away my tears with his thumb, so gentle it makes my chest hurt more. His smile isn’t smug this time—it’s soft, devastating, worshipful in a way that makes my chest ache and my throat catch.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
And I mean it. Every syllable, every shaky breath. I love him with everything I am. Everything I’ve ever been. I love him in the bloodied, broken, unfixable parts of me. I love him like a goal at the buzzer, like a fight I’ll never back down from.
His forehead rests against mine and for once we don’t say anything more. Because there’s nothing left to prove.
Home ice. Game two.
I can taste blood in the air before we even hit the rink.
The Bastards are out there, skating their warmup, green and silver like poison and steel, and our fans are already foaming at the mouth, screaming down from every tier. I like it. I want them loud. I want them fucking rabid. Because this isn’t the Wranglers or the Maulers—we’re past that now.
This is war.
The Bastards are built different. Bigger. Dirtier. Their game tape looks like a UFC highlight reel with blades. Every shift is a fight waiting to happen, and every time we touch the puck, they try to take our heads off first. We barely scraped a win in Game 1, and I don’t mean barely like a coach would say—I mean Elias was limping, Shane was seeing stars, Cole had a cut above his eye, and Mats had to be dragged off the Bastards’ bench before he murdered someone.
And now they’re back. Meaner. Hungrier.
Good. I hope they try something tonight.
Behind me, the tunnel hums with tension. My team. My boys. Black and red, snarling and straining at the leash. Shane’s bouncing on his skates. Cole is vibrating, stick spinning between his palms. Mats mutters in Spanish. Viktor just stands still, chewing gum like it wronged his ancestors, eyes locked on the green jerseys.
And Elias—my fucking center—is pacing again, hair still damp from warmup, jersey hanging loose on his hips, laces triple-knotted like he’s planning to die on the ice before he lets anyone undo them, his mouth moving under his breath until I get close enough to hear it.
“Twenty-three. Eighty-four. Forty-nine. Seventy-one.” Numbers. The Bastards’ top line. He’s dreaming about them, mumbling jersey numbers like he’s carrying them in his sleep now.
I grab the back of his neck, drag him still, and make him look at me. “You ready, pup?”
His grin is all teeth and bloodlust. “I’ve never been more ready.”
Good.
Because the second the puck drops, the Bastards go for his throat. Their first line swarms him like they’ve studied him too—they know his pivot, his weight distribution, the angle he likes to start on. One tries to slash him off the draw. The ref doesn’t see it.
But Elias does. He wins the faceoff anyway, jerking the puck back so hard it skitters into our zone, spins off, and shoves the Bastard center in the chest like it’s personal. It is.
And then it’s on. Bodies crash, boards shake. Cole launches into their defenseman and gets flattened in return. Shane makes two impossible saves in the first minute. Mats hooks someone behind the net and gets away with it. The barn is screaming.
But I’m not watching the puck—I’m watching him, number 19, playing like the entire Cup is wired straight to his pulse, fast and brutal and terrifyingly precise as he dangles past two Bastards on a bad leg, flips a backhand pass that lands clean on Cole’s stick, and doesn’t even slow when they nail him into the boards, just bounces off the hit and keeps skating.
By the second period, the game collapses into chaos.
4–4.
Every shift is trench warfare, helmets ripped loose, sticks snapping. The refs vanish—useless, terrified, letting it burn because they know the whistle won’t save anyone. Not tonight.
The Bastards didn’t come to play clean. They came for blood and elbows. And my boys don’t back down.
Shane’s taken a skate to the ribs. Cole’s wearing a gash on his chin that’ll scar beautifully. Viktor’s smiling, all teeth and hunger.
