Page 51 of Protective Pucking Orc

Normally, this bus was a place of both ritual silence and controlled chaos.

Bardon would take the front seat behind the driver, tablet already open to whatever footage he thought would be most useful to study. Coach Ellis and the other coaches would spread out around him, talking strategy in a low murmur. Jord would have his earbuds in, bouncing his knee, too much energy in too young a body.

Torrk would fold his massive frame into a window seat and be asleep before we cleared town limits—goalies possessed a talent for sleep I’d never understood, as if hours of motionless focus in the crease taught the body to conserve itself whenever possible. And it was ridiculous how he could sleep sitting up—hells, I’d seen him fall asleep in the locker room, listening to coach’s post-game rundown, standing upright.

Kardok would complain—about the seats, about the schedule, about whatever petty indignity had caught his attention that day—until someone told him to shut up, at which point he’d jump on the offender and there’d be a tussle I or one of the other older players would have to break up.

Away games had a familiar rhythm; males readying themselves to be violent for money.

I had warned Sofia it might be boring.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The doors hissed open, and Rosa went up the steps first, one hand in her mother’s, the other clutched around a doll Torrk had provided with a fluffy white wedding dress.

She stopped at the top and surveyed the bus the way a general might survey new territory.

“Kitling!” Jord was on his feet before I’d even climbed the steps behind them, already pulling out his earbuds. “You’re coming to the game?”

Rosa nodded solemnly. “I’m gonna watch Dak hit people.”

A wave of laughter—guffaws, really—went down the bus. Bardon, tablet still open on his lap, looked up and actually smiled—an expression I didn’t often see on him before a game.

I didn’t get the chance to guide my Mate and kitling to seats, because Torrk—Torrk, who once slept through a whole time zone without stirring—was already rearranging himself, sliding toward the aisle to open up the window seat.

“She’ll want to see the mountains,” he announced confidently, clearly abandoning his plans to nap.

Rosa climbed in beside him without hesitation, already deep in negotiation about the names of her dolls, and Torrk listened to all of it with the same intensity he gave a shootout. As if her dolls’ names mattered to him. As if she mattered to him, simply because she mattered to me.

Kardok, three rows back, had abandoned his complaints entirely. “Sofia.” He nodded at her, and there was something almost gentle under the gruffness. “Good to see you standing.”

Her breath caught—I felt it more than heard it, my hand still at the small of her back—and I understood.

She hadn’t seen most of these males since the worst day of her life. They remembered her broken. They remembered the blood.

“Thank you,” she said, quiet. “For everything you did that day.”

Kardok’s smile flattened, orc discomfort with sincerity. He grunted something and produced, from nowhere I could see, a bag of dried fruit, which he tossed to Rosa without comment. She caught it with both hands and declared him her favorite, which made Torrk mutter something in our tongue that was uncomplimentary about being usurped as the kitling’s favorite.

My team—my friends—were vying for her affection the way I desperately wanted to claim her mother’s.

By the time the bus pulled out of the lot, Rosa had been claimed by no fewer than four grown males as some combination of mascot, judge, and honored guest. Torrk was teaching her a handshake while Bardon had produced chocolate I didn’t know he carried.

Sofia sat pressed against my side, watching all of it with an expression I was coming to know well—the one she wore when something moved her, and she didn’t want it seen.

I put my arm around her, and she let me.

This was nothing like any bus ride I’d taken in four seasons with this team, and I loved it. By the time we reached Denver, it was like we were all more energized just by having Rosa with us, and the team was laughing and calling jokes back and forth—all of them watching their language, which was amusing—and seemed ready to take on the Amber Avengers.

Lila had driven separately, her own vehicle already parked in the reserved lot when our bus pulled in, and she was waiting at the players’ entrance with a smile. Kardok approached her with a huge grin, lifting her off her feet in a kiss, although they’d only been separated two hours before, and then settled her against him as they both turned to me.

“Owner’s box,” she said, before I’d even asked. “Private elevator. No one gets up there who isn’t cleared by me personally.” She bent slightly to hold Rosa’s gaze. “I have popcorn up there with your name on it, little one.”

Rosa’s eyes went round as saucers, and just like that, my kitling—no, my Mate’s daughter, not yet mine by anything but the fierce want in my chest—towed Lila toward the elevator, chattering about dolls and popcorn in the same breath.

Sofia lingered a moment longer. I caught her hand, pressed my mouth briefly to her knuckles, tasted the nerves still humming under her skin. “You will be safe. You will be seen, but only by me.”

She didn’t understand what I meant. I didn’t explain. I simply held her gaze until some of the tension went out of her shoulders, and then I let her go, and watched Lila lead them both away, up out of sight, into the box no opposing fan or roaming camera would ever find.