Chapter 7 Karrick
Karrick
The whistle screamed across the field like a banshee, and I barely managed to dodge Silver’s tackle before eating turf.
“Laurent! Where the hell is your head today?” Coach Flannery’s voice boomed across the practice field, his middle-aged, but still chiseled face twisted into its usual scowl.
His bare werewolf feet pounded against the grass as he stalked toward me, clipboard clutched in one fuzzy hand.
Coach almost never returned to his human form.
I wiped sweat from my brow, my thick fur matted against my skin. “Sorry, Coach. Won’t happen again.”
But even as the words left my mouth, I knew it was a lie.
My mind kept drifting back to those orange eyes.
The eyes I’d recognize anywhere, even after all these years.
Phoenix. My best friend Phoenix. Except he’d looked right through me like I was nothing more than another hulking beast cluttering up his pristine academic world.
“Jesus, Karrick, what’s eating you?” Silver jogged up beside me, his dark purple skin glistening with perspiration. “You’re playing like you’ve never seen a football before.”
Jackson snorted, his sandy hair falling into his amber eyes. His ears gave an annoyed flick. “Maybe taking a year off has made him soft.”
“How about you shut the fuck up?” Silver snapped back. “He was attacked and nearly killed. He’s been through more than you’ve ever dreamt about, jackass.”
My chest tightened at Silver’s words, the familiar ache of remembering what Damien had done to me threatening to surface. I shoved it down hard. “I’m fine,” I growled, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “Just need to get back in the groove.”
Daisuke jogged over. Even in human form, the single short horn in the middle of his forehead caught the afternoon sunlight.
The kirin’s usually calm demeanor seemed strained as he glanced between us.
“Perhaps we should focus on the drill,” he suggested diplomatically, but I caught the concern in his dark eyes.
Coach Flannery’s whistle shrieked again. “Alright, ladies! Less gossip, more football! Run it again!”
I lined up across from Jackson, trying to force my mind back to the play.
But as I crouched into position, my thoughts betrayed me again.
Phoenix’s face flashed before my eyes, older now, sharper angles where there had once been soft childhood curves, but those eyes.
.. Christ, those eyes were exactly the same.
The way they used to light up when he’d show me some new spell he’d learned, or when we’d race through the forest in my shifted form. What had happened to him?
The ball snapped and I lunged forward, but my timing was off. Jackson slipped past me like I was standing still, and I hit the ground hard, tasting dirt and grass.
“LAURENT!” Coach’s roar made my ears ring. “Go do a lap! Right now!”
I pushed myself up, spitting out mud, and caught Silver shaking his head at me. The disappointment in my friend’s expression stung worse than Coach’s shouting.
As I jogged around the perimeter of the field, my lungs burned, and my muscles screamed in protest. I welcomed the pain.
Anything to distract me from the emotional clusterfuck inside my head.
One year away from Widdershins, one year of healing and therapy and nightmares about what Damien had done to me, and now I was back only to have my past blindside me in an entirely different way.
Phoenix fucking Emberwood. The kid who’d disappeared from my life without a word.
I pushed myself harder, my claws digging into the earth with each stride.
The memory of those summers in the Pacific Northwest washed over me.
I heard Phoenix’s childish laughter as I chased him through the pines, saw the look of wonder on his face the first time he’d seen me shift into my beast form, and remembered the promises we’d made to be friends forever.
“Bullshit,” I growled under my breath, startling a couple of freshmen who were setting up equipment near the sidelines. They scattered like frightened rabbits, reminding me how most people reacted to Beastkin. Everyone except Phoenix. He’d never been afraid.
Until his parents found out.
I rounded the far corner of the field, catching sight of Coach Flannery demonstrating a blocking technique to Daisuke.
The kirin nodded attentively, his single horn gleaming once more.
Silver was running interference against Jackson, who still had that smug look on his wolf-boy face while the rest circled around them, running the play the way it was supposed to be done.
My teammates. My brothers, more or less.
They’d been there for me after the attack.
Where had Phoenix been all these years?
The thought made my pace falter. It wasn’t his fault. Not really. We’d been kids. His parents had just packed up and moved. But the pain of that abandonment had festered inside me for years, and seeing him now, watching him pretend not to know me, ripped that scar clean open once more.
“Pick it up, Laurent!” Coach’s voice carried across the field. “This isn’t a Sunday stroll!”
I gritted my teeth and pushed myself into a sprint for the final stretch. My beast form was built for power, not speed, and the effort made my vision blur at the edges. By the time I rejoined the group, I was drenched in sweat, my dark fur clinging to my skin in sodden clumps.
“Glad you could rejoin us,” Coach Flannery said, eyeing me critically. “You good to continue, or do you need another reminder about where your head should be?”
“I’m good,” I panted, avoiding Silver’s questioning gaze. “Won’t happen again.”
Coach nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. His nostrils flared slightly, werewolf senses picking up more than just my physical exhaustion, no doubt. But he didn’t push it.
“Alright, let’s run the defensive line drills. Laurent, you’re with Takahashi.”
I nodded, grateful to be paired with Daisuke instead of Jackson.
The kirin never made me feel like I had something to prove.
We lined up across from each other, and I tried to focus on his stance, the way his muscles tensed before he moved.
Anything but the memory of orange eyes looking right through me.
“You seem troubled, my friend,” Daisuke said quietly as we reset for another rep. His voice had that careful, measured quality that came from being raised in a culture where every word mattered.
“Just getting back into it,” I muttered, but even I could hear how hollow that sounded.
Daisuke’s dark eyes studied me with uncomfortable intensity. “Perhaps. But I have found that the body follows where the mind leads. If your thoughts are elsewhere...”
“My thoughts are fine.” The words came out sharper than I’d intended, and I saw him flinch slightly. Guilt twisted in my gut. Daisuke didn’t deserve my attitude. None of them did.
Coach’s whistle cut through the air again, saving me from having to apologize. “Water break! Five minutes!”
I trudged toward the sidelines, my legs feeling like they were made of concrete. Silver fell into step beside me, his purple skin still gleaming with sweat.
“You know you can talk to us, right?” he said, grabbing his water bottle from the bench. “We’re not just your teammates, Karrick. We’re your friends.”
I took a long drink, letting the cold water wash the taste of dirt from my mouth. Around us, the other guys were laughing about something Jackson had said, the easy camaraderie I’d been part of before my year away. Now I felt like I was watching it from behind glass.
“There’s this kid,” I said finally, the words coming out before I could stop them. “Someone I knew when I was little. I saw him today.”
Silver raised an eyebrow. “And that’s got you playing like shit because...?”
“Because he pretended not to know me.” The admission felt like pulling splinters from under my claws. “We were best friends, and he just... looked right through me like I was nothing.”
“Maybe he didn’t recognize you,” Silver suggested, but his tone was careful. “I mean, you’ve changed a lot since you were a kid, right? The whole beast form thing...”
I shook my head. “He knew. I could see it in his eyes for just a second before he shut down. He knew exactly who I was.” I paused. “Or at least I thought I did.
The whistle shrieked again, and Coach was waving us back onto the field. I could see him watching me, those werewolf senses probably picking up every emotional shift in my scent. The last thing I needed was him pulling me aside for one of his heart-to-heart talks.
“Look,” Silver said as we jogged back into position, “maybe there’s more to it than you think. People have reasons for the shit they do, you know?”
I wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong.
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought he might be right.
If Phoenix’s parents were so controlling that they’d just pack him up and move across the country without letting him even say goodbye, then maybe he’d been raised in a world where acknowledging me wasn’t allowed.
Maybe he’d been brainwashed to forget me.
Or maybe… maybe he just never cared that much.
And why did that thought make me feel hollow from head to toe?
“Laurent! Get your head out of your ass and focus!” Coach Flannery’s voice cut through my thoughts like a chainsaw.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. The hollow feeling in my chest wouldn’t leave, but I needed to push through. I’d spent a year fighting to recover, to be strong enough to come back here. I wasn’t going to let Phoenix fucking Emberwood derail me on my first day back.
“Yes, Coach,” I growled, digging my claws into the turf as I set my stance.