Chapter 55 Faust
FIFTY-FIVE
FAUST
Sylvan’s nose is bleeding, but he doesn’t seem to care.
After battling for the puck in the corner with the Horse’s (yes, really) Trent, something happened, and Sylvan dropped his stick immediately, his gloves right after, then didn’t pause before he shoved the D man against the boards.
Two refs are there, forming a semi-circle around the boys as our crowd roars in the stadium.
Sylvan punches Trent, knocking his helmet off, and the defensive player is gripping Sylvan’s jersey and trying to twist his face away, but as I charge down the ice, there’s a look of smugness in Trent’s expression that causes anger to boil in my gut.
I duck past the refs as Sylvan hits Trent again, blood on my teammate’s face that must have gotten there somehow in the skirmish for the puck, and when I grab the back of Sylvan’s jersey to steady myself, he says exactly what it is that caused him to go off the fucking rails despite the fact we’re winning 3-1.
“He said he was going to fuck Neve,” he snarls.
And I let him hit Trent again.
That knocks the smugness from his face as his head tips back, and now he has blood streaming down his throat.
I’m surprised the refs haven’t intervened; we don’t get away with as much fighting as the pros do, but when more of my teammates and Trent’s all appear around us, I hear the whistle blow, and a hand from a black and white striped uniform reaches out and jerks Sylvan back.
As captain, I’m supposed to help stop the fights.
I wedge myself between the sweaty bodies, but I’m facing Trent, not Sylvan.
Trent’s light eyes connect with my dark ones and I memorize his face. He’s nothing special, just a body for the Horses, or else I’d already know what he looks like.
As the refs pull Sylvan away and some Horse tells me to “fuck off,” I grin at Trent, shake off my glove casually so it looks like an accident, and reach up quick, pinching his throat as hard as I can.
“You come near her,” I whisper pleasantly, “you’re fucking dead. I’m sure you’ve heard how that goes.” Then I wink at him, grab my glove, and turn away, my eyes colliding with Sylvan’s, mutual understanding passing between us.
“What happened out there?” Neve asks as we stand at the bar on either side of her, the commotion of Royale’s grating on my nerves after the game. We came here because no one else is supposed to be here, all favoring Slyth’s or Casket’s to get a glimpse of us, but we are definitely not alone.
I want to be in bed with Neve, but she and Sylvan wanted to go out, so I’m out.
Monday, I have a photoshoot in the evening—thrilled—for a sponsorship, so I’m taking all the time with them I can get, no matter where I have to be for it to happen.
Besides, Nolan Devine hasn’t yet been found, neither Neve nor Cynthia have returned to Darkmouth, and even the bookstore has been closed.
Neve is insistent the killer isn’t her brother.
I have many mixed feelings on that.
I don’t want her out of mine or Sylvan’s sight as much as we can help it until the creepy fucker is found. Whether he murdered four people at Drayton U or not, the little message he sent by ripping up Neve’s textbook makes me want to slit his fucking throat.
I hope neither Sylvan nor I are the ones to find him.
He might not make it into custody.
Sylvan pushes a lemon drop shot her way, then nudges the Stella toward me, taking a sip from his own old fashioned as the bartender deposits our drinks with a flirty smile for Neve, clearly not giving a shit about hockey.
That’s fine.
But he better give a shit about getting too close to a hockey player’s girlfriend, never mind two players.
Neve takes her pale yellow shot, grinning at both of us as she slams it down on the counter.
I roll my eyes but Sylvan smiles at her. He reminds me of a serpent with that expression, but the allure is heightened, too.
“Tell me,” she whines, and I like it. The fact she seems to have let her guard down with us tonight. Not as cold, not as closed off.
I guess what happened in my bed last night had something to do with that.
Just thinking about it now gets my dick hard.
We didn’t have sex, but Sylvan and I were both pressed against her body, and her small breaths while she slept drove us crazy. Our eyes locked in the dark, and I know we both wanted to tear her apart, but neither of us did. It was torture, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
I take a drink from my beer, my knee pressing into her thigh.
“Some fucker knows we’re together,” Sylvan says lightly.
We exchange looks over her head.
“How?” she asks, but she doesn’t seem unnerved by it.
“Rumors travel fast.” We both know it wasn’t the rumor.
It was the blood. You don’t pop off on someone chirping if there isn’t truth in it.
“Our team has seen you at every game, we don’t exactly hide when we’re out, and maybe when someone asked Sylvan about it, he told him to fuck off with murder in his eyes, so you’re ours now. ”
“Oh, am I?” she taunts me.
Sylvan grabs the back of her neck, and she freezes, eyes still on me, but she isn’t actually afraid.
She knows better now.
“You are,” I say, dead serious.
“And anyone who says anything about you is getting hurt,” Sylvan finishes. “As you saw.”
Neve grins, her gorgeous smile flashing. She looks so light and relaxed, like she belongs here between the two of us.
And she does.
I don’t know what it means for our futures, but I do know we’re never going to let her fucking go.
“Oh, look who it is.” Ryles’s voice sounds behind me and I grit my teeth as Neve lifts her eyes up to him, but I smile a little to myself when her own grin slips off her face.
Still a cold-hearted bitch when she wants to be, and I’m good with it.
“The three lovebirds,” Ryles continues in a singsong voice as he leans against the bar at my side. “How do you deal with one of these, let alone two?” he asks Neve.
Sylvan still hasn’t taken his fingers from the back of her neck.
“Careful what you say to her,” he says softly, “you saw the blood on the ice.”
Ryles lifts his hands. “Hey, hey, I didn’t say anything inappropriate. I mean,” out of the corner of my eye, I see him gesture toward us, “this is a thing, right?”
I turn to him then, my body blocking Neve from his sight. We lock eyes, and he’ll listen to me, because I’m his captain, and I don’t say things I don’t fucking mean.
“Yes,” I tell him. “It’s a thing. And if you want to head off to Las Vegas in the summer and show them what you’re made of, you’re not going to flirt with her, you understand? They don’t want an injury.”
Neve wraps her arm around my throat, pulling me back into her body as she stands behind me.
“Ignore him,” she says to Ryles, who looks like he’s seen a ghost. “He needs his dick in my mouth tonight and he’ll be back to normal.”
Fuck. She says it like we’ve done it dozens of times, which is only a fraction of how often I’ve imagined it.
Ryles exhales, but his complexion is still pale.
I grab Neve’s arm and I can’t help it. A laugh leaves me at her crassness, and her possessiveness, and the fact she isn’t afraid to tell everyone she’s with both of us.
Fuck, I think I might love her.
“What about my dick?” Sylvan asks from somewhere behind me.
Ryles blows out a breath dramatically. “Okay. Got it. Stay away from the pretty blond girl—”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Sylvan snarls, voice suddenly cold. “So I don’t slit your throat with my skate at practice”
Neve laughs so hard, she buries her face against my shoulder, and Ryles backs away slowly, like we’re a pack of rabid dragons.
For her, I think we’d both become killers.