Chapter 6 RAFE
RAFE
Practice is already falling apart, and we’ve barely been on the ice ten minutes.
The others are running drills—Misha taking passes like a wrecking ball, Luca chirping mid-spin, Bishop doing that thing where he pretends he doesn’t know the difference between a puck and someone’s teeth—but my attention isn’t on any of them.
It’s on Julian fucking Reaver. No longer trembling. No longer hollow-eyed or pacing like a dog waiting for execution. Whatever Kai gave him worked—but not the way it should have. Not to stabilize. Not to steady.
It unleashed him.
He’s tearing across the ice like he doesn’t care if he crashes into someone at ninety miles an hour.
He’s skating too fast, too sharp, too reckless.
The kind of skating you only do when your brain’s been replaced with fire and you want the world to burn with you.
He cuts through drills, ignores whistles, throws a shoulder into Finn for chirping too loud, and nearly slashes Vlad with his stick during a scramble at the crease.
He is feral and I know exactly why. Because I know Kai. I know his dosage habits. I know that look—the weightless, sweaty, glass-eyed storm Julian’s skating inside of.
He’s high. Not falling-apart high. Not withdrawal-hitting-the-wall high. No—this is the other kind. The dangerous kind. The kind that makes people forget they’re made of skin and bone and breakable things.
Julian has no fear left. And that means he’s going to fucking crash. Hard.
I slam my stick against the post, letting the sound echo, sharp and clean. “Reaver!” I bark.
He doesn’t hear me. Or maybe he does and he just doesn’t give a shit. He loops around behind the net like he’s chasing a ghost only he can see, nearly collides with Corso, and skates backward fast enough to spray ice in Bishop’s face.
“Fucking hell,” Bishop grumbles. “Someone put the rabid dog back in its crate.”
And I’m already moving out of the net, rage crawling under my skin, tight and hot. Because I can smell it now—the chemical high, the sweat, the smugness.
Kai gave him something. And Julian is daring me to do something about it.
Finn gets to me before I hit the blue line. He grabs my arm, digs in with more strength than anyone expects from him, and forces me to stop cold. I look down at him, growling low in my throat, fury bleeding out of every inch of me like heat off pavement.
“You break him now,” Finn warns, voice low and tight, eyes serious for once, “there’s no putting him back together.”
I bare my teeth. “Then maybe he shouldn’t come to practice high.”
But before I can shove past him, both of us snap our heads to the left because Julian’s snarling at Luca.
Luca’s eyes are already slitted with that wild-glint he gets right before a knife appears.
Body coiled, lip curled, fingers twitching like he’s choosing where to stab.
But it’s Julian who catches my attention first. Because he’s not backing down.
He’s daring him. Mouth curled in a twisted grin, hands loose but ready. He wants the fight.
“Can I break him now, puppy,” I hiss at Finn, “or do I need to watch him die first?”
Finn moves a step back, a glance away. That’s all the answer I need.
Luca lunges, but Julian’s already swinging. It’s full-on brawl now—gloves flying, snarls and curses ripping out of their throats. It’s not a fight, it’s violence, and everyone else backs off because they know how this goes. No one gets in between Luca and red, except Kai.
Luca dives again, blade already half-drawn, but Kai is there. He grabs Luca by the wrist, the elbow, the back of the neck, and Luca just folds. Like a flame snuffed out mid-flicker. Melts into Kai’s grip with a sound that’s all fury and submission, letting himself be hauled back.
Julian doesn’t fold, he thrashes. Like a wild fucking cat, limbs kicking, voice shredding against the air, trying to claw his way forward even as I grab him by the back of the neck and yank him off the ice like a misbehaving rookie.
I haul him back, feet scrambling, teeth bared, his whole body fighting mine like he thinks he can win. Like he wants me to hit him. And maybe I fucking will.
Because he’s high, he’s dangerous. And he’s going to burn this whole place down if I don’t get him under control.
He claws at my arm like he wants to take me down with him, still spitting, still snarling, still shaking with that chemically-induced rage that Kai pumped into his bloodstream like gasoline.
I drag him off the tangle of limbs and blood and Luca’s feral snarls, and I don’t bother being gentle.
I slam him into the nearest wall hard enough that the boards rattle, hard enough that he feels it in his fucking teeth.
“Come high on my ice again,” I growl against his cheek, breath hot, voice razor-close, “and I’ll break your goddamn legs. Are we clear?”
He lets out a sound—half gasp, half groan—and his eyes roll back for a second, lashes fluttering like he short-circuited from the hit. His head tips back against the wall, exposing his throat like something offering itself up to be gutted.
Then the little bastard tries to fight me again. He throws his weight forward, fist cocked, teeth bared like a fucking dog. “Fuck you!” he snarls, eyes wild, pupils blown. “You think I’m scared of you, you freaked-out, silent, psych ward fucking goalie—”
I don’t let him finish. I grab him by the throat and drag his ass across the ice, boots skidding, still snarling and writhing like a possessed animal.
I haul him to my net, rip a fresh roll of black tape from the crossbar where I always keep it, and without a word, I tape the fucker to the goddamn post. One strip across his chest. Another across his wrists. Two more to pin his hips and shoulder.
He’s squirming like mad the whole time. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Julian howls, writhing in place, teeth gnashing, head whipping around to glare at me like I’ve personally
burned down his childhood home. “Get this shit off me! You psychotic, mute, six-foot-five prison guard from hell! What the fuck is this—duct tape jail?!”
I slap another strip across his waist just to shut him up. “You’re going to stay here,” I say, low and lethal, “until you remember that this ice is mine.”
Julian jerks against the tape, panting like an animal, his eyes wild and shining and locked on me with pure, unfiltered disbelief. “This is fucking illegal!” he snarls. “You can’t tape people to goal posts! This is—this is kidnapping! Torture! Rink-side war crimes!”
I crouch in front of him slowly, meet his fire with quiet steel.
“It’s called keeping the fucking peace,” I mutter, voice inches from his mouth, “because if you come out here high again, picking fights with my team, skating like you’ve got a death wish, I will break your legs myself and tape you to a stretcher instead. ”
Julian thrashes hard, the tape creaking under his back, breath hitching, still snarling like he doesn’t know whether to spit at me or bite.
Then he stops struggling. Just like that.
Goes still in the net, chest heaving, taped down and panting like he’s just gone ten rounds with death and still wants one more.
His jaw clenches, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed into slits like he’s calculating how many teeth he could knock out if I gave him one arm free.
And then, the little shit spits at me. Right next to my mouth. Hot and furious, slick against my cheekbone, sliding down slow. He snarls like an animal when he does it—no words, no insults. Just pure, uncut defiance. His message is loud, clear, and wrapped in saliva.
I don’t move. I lean in instead—breath brushing his ear. “Open that mouth again,” I whisper, , “and I’ll tape it shut and fuck you through it.”
Just a threat. But he moans. Soft. Shocked. Furious at himself for making the sound.
I lick the corner of my mouth, taste the salt and heat and fuck-you fury of it, and smile. Then I tear another strip of tape off the roll. And I slap it over his mouth right across the lips, sealing in every curse, every threat, every scream he was about to throw at me.
He growls behind it, thrashes once, hard enough to make the net rattle, but I just lean in—close enough for him to feel the heat off my breath—and pat his cheek.
“Feral little shit,” I murmur, smirking.
And he’s still glaring at me like he’d kill me with a spoon if he had one. But he’s not going anywhere. Not until I say.
I crouch again, close enough to see the sweat running down his neck, the tape straining over his mouth every time he breathes too hard through his nose.
His eyes are still fire. Still spitting rage.
But there’s something quieter underneath now—something rawer.
Not submission. Not even close. But the kind of quiet that comes right before something cracks.
I tilt my head, voice low, calm. “You feel better now?”
Julian just stares at me, breathing hard. The tape crinkles with every inhale.
Fine, I don’t need a response.
I push off the post and turn, grabbing my mask, slipping it on like nothing happened. Because practice isn’t over. And now I’ve got two things to protect—my net… and him.
The others return to the drills, and they don't hesitate. Not even with Julian duct-taped to my post like a rabid mascot.
Pucks start flying. One whistles past his ear. He flinches. Barely. The next one comes faster—top shelf, scream-speed. I snap my glove up just in time, catching it inches from Julian’s face. He growls behind the tape, a furious, muffled noise like he’s about to tear through it with his teeth.
I don’t even look at him.
Another puck comes and I catch it. He flinches again.
I smile under the mask.
Every single shot, I make sure to catch it right in front of his face, just to watch that little twitch, just to feel the fury vibrating off him like static electricity.
Julian growls again, full-bodied now, fighting the tape like a wolf chained to a wall. But I don’t untie him. Not until he’s burned through all of it. Not until he finally understands whose rink he’s on.