Chapter twenty-three
Final Shift - The last time a player takes the ice in that game.
Theron
“—and there he is, ladies and gentlemen, Dante Russo, cleared to play tonight after missing game six following that car accident earlier in the week. You can see the bruising on his face, Marty, that black eye is something else.”
“It really is, Pat. The team confirmed yesterday that Russo was rear-ended on his way home from practice, and given the severity of the collision, it’s frankly remarkable that he’s out here at all tonight.
Word from the team doctor is he passed every concussion protocol, every test they could throw at him. ”
“That’s a kid who wants to be on the ice. You don’t suit up looking like that unless you’re determined.”
“And you have to think Coach Kincaid is glad to have him back. After that disaster in game six—I don’t think any of us have ever seen the Dragons look that flat in a playoff game—they desperately need every weapon they’ve got. Russo scored the game-winner in game five, remember.”
“Speaking of weapons, nice to see Max Renaud back at full strength too.”
I stood behind the bench, my hands resting lightly on the boards, sensing the energy from nineteen thousand people who knew they were watching something that mattered.
Game seven. The last one. Whoever won tonight would advance to round two and another seven games.
Win or go home. It had come down to that.
I glanced down the bench and found him. Third line, sitting between Cole and Keegan, his helmet on, mouthguard chewed sideways in that way he had when he was nervous.
The black eye looked worse under the arena lights than it had in the locker room, but the swelling had gone down.
He’d told the media exactly what we’d agreed on—a fender bender, airbag deployment, lucky he wasn’t hurt worse.
He’d recited it like a kid reading off a script, and somehow that had made the reporters believe it more.
The woman who had said she was his new agent didn’t exist, but Cole had recommended his, and I knew a new car would be the least he got.
He turned his head as if he’d felt me looking, and our eyes met for half a second across the bench. He didn’t smile. He didn’t have to. The corner of his mouth twitched once, professional as anything, and then he looked back out at the ice.
Mine, my dragon rumbled, low and satisfied beneath my ribs.
Mine, I agreed.
The anthem started and ended. The crowd roared. Max skated to center ice for the opening face-off, his shoulders set in that particular way that meant he was about to make this game his personal mission.
I leaned forward against the boards.
“Let’s go,” I said quietly, to no one and everyone.
The puck dropped.
Chicago came out of the gate like they’d already won.
You could see it in the way they skated—loose, loud, half a step slower than they needed to be.
Antoine in particular was performing. Every shift he was out there with his chest puffed up, chirping at our bench, taking the long route around the offensive zone so the cameras could catch him.
He scored two goals in game six and suddenly he thought he was golden.
I watched him line up against Cole for a face-off and lean in to say something. Cole didn’t even look at him. Just stared down at the dot like Antoine wasn’t there. Antoine laughed and tapped Cole’s skate with his stick, the kind of move a guy made when he thought he was untouchable.
He had no idea.
My dragon stirred, a slow coil of heat behind my breastbone.
I’d been awake less than seven hours. By every law of biology I knew, I shouldn’t have been standing.
But forge dragons ran hot, and a mate bond fully claimed ran hotter still—I’d felt it lock into place sometime in the night, while Dante had been crying into my shoulder and telling me he was moving in whether I liked it or not.
Whatever damage the radiation had done deep inside me, that bond had finished healing what my dragon couldn’t.
I’d woken at nine, ravenous, whole, and three-quarters terrified of how good I felt.
Dante wouldn’t get his mark until I took him for his first flight.
I had a lot of explaining to do, but we’d both agreed to focus on the game.
It had been the only benefit of the last game being in Chicago, so none of us had to cope with traveling. Well, that, and the fact Dante’s family were VIP guests of Ignatius.
Chicago’s coach was leaning on the boards down the ice, arms crossed, looking smug. I let him.
“They’re flat,” Max said as he glided in for a line change, breathing hard. “They think we’re done.”
“Let them think it,” I said.
He grinned around his mouthguard and in a moment was gone again.
Two minutes later, Cole won a draw cleanly back to Max at the point.
Max waited—one beat, two—until the Chicago defender committed, then slid it laterally to Keegan at the half-wall.
Keegan didn’t shoot. He threw it back to the slot blind, and Cole was already there, stick down, one-timing it through the goalie’s five-hole before the netminder had finished sliding across.
The arena exploded.
Cole didn’t celebrate. He skated to the bench with his head down and tapped gloves with the line waiting to go on, and when he sat, he glanced up at me once. His eyes flickered red and steadied.
“Good shift,” I said.
“Antoine’s mouthing off down there.”
“Let him.”
Chicago didn’t adjust. That was the thing that struck me as the first period rolled on—they didn’t change a thing.
Their bench was still loose, still laughing on the changes, still treating this like a game they’d already locked up in the second period of game six.
Antoine took a lazy stick to Ash’s ankles on a forecheck and gave the ref a look like how dare you when the arm went up.
Power play.
I tapped Cole’s shoulder. “Take Russo with you.”
Cole’s head snapped around. “First unit?”
“First unit.”
He didn’t ask twice. He grabbed Dante by the back of the jersey on his way over the boards and said something low into his ear that made Dante nod once, sharp.
I leaned back on the glass, and let myself watch him.
He looked smaller than the rest of them out there.
He wasn’t, not really, but next to Max and Cole and the Chicago penalty-kill line, he had that lean, coiled quickness that read as compact.
The black eye was vivid under the lights.
The booth was still talking about it; I could hear the broadcast bleeding faintly from a monitor behind me.
“—and Russo getting first-unit power play time here, that’s interesting, Marty. Kincaid trusts this kid—”
“He’s earned it.”
He had. God, he had.
The puck dropped. Dante to Cole at the half-wall, Cole to Keegan at the top of the circle, Keegan faking the shot and slipping it cross-ice to Ilyin—and Chicago was chasing now, finally, finally taking it seriously, but they were a half-second behind on every rotation because they hadn’t taken us seriously the first ten minutes.
Ilyin one-touched it back to Dante at the side of the net, and Dante didn’t shoot—he had the instinct, I could see him almost do it, the stick lifted half an inch—and then he slid it across the crease to Keegan, who’d shot low while the Chicago defenders were still playing catch up.
2-0.
Keegan turned and pointed his stick straight at Dante before anything else, and Dante shook his head, grinning. The bench stood up. Cole knocked his helmet against Dante’s as they came off, and I saw Max waiting at the door, glove out, the way he only did when he meant it.
“Attaboy, kid,” Max said, and Dante’s ears went pink even through the bruising.
The horn went a few minutes later. Chicago skated off looking like men who’d just realized they hadn’t shown up for a hockey game.
I walked into the dressing room behind them and let the noise settle. Twenty seconds. That was all I gave them—twenty seconds of gear hitting the floor and bottles squirting and Ash laughing at something Ilyin said.
Then I stepped into the middle of the room.
They went quiet the way they always did. Not because I demanded it. Because they wanted to hear.
“Forty minutes,” I said. “That’s all that’s between you and the second round. Forty minutes of hockey.”
Max was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his face still flushed from the ice.
Cole was unlacing one skate and watching me.
Dante was at the far end of the room, helmet off, his curls plastered flat with sweat, the bruise on his jaw looking even darker now that the adrenaline had pushed color into the rest of his face.
I made myself not look at him for too long.
“They came in here tonight thinking this was a coronation,” I said.
“You saw it. Everybody in this room saw it. They had four days to convince themselves they were already in the second round, and you just spent twenty minutes telling them they were wrong.” I paused.
“Don’t let them remember they’re a good team.
Don’t give them a foothold. Don’t get cute, don’t get tired, don’t get even. You stay hungry, and you bury them.”
Ash banged his stick once against the bench. Quiet. Approving.
“Antoine’s running his mouth,” I went on. “Let him. He talks when he’s losing. Cole—”
“I know,” Cole said.
“You don’t engage. You score.”
“I know.”
“Renaud.”
Max lifted his chin.
“Your line eats minutes in their zone. I don’t care if it’s pretty. I want them tired.”
“Done.”
I let my eyes travel the room one more time. Took them in. Every face. Every man who’d held this thing together while I’d been falling apart in a leaded chamber twenty miles away.
I landed on Dante last. Just for a second. He met my eyes and the corner of his mouth did that tiny thing again, the professional twitch, the one only I knew how to read.
I’m here, it said. I’m fine.
I dragged my gaze away.
“Forty minutes,” I said again. “Let’s go take it from them.”
The room came up off the benches with a roar.