Chapter 16
Nick
I stepped into the locker room, and the scent hit me first—sweat, liniment, ice melt, and that strange mix of adrenaline and tension that clung to every brick in this place. It wrapped around me like a second skin. Familiar. Gritty. Home.
“Look who finally showed up,” Axyl drawled, sprawled across the bench like a damn jungle cat, all muscle and arrogance. He flashed a shit-eating grin. “Lose track of time or just buried too deep in a certain brunette?”
“More like lost in her,” Dominic muttered, holding up a soggy glove with the kind of disdain he usually reserved for opposing goalies. “Someone screwed with my gear, and I swear to God—”
Axyl cut in, grinning. “Relax, Inferno Daddy. Your gloves always smelled like abandonment issues.”
Dominic’s head snapped up, his glare lethal. “Say that again and I’ll shove this glove down your throat, tape and all.”
Everett, calm as ever in the corner, didn’t even look up from tying his skates. “You two flirting again?” he asked, voice so dry it could’ve caught fire.
“I’ve got fifty bucks that says it ends in a kiss,” Luke chimed in from the far bench, his blade sliding across the sharpener in slow, ominous strokes like he was prepping for a duel instead of a game.
Dominic glared harder. “You volunteering to officiate, Kassian?”
Laughter cracked through the room. I smirked and started pulling on my gear. The noise, the bickering, the cocky trash talk—it was our ritual, the chaos before the storm. But tonight? Something felt different. More alive. More real.
Because she was here.
This wasn’t just game night. It was our night. And I was about to burn the whole damn rink down in her honor.
I caught Rhys’s eye across the room—the guy didn’t speak unless it mattered, but the nod he gave me said everything. He knew. He always knew. What this night meant. What she meant.
Sam was rallying a couple rookies near the board, giving them that steady optimism like he could shoulder the whole game for them if they needed it.
Wyatt Hudson, stoic as ever, was hunched over his skates with that dead-eyed focus, dragging the whetstone like he was about to gut someone instead of slice across the ice.
Everyone had their rituals. Everyone had their reason to burn.
“Yo! Nick!” Axyl’s voice cracked through the noise like a warhorn, and I glanced over as he tossed a roll of tape at my chest. “You even listening? Or is your brain still wrapped around your girl’s thighs?”
“Shut it,” I shot back with a smirk, not even bothering to deny it. The grin on my face probably gave me away, anyway.
The jersey slid over my shoulders like armor, its weight grounding me. My heartbeat started syncing with the rhythm of the room—sticks tapping, blades clacking, fists pounding into open palms. The noise. The tension. The pulse of a thousand games stitched into our bones.
Luke stepped forward with the dramatic flair only he could pull off and clapped his hands. “Time to remind them who the hell we are.”
And just like that, the switch flipped. The animal in my chest stirred. It wasn’t just adrenaline—it was instinct. The hunger to move, to hit, to win. All of it sharp as steel and just as unforgiving.
But underneath that—pounding beneath the roar—was her.
Kennedy.
Her smile, her voice, her fingertips on my chest as she whispered you’ve got this. Her wearing my number like it was stitched to her skin. That girl had no idea what she did to me, and if I had it my way, I’d show her—after the game, after the win—with her still in my jersey and nothing else.
As we closed ranks in the middle of the room, fists touching, heads bowed, our voices rose in one howl—loud, defiant, brutal.
We weren’t just a team. We were a fucking storm.
And I was about to tear the ice apart to make her proud.
The tension in the locker room buzzed like a live wire, coiled tight and ready to snap. Every breath felt electric. Skate blades scraped against rubber flooring. Sticks tapped in ritual. And underneath it all, that shared pulse between us—twenty men bracing for war.
Grayson leaned back against a row of lockers, arms folded and wearing that smug, shit-eating grin of his. “So,” he said loud enough for half the room to hear, “our fearless captain’s got his little brown-haired bunny up in the stands tonight, huh?”
I didn’t rise to it. Just tugged my jersey down over my pads, calm and collected—until I met his eyes and let the smirk spread. “She’s not so little when she’s riding me.”
Groans exploded from every direction.
“Jesus Christ, Maddox,” Drew muttered, shaking his head without looking up from taping his stick. “Save the visuals for your own nightmares.”
Grayson cackled and slammed his fist against the locker like he’d scored the winning goal right there. Rhys, predictably, was all cold steel and control, arms folded tight, scowl carved deep. “I don’t care who you’re fucking,” he said flatly. “You better win tonight.”
"I'm not just fucking her," I growled. "She's my fucking wife."
The laughter faded. That last word hit the room like a shot.
Win.
That was what this was about. Not Kennedy, not the jokes, not even pride. This was a reckoning.
I stood and let the silence wrap around me. The weight of the “C” on my chest felt heavier tonight. Felt earned.
“This isn’t just another game,” I said, voice low, measured. “The Scourge came to make us look weak. They want to humiliate us in our own rink. They want to take what’s ours.”
Every eye turned to me. Every body stilled.
“You gonna let that happen?” I asked.
A murmur of no’s, low and rough, stirred the air.
“Didn’t think so,” I said. I stepped forward, locking eyes with Axyl, then Drew, then Wyatt, one by one like I was loading a chamber. “So here’s what we do. We skate faster. Hit harder. Play meaner. We don’t just win.”
“We end them,” Luke said, voice sharp, posture tight like a bowstring.
Axyl whooped as he grabbed his stick. “Let’s crush ‘em! And somebody keep Castellan from committing arson this time.”
“I make no promises,” Dominic muttered, rolling his neck with a quiet crack. “Besides, they started it.”
Laughter rippled through the tension like a match sparking dry kindling, but the fire in the room didn’t die down. If anything, it sharpened.
This wasn’t just a team. This was a pack.
And I was the one leading them into the kill.
The arena pulsed around me like a living thing—blinding lights, bodies shouting, the boards trembling with every stomp. But none of it touched me. Not really.
Not once my eyes found her.
Kennedy sat high in the VIP box, legs crossed beneath the massive jersey swallowing her frame—my jersey.
Number seventeen bold across her chest. The sleeves drowned her hands, and somehow, she still looked like the most dangerous thing in this building.
Like she’d walked in wearing my name and hadn’t even realized the power of it.
My heart kicked against my ribs.
She smiled, leaning forward as the announcer’s voice boomed overhead, and everything inside me tightened.
I didn’t hear the crowd. Didn’t care about the flash of cameras or the echo of my name on a hundred signs.
It was her—only her—that had me gripping my stick harder, breath turning sharp behind my mouthguard.
She had no idea what she did to me. No idea what kind of beast she’d called to the surface just by being here.
I flew across the ice during warmups, veering a little too close to a Scourge winger and letting my shoulder clip his on the way by. He stumbled. Let them see what kind of night this was going to be. Let them try to leash me. They’d fail.
Because I was going to win.
For her.
And then I was going to take her home, flip that jersey up over her hips, and show her exactly what it meant to wear my name.
The warmups were a blur of motion and muscle—blades carving lines into fresh ice, the echo of pucks slamming against boards and glass.
I skated hard, no coasting, no showboating—just repetition and rhythm.
Stickhandling drills, one-timers, controlled bursts off the line.
My breath came fast, but steady. Focused.
Across the rink, Drew rifled shots into the top shelf like he had something to prove. Rhys stayed low, eyes sharp, running drills like they were battlefield formations. Axyl chirped at Luke for missing the net, and Luke flipped him off without breaking stride. Classic.
I kept my head down, pushing through crossovers, sharp turns, pivots. Every pass I made hit tape. Every slapshot cracked like thunder. The Scourge watched from their side, pretending not to care—but I saw it. They were clocking us. Clocking me.
Good.
By the time the horn blared for final prep, I was loose, dialed in, and humming with adrenaline. No distractions. No doubts. Just the game ahead—and the promise of blood on ice.
The puck dropped, and everything else disappeared.
No crowd. No noise. Just me and Riggs—Scourge center, known for cheap shots and broken noses. He stared me down like he had something to prove. Bad move.
I crouched low, muscles coiled, stick poised. The second that puck hit the ice, I lunged—cut under his blade and yanked it free. Clean. Fast. Mine.
Cheers exploded around us, but I didn’t hear them. I was already flying up the boards, carving through the neutral zone like the ice belonged to me. Skates biting, adrenaline burning, pulse steady.
Riggs’ D-men rushed to intercept, closing in. I dropped my shoulder, faked left, then cut hard right, body curling around the puck like a shield. One tried to sandwich me against the glass—I let him. Absorbed the hit, shoved off his momentum, and kept pushing. He stumbled. I didn’t.
Riggs came barreling back, pissed now. I saw it in his eyes—he wasn’t after the puck anymore. He wanted blood. Mine.
Too bad.