Chapter 3
Ford
“What the fuck are you doing on the ice?”
Hearing Coach Stryker’s deep, booming, and agitated voice brought cautious looks from my buddy Finn, a legend as a left winger. He backed away as if the coach was about to explode.
Maybe the coach had his reasons.
The day I’d returned to the arena, he’d pushed me out the door.
On the second day, he’d shoved me down onto the bench, making me watch.
Then he’d called my mother of all things. I was twenty-eight years old, not a kid in a junior league, but he’d told her all about how I was being a very bad boy.
She’d sat on my ass for three more days.
Not today. My best buddy had arranged a practice without the coach knowing. Or so I’d thought.
“Did one of you assholes call him?” I gritted out, glaring at every member who’d opted into practice.
Almost all threw up their hands in surrender. Damn it, I was furious. I moved around the ice with my hand on my hip, squeezing the stick until I thought I’d break it.
“Over here, Kendrick. Now,” the coach snarled.
I took my time before gliding across the ice doing a serpentine movement. By the time I was standing in front of him, the man was fuming. Smoke was practically coming out of his ears.
“I’m fine, Coach. Really.”
“Sure, you are. I talked to your doctors.”
“You did not! That’s against hippo laws.”
“Hippo laws?” Danny said just before breaking into laughter.
Okay, so I wasn’t versed in human medical terminology.
Until shifters had been forced into the public eye, we’d had our own connections, medical professionals who understood our anatomy and special needs.
Our world hadn’t consisted of strict laws maintaining privacy.
We’d had no such luxury given our basic needs included survival.
“You know what the hell I mean.” My frustration was growing by how savagely I was clenching my jaw.
“I didn’t need to break any laws, son,” the coach told me.
“He merely said if you weren’t careful, you’d require surgery.
I don’t think you want to do that. That could be career ending so I’m going to ensure you don’t lose your chance at making the NHL.
Period.” As soon as he’d spouted off his intentions, I could see the wheels turning in his head.
He was wondering why the hell I wasn’t healing at a faster rate and why the concept of surgery was on the table. I could ask my dad given he was one of the chosen, older wolves tasked with protecting our heritage. If anyone in North Bend knew what the fuck was wrong with me, he would.
Only asking him would cause my mother to go ballistic. That would be like admitting I needed help.
“I won’t have a chance to showcase my fantastic abilities by being sidelined.” Backing away, I did a little dance on the ice.
The coach wasn’t amused.
“Sit down.”
Skating backwards, I glanced over my shoulder toward the guys. I’d preplanned a way to showcase the marvel of healing just in case the coach had made an appearance. “Come on, Coach. You need me. We can’t lose another game. I’m your savage on the ice.”
I shook my head and the coach smacked his palms against his hips. “What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?”
“Proving I’m perfectly fine. Boys. Hit it!”
Everyone moved into position, the single shot all I needed to prove my point. I’d gotten very good at ignoring the ache in my shoulder. There was nothing for me like gliding across the ice, hearing the churn of shaving, the icy breeze against my face.
I’d played hockey since I was old enough to hold a kid’s hockey stick in my hand. When I wasn’t playing, I wanted to be. The goal had always been to make it to the NHL, eager to get the fuck out of my tiny town and explore the world.
Granted, that had been before my father had sat me down, telling me and my brothers we weren’t like everyone else.
I’d thought up to that point everyone shifted into wolves or other creatures, burning off steam by hunting in the forest. What few humans seemed to understand given the continued bad press about our existence was that hunting for food had long been seen as radical behavior amongst our own kind, Doing so was also unnecessary since we were thriving as a species amongst humans.
The talk that late October day was when my brothers and I had learned that we had entirely different anatomies and attributes.
We were stronger and faster, lived longer and didn’t age as quickly.
Then he’d explained that we couldn’t risk our kind being outed to the public, which meant competitive sports were out of the question.
We’d win every time if we relied on our birthright skills.
Plus, humans would fear us because we weren’t like them.
I’d never given up my dream, honing my skills and dominating the sport. When our secret was blown to hell by one of our own, my father had been right in that shifters had gone through some serious shit. Hatred. Rage. Terror.
Hell, the humans in town who’d known me all my life had started backing away or running from me when I approached. Terrified I’d eat them.
Then there’d been the media denouncing us as they’d done to witches almost two centuries before. The current witch hunts had included fabrication of stories made easier by the use of creative software programs, now with the use of AI.
I couldn’t even remember the number of horrible pictures I’d seen on every social media platform of a wolf supposedly killing everything from dogs and babies to joggers in the park.
They should know we wouldn’t eat dogs. They were our own kind. Even teasing about such bullshit was a no-no.
Sure, things had gotten a little easier over the years once the dangerous deeds were debunked, but we still lived in the shadows. Then one man had made it all possible for wolves to want more.
Saint Masters.
A true savage on the ice, which was why I’d followed his career, every move and how he handled the press, which continued to hound him. Both he and his brother were the darlings of the NHL.
I had to do the man proud. I was a shifter, not a goddamn werewolf like half the humans continued to spout off. That’s why this season was so important. Nothing could fuck it up, especially some trumped-up human injury.
So my buddies and I performed a little choreographed dance on the ice so to speak, setting me up to take the perfect shot.
When the puck slapped against the wood, I leaned in and snapped my wrist, pulling the stick to the perfect height in the air.
I’d controlled the puck alright, but not with any shifter techniques. Just with human brawn and my father’s encouragement over the years.
As the Dominator did his best to stop the puck from getting by him, nothing could stop the Wolfman in action.
The second the net was snapped from the force I used, the entire arena also heard a loud popping noise coming from my shoulder.
A spilt second before anguish rushed down my arm, tingling my fingers.
The pain was so intense that before I knew it, I dropped to my knees, skidding across the icy surface.
When I came to a hard stop only a couple of feet from where the coach was standing with his arms crossed, I had a bad feeling I’d just pulled my last stunt.
“Jesus Christ. What the fuck, man?” Zane Johnson roared from behind.
He wasn’t called the Showman for nothing.
Sure, we were friends; he was a guy who’d barreled onto the scene not expecting to face a town filled with strange creatures.
He’d adapted to the campfire stories that were little more than boasting events, even creating a few of his own.
As if he’d ever had any experience facing a wolf in the wild.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t up for taking every opportunity to fuck with me, sharing my inadequacies across every social media platform. The rivalry had taken hold, puck bunnies comparing the two of us.
Who was stronger.
Faster.
Who had the bigger cock.
After exhaling, I stood, determined to shake it off.
By the time I glanced into my coach’s eyes, I could tell my initial evaluation of the situation had been correct.
I was fucked.
“Kendrick. In my office. Now.” With that, he glared at each and every member of the team, locking eyes with them before turning and walking away with the calm of a man on a mission.
Well, shit. His voice was dangerously calm, lacking any concept of emotion.
I’d been on the team long enough to know what that meant.
He wasn’t buying anything I was selling.
When he was finally out of sight, my body sagged from the weight of being caught and of the heat in my shoulder, a dull but constant throbbing that wouldn’t go away. Even my ribs continued to ache.
A slight cracking sound drew my attention away from yet another round of self-pity. When I looked down at my stick, I snarled in response seeing the long crack that had developed.
Finn rolled up beside me, glancing at my hockey stick. “What did that twig ever do to you?”
“Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Why the fuck wasn’t I healing? It was ridiculous. When I was a kid and had toppled off the steep ridge on a riverbank, tumbling onto the rocks below, I’d broken my arm in two places. Within a week, there had been no evidence of the break.
Yeah, well, maybe the reason was that I’d shifted, my wolf DNA able to provide healing.
How long had it been since I’d returned to my natural born state?
Long enough the thought no longer appealed to me like when I’d been a child.
By the time I was old enough to understand I was part wolf, part human, I’d begged my father to be allowed to shift.
I’d craved running through the woods with a total sense of freedom.
Even then, my father had warned me that with our family’s shifting abilities came great power and significant need for self-control. In other words, I’d been forced to choose selectively when or if I should shift. The times had become more infrequent as I’d grown older.
For a solid reason. Fuck, no, I wasn’t going down that road, although the horrific nightmare had dragged me there.