Chapter 13 - Elias
I fucking slept through the whole flight.
No exaggeration. Eight hours, gone.
Okay—not all of it. I woke up once when they shoved food at us, picked at the tray for like twenty minutes while Cole bitched about his pasta being haunted, then…gone again. Face-first into Damian’s shoulder like I’d been shot.
And yeah. I know. I know.
But what was I supposed to do? Whiskey plus panic plus his voice telling me “go to sleep, pup” like it was gospel? I never had a chance.
So now it’s morning. Bright, brutal, sun cutting through the airport glass like it wants to skin me alive. We just walked off the red-eye, and my whole body feels like it got beaten with sticks and then shoved through a dryer.
The team’s a mess. Tyler’s pale and twitchy, clutching his backpack straps like they’re a life raft.
Mats is yawning into his hoodie, half-asleep while still somehow flirting with a gate agent.
Shane’s muttering prayers against jet lag curses.
Viktor looks like he’s ready to murder the baggage carousel.
Cole’s wearing sunglasses. Indoors. At eight in the goddamn morning. Loud as ever, narrating our every move like there’s a camera crew following him.
I’m just trying not to combust. Because yeah, I drooled on my captain for six straight hours and somehow survived the experience.
Every time I glance sideways, I can feel Damian’s gaze. Not obvious. Not sharp. Just there. Heavy. Like he knows exactly how soft I went on him somewhere over the Atlantic. Like he’s filing it away in that terrifying steel-trap brain of his.
We hit the terminal, voices bouncing off glass, fans actually here this early in the morning waving signs and snapping photos. Staff rushing us along. The whole place buzzing too bright, too loud for a team that just flew through the night.
And then, of course, Cole spots me.
“Hey, curls!” he calls, sunglasses sliding down his nose, grin wide and feral. “How was naptime on the captain’s shoulder? You get a good cuddle in?”
The world stops.
Tyler snorts. Mats lifts a brow. Shane mutters something about intimacy curses. Even Viktor tilts his head like he’s already planning my funeral.
And I’m dead. Absolutely, 100% dead.
My mouth’s already open. Ready to fire back at Cole with something about how at least I don’t wear sunglasses indoors at eight in the goddamn morning. But I don’t get the chance.
Because Damian speaks first.
“Careful, Vance.” His voice cuts across the terminal, low and sharp, carrying even over the hum of fans and rolling suitcases. “You keep talking like that, people might think you’re jealous I didn’t let you drool on me for eight hours.”
The whole group stops.
Cole’s grin falters. Just for a second, but it’s enough. Tyler actually chokes, Mats coughs into his fist to cover a laugh, Shane mutters something about curses of humiliation, and even Viktor makes a noise that might be a laugh if you translate it from his brand of murder.
Cole opens his mouth, shuts it again, then throws his hands up. “Okay, okay. Damn, Cap. Didn’t know you were packing chirps in your back pocket.”
Damian doesn’t reply. Doesn’t need to. One glance and the subject is buried six feet under.
The noise dies down. The fans are still snapping photos, staff still herding us toward baggage claim, but the team’s suddenly quieter. Everyone falls into line, subdued, Cole muttering something under his breath about “unfair advantage.”
I’m still standing there with my mouth half-open, words caught in my throat.
Because I’ve heard Damian cut down opponents on the ice.
I’ve seen him silence whole locker rooms with one look.
But hearing him taunt—hearing him defend me with it?
That’s new. That’s dangerous. That’s a whole new level of fucked up.
And of course, my dumb ass likes it.
Of course Cole doesn’t let it go.
Why would he? Hollywood never knows when to quit.
By the time we’re trudging down the escalator toward baggage claim, he’s at my side, sunglasses crooked.
“Bet you liked that, huh?” he murmurs, grin curling. “Captain standing up for his favorite rookie. Must’ve felt real nice. Poster-boy dream come true.”
I snap my head toward him, eyes narrowing. “Shut up.”
“Oh, come on, curls.” He leans closer, shoulder brushing mine. “Eight hours drooling on his shoulder, now he’s chirping for you? You’re living the dream. Hell, I bet you’d bark if he told you to.”
Heat spikes across my face. I elbow him hard in the ribs. He grunts, wheezes, then laughs through it.
“Thought so.”
I lean in, grinning like a feral dog. “At least I don’t spend every layover flirting with TSA agents just to get felt up, Hollywood.”
He barks out a laugh, clutching his chest. “Ouch, rookie’s growing teeth.”
“Better than rotting veneers.”
“Better than still calling him sir in your sleep—”
My eyes go wide. “WHAT.”
Cole’s grin sharpens like a knife. “You’re a loud sleeper, curls. Real loud.”
My blood goes cold, then hot, then I’m choking on my own words. I shove him again, harder this time, and he stumbles into Viktor—who just scowls like he’s contemplating homicide. Cole snaps his mouth shut instantly, hands raised.
But when Viktor looks away, he leans back toward me. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe. For now.”
I glare, cheeks burning. “You’re dead.”
He smirks, smug as hell. “Get in line, rookie.”
And just like that, baggage claim turns into a battlefield fought in whispers and elbows, me and Cole grinning sharp enough to draw blood, all while Damian walks ten steps ahead. Like he doesn’t even know I’m fighting for my life back here.
Except he knows. He always knows.
Baggage claim is a goddamn warzone. Sticks clattering, gear bags big enough to crush a toddler coming down the chute, Viktor practically growling at anyone who gets too close.
Cole’s narrating like it’s the Stanley Cup finals—“And here comes Vance’s bag, ladies and gentlemen, containing three pounds of hair gel and a backup pair of sunglasses—” until Mats smacks him with a stick tube just to shut him up.
We wrestle everything together—pads, helmets, skates, bags so heavy I swear the straps are carving bruises into my shoulders—and stumble out into the morning glare. The Reapers’ bus is waiting, hulking black and crimson, the logo gleaming like a warning sign.
And then, like a horror movie jump-scare, he’s there.
Coach Harrow.
One second the bus steps are empty, the next he’s planted in the aisle, glasses perched low, clipboard in hand, like he’s been waiting for us since 4 a.m. No one saw him get on. No one saw him anywhere since Haverton. It’s like he materializes out of thin air whenever it suits him.
I blink. My brain stalls. Then I lean sideways, pressing my shoulder into Damian’s arm, whispering under my breath.
“Where the fuck does he come from?”
Damian doesn’t even flinch. Just hums low, eyes on Coach like this is normal. Like men just spawn out of bus seats with travel itineraries and death stares. His hand brushes against my back as if to steady me, but his mouth never moves.
Meanwhile, Cole—loud, fearless, suicidal Cole—throws his hands up and groans. “Jesus, Coach, do you sleep in the overhead compartments or what?”
Coach doesn’t answer. He just looks over his glasses, one slow sweep of the bus, and somehow Cole actually shuts the fuck up.
We file on like condemned men, dragging bags down the aisle, collapsing into seats.
My head’s still spinning. Because it’s one thing to get poked half to death by Hollywood.
It’s another thing entirely to watch a whole bus full of Reapers—grown-ass men—act like toddlers caught sneaking candy the second Coach breathes in their direction.
And Damian? Calm. Always calm. Like none of this is strange. Like he isn’t the only thing scarier than Coach himself.
The bus lurches out of the airport lot, black-and-crimson beast chewing through morning traffic. Everyone’s half-dead—gear bags piled in the aisle, sticks rattling in the overhead racks, boys slumped against windows.
And then Coach starts pacing.
Clipboard in hand, glasses sliding low, he stalks up and down the aisle like a wraith. Doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t need to. The only sound is the squeak of his shoes on the floor and the scratch of his pen as he writes something—notes? Death sentences? Who the hell knows.
The silence is suffocating. Cole tries to whisper something to Mats—dies mid-sentence when Coach stops right beside him, scribbles something on the clipboard, and keeps moving.
Mats smirks into his hoodie like he lives for the drama, but even he doesn’t chirp.
Tyler’s practically vibrating out of his seat, clutching his bag like Coach might confiscate it for crimes unknown.
Shane’s muttering prayers, eyes darting every time the clipboard squeaks.
I try. I try to keep my mouth shut. But my nerves are on fire, my leg bouncing, my throat raw from yesterday and last night and the goddamn panic attack and the whiskey.
So of course, I lean toward Damian again. “He’s not even talking. This is worse than talking. What is he writing? What is he writing, Cap?”
Damian doesn’t answer. Just keeps his eyes forward, shoulders relaxed, one hand steady on his thigh. The only sign he even heard me is the faintest curl of his lip. Like he’s amused. Like he knows exactly how far gone my nerves are and he’s not going to save me.
Cole actually groans under his breath. “This is psychological warfare. I’d rather do stairs for an hour.”
Viktor grunts from two rows back. “You will do stairs for an hour.”
The whole bus dies again.
Coach finally stops at the front, scrawls something final across the page, and snaps the clipboard shut with a sound like a gunshot. No words. No lecture. Just that.
And somehow, that’s worse.
By the time we pull into the lot outside the Reapers’ training arena, everyone’s sitting bolt upright like we’re about to be called in front of a firing squad.