Chapter 20 - Damian
The boys are loud tonight—louder than usual.
Helmets clattering, sticks tapping, tape ripping.
Cole’s holding court on one bench, sunglasses actually perched on his head like he’s about to star in a music video, taunting Mats about his nonexistent love life.
Tyler’s still pulling his socks on wrong and getting chirped for it.
Viktor hasn’t said a word, just sharpens his blade edges with the kind of focus that would gut a man.
And Elias—
Christ.
He’s the loudest of all of them.
Bouncing out of his jersey like it’s electricity, poking three people at once, curls damp and wild, mouth running so fast even Cole can’t keep up.
Every grin he flashes lights up the room, every shove to a teammate’s shoulder keeps the chaos rolling.
He’s buzzing, reckless like he’s been plugged into the arena lights.
I watch him from across the room.
Laces tugged tight, tape biting clean against my knuckles. My gear goes on with the same methodical precision it has for years. But my eyes—my eyes keep dragging back to him.
To the rookie center who hasn’t shut the fuck up since he walked in here.
To my pup.
He hasn’t noticed me watching. He never does. Not until I want him to. Right now he’s too busy grinning at Tyler, smacking him with a roll of tape, daring him to fight back. The kid doesn’t realize he already won. He’s already got every vet in this room clocking the fire burning out of him.
This is exactly what I wanted.
Because tonight isn’t against Haverton, or Montreal, or any of the old ghosts. Tonight’s the first home stand against the Wranglers. Calgary’s old rival. The team that hates us like religion. Fast, vicious, filthy. The kind of game that eats rookies alive if they don’t have steel in their spine.
I look at Elias.
He’s steel.
Not polished yet. Not tempered all the way through. But raw ore, sparking hotter every time I put him through the fire.
He catches my gaze then—finally, finally. Mid-laugh—and his grin falters. Just for a second. Just enough.
He feels it. The weight of my eyes. The calm. The inevitable.
And he knows.
He’ll bleed for me tonight.
The tunnel hums under our blades as we line up. Helmets down, sticks clutched, the Reapers stacked shoulder to shoulder in the red glow of home lights. The crowd’s roar vibrates through concrete, louder with every heartbeat.
Wranglers wait on the other side of the glass. Orange and white jerseys, cocky smirks, sticks banging like they own this ice. They don’t. Not here. Not in my barn.
I glance down the line. Cole bouncing like he’s on camera. Mats smirking sharp as a blade. Tyler already sweating bullets. Viktor silent, terrifying.
And Elias.
He’s buzzing out of his skin. He catches me watching—just for a second—and the grin he shoots me is all teeth.
Good.
The anthem drags long and heavy. We stand shoulder to shoulder, the smell of ice and smoke burning in my lungs. I don’t sing. I never do. My hand clenches the top of my stick, tape biting into my palm, eyes steady on the flag until the last note drops.
The horn blasts. The barn erupts.
Puck drops.
Chaos.
Wranglers play like they’re rabid—sticks slashing, bodies crashing, speed like wildfire. They want to bury us fast. Test our rookies. Make an example of us in our own arena.
Not happening.
I’m on the ice second shift. Steel in my lungs, fire in my veins, body colliding with orange jerseys like they were built for me to break. Hits sharp. Clean. Deliberate. Every Wranglers forward I bury into the glass is one less fucker coming near my rookies.
Elias’s line jumps over the boards next.
I stay standing on the bench, eyes locked on him as he takes center circle. Cole lines up at his wing, chirping the Wrangler opposite him before the whistle even blows. Mats taps Elias’s shin.
The puck drops.
Elias explodes.
Fast. Hungry. His stick wins the draw like it’s wired into his bones, his body snapping low, fast hands dragging the puck back to Mats before the Wranglers center even realizes he’s lost. The barn erupts—because the rookie just won his first home draw clean against a veteran ten years older than him.
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look up. Just goes. Bursting up ice like he’s being chased, curls flying, jersey flashing black and crimson under the lights.
Wranglers crash into him hard—twice his size, slamming his ribs, checking him into the boards like they want to fold him in half.
He doesn’t go down.
Not for them.
Not while I’m watching.
Wrangler defense hounds him, one slamming into his hip, another hacking his stick. He’s bent low, skating like fire, but they want him rattled. They want to bury the rookie in his first home shift.
They don’t.
Elias doesn’t flinch, doesn’t fold. He drags the puck along the boards, angles slips past the first defenseman like a ghost. The second tries to corner him—big bastard with a stick slash sharp enough to drop most rookies—Elias just grins and flicks the puck through his legs.
A filthy nutmeg that has the whole barn howling.
He bursts free, ice spraying under his blades, Cole already barreling down the wing screaming for the puck. Elias doesn’t even look—just wrists it clean, fast, straight to Cole’s tape.
Cole doesn’t miss.
Wrister, top shelf.
Net rips. Horn screams.
The barn detonates. Ravensburg on their feet, smoke and red lights flashing. Cole skates straight past the net and whirls, arms out like he just won the Cup. Elias slams into him, helmet to helmet, cackling like a maniac.
And the bench loses its shit.
“Jesus Christ!” Mats is half up, smacking the boards. “Did you see that pass?”
“Fucking circus tricks already,” Viktor mutters, but his mouth twitches at the corner.
Tyler just gapes, jaw dropped, until Shane slaps him in the back of the helmet.
I don’t move. I just stand there, arms folded on the boards, watching my pup grin sharp enough to cut himself open.
Then the jabs start.
“Hey Mercer!” One of the vets bellows from down the bench, smirking like a devil. “Where the hell’d you pull that out of? Cap’s playbook or your ass?”
The others bark laughter, tapping sticks, egging him on.
Elias just grins wider. Green eyes wild, curls bouncing under his cage as he bangs the glass. “Better question—how’s it feel knowing I’m already better than you, old man?”
The bench erupts. The Wranglers are snarling, the refs whistling, and Elias just keeps grinning, skating back to the dot like he owns it.
He’s loud. He’s mine.
And I’m smiling.
The second Elias opens his mouth, chirp flying like a blade, I know what’s coming. Rival vets are predictable—always hungry to bury the loudest kid on the ice. And my pup? He’s painted himself neon.
It happens next shift.
Elias bursts across the blue line again, fast as fire, puck on his stick. The barn’s roaring, Wranglers scrambling—and then their defenseman lines him up.
Shoulder.
Elbow.
Cheap.
The hit’s late, blindside, crushing Elias into the boards so hard the glass rattles. He drops, body folding, stick clattering against the ice.
The whistle doesn’t blow fast enough.
I’m off the bench before the crowd even gasps.
First stride is calm. Second is fire. By the third I’m a freight train. I don’t bother with the puck, don’t bother with the play—I go straight for the bastard who touched him.
Impact.
Brutal.
My shoulder slams into his chest, driving him back into the boards with a crack that echoes through the arena. My glove’s off before he can breathe. My fist follows.
Knuckles meet jaw.
Steel meets bone.
The barn erupts.
Wrangler throws wild, sloppy. I don’t care. I pin him against the glass, fists carving every cheap second out of him. The refs swarm, the linesmen grabbing at my arms, the whistle shrieking like it can cut through me. It can’t.
I get one last punch in—clean, hard, enough to drop him—before they drag me back. The Wranglers are howling, the crowd’s on fire, red lights blazing. And Elias—
He’s back on his knees, shaking it off, eyes wide as he looks at me through the cage.
I don’t break eye contact. Not for the refs, not for the Wranglers, not for the penalties about to pile down on my head.
The linesmen shove me through the gate, my skates cutting grooves in the ice as I let them. The box door closes behind me, glass humming with the crowd’s roar. I drop onto the bench, roll my shoulders, flex my taped knuckles once. Blood blooms under the skin. Doesn’t matter.
I sit back, calm as stone. Five minutes. They can spare me that long.
Elias is still on the ice.
Kid should’ve gone down, should’ve limped off, should’ve let the trainers check him after that hit. But no. He waves the ref off, grips his stick tighter, and lines up for the draw like he’s never been hit in his life.
Good.
Wranglers tease him from the circle. I can see their mouths moving through the cage, spitting filth. Elias just grins—sharp, feral, reckless—and waits for the puck.
Drop.
Clash.
Win.
He rips it clean, bursts forward with speed that burns. Wranglers try to pin him again, bodies colliding, sticks hacking, but he fights through. Teeth bared, legs driving like I drilled into him until his lungs bleed.
Then—shot.
Wrister, hard and filthy, past their goalie’s glove. Net rips. Horn detonates.
The barn explodes.
Elias doesn’t celebrate with the boys. Doesn’t slam Cole’s helmet, doesn’t tap Mats’s gloves. He turns straight for me.
Straight for the box.
Grin wide, chest heaving, eyes blazing. He slams his stick against the glass right in front of me—BANG, BANG—eyes locked on mine. A salute. A taunt. A promise.
For me.
The crowd eats it alive, chanting his name, the whole bench pounding sticks, Cole howling like he’s on TV. But Elias doesn’t break my gaze. Doesn’t even blink.
Good little attack dog.
I let the corner of my mouth curl slow, sharp, enough for him to see it through the glass. His grin only widens, feral, like he’d bleed himself out on this ice just to earn another one.