Chapter 26 - Damian
Rival’s locker room.
It smells wrong—like bleach and stale sweat instead of the grind of steel and smoke we’ve carved into our own back home.
Concrete walls painted some piss–colored beige, hooks bolted too high, benches that creak like they’ll snap under one decent hit.
The Wrath don’t have a barn, they’ve got a mausoleum.
And we’re going to bury them in it.
The boys are suiting up loud—helmets clattering, sticks tapping, Cole teasing Tyler about lacing his skates like a toddler.
Shane mutters something about curses, Viktor sharpens his blade edges in silence, Mats lounges like he’s half asleep.
Elias… Christ. He’s bouncing out of his gear like someone plugged him straight into the arena lights.
And through it all—Coach.
Grant Harrow, cigar clamped in his teeth, clipboard tucked under one arm. Doesn’t say a word. Just leans against the wall like he’s part of the furniture, smoke curling into the ceiling. His silence makes them twitch, but it doesn’t matter. Because he’s not the one they’re listening to.
That’s me.
“Eyes on me.”
The noise dies sharp. Helmets still, laces pause, sticks hang loose in gloved hands. Every head turns.
“The Wrath play dirty,” I start. “They’ll slash late, hook deep, bury you in the corners until your ribs bruise. They want to rattle you early. You don’t let them. You don’t fold.”
I glance at Cole. “You cut inside every rush. If they take your stick, you bury the body and keep moving.”
Cole grins like a devil. “Yes, Captain.”
“Mats.” My gaze cuts sharp. “You’re shadowing Hughes tonight. He’s fast. You stay faster. Don’t give him a breath.”
Mats smirks, lazy and lethal. “On it.”
“Shane.” My voice slices. “Wrath like to crash the crease. They’ll jab at you after every whistle. Don’t you twitch. Don’t you let them see you rattle.”
His head bobs sharp, mask already marked up with war paint. “Locked.”
“Viktor.”
He doesn’t even look up from his steel. Just grunts.
“You hit anything that moves in orange. Don’t stop until they bleed.”
Another grunt. Good enough.
Finally—Elias.
The pup straightens, curls damp, eyes blazing like I just called his name in church.
“You,” I say. “You win me every goddamn draw. You play through blood, through bruises, through whatever cheap shit they throw. They want to bury a rookie? Let them try. You give me everything.”
His grin flashes wide, feral. “Yes, sir.”
The vets shift. Tyler pales. Cole snorts. Mats smirks. Shane mutters a prayer. Viktor sharpens his blade harder.
Coach doesn’t say shit. Just scribbles something on his clipboard, smoke curling slow around his head.
Good.
Because I’ve already said enough.
The Wrath’s barn rumbles like a storm, crowd stomping, lights flashing orange and black, their announcer bellowing like he’s calling a funeral. The boys file out of the locker room, shoulder to shoulder, sticks tapping against the floor, the echo sharp in the narrow tunnel.
I walk last. Always.
Elias keeps pace just ahead of me, shoulders squared like he can carry this whole damn night on his back. He’s buzzing already—skates clacking too fast against concrete, jaw tight. He wants this fight. He thinks he’s ready.
He is.
But I lean low anyway.
“They’ll come for you, pup.”
His head jerks, breath catching, but he doesn’t look away from the light spilling across the ice.
“The Wrath hate rookies. They’ll hook you, slash you, drive you into the boards till your ribs crack. You’ll probably leave your blood on their ice tonight.”
His stride falters. Just once. Small. Barely there.
Then he recovers.
I smirk.
“But if you give me everything,” I rasp, low, final, close enough that he feels it scrape his ear, “I’ll put you back together when the horn blows.”
His throat works. His chest heaves. And when he looks up at me—just for a second, just long enough—I see it. The fire. The devotion. The worship tangled in fear.
“Yessir,” he whispers, hoarse, sharp, certain.
The crowd roars as the light hits the tunnel mouth. Orange jerseys swarm the other side, sticks banging, helmets slamming. The Wrath wait like wolves ready to feed.
But Elias doesn’t slow again.
He grips his stick tighter, sets his jaw, and skates straight into the fire.
The horn blasts, lights screaming, Wrath pounding their sticks against the boards like war drums. Their barn is loud, their crowd louder—orange jerseys spilling hate from every seat.
Perfect.
First faceoff.
Elias crouches low at the dot. Across from him—Wrath’s veteran center, ten years older, twice his size, grinning like he’s about to make a meal out of my rookie.
Cole leans in at his wing, smirk wide, voice carrying sharp enough for everyone at the circle to hear.
“C’mon, curls. Make daddy proud.”
The Wrath center snarls. The linesman glares. Elias’s ears turn scarlet under the cage.
And then he grins.
Sharp. Reckless. Full teeth.
The puck drops.
Elias explodes.
Stick snaps down, blade cuts clean, and he rips the draw straight back like he owns it. Wrath’s veteran doesn’t even touch rubber before Elias is gone—skates biting, body surging forward, puck already slung to Mats waiting at the blue line.
The barn erupts—but not for Wrath.
For him.
Because Elias throws his head back, curls bouncing, and chirps straight at the Wrath bench loud enough to rattle the glass.
“Better get used to losing, boys! You’ll be licking this ice clean by the second period!”
The Wrath bench howls back, orange gloves slamming, their captain snarling over the boards. The refs blow their whistles uselessly. The crowd screams.
Cole? He’s grinning like Christmas morning, banging his stick against the glass, howling, “THAT’S MY CENTER!”
The Wrath never take long to get petty. Can’t win a clean draw, can’t match the fire Elias is spitting across the circle, so they go the only place they know—dirty.
Second shift, their winger hacks his wrists right off the dot. Stick bites bone, sharp enough to make Elias hiss through his cage. He doesn’t fold. Just snarls back, eyes burning.
Next shift—slash to the ribs. Sharp. Deliberate. Late. Elias stumbles but stays upright, still clawing for the puck like he’ll rip it out of hell if I tell him to.
And the second it happens, my boys close ranks.
Mats bodies their defenseman so hard he folds into the boards. Viktor crunches the next orange jersey who even breathes Elias’s way. Cole’s on the wing snarling, sunglasses long gone, chirping so filthy even the ref looks rattled.
They’re not protecting a rookie. They’re protecting a Reaper.
Elias still won’t stop. His wrists red under the tape, but every time he skates up to the circle, he looks like he’s daring the Wrath to come harder.
And at one point, Christ—he almost does it.
Wrath forward comes at him dirty, stick raised just a little too high, eyes sharp like he’s aiming for Elias’s head. Elias sees it coming, shifts his grip, and for one split second—he’s not holding a hockey stick.
He’s holding a bat.
Both hands gripped tight, stance sharp, blade cocked back like he’s ready to swing for the fences.
The Wrath forward freezes mid-stride. He skates off fast, snarling something half-hearted to cover the fact he just backed down from a rookie.
Elias lowers the stick slow, smirking behind his cage, and skates back to the dot like nothing happened.
Perfect.
The rest of the period is blood and chaos, Wrath snarling, crowd baying, refs screaming. My boys don’t break. They don’t fold. They dig in, lock down, grind through.
And with two minutes left in the first—Cole rips one clean top shelf, fed from a pass Elias threaded straight between two Wrath defensemen. Net ripples. Horn screams.
Reapers 1, Wrath 0.
The barn boos. My bench roars.
Second period. Wrath’s barn still buzzing, crowd baying for blood after Cole buried one in their net. They don’t want hockey anymore—they want a fight.
And they get one.
The Wrath bench shoves their enforcer over the boards. Big bastard. Six-five, thick through the shoulders, face carved from every fight he’s ever lost. Gloves taped, eyes dead. He’s not here to skate. He’s here to break.
And he lines up right across from Elias.
My pup crouches over the dot like he doesn’t feel the weight of it, but I see it—the twitch in his grip, the flare of his nostrils, the flick of his gaze up through the cage. He knows exactly what they just did.
So do I.
I don’t wait for Coach. Don’t look at the bench. I just vault the boards, blades cutting hard, sliding up right behind Elias at the circle.
The crowd roars. Wrath bench howls. Reapers bang their sticks against the boards like thunder.
Elias doesn’t look back at me, but his chest heaves, sharp and fast. He can feel me there. My shadow heavy over his back. My presence locking him steady.
The enforcer smirks through his cage. Taps his stick against the dot like he’s already decided where he’ll leave Elias’s blood.
I lean low, voice a growl sharp enough for Elias alone.
“Hold the draw, pup. Let me do the rest.”
Elias swallows. Hard. And for the briefest second, his lips curve into that reckless grin.
“Yes, sir.”
The puck drops.
The puck hasn’t even settled on the ice before my gloves hit the sheet.
Steel rattles as I drop the stick, hands snapping up, shoulders squaring. The Wrath enforcer barely has time to smirk before my fist collides with his jaw.
Impact.
Bone crunches under my knuckles. The barn detonates into noise—refs screaming, Wrath bench howling, our boys pounding their sticks like war drums.
He swings back, wild, heavy. Doesn’t matter. I’ve been fighting longer than he’s been skating. I slip it, drive another fist into his cheek, then his gut, then his mouth again for good measure.
Elias is gone from the circle—he did his job, won the draw clean, shoved the puck back to Cole who’s already streaking up ice. But my pup doesn’t skate off. I feel his eyes burning holes in me, green fire steady on my back while I dismantle the bastard who thought he could touch him.