Chapter 28 - Damian
Home.
The word feels foreign in my mouth even though the walls around me are familiar.
My place isn’t cozy—it’s clean lines, leather, steel, wood that smells faint of smoke no matter how many times I sanded it down.
It’s where I come back bloodied, where I tape my knuckles in the dark, where I sit with silence until it feels like a second skin.
Now? It’s where my pup sleeps tangled in my sheets, still knocked out from the flight, curls spread over my pillow like he owns the place. And maybe he does.
But I don’t have time to stand here and stare at him like some bastard out of a poem. Not today. Today, it’s the press.
I knot my tie slow in the mirror, jaw tight, eyes reflecting back steady. They want their Captain—controlled, terrifying, impossible to rattle. Not the man who kept a rookie folded over a hotel window two nights ago. Not the man who whispered baby against a throat he almost bit open.
The press wants Kade the Enforcer.
Fine. They’ll get him.
The suit fits tight across my shoulders, scar pulling at my mouth when I test a smile I’ll never give them.
My knuckles are still scabbed from Wrath’s enforcer, tape burn around my wrists where the gloves rubbed raw.
Doesn’t matter. Let them stare. Let them write their stories about blood on the ice and what kind of monster it takes to wear the C for six years running.
I’m that monster. And worse.
There’s a soft shuffle behind me. I glance in the mirror and catch it—Elias in the doorway, hair a wreck, hoodie swallowing his frame, eyes still fogged from sleep. He blinks once, slow, then grins crooked.
“You look like you’re going to war,” he rasps, voice wrecked from last night.
I smirk in the glass. “I am.”
He pads closer, barefoot, hoodie sleeves dragging down his hands. His gaze trails over me—suit, tie, scars—like he’s memorizing it. Like he’s trying to reconcile the Captain on the ice with the man who had him on his knees begging forty-eight hours ago.
“You hate these things,” he murmurs, leaning against the doorframe. “Press stuff. Smiling, pretending. Why do you even do it?”
I turn, slow, meeting his eyes steady. “Because it’s part of the job. And my job is to own this team. Every part of it.”
His throat works. He swallows, then steps closer, reckless as always. “You own me too, don’t you?”
My jaw flexes. I don’t answer. Not with words. I just fist a hand in his curls, tilt his head back until his eyes go wide, until his lips part, until his pulse hammers under my thumb.
“Yes,” I murmur, low, final. “Especially you.”
He shivers, lips curling into a reckless grin, like he just won something. Christ.
But I release him before I ruin my suit. Before I forget the cameras waiting. Before I forget that the city doesn’t get to see this—the chain between us, the leash he’s begging me to yank tighter every night.
“Go back to bed,” I order, smoothing my tie flat. “I’ll be back after the vultures are done.”
“Yessir,” he whispers, still grinning, before he pads back toward the bedroom.
I stare at the closed door for a long beat.
Let the vultures circle. I’ll give them blood.
The Reapers’ arena smells the way it always does—cold steel, old sweat, the faint sting of sharpened blades baked into the concrete. Home ice.
But today the ice is hidden. Curtains down, cameras up, press chairs lined in rows on the floor. Bright lights burn against the black seats, and every vulture with a notepad is waiting for me to stumble.
I don’t stumble.
Boots hit the floor, my suit cutting clean lines as I stride to the table up front. Coach Harrow’s already there—cigar stub dead in a plastic cup, clipboard under his arm. He won’t interfere. He never does. He just watches like smoke with a heartbeat.
The cameras start clicking before I even sit. Mismatched eyes, scarred mouth—they eat it up. Thirteen years of blood and broken glass, and they still look at me like they don’t know if I’m a man or a monster.
Good. Let them wonder.
I sit. Adjust the mic. Stare at the crowd until their chatter dies.
The first question is predictable. “Captain Kade, the playoffs are coming fast. Do you really think your roster—especially with so many young players—has the spine to survive four rounds?”
My jaw ticks once. I lean forward, voice calm, flat, cutting through the room.
“They’ll survive because I’ll make sure they do. Doesn’t matter if they’re rookies. Once you bleed in Reapers black, you’re mine. And I don’t let what’s mine fold.”
Pens scratch. Cameras flash. A ripple of whispers.
Next vulture takes a shot. “Your rookies have been hit hard already this season. Do you think they’ll hold up against veterans with ten, fifteen years more experience?”
I smirk. “Experience doesn’t make you meaner. Doesn’t make you hungrier. My boys have bled every night since they got here. They’re still standing. That’s more than I can say for half the vets in this league.”
A few reporters shift in their seats, nervous laughter bubbling at the edges. Coach doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink.
Then it comes—the question they all want to ask but don’t have the guts to word yet. “And what about your new center? Elias Mercer. He’s been on the receiving end of some brutal hits, but it looks like you protect him more than the others on the ice. Any comment on that?”
The room holds its breath. Pens hover.
I lean into the mic.
“Mercer’s not just a rookie. He’s my center. He’s fast, he’s sharp, he wins me draws clean. And yes—I protect him. I protect all of them. That’s my job. But anyone who thinks they can take liberties with my center is going to meet my fists before they meet the puck.”
A ripple goes through the room. Flashes pop like gunfire.
One reporter dares. “So you’re saying Elias Mercer gets special treatment?”
My smirk stretches. I tilt my head just enough for the lights to catch both eyes—ice and darkness, predator and grave.
“I’m saying he’s mine. And no one touches what’s mine.”
The silence after is thick, heavy, electric. Even Coach’s scarred mouth twitches like he might be smirking.
I sit back in my chair, calm as stone, letting them choke on it.
The questions keep coming.
Playoff matchups. Injuries. Goaltending depth. Every vulture in the room circling, trying to find a crack.
I give them nothing but steel.
Flat answers. Calm. Lethal when I need to be.
“How will the Reapers handle overtime pressure?”
—“We’ll handle it the same way we handle sixty minutes. With blood and teeth.”
“What do you say to critics who think your team doesn’t have enough experience?”
—“Critics don’t win Cups. My boys will.”
They try to circle back to Elias once, twice, but I stare them down until their words die in their throats.
Eventually the flood burns out. Microphones lower, cameras click one last time, chairs scrape back. The press files out, chattering, phones already buzzing with whatever twisted version of my words they’re about to vomit onto the internet.
When the room’s finally quiet, it’s just me. The table. The empty chairs. And Coach.
Harrow pushes off the wall, cigar stub cold between his teeth now, clipboard still tucked under his arm like it’s nailed there. His boots echo on the concrete as he walks slow toward me. His eyes cut merciless—dark, unreadable.
“You sure that was smart, Kade?”
My jaw ticks once. I don’t answer right away. Just lean back in the chair, mouth pulling with the smirk I don’t bother to hide. “Define smart.”
Coach exhales through his nose. “You just painted a target on the kid’s back. Vultures are curious. You give ‘em words like that, they’ll start circling closer. Prying harder. That Mercer kid serious about sticking with you?”
My chest rumbles low. He has no idea.
Serious? Elias is more than serious. He was ready to beg me to marry him two nights ago with my cock still in him. He’d say yes to anything I asked, and I’d drag him through hell for it.
But Coach doesn’t know that. He can’t.
So I keep my voice flat. “He’s mine. That’s serious enough.”
Coach studies me, jaw working, smoke-stained eyes narrowing. For a second I think he’s going to push harder—demand I spell it out. But he doesn’t. He just tilts his head, muttering low.
“Then he better learn fast. Because if he can’t handle vultures asking questions, he’s not ready for the Cup.”
He turns. Walks back toward the tunnel, boots echoing like a countdown, leaving smoke and silence in his wake.
I sit in the empty press room, eyes on the floor, jaw tight. Because Harrow’s right. Elias is going to need to learn. And soon.
And if he thought standing beside me on the ice was brutal…
He hasn’t seen what the world will do once they smell blood off it.
By the time I’m halfway back to my place, the roads are dark, my SUV’s engine humming steady under my hands. The press room stink is still clinging to me—cheap coffee, too much cologne, the sour stench of vultures.
Headlights carve through the night. My mind’s already back where it belongs—on Elias. On the grin he wore when he humiliated Wrath at the dot. On the way his throat worked when he whispered I do over and over two nights ago like prayer.
Phone buzzes against the console. Screen lights up.
Viktor.
Of course.
The only other bastard on this roster who knows what it means to carry weight without chirping through it. If he’s calling me now, it’s not for pleasantries.
I answer. Put him on speaker. “Petrov.”
“Captain.” Russian gravel through static.
I know what this is before he says another word. The headlines are already screaming. I can hear them without seeing them: KADE CLAIMS NEW ROOKIE. PROTECTS MERCER ABOVE THE REST. FAVORITISM OR OBSESSION?
“What do they say?” I ask, turning the wheel slow, merging onto the highway.
Viktor exhales. “Everything. Clips, quotes, your face on every sports site. They call Mercer your pet. Your… project. Some say more.”
My jaw tightens. “Let them.”