Chapter 29 - Elias
Playoffs are coming like a storm, and the whole damn city knows it.
The headlines are louder every day—screenshots plastered across group chats, Cole reading them out loud in the locker room just to watch me turn red. “Golden Rookie or Captain’s Pet?” … “Reapers’ Center Wagging His Tail for Kade.” … “Is Mercer the Next Legend or Just the Captain’s Lapdog?”
I laugh sometimes. Pretend it doesn’t sink teeth in. But every time I’m sprawled out gasping under Damian’s weight later, his hand heavy on my chest, he tells me the same thing: let them talk.
Except he doesn’t let me skate easy. Not once.
If the vets chirp me soft or Cole tries to cushion me with his dumb jokes, Damian sees it. He cuts through the noise with that look and the next drill? It’s me and him. No one else.
Because playing against him is brutal. He doesn’t give an inch, doesn’t pull a hit, doesn’t soften the slam of his shoulder driving me into the boards.
Every time I go down, the glass rattles, my ribs scream, my pride shrivels up—and then I drag myself back up because he’s waiting.
He wants me to come at him again. Harder.
I hate that it feels like blasphemy—throwing weight into him, stick snapping against his, trying to dig a puck out of his shadow. But then he grips my cage after practice, snarls “Good boy” against my ear, and I’m flying.
Days blur—ice, gym, bed—until my body doesn’t feel like mine, only his.
And I’ve changed. I see it in the mirror, in the glass at the gym, in the way my jersey clings to me now.
I’m not the wiry rookie who showed up wide-eyed months ago.
I’m something sharper. Meaner. Built out of bruises and drills and nights spent clinging to my Captain’s throat while he growls praise into my mouth.
The vets notice. They don’t go easy. They shove, they slam, they chirp me just as filthy as they do each other now. And I grin through it, spit blood back at them, skate harder. Because Damian won’t let me be coddled—and maybe I don’t want to be.
And Christ—every time I slam into him at practice, every time I push back, I feel it. I hate it. I love it. It’s all for him. Always him.
It’s supposed to be a scrimmage. Half-ice, controlled, clean. The kind of drill where the rookies run systems, the vets bark adjustments, and Damian skates like the devil but doesn’t actually murder anyone.
Supposed to be.
But the second the puck drops and I’m across from him on the circle, I know it’s not. His eyes lock on me through the cage, his jaw set like stone. His whole frame coils tight like he’s decided this isn’t practice—it’s war.
My throat goes dry. My gloves twitch.
The whistle shrieks.
He explodes off the dot like a freight train. Stick slaps, blade hooks mine, and before I can even think, his shoulder smashes into my chest. My lungs seize. The puck skitters away useless, forgotten, because all I see is him—pressing me flat into the boards, his breath fogging against my cage.
“Move, pup,” he growls, low enough for only me to hear.
I do. I lunge, wild and reckless, shoving back with every ounce of muscle I’ve built since he started breaking me down. My shoulder slams into his ribs, my blade claws at the puck, and for one beautiful second, he actually stumbles.
The bench erupts—vets howling, rookies hollering, Cole shrieking “CURLS WITH THE HIT!” like it’s Christmas morning.
I don’t have time to grin. Damian’s already recovered.
His stick hooks mine, his weight drives into me again, harder, enough to make sparks burst behind my eyes. My knees buckle. I still don’t fold.
The puck squirts free, somewhere between us, but neither of us is chasing it anymore. It’s not about rubber. It’s about blood.
He shoves. I shove back. Bodies collide, helmets clack. Every stride is desperation, every slam is fire, every snarl is another promise he’ll wreck me later.
It’s brutal. Too brutal for a scrimmage.
“Jesus Christ—” Mats mutters from the bench.
“Cap’s gonna kill him,” Shane groans.
“LET HIM COOK!” Cole screams like a lunatic, banging his stick against the plexi.
Damian pins me again, glove in my cage. His voice is a snarl. “Hit me, Mercer. Or I’ll bury you here.”
My chest heaves. My throat works. And I slam back.
Full force. Shoulder to chest. Stick grinding against his until sparks almost fly. It’s filthy. It’s violent. It’s the hardest I’ve ever hit anyone.
The boards shriek under us. The bench loses its goddamn mind.
Then Viktor moves. Big bastard rises off the bench, steel grinding, like he’s actually going to step in before I break my spine. Mats’s glove shoots out, holding him back. “Don’t. He needs this.”
And Christ—they’re right.
Because Damian shoves harder, snarling against my cage, and I grin back through it.
And for half a heartbeat, he grins too.
He crushes me so hard the boards quake under our skates.
Practice finally ends with the whistle shrieking through the rink, the whole scrimmage collapsing in a mess of bodies and sweat.
The vets let us off the ice first. Probably because they want to watch me limp into the locker room like a lamb to slaughter.
I’m peeling off my gear, sweat stinging my eyes, when Cole starts it. Of course it’s Cole.
“Look at you, curls,” he cackles from two stalls down, sunglasses crooked on his nose. “Still alive after throwing yourself at Cap like a crash-test dummy. You deserve a medal. Or at least a tetanus shot.”
The room erupts.
“Christ,” Cole keeps going, throwing his shoulder into Mats, “did you see the way Cap punished him into the boards? He’s gonna be eating glass for a week.”
I groan, dragging my jersey off, trying to hide my face in the fabric. My ears are on fire. My whole chest is flushed red—and it’s not just from skating.
Damian doesn’t rescue me. Of course he doesn’t. He’s sitting two stalls over, calm as stone, taping the split across his knuckles like he didn’t just try to bury me alive on ice. His eyes lift, pinning me where I sit trembling, and then—he smirks.
“That wasn’t punishment,” he says flat.
Every head swivels. My heart stops.
“Punishment,” Damian continues as he leans back on the bench, “is not letting him come for three days straight.”
The room explodes.
Cole howls so loud his helmet falls off the bench. Mats spits water everywhere, actually coughing. Tyler shrieks like someone stabbed him. Shane mutters a prayer he definitely doesn’t mean.
I’m dead. Dead on the floor. Or at least I wish I was, because my face is burning so hot it might combust. My whole body goes stiff, my lips twitch uselessly, and I can’t stop staring at the floor like maybe it’ll swallow me.
“OH MY GOD!” Cole screeches, sunglasses askew, pointing at me like I’m a crime scene. “CURLS IS SCARLET! CAP, YOU brOKE HIM!”
I slam my helmet over my head just to hide, muffled groan tearing out of me. “Kill me. Someone kill me.”
Damian doesn’t even blink. Doesn’t soften. Just keeps wrapping tape around his hand, smirk sharp enough to cut, voice calm as death.
“Don’t tempt me.”
And the room howls louder.
Because nobody chirps me harder than my own Captain.
The taunts don’t stop. Not when I pull my pads off, not when I slam my helmet into the stall, not when I try to bury myself under a towel like a corpse at my own funeral.
Cole’s still screeching about it, Mats is smirking like the devil, Tyler keeps making faces like he just walked in on his parents, and Damian—Damian’s sitting there calm as a grave, smirk carved across his mouth like he just handed me my obituary and signed it with blood.
I should shut up. I know I should shut up.
But I don’t.
I snap my towel at him, reckless, grinning even though my ears are still burning scarlet. “Three days? Please, Cap. You wouldn’t last three hours without me.”
The room goes dead silent.
Like, dead. Helmets freeze halfway to hooks. Cole’s mouth drops open. Mats actually blinks. Tyler looks like he’s about to faint again.
Damian’s eyes lift, slow. Steady. Pinning me to the bench where I sit like I just signed my own death warrant.
The smirk he gives me is lethal.
From two stalls down, Cole slaps a hand over his face and groans loud enough to echo. “Oh, curls,” he says, shaking his head with the biggest grin. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
I groan, dragging the towel over my head, muffling my voice into the fabric. “Shut up. I know.”
The vets crack up. Tyler shrieks like he can’t believe I’m still alive. Mats mutters “rip” under his breath. Even Viktor smirks, and that’s when I know I’m doomed.
Because Damian hasn’t said a word yet.
He doesn’t have to.
He’ll collect later.
And I’ll pay every second of it.
The locker room is still vibrating with laughter when it happens.
Damian stands. Slowly. Heavy. Deliberate. The kind of movement that makes every helmet in the room tilt up, every stick tap die out. My stomach drops through the floor before he even takes a step.
He doesn’t look at the others. Doesn’t need to. His eyes are steady on me the whole way across the room.
And then he bends, plucks my jacket off the hook.
Not just any jacket—his. One of his old Reapers jackets he tossed me weeks ago, too broad in the shoulders for him now, still too big for me but I wear it anyway because it smells like him.
He shakes it out once, then settles it over my shoulders like it belongs there. His hands smooth it down my arms, heavy, slow.
“Captain—”
His hand pats my back, firm and soft at the same time. And then his fingers slide up, pushing a strand of curls out of my face, tucking it behind my ear like he’s fixing me for a photo.
I swallow hard. My chest hammers. My lips part uselessly.
“My sweet little pup,” Damian says, soft in a way that guts me worse than when he growls.
The whimper that claws out of my throat is embarrassing—high, desperate.
From across the room, Cole’s sunglasses tilt as his jaw drops. “Oh shit.”
Damian doesn’t even glance at him. His eyes stay locked on mine, burning steady as his thumb drags slow against my jaw.
“Tell me a number, baby,” he murmurs.
My whole body jerks. My stomach flips. My lips twitch open but no sound comes out except a wrecked little whine.
Because I know what he means.
I know exactly what he means.
And I don’t know if I’m more scared of saying it out loud—or not saying it at all.
My throat works once. Twice. My lips twitch. And before I can even stop myself—before my brain catches up with my mouth—I blurt:
“Five!”
The room inhales like one animal, then detonates.
Cole falls off the bench so hard his helmet crashes to the floor, screeching laughter ripping out of him like a hyena.
Damian doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t even blink.
He just stares down at me, scar tugging faint as his thumb strokes along my jaw. Calm. Collected. Like I didn’t just shout the number five in front of my entire goddamn team.
“My good boy,” he says low, steady.
I choke. Literally choke on my own breath. My face goes scarlet, my knees wobble like I might actually collapse in the middle of the locker room.
Cole wheezes so loud he’s half on the floor, clutching his stomach. “FIVE?! CURLS IS OUT HERE NEGOTIATING HIS OWN FUNERAL!”
“Jesus Christ,” Mats mutters into his towel, shaking his head with a grin.
Tyler’s still shrieking. “He just—he said—FIVE?! He said it out loud!”
Shane: “Lord, forgive me, I’m about to lose my shit.”
And Damian?
He leans closer. Tilts his head. Lets his lips brush just over my ear so only I hear it through the chaos.
“Five it is.”
My whole body seizes. My lungs skip. My legs nearly give out.
And I realize I’ve just doomed myself.