Chapter 26
Damian’s finally walking without the crutch.
Still limping. Still stiff in the mornings. Still cursing every time the stairs squeak under his weight, but walking. Breathing next to me in the dark when I wake up gasping from dreams I’ll never admit to. He’s here. Mine. Still a little broken, but not gone.
Today, I marry him. On our ice.
The arena is packed. I mean packed. Sold out like a playoff game.
Like someone screamed FREE HOCKEY and the entire city showed up to see if I’d trip over my own skates on the way down the aisle.
There are banners. Fucking signs. Someone’s blasting “Here Comes the Bride” over the speakers with bass so heavy it makes the windows tremble.
No idea who told them. Not me. Not Damian. Not even Cole, I think—though honestly, it wouldn’t shock me if he live-streamed the invite in his sleep.
Doesn’t matter now. Because I’m in one of the gym rooms under the arena, in a black and red suit with my skates already laced, and I’m spiraling.
I’m pacing. Tugging at my sleeves. Yanking my tie so loose it’s a noose at this point. My curls are a mess. My mouth’s dry. My heart’s hammering. And my best man is absolutely no help.
Cole lounges on the weight bench, sipping something neon out of a protein shaker like he’s not wearing three thousand dollars worth of silk and sin.
He’s got his jacket slung over his shoulder and his Reapers cufflinks crooked, and he looks way too smug for someone whose main job today is keeping me from bolting.
“You know,” he says, tipping his head back with a grin, “for someone who tackled their husband on center ice in front of twenty thousand people, you’re surprisingly jittery.”
I glare. “That was different.”
“Oh? How?” He twirls the shaker bottle. “Because your dick was hard that time?”
“Because I didn’t have to say vows, Cole,” I hiss, running a hand down my face. “Because I didn’t have to walk out there in skates and a tux and not fall on my ass in front of every single Reapers fan and maybe Jesus himself.”
Cole squints. “Jesus is not a Reapers fan, babe.”
I shoot him a look.
He shrugs. “Satan, maybe.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I groan and lean against the wall, dragging my palms down the front of my suit jacket like that’ll stop the shaking. My stomach’s in knots. My legs are trembling. I feel like I’m about to go into Game 7 overtime alone, naked, and high on cold meds.
A knock on the door—soft, three steady beats—and then Shane pokes his head in. He’s in a dark suit, a red tie, and his dress shoes look suspiciously like his backup goalie skates dyed black. His hair’s slicked back, eyes glassy, and he’s holding something in his hands. “You ready?” he asks, quiet.
I don’t answer. Can’t. My throat closes up, but Shane walks in anyway. He reaches for my boutonniere—black carnation, red thistle—and pins it to my lapel with hands that only shake a little. Then he looks me in the eye. “You look good, Cap,” he murmurs.
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
He nods. “I know.”
“What if I mess up my vows? Or fall? Or throw up on him? Or just… I don’t know. Forget how to breathe.”
He smiles soft and fierce. “Then I’ll pick you up. Say the words for you. And remind you how.”
I stare at him. And for a second, I almost cry. Instead, I nod.
He offers his arm. I take it and we walk out into the light.
As soon as I enter the tunnel, the fans explode.
Full-volume, chest-rattling, playoff-level feral screaming.
My name, his name, our names—echoing off the rafters.
I swear someone’s already sobbing. There are signs.
Someone’s waving a homemade “TIL DEATH, CAPTAIN” banner.
Someone else has a poster that just says “FUCK ME, KADE” in glitter.
Cole’s already crying. Not even subtle. He’s full ugly-crying in the front row of the player bench, wiping his face with a Reapers towel and yelling, “THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND!” every five seconds.
Shane salutes me like a soldier then claps a hand on my shoulder, steady as stone, and guides me forward. The lights go out. Instant silence. Gasps in the dark.
And then one single spotlight, dead center, hits the ice.
Damian’s standing in it. No crutch. No limp.
Just him in a black tux, red shirt and no tie.
His hair's down. One hand folded in front of him, the other resting over his heart, and staring straight at me like the whole arena could fall away and he’d still find me in the dark.
My breath catches. He’s—oh my god. “Holy fuck,” I whisper, panicking instantly. “He’s so hot. How did I pull this shit off?!”
Shane doesn’t miss a beat. “By being obsessed,” he murmurs, smirking.
I wheeze. Actually wheeze. I’m suddenly aware of every single thing wrong with me. My suit is tight in weird places. My tie’s crooked. My curls are frizzing from the humidity. My mouth’s dry. My hands are shaking. I smell like nerves.
But Damian’s smiling now. Just a little. Just for me. And fuck me if I don’t feel like the most seen, wanted, claimed man on earth.
I step onto the ice, skates slicing clean. Shane guides me forward, steady and slow. The crowd fades. The lights stay low. The arena holds its breath and then I’m there, right in front of him. And he looks at me like I’m already his.
Damian smiles down at me, soft and slow. His hand lifts and brushes back a curl from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear. He does it deliberately. Tender. Like he knows exactly what it does to me.
I go crimson instantly. My whole face burns, my throat locks, and I make a noise—something between a hiccup and a broken whimper—and he just smirks. “Hi, pup,” he whispers, low enough that it feels like a secret. Like a kiss.
I whimper. Out loud.
Shane’s snorting beside me. Cole’s screeching “I knew he’d break first.” But none of it touches me. None of it matters.
It’s just him. Damian Kade. Standing steady. Tux sharp. Eyes soft. Looking at me like I’m holy.
And then Viktor clears his throat. It booms through the mic—standing between us in a black suit that somehow looks like it came straight from an underground auction for assassin clergy.
The barn stills.
Viktor lifts his gaze slowly, looks at the crowd then at us, then the ceiling like he’s praying for patience. And in full, solemn Petrov mode, he intones—“We are gathered here today because these two idiots refuse to be separated even by death, violence, or playoff travel schedules.”
Someone in the crowd yells “GO REAPERS!”
I choke on a laugh. Damian chuckles, eyes flicking to Viktor like he might actually kiss him out of sheer admiration.
But Viktor isn’t done. He lifts one hand.
“They have been through blood,” he says, steady, “through bone, through heartbreak and hail and overtime and press conferences that made me want to walk into traffic.”
Damian wheezes. I bite my fist. Viktor glares at both of us, then looks to the crowd. “And still. They stand. They choose each other. Again. Now. Always.”
I swear someone sobs. Shane salutes again. Viktor nods once, approvingly, and says, “Let’s get this over with before one of them faints.”
He turns toward Damian. “Coach,” he says simply. And Damian reaches slowly into the breast pocket of his tux. He pulls out a folded scrap of paper. Yellowed, creased and very familiar.
The crowd leans in. I squint. That’s—wait. That’s a playbook page.
Viktor arches a brow. “Really?”
“It’s sentimental,” Damian mutters, unfolding it carefully.
I’m already wiping at my eyes.
He glances down at the page, then up at me, and god—his face. That soft, wrecked smile. Like I’m the game plan. The final move. The whole strategy. Then he speaks. “I promise to coach you,” he says, “to fuck you, and follow you—through playoffs and pain, through wins and war.”
My knees buckle and my chest caves in as the crowd goes silent, no rustling, no noise—only raw, ringing stillness while his words settle over us.
And I’m crying, right there in front of everyone, full tears tracking down my cheeks, bottom lip trembling, nose burning, my whole face crumpling as I whisper, barely holding it together, “Fuck. You bastard.”
Damian just grins.
Viktor turns toward me, expression unreadable as he says, “Captain.”
And that’s when my brain completely short-circuits. I slap at my pockets, frantic, knowing full well I never put the vows in them, but searching anyway because panic makes you stupid. There’s nothing. No paper. No plan. No backup.
Where the fuck are my vows?
I dart a look at Shane, eyes wide, begging. He shrugs—useless.
Cole, ever the menace, is already holding up a glitter pen like he’s about to start scribbling something obscene on my arm just to get me through it.
I’m spiraling hard. The kind of spiral that feels like free-fall.
So I stop thinking. Stop searching. And I just blurt it—loud, raw, a mess of everything inside me that’s too big to contain.
“You’re my whole world,” I say, voice cracking with the weight of it, “and if you ever leave again I’ll hunt you down and drag you back by the balls. ”
There’s a beat—just a single breath of stunned silence—and then the barn explodes. Cole actually falls off his chair from laughing. Shane wheezes. Viktor looks to the sky like he wants to retire too.
Damian looks proud. So proud. He cups my face, leans in, and kisses my forehead.
Viktor turns to me, stone-faced, solemn enough to make a funeral weep.
“Elias Nathaniel Mercer… for now,” he intones, and the crowd howls—laughter, cheers, whoops from the upper bleachers.
He doesn’t flinch. Just waits for silence.
Then he continues. “Do you take Damian Ezra Kade to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love, to honor, to obey—” his eyes flick to me, smug, “—or disobey, let’s be honest—to kneel for, skate beside, and fight with…
until death, divorce, or NHL commissioner do you part? ”
I stare at him, barely breathing, heart pounding so hard it feels like it might break through my ribs just to get to him faster.
My hands are shaking, chest heaving, and the whole world narrows until it’s just him—Damian—standing there like he already knew my answer, like he’s been waiting a lifetime to hear it.
So I say it loud and clear. “I do.”
And the second the words leave my mouth—BOOM. The jumbotron explodes in blazing red letters, bold and unforgiving: HUSBAND UNLOCKED.
Fireworks erupt from the scoreboard—actual pyrotechnics. Gold and red and sparkling. Flags wave. People are sobbing. Shane is spinning in a circle with both fists in the air.
Damian leans in, mouth brushing the shell of my ear, his voice molten and wrecked as he growls, “Mine.”
I almost drop again, knees buckling under the weight of him, of us, of everything that word means.
Then Viktor turns to him, stone-faced, impassive as ever, and deadpans, “Damian Ezra Kade. Do you take this menace to be your husband? To coach, to ruin, to protect? To backcheck him when necessary, and to let him win faceoffs sometimes?”
Damian doesn’t even hesitate. He’s already reaching for me, already grinning like a devil in a suit, already growling low in his throat as he answers—“Fuck yes.”
And before Viktor can finish, Damian grabs me by the collar, hauls me in, and kisses me like he’s claiming his territory on center ice.
The crowd loses it. Someone screams “GET A ROOM!” Coach is roaring with laughter. Cole is sobbing and throwing confetti.
Viktor sighs, barely audible over the chaos. “You may maul the groom.”
Cole shrieks from somewhere behind us—already halfway to possessed—“LET’S PARTY, BITCHES!!”
The Reapers anthem starts through the speakers, BOOMING, shaking the rafters. Every single fan, every teammate, every drunk uncle in a black-and-red jersey starts screaming the lyrics. People are standing on their seats. Throwing jerseys, crying and shouting.
I’m still clinging to Damian when the lights sweep over us, flooding the ice, catching on his suit, his smile, the wreckage of me in his arms. He’s panting against my cheek, hot breath skimming my skin, chest rising hard and fast beneath my hand.
Then he whispers smug as sin, smug as the devil himself, ”Captain Kade.”
I make a sound that might actually be a scream. My face combusts. Heat floods every inch of me, and I blush so hard I feel it in my fucking toes. I slap a hand to his chest, eyes wide, fucking desperate for him. “No—no no no, don’t you start that—”
But he’s already leaning in, already letting his teeth graze my jaw like he’s marking the spot. My voice cracks, trembling as I whisper, “Coach Kade…”
His voice drops, low and lethal, right against my lips. “I’m gonna fuck that name into you tonight.”
And that’s it. My knees give out. My soul leaves my body.
The anthem is still shaking the air, fans are waving homemade signs, and Cole is now actively dragging Viktor toward the open ice like he’s about to start a conga line—but all I hear is that promise in Damian’s voice.