Chapter 27
Start of the season. Fresh ice. New blood. Same chaos.
We took a two-week honeymoon after the wedding and fucked like absolute rabbits.
I mean feral, multiple-location, nearly-got-kicked-out-of-the-resort sex.
Elias was insatiable. Curious. A menace with lube and no shame.
We broke a bed. Nearly drowned in a hot tub.
I think he tried to bend the laws of physics at least once in a hammock.
We needed another week to start walking straight again.
And by we, I mean me. Elias just bounced around the house like a freshly wrecked golden retriever in a wedding ring. Grinning. Naked. Sometimes wearing just his damn captain’s “C” and a smug little hickey on his throat like it was part of the uniform.
He’s officially Elias Nathaniel Kade now. Legally. The ID is framed in our bedroom like a trophy. And every time a fan shouts “KADE!” at an event or a signing and we both turn at once? He grins devilishly. Sometimes I think he’s doing it on purpose.
But today—today is opening practice.
I stand at center ice with a whistle in my mouth, clipboard in hand, arms crossed like I didn’t just spend the summer with my husband’s thighs around my head.
The barn is colder than usual, fog clinging to the fresh-cut surface, the stands echoing empty except for a few lingering staff and media waiting to see if I’m going to throw a rookie off the roof.
I might.
Because the chaos is already brewing.
Elias skates out first—C stitched on his chest, jersey tight, curls wild under his helmet, that feral Reaper grin already locked and loaded. He looks like sex and violence and fresh sin.
Viktor follows behind him, no C, just the alternate bar like he always wears it. He doesn’t want the captaincy. Never did. Said it years ago when I asked. “I don’t want the crown,” he told me, “I just want to protect the king.” Now, he skates beside Elias like a shadow with teeth.
I blow the whistle.
Cole and Shane come crashing onto the ice, yelling something about matching jockstraps and hydration schedules.
Tyler’s already chirping at a rookie. Mats is sipping from a protein shake and filming everyone on his phone.
I clock three new faces in various stages of panic and awe, all of them wide-eyed and twitchy, watching the team like they’ve been dropped into a lion’s den wearing meat suits.
Welcome to the fucking Reapers.
“Line drills!” I bark. “Captain Kade, run your centers.”
Elias perks up immediately. His grin goes sharp. “YES, COACH,” he yells, way too loud, and then skates backwards, his curls bouncing. “First rookie to fall gets Viktor’s cup as a souvenir!”
Viktor glares at him. “You do not want this cup,” he says, flat as a blade. “It has history.” The nearest rookie visibly gulps.
Cole skates past me, snaps his gum, and teases, “Nice whistle, Coach Kade. Is it new? Did your husband buy it for you with kisses and oral contracts?”
“Strike one,” I mutter, already regretting everything.
“I’m just saying—” Cole winks, “—you’re glowing.”
Before I can murder him, Shane skates up behind and stage-whispers, far too loudly, “They definitely used the Stanley Cup as a cum bucket—”
“STRIKE TWO.”
The rookies look horrified. I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. Same team. Same circus. But god, it feels good to be home.
The drills begin—tight, fast, organized chaos.
Elias takes over instantly, voice sharp, commands clear.
He skates like he was born on blood ice, weaving between lines, correcting posture, barking out shifts.
The rookies listen like he’s a prophet. The vets just grin.
They’ve seen this before. Elias on the ice is Elias in command.
He earned that “C.” Every inch of it.
I lean on the boards, whistle between my teeth, and watch for a moment. The ice, the team, the heartbeat of this madhouse we built. And him.
My husband.
My captain.
Elias catches me staring, winks, then deliberately drops into a one-knee pose at the blue line, arms wide, calling across the rink, “Coach Kade, marry me again!”
Cole screams. Shane howls. Someone’s already halfway through drawing a dick on the ice with a water bottle like it’s a team tradition.
I smirk and blow the whistle. “Line sprints. Now.”
“WAIT, NO—” Elias yelps, scrambling to his feet as the team groans in unison and launches into a brutal pace.
“You brought this on yourself, Kade!” I shout after him.
“WHICH ONE?!” he yells back, cracking with laughter as he bolts past me, fast as hell and grinning. Brat.
As practice winds down, the chaos fades into something close to organized violence. Pucks flying, gear clattering, Cole screaming something about foreplay while dodging Shane’s stick. Typical.
I blow the final whistle. Three long, sharp bursts. The signal that says: get the hell off my ice before I make you skate suicides until you throw up lunch and yesterday’s sins.
Elias doesn’t leave the ice. Of course he doesn’t. He skates right up to the boards, curls damp, cheeks flushed, that stitched C gleaming on his chest. His eyes find mine and he grabs the boards, leans in close, and purrs, “Hi, sir.”
I smirk, lips already twitching. “Hi, baby.”
Then the bastard hops the boards, lands with a soft thud beside me, and slides in close under my arm. Still in his skates, still sweaty, still panting, and he smells like adrenaline and victory and the hotel conditioner he refuses to replace.
We stand together, watching the boys finish out their last laps.
Viktor is currently slamming Cole into the plexiglass. Repeatedly. Each hit lands with precision—calculated, controlled, just enough restraint to keep the glass from shattering… for now.
Cole’s grinning through it all, mouthing off with his face mashed sideways, gleeful even through clenched teeth. “I like it when you manhandle me, daddy!”
THUD. “Hit me harder, big boy!”
SLAM. “I’ll scream your name in five languages!”
CRACK. “Add Russian to the list, please!”
Viktor’s expression doesn’t change. Blank. Emotionless. Except for the faint twitch in his jaw—just enough to say this could end in murder or mating, and the odds are fifty-fifty.
I wrap an arm around Elias’s shoulders and drag him in closer. He hums, resting his temple against my cheek. “He’s gonna snap,” he mutters.
“Oh yeah.”
“Think he’s gonna kill him?”
“Not the way Cole wants him to.”
Elias snorts. “Okay, what’s the bet?”
I pretend to think. “I say he caves before Halloween. Full-blown fucks him through the ice.”
“Halloween?” Elias gasps. “Babe. No way he makes it past preseason. I say… first road game. At the latest.”
I grin. “Deal.”
Cole screams something unintelligible as Viktor lifts him by the collar and slams him against the glass so hard Shane drops his stick in shock.
“Still think I’m wrong?” I ask, smirking into Elias’s curls.
Elias just laughs, sharp and bright and golden. “No,” he grins. “I think we’re gonna need a new rink.”
The second the last puck hits the net and the gear starts coming off, I grab Elias by the back of his jersey and steer him toward the hallway.
He chirps, low and smug, “Sir, you trying to bend me over in front of the team again?”
“I said follow me, pup,” I growl, already unlocking the coach’s office door with one hand, the other still gripping his jersey.
He stumbles in after me with a grin sharp enough to slice open a game schedule.
The door slams behind us. It’s not subtle.
The second we’re alone, Elias pounces—skates clacking against tile, lips on mine, hands already yanking at my hoodie.
He shoves me back toward the desk, mouth filthy and fast, muttering, “Been thinking about this since warmup—since you blew the damn whistle with that face—that face, sir—”
“That so?” I growl, twisting him around, grabbing his hips and bending him forward against the desk in one smooth motion. “What face?”
“The I own you face,” Elias gasps, back arching, ass grinding back against me like a devil in Reapers colors.
“Baby, that’s my normal face.”
He moans. “Exactly.”
His gloves hit the floor. His elbow pads clatter next. I reach under and rip his jersey up, baring the sweaty skin of his back, licking down his spine. “I like you in red,” I mutter, palming his hips. “But I like you better like this—bent over and begging.”
“I’m not begging yet,” Elias whines.
So I smack him once low and firm, right where he likes it.
He gasps. “Okay. Now I’m begging.”
I shove his pants down, grip his thighs, and slide my hand up the inside of one. “Gotta be quiet, pup,” I murmur against his ear. “The boys are still outside.”
He whimpers loudly.
“I said quiet.”
He clamps his teeth on his glove to muffle the next sound and spreads his legs wider.
God, I’m obsessed. I line myself up, slow and punishing, and push in—watching his whole body shake with it, watching his hands claw at the desk like he’ll lose his damn mind if I don’t move faster.
He moans through the glove, twitching. I pull back. Slam in. Again. Again. Each thrust knocks the desk into the wall. Each one drags a wrecked little sound out of his throat. “Who’s my good fucking captain?” I rasp, grabbing his curls and yanking his head back.
“Me,” he gasps, glove falling from his mouth. “Fuck, me, sir—”
“Say your name, baby.”
He shudders. “Elias Nathaniel Kade, captain of the Reapers, your good boy—”
“That’s right.”
And I break him open all over again.