Valek
Ipause outside the door to the visiting team's locker room, listening.
Skate blades scraping. Equipment bags unzipping. The low rumble of conversation punctuated by forced laughter. The kind men make when they're nervous and pretending they're not.
Somewhere in that room, Wade Kelly is suiting up to face the team harboring the omega who escaped him.
I keep seeing Ivy's face from our conversation. The steel in her eyes when she made me promise not to kill him. Like she'd already decided exactly how much violence she was willing to permit and had drawn her line accordingly.
Don't murder Wade.
I agreed.
And I meant it.
But promises have loopholes, and hockey is a brutal sport.
The Demons have made themselves at home inside, their garish red-and-black gear scattered across benches like an infection spreading. The devil crest with the curling tongue has always struck me as unimaginative. A team trying too hard to seem dangerous.
Wade's idea, of course.
I step through the doorway.
Conversations stutter. Heads turn. The newer players squint, trying to place my face. The veterans find somewhere else to look.
Wade keeps talking loudly to the nervous rookie beside him, but his eyes track me like I'm a threat he's pretending to ignore.
How hurtful.
"Well, well, well."
The familiar voice drips theatrical venom sweetened with honey. Raven pushes off from a row of lockers, golden hair falling artfully across his forehead. Four years in hockey and he's still every inch the figure skater he was before he beat the shit out of a rival and fell out of grace.
"Raven," I say with a slight nod.
"You remember me." He presses a hand to his chest, grinning. "I'm touched. Truly."
"I remember everyone."
"How deliciously ominous." His grin sharpens, but it isn't entirely insincere. Raven is a golden retriever beneath the menacing veneer, provided he doesn't hate you. "So what brings you here to slum with the enemy? Feeling nostalgic for the good old days?"
"I'm here to speak with Nikolai."
His shoulders sag with a dramatic sigh, as if I've driven a knife straight into his heart for coming here with a reason other than chatting with him. "He's in the back, doing his brooding-in-the-corner thing. I've tried to cheer him up, but you know how he gets."
Cheered him up?
I arch an eyebrow at Raven. Raven and Nikolai are sworn mortal enemies.
They grew up as best friends in and out of the same foster homes, then had an apocalyptic relationship with an equally apocalyptic ending and have been known to viciously attack each other on the ice even though they're on the same team.
It's the shit fans salivate over.
"Are you friends now?" I ask him, unable to keep the incredulity from bleeding into my voice.
Raven pulls a horrified face that isn't half as convincing as the theatrical alpha likely believes it is. "Me and Nikolai? Fuck no. I was joking."
"Ah. I thought you had changed."
"I'm basically a saint. Always have been."
I snort and move past him. His unbothered soft laugh follows me.
Nikolai occupies the back corner like he's claimed it through sheer force of antisocial energy.
He sits with his elbows braced on his knees, staring at nothing.
The alpha's bleached white hair is disheveled, still damp, and the jagged scar running diagonally across his face and straight through his right eye looks deeper than I remember.
"Didn't know they let serial killers wander into opposing locker rooms," he mutters.
"Didn't know they let you evolve from enforcer to power forward."
His lips twitch. As close to a smile as Nikolai ever gets.
"Fuck off."
"After we talk."
Now he looks up. One eye real, one prosthetic—matched well enough that most people can't tell. Both fix on me with cool assessment.
Some fans think we're secretly brothers, if only because we share a mother tongue and similar hair color. Convenient, when we want to shit talk without prying ears eavesdropping.
And he would sell Wade out for sport at the first opportunity.
I switch to Russian. "I need a favor. I'll owe you, after."
"A favor, huh?" He doesn't sound surprised. Doesn't sound annoyed either, which is new. He almost sounds happy to see me. "Figured you weren't here to chat because of my sparkling personality."
"Keep an eye on Wade tonight. I have reason to believe he's sabotaging the game," I lie easily. "Has he been more of an ass than usual lately?"
Nikolai snorts. "Yeah. He's been crazier than usual since his fiancee took off. He's getting paranoid because he's been brought in for questioning a few times. Cops think he might've had something to do with it and aren't convinced she's just 'missing.' The missing finger doesn't help."
"Missing finger?" I echo, tilting my head. "Do you not believe his story about a dog attack?"
Nikolai gives me a wry grin. "I like to think Ivy took a piece of him with her when she took off."
Across the room, Wade has rejoined a cluster of younger players who laugh too loudly at things that aren't funny. His eyes keep cutting toward us, sharp with resentment.
Let him watch and wonder.
"Hey, V. Niko. Speak English." Wade's voice carries deliberately, pitched for an audience.
"Howdy, Wade!" I say brightly in my best white bread American accent. The dead-behind-the-eyes smile I plaster on makes Wade physically shrink.
He recovers quickly with a sneer. "What? Did getting your head caved in by their resident freak finally lobotomize you? Speaking of Wraith, are those pictures of his fucked up face going around real?"
The locker room quiets. A few players exchange uncomfortable glances. Others smirk, hungry for drama. Raven isn't among them. He shoots Wade a disgusted look and turns back to his locker, suddenly very interested in his tape job.
Not surprising. As vicious as he and Nikolai are toward each other, Raven has always had a bone to pick with Wade for being a prick about his ex-lover's scar and missing eye.
"You have a pattern," I say, keeping my voice perfectly mild despite the way my lip automatically wants to curl when I speak to him. "A pattern of running your mouth about things you don't understand."
"Oh yeah?" He spreads his arms, playing to the cheap seats. "What's Wraith's pattern, then? Besides racking up penalties on the ice and mauling the opposing team?"
Funny. He's still bitter about that game—though not because Wraith nearly killed him, no matter how much he'd like everyone to believe that.
No, it's because Whiskey slammed Wade face-first into the glass from behind and left a smear of blood and snot like a snail's trail. And when Wade bent down to pick up his lost tooth, Whiskey proceeded to skate in circles all over the rink, dry humping the air and barking like a dog.
That is why Wade hates the Ghosts.
"Wraith does have a pattern," I say, turning my head slightly to find Raven glancing sideways at me from his locker. "With wingers."
Raven laughs nervously. "Well. That's not menacing at all."
"Good luck tonight," I tell him.
His smile stays fixed, but I catch the way his fingers tighten on the jersey in his hands.
The locker room door slams open hard enough to crack against the wall.
The man who fills the doorway is built like a gladiator forced into retirement and still furious about it. An eyepatch covers his left eye, the leather strap disappearing into shaggy hair gone gray at the temples too early.
His remaining eye lands on me.
"The fuck is this?" he demands.
"Geo, I presume?" I ask. "I'm Valek Carter. A pleasure."
"I know who you are," the Demons' new coach grits out. "What I don't know is why you're in my locker room when you play for the other fucking team."
"Catching up with old acquaintances." I incline my head toward the door. "I was just leaving."
Geo's eye narrows. He doesn't believe me, but he doesn't have grounds to throw me out either. Not without looking paranoid in front of his players.
"Five minutes," he barks at the room. "Anyone not ready to hit the ice gets benched." His glare cuts to Wade specifically. "Move, Kelly. You can run your mouth on your own time."
The room scrambles into motion. Players who were lounging snap to attention. Equipment gets yanked on with sudden urgency. The atmosphere shifts from pre-game bravado to genuine tension.
Geo watches it all with the expression of a man who's seen everything and found it all equally disappointing.
I slip toward the exit, nodding to Nikolai as I pass. He returns it with the barest inclination of his head.
Wade intercepts me at the door.
"This isn't over." His voice drops low enough that only I can hear. His perfect face is flushed with fury, the golden-boy mask slipping. "You think you can come into my locker room and—"
"Your locker room?" I let my smile widen. "I was under the impression this arena belonged to the Ghosts."
"You know what I fucking mean."
"I rarely do. When it comes to you."
I extend my hand. A peace offering, to anyone watching. Just two professionals parting on cordial terms.
Wade hesitates. He knows I'm not sincere. He isn't quite that stupid. But refusing a handshake in front of his team would make him look weak. His ego won't allow that.
He reaches out and clasps my palm.
I squeeze.
His eyes go wide. I watch the color drain from his face as I grind the bones of his hand together, focusing pressure on the fifth metacarpal—right where his missing finger used to be.
His mouth opens. Only the thin wheeze of trapped air comes out.
I release him and give him my most pleasant smile.
"May the best man win."