Ivy
I'm grinning so hard beneath my mask, my face hurts.
Plague just scored some filthy deke that left the Demons' goalie flopping like a landed fish and Whiskey's losing his shit while Thane shakes his head from the crease. Classic.
But Wraith.
The Demons forwards keep flinching when my mate materializes behind them, abandoning plays they should commit to because seven feet of masked nightmare just appeared in their peripheral vision.
I fucking love watching him play.
"Your boyfriend's scary as shit," the woman next to me says, and I nearly choke on my overpriced soda before I realize she's talking to her friend about some guy who plays for the Demons.
Right. Normal people at a hockey game. Having normal conversations. No one hiding from their psychotic ex-fiancé in plain sight.
Wade's scanning the crowd again. His head swivels constantly toward the upper bowl, pauses, moves on. Searching.
I sink lower in my seat.
He can't know I’m here. I know he can't. The bond he forced on me is dead. I killed it myself with a flat iron.
But he keeps looking toward my section like he can sense the scar tissue where it used to be.
On the ice, Whiskey absolutely levels a Demons defenseman who wasn't even near the puck. The refs somehow miss it. Whiskey grins at the crowd and flexes like he's auditioning for a protein powder commercial.
"Whiskey's insane," someone behind me laughs.
Yeah. He's also mine.
Mine.
That thought still feels new, at least where Whiskey, Plague, and Thane are concerned. But it's there.
Then the play shifts, and Wraith chases a puck into the corner, and—
The sound of the impact cracks through the arena.
Wrath's head snaps back.
I flinch, my hand flying to my mouth to muffle my cry beneath the suffocating fabric of my own gaiter.
On the ice, Wraith staggers. For a terrifying second, he stays bent over, thrashing his head like a wounded bear trying to clear a swarm of bees.
And then the blood falls, dark crimson splashes on the ice.
"Oh my gods," the woman beside me whispers. She sounds horrified, but not in a sympathetic way. It’s the way you sound when you see a car crash. "Look at him."
"Dude's a machine," her boyfriend mutters, zooming in with his phone camera. "Or a zombie. Look, he's not even going to the bench."
"He's feral," his girlfriend corrects him. "Shouldn't let him play at all."
"Get off the ice," I whisper, even though he can't hear me, my fingers twisting in my hoodie. "Please, Wraith. Just get off the ice."
I watch as the trainer rushes out. I watch Thane try to talk sense into him. And I watch Wraith skate away from them all.
"Why is he staying out there?" someone behind me asks loud enough to be heard over the shouting crowd. "He's bleeding all over the ice."
"Because it’s a freak," a guy in a Demons jersey laughs. "It probably likes the taste of blood."
I whirl around in my seat. "Shut the fuck up!"
He stares at me, blinking. "Uh, excuse me?"
"I said shut the fuck up. You don't know anything."
"Whoa, chill out, sweetheart. It's just a game."
It's not a game. Not to me. And definitely not to the alpha on the ice who is currently fighting for air because he promised to win for me.
I turn back to the rink, ignoring the guy's muttered insults. At least these ones are for me.
I need to be down there.
I need to drag Wraith off that ice by force if I have to and clean up the blood and kiss his wounds.
But all I can do is watch.
Wraith skates back to his position, slightly unsteady. He keeps swiping at his mask with his glove, smearing the blood further, trying to clear his airway without exposing his face.
Oh gods, the fabric is slightly torn.
Did his scars split again? He was supposed to get injections in Cedarbrook and didn’t.
Fuck, this is so unfair.
Valek scores and Wade's face is the color of raw steak as his eyes sweep the audience again. I check my own mask like Wraith does to make sure it's in place.
My mate is still bleeding. Still fighting to breathe through that soaked mask like a wounded dark god.
The Demons' winger targets Plague out of nowhere. The hit rattles the boards hard enough to shake ice flecks from the glass. Plague gets up slowly, one hand pressed to his ribs, and Whiskey's already hunting.
No one sees Whiskey coming until it's too late. The impact sounds like a car crash and both players go down in a tangle of limbs and sticks, and when they separate, Whiskey's laughing. Actually laughing while blood drips from a cut above his eye.
The refs let them go at it.
That's when I notice Nikolai and Raven.
They're the Demons' deadliest combination. Tonight they're barely on the same planet. Raven keeps drifting toward Nikolai's zone, and Nikolai keeps bodychecking him away from the play entirely. Not opponents. His own teammate.
"What the hell?" The woman beside me leans forward. "Did you see that? Nikolai just checked his own guy!"
Raven recovers, golden hair whipping as he spins to glare at Nikolai. Even from here, I can see him mouthing “fuck you.” A few minutes later, he retaliates by stealing the puck Nikolai was about to receive and showboating it around himself, leaving Nikolai stranded and furious.
They're sabotaging each other.
Wade screams something at both of them, face purple with rage, and Nikolai flips him off and yells something that looks a hell of a lot like "speak English" on his lips before skating off after Raven.
Freshly enraged, Wade gets possession near center ice and starts charging toward our zone. He's not even looking for passes anymore, just bulldozing forward like he thinks rage alone will get him past our defense.
Yeah. Good luck with Thane.
Plague steps into his path.
The collision is brutal. Both players go flying, but Wade comes up swinging. His fist catches Plague's jaw, snapping his head back. Plague staggers but doesn't go down, and suddenly Whiskey's there, grabbing Wade's jersey, yanking him backward.
Wade spins and throws an elbow that catches Whiskey in the throat.
Whiskey drops to one knee, choking.
The refs blow their whistles but Wade's not done.
He's completely lost it, throwing wild punches at anyone in a Ghosts jersey.
One of our rookies tries to intervene and gets a stick to the face for his trouble as Whiskey hauls himself to his feet, popping his neck and knuckles, his usually lackadaisical expression darkening into absolute fucking murder.
The JumboTron finds Wraith again.
He's just… standing there, stick dangling from one hand as he stares at Wade from across the ice.
The fabric clings to every contour of his face now as blood drips between his skates. Every breath sucks the drenched fabric harder against his sharp teeth, the screen ruthlessly displaying every detail as his massive frame shakes.
And then he lifts his eyes.
Somehow, they meet mine.
I know it's impossible. I know he can't actually see me from there. But somehow, somehow, we're looking at each other.
The exhaustion in his eyes breaks my heart.
Get off the ice, I think desperately. Please. Just go to the bench. You don't have to do this. Not for me. I don't care if you win or not.
But he's not moving toward the bench.
He's not moving at all.
He drops a glove.
His hand rises toward his face, and his chest expands with one deep, shuddering breath, his eyes closing as his fingers curl around the blood-soaked fabric.
My stomach plummets.
"No," I choke out. "Please. Don't do this for me. No, no, no—"
He tears off his mask.