Chapter 3 #2
I don’t know whether I was angry, disappointed, sad, or just exhausted from trying to prove myself.
It was one thing to be in Saint’s shadow, but another to feel as if the entire weight of the shifter world was on my shoulders.
I’d had enough. And before I did something stupid, it was time to get the hell away.
“I’ll need to think about it.” I started to walk out of the room. I’d hoped for another team and holding out was definitely in my best interest. There’d been other recruiters sniffing around. They were always looking to augment their talent.
“We’re not done yet, Steven. Give us the room,” the coach told the others.
With a deep exhale, I moved against the wall, remaining close to the door.
Brent walked out almost immediately, but Gabe lingered, moving in front of me.
“You need to do this, Beast.”
As soon as he threw that in my face, I bristled. “Fuck you.” I whispered the two words and knew by doing so, I could likely kiss my career goodbye but fuck him. Fuck all of them.
I expected him to throw some kind of a tantrum, but when he grinned, I had to laugh.
“That’s the spirit, my man,” he said. “I’m going to work on a Beast campaign. We’re going to carve this interview into something special. More money. More clout. Hell, by the time I’d finished with you, your brother will be in the dust. And I’ll be rich.”
Now he chose the moment to walk out.
“Greedy son of a bitch,” I muttered. I was mouthier than usual today. Maybe I had reached the end of my rope.
“Yeah, he is,” the coach agreed, even chuckling when he did, yet the moment was awkward between us.
I hated that it was obvious that two of the men were eager to get rid of me while the other was all about making money.
Being a pawn or getting rich wasn’t the reason I wanted to play hockey.
It never had been. I was born to play the game.
It was all I’d ever wanted to do my whole life.
Why did it feel as if no one would ever look past the man-eating beast to the man inside?
He returned behind his desk, sitting down. After fiddling with a group of papers, he leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. His fatherly stare meant a lecture was coming.
“Sit down, son. What happened with the game last night?”
I hadn’t wanted or expected him to ask the question, at least right now. Reluctantly, I slid into the seat. “Wait a minute. You think I sold my soul to that goddamn program. Don’t you? Well, I didn’t. I would never do that to my brother. Never.”
His exhale was heavy. “I didn’t say a word about the show, son. Not a word. Stop jumping to conclusions.”
I harrumphed, hating my lack of patience. “My mind wasn’t on the game. That’s all.”
“You sure about that?” He eyed me carefully.
“What does that mean? I’m not in the habit of lying.”
“That means you had eyes for a one hot blonde sitting in the stands. Don’t think I didn’t notice, or that half the team and the local paper didn’t either.”
Coach Rufini preferred paper versus computers, tossing the local newspaper across his desk, which had already been turned to the sports page. I didn’t need to pick it up to read the ridiculous headline.
Has Local Shifter and Hockey Star Steven ‘The Beast’ Savage Found his Lifelong Mate?
The photograph was of me peering up at her from the ice with both hands on my heart.
“Oh, Christ.” This time, the growl I issued was ripe with anger. I was sick to death of the intrusive headlines. “That was a damn joke.” No wonder Gabe had been frothing at the mouth.
“Yeah? Doesn’t look like a joke to me. You were showing off for her, for one thing.
” When I opened my mouth to reject what he’d told me, he shook his head.
“We’re not going to discuss the Jell-O shots.
I can’t stomach it. Just another distraction.
When you were hired, you were quiet, content with doing what you needed to do and heading home.
Then out of the blue, you started going to parties. ”
“I didn’t see in the contract that I wasn’t allowed.”
I thought his eyes would bug out of his head. “Are you kidding me? You went from zero to one-eighty in the blink of an eye, your hunger for all things female off the charts. I mean come on.” His laugh was bitter. “If only I had that much unused testosterone.”
“Just a growing boy appreciating women.” I wasn’t hitting on all cylinders with my jokes at this point. I could tell by the way he was glaring at me. Clearing my throat, I looked away.
“That’s happened a lot lately, Steven. What are you, in heat or something?”
“What?”
“You know… That shifter thing you’ve got going on. Were you sniffing out your mate or just hungry for one, is that why you can’t concentrate?”
Huffing, I honestly had no idea what to say to him. Not that we’d had a long or pointed conversation about the physiology of being a shifter. “That’s not how it works.”
“Oh, yeah? Then how does it work? I thought your kind mated for life.” He drummed his fingers on his desk, eyeing me curiously.
My kind.
I’d always taken the reaction of humans when learning I was a shifter with a grain of salt. I figured I owed them as a species since up to a year ago, they’d believed their only threat to beings ruling their world was with the possibility of little green men invading Earth.
Whether or not he genuinely wanted to know the logistics, I wasn’t certain.
However, I had to give him a decent answer.
“Not every shifter mates for life any longer. They can have more than one, but yes, there can be a chemical change when we discover the person who will eventually become our partner. There’s a pull or electricity toward the person that is magnetic and irresistible.
At that point we become compelled to be around them.
For me, my wolf would awaken and roar, feeling as if it was the first day of the rest of his life.
There is a feeling of uncontrollable desire, a need to protect and an extreme possessiveness that will not be denied. ”
However, as humanized as we’d become, the possibility of finding what was portrayed in romance novels as our fated mate was beyond being ridiculous. We chose someone we were attracted to and hoped he or she wouldn’t kill us in our sleep.
I noticed he stopped drumming his fingers, all five in midair while he narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, it’s very… intoxicating. Or so I’ve heard since I’ve never been through it.” I’d never wanted to either. I had no idea where he was going with this.
“Wow. That’s interesting. So you were playing a game with the girl.”
“She was cute. I was flirting. So was she. End of the story.” So maybe I wanted to get laid like half the rest of the team. So what?
“Except you lost the game because of the distraction.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Yeah, okay. I wasn’t trying to. It just got a little out of hand. Are you trying to tell me my performance last night influenced the deal I was offered?”
Was I really distracted as of late? I hadn’t thought so.
He sat forward in his seat, staring at me without blinking. “I’m trying to tell you that you should take the deal with Tampa Bay.”
“Okay, why? You don’t want to coach me any longer?”
His eyes trailed the paperwork as he slid it across his desk toward me. When he looked at me again, I could tell he was doing his best to lose every aspect of any emotion. Not that he was a very emotional guy. “Because I got word late last night from the owner that they’re letting you go.”
The shock was immediate, my throat almost closing.
This wasn’t about anything but appearances. I knew how the game worked. I’d made a fool of the team and the owners who’d made certain I’d known early on they were taking a chance on me. On the wolf. Well, fuck this.
“Wait a minute. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Who’s letting me go?”
I’d rarely seen Coach Rufini have difficulty finding words. He usually grasped onto nasty ones when confronting what he called the stupidity of his players or the calls of referees regarding plays. This afternoon he was finding them unattainable.
“When your contract runs out with the Philadelphia Ringers after this season, it won’t be renewed. I know it’s a tough break, but my dad always told me when one door closes, another opens.”
“This is just…”
“Shit. I know. Life is full of shit, son. Trust me.” He studied me intently. “Another piece of advice for you. Take this from someone who once had the same level of testosterone as you do. Get laid.”
Coughing, I was shocked to hear his recommendation. “What?”
“You heard me. Get laid and put the past behind you, including Philadelphia.”
Easier said than done. There were certainly girls who wouldn’t mind tearing off my pants to see if I had two cocks, but Jesus. I didn’t want to be nothing but a piece of meat. What kind of man would that make me?
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but to hear I’d been booted from the second-tier hockey team wasn’t just a blow to my ego. It was a crushing strike that I’d never recover from.
Unless…
“Did you orchestrate the deal with Tampa Bay?”
“Let’s just say I called in a few favors, son.
You’re a good player. Hell, you’re amazing when you put your mind to the game.
One of the best I’ve ever seen. You deserve a chance, but you need to figure out a way to make peace with yourself.
Given I don’t know anything about werewolves, I can’t help you there.
What I do know is that this is your chance to show yourself and the world what you got.
One-shot deal. If you can shove aside that big personality of yours and be the hero Tampa Bay needs, then you’ll be considered the new golden boy. ”
“And if I don’t?”
His laugh was full of bitterness. “Then I guess you’ll need to find a new career.”
After taking and holding a deep breath, I wanted to shout to the world one last time that I wasn’t a goddamn werewolf.
But that would just prove his point.
I glared at the contract, furious that my entire career had come down to this.
All because I’d pretended that a blonde whose name I didn’t know and whose face I couldn’t remember was my mate.
Snatching the pen, I scribbled my name in all the appropriate places, double checking that I had.
Because once I walked out of this office, I was never coming back.
Fuck them all. I was Beast Masters.
Hear me roar.