Chapter 11
KIERA
Elli and I—along with the rest of Elli’s crew: Amy Song, Jen Carter, and Parvati Bhaduri—walked into the Bakken Suite at the Spriggans’ home arena. I hadn’t known what to wear to a hockey game and, as always, ended up being the odd man out.
I’d gone with black leggings that weren’t exactly satin but had a definite sheen, really cute ankle boots, and an oversized winter-white cashmere cowl neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up so you could see my simple diamond tennis bracelet.
I’d figured the Bakken suite equaled class, and I’d wanted to fit in.
Unfortunately, I’d totally missed the mark.
Except for Elli, who was dressed all in black to be inconspicuous with her camera, all the other girls came in Spriggans merch. Parvati had a vintage-style jersey with some legendary player’s name on the back.
Amy had a modern Spriggans T-shirt, as did Jen, but they wore them differently—as in, Amy’s was long-sleeved and roomy. Jen’s had babydoll cap sleeves and was, as per usual, two sizes too small, distorting the team’s name across her ample chest.
I didn’t have time to obsess about my faux pas for too long though, because as soon as we crossed the threshold into the suite, my lips parted in awe. I’d been right about the class part.
A private bar stood off to the right with our own staff. To the left, several leather club chairs encircled a glass cocktail table. And this was all for us.
I felt like such a fraud. If my childhood self could see me now, what would she think? My skin prickled with the feeling of being a fish on dry land.
“Wow!” Amy cried. She pulled the scrunchie from her long glossy black hair and slipped the elastic around her wrist. “This is so freakin’ cool! I never expected to ever sit in one of these suites. Not on a preschool teacher’s salary.”
I was glad she said it out loud. I didn’t want to be the only one who wasn’t used to the VIP treatment.
However, that’s where mine and Amy’s similarities ended, and I wasn’t just thinking about our game outfits. I had to remind myself I was still a newbie member to this friend group.
I watched to see how Parvati would react to the suite. She was an investment banker and, out of all of us, earned the most money, though she never made a big show of it.
True to form, she agreed with Amy and said, “Seriously, El. Thanks for inviting us. This is cool.”
“Is that an open bar?” Jen asked.
“Yeah,” Elli said, “but, please, don’t get drunk and embarrass me.”
Jen rolled her eyes, and Parvati laughed. It was the kind of good-natured teasing that happened between old friends.
I wandered away from them all to the front of the suite where two rows of seats faced the ice, separated from the general admission by a sheet of Plexiglass.
Down below, a couple dozen hockey players ran through their warmups, flying around the ice like someone had poked a hornet’s nest.
It didn’t take long for me to find Sean in the mix. Even wearing a helmet and with his dark shape altered by protective gear, I recognized the way he carried his body, from his head down to his hips.
It wasn’t so different from the way I could find the one designer label on a crowded rack of knockoffs.
“Who are we playing again?” Amy asked.
“Spriggans versus the Richmond RedCaps,” Elli said from several feet behind me.
“Are they any good?” Parvati asked.
“Well, they don’t have any humans on their team,” Elli said with a sigh.
I may not have known much about hockey, but I knew what that meant. Berserkers, shifters, and fae were bigger, stronger, and faster than most humans, and they totally dominated professional sports.
It was rare for a human athlete to land a spot on a professional roster, and the Spriggans had three humans on theirs, one of whom was Elli’s brother.
My phone pinged, and I looked down at the screen: Minnesota State Correctional Facility.
Again?
Now?
Irritation slid through me. After our last conversation, the last person I wanted to talk to was my brother.
But irritation was followed by a zing of dread. Maybe it wasn’t Braden. Maybe the facility was calling to tell me something bad had happened to him. I knew I was listed as his next of kin.
But that was a call I didn’t want to take either. Not now. Not here.
I pushed down the dread and went to the bar.
With the exception of Elli—who would be working once the game began—we all ordered our usual drinks at the bar: an IPA (Amy), dirty gin martini (Jen), pinot grigio (Parvati), and a double shot of tequila margarita on the rocks (me).
Jen passed out cocktail napkins as the lights in the arena slowly dimmed, and we rushed to get into our seats in the front row of the suite.
Once the arena was completely dark, beams of red light shot and swirled across the stands. Some of those beams even caught the diamonds in my tennis bracelet, making them sparkle.
Fire graphics blazed across the ice, which acted as a movie screen, then turned to smoke as rock music blasted through the speakers.
The announcer’s voice boomed above the music. “Welcome…ladies…and…gentlemen. This afternoon, your Minnesota Spriggans face the Richmond RedCaps. Starting at left wing for the RedCaps…”
He began to read off the visiting team’s roster, and each player skated forward into a spotlight on the ice, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.
Instead, I peered toward the opposite end of the ice and the line of players still cloaked in darkness, shadow figures shifting restlessly on their skates, clacking their sticks against the ice.
I quickly found Sean in the middle of the line. He never stopped moving. He was like a bottled storm.
“And now…your hometown team…the Minnesota Spriggans!”
Another round of digital flames spun across the ice, and the crowd went wild. The glass partition shook from the vibration of stomping feet.
“Watch the screen,” Elli said, pointing at the enormous digital monitor suspended over center ice.
“At left wing… Number Twelve… Captain…Rafe MacConall!”
Rafe MacConall skated forward into a spotlight while a close-up, pre-taped video of him played simultaneously on the big screen. A wolflike creature with glowing red eyes appeared behind him in the image—baring its razor-sharp teeth. This was apt, of course. Rafe was a hell hound.
“Did you create the graphics?” Parvati asked, leaning forward to see Elli’s face.
Elli grinned and nodded.
“Amazing,” I said, and I meant it. It was super cool.
“At center, Number Sixteen, Will Quesenberry.”
Down on the ice, Quesenberry skated into the spotlight while a video of him—a big, bald black man with several missing teeth—appeared on screen.
I guessed he was a selkie based on the image of a seal behind him.
It dove off a rock into a stormy sea that froze over, then splintered into pale blue shards of ice.
“Right wing!” the announcer continued, and I noticed Elli biting down on her bottom lip, probably because Lukas had played right wing before his injury. “Number Seventeen. Tate Brass!”
Brass was a berserker bear, and a snarling grizzly popped up behind him on the screen, eyes rolling, hair bristled, and teeth looking downright terrifying.
“And on defense…Number Five, Evan Rogan…”
Evan’s graphic was of him racing across a frozen lake, then stopping fast, sending up a spray of shaved ice that appeared to hit the camera lens, melt, then drip off.
“And Number Four, Sean….” The announcer drew out Sean’s name like a drum roll. “Murrrr-phyyyy!”
Sean skated into the spotlight while the graphics made it look like he was skating through the middle of a dense, moonlit forest. He wove deftly, in and out of the trees, then leaped over a fallen one, stopped on a dime, and blew a kiss toward the camera.
A group of girls sitting in the stands beneath our suite jumped up and waved at the screen as if Sean had blown that kiss straight to them.
I couldn’t blame the girls. The graphics were so good, I had to remind myself they were an illusion.
“And finally…goal tender…Number One in your program and in the league with the highest save rate of ninety-two percent, our own…Bjorn Eliasson!”
Bjorn, another berserker bear, glided forward in his goalie pads, into the spotlight, while an enormous bear appeared on screen and a loud roar filled the stadium, drowning out the electrified crowd.
Parvati made a little whimper, then slapped her hand over her mouth as if surprised and embarrassed to hear that sound come out of her.
Jen yelled, “Shit! Those were some serious introductions!”
“Why, thank you,” Elli said proudly.
A pair of hands landed on Elli’s shoulders, and she looked straight up.
I followed her gaze and realized Lukas had entered the suite and was now leaning down over the top of her.
Elli arched her neck back so he could give her a quick upside-down kiss.
The intimacy of it gave me a pang of jealousy that I wished I could ignore because damnit if it didn’t make my own lips burn with the memory of Sean’s lips crushed against mine.
“That was amazing,” Lukas said.
“Thanks, babe!” Elli stood from her seat, turned, and kissed him proper. When they pulled apart, she added, “Now, I better get down there and take some photos of Murph.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I’m going to stand behind the team with the coaches.”
Elli’s face lit with so much happiness that now my stupid heart was hurting. I wanted that kind of happiness for myself, and it could be right within my grasp.
I knew Elli was right; there was definitely something between me and Sean.
I just didn’t know what or why it was. He was handsome, kind, generous, protective, but at the same time so, so simple.
He didn’t know the meaning of the word indulgence, and everybody needed to treat themselves once in a while.
Hadn’t he ever heard the expression You can’t take it with you?
I sure had. The first time I’d heard it, I’d actually asked, “What can’t you take?”
Everyone in my homeroom class had stared at me for a few seconds before bursting out laughing.
It had been an honest question though. My family had virtually nothing, and when it came to the little we did have, when I thought of my life and leaving home, I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d want to take with me.
Lukas and Elli left the suite. Amy moved over to fill Elli’s abandoned seat.
“So,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “Elli mentioned needing to plan someone’s birthday party?”
“We’ve got time.” I smiled while returning my gaze to the ice.
Four players—two from each team—had made a sort of ring around center ice. Will Quesenberry and the center from the other team were in the middle of the ring, bent forward with their sticks at the ready.
Sean and the other defensemen hung back, waiting to see which direction the puck would go.
The ref dropped the puck, and—BAM!—the players turned into a blur of colors. Sticks slapped and clacked against the ice. Bodies slammed against the boards in heavy, crashing thuds.
The lines changed; some players left the ice while others jumped over the boards and joined the fray.
Evan Rogan scored the first goal, which was surprising to me, him being human. A roar of approval went up from the crowd, and the team circled around him, pounding on his back.
“Yikes,” Amy said, “if scoring a goal means getting beat up by your friends, why do it?”
She was kidding, of course, but she did have a point.
I glanced over at Jen who was sitting on my other side. She had a pair of binoculars raised to her face.
“Where did you get those?” I asked.
“Brought them with me. I knew the suites were up higher than most of the regular seats.”
“You actually follow hockey?” I’d assumed the other girls were here more for Elli than for the sport. But then…they did all have the right merch to wear.
Jen scoffed. “I follow the asses. Haven’t you noticed? These guys are hot.”
I swallowed hard. I may have noticed one particular ass a time or two. “Can I see?”
“Sure.” She handed the binoculars to me.
I raised them to my eyes and scanned the ice, looking for Sean. I didn’t see him anywhere. The line must have changed while I was distracted. I focused on the Spriggans’ bench and slid my gaze down the row until it landed on Sean.
He was leaning forward, forearms to knees, but his head was lifted, and his moss-green eyes…
They were on me.
I gasped and pulled the binoculars away from my face.
“What happened?” Jen asked.
Heat flooded my cheeks. I must have imagined that. The stands were crowded, and I was up high and behind a sheet of Plexiglass. Sean didn’t even know I was here.
Or did he? It wasn’t a stretch that Lukas would have mentioned it to him.
I put the binoculars back to my eyes and found him again. He was still staring up at me, but this time he was grinning.