Puck’s for Dinner (Pucks, Packs & Pregnancies #2)

Chapter 1

RAFF

Three seasons on the worst team in the league either breaks you or makes you mean. I was somewhere in between.

I was in my apartment eating leftover pasta and watching footage of my team getting dismantled by the Riverton Rangers.

There was a notebook beside me where I'd been tracking our defensive breakdowns, though why I bothered was beyond me.

Our Glacier Saints had been at the bottom of the league table for two of the three seasons I'd been here, and the coaching staff rotated so often nobody could commit a system to memory.

My phone lit up with an unknown number. I almost let it go to voicemail but something told me to pick it up.

“Rafferty Lowery?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Hugh Kimura. I'm the general manager of the Frosthaven Cutters.”

Okay, that piqued my interest, and I muted the TV. My wolf who had been half-asleep asked why this guy was special because my pulse sped up.

Kimura had a calm voice, and I wondered how it would differ depending on whether he was delivering good or bad news.

And is this good or bad? my wolf wanted to know, but I shushed him because I had to concentrate.

He told me he’d been watching me and he liked my defensive instincts and my skating. “You play a physical game that’s hard to coach into players who don’t already have it.”

He continued by asking about my contract situation with the Glacier Saints, and I told him it was expiring.

But after telling my wolf I had to concentrate, my mind drifted off, imagining me playing for the Frosthaven Cutters.

"Good.”

What? What was good? Did I miss something?

“Great.” I wasn’t sure that was the correct response and wished I could take it back.

But Kimura charged ahead. “We'd like to offer you a spot on the roster. Full terms, competitive salary, and a real shot at ice time. I think you'd be an excellent fit here.”

I didn't respond because I had no voice. Someone had stolen it. But my wolf was nudging me to respond.

“Lowery? Are you there?”

“Here.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, I’m definitely right here and taking in every word.”

He chuckled. Maybe he was used to this response from potential players.

“I can give you two days to think on it. But I can’t wait any longer.”

I told him I'd let him know tomorrow, and when I hung up, the pasta had gone cold and the game footage was still paused on a frame of our goalie staring at the ice after letting in another goal.

I looked at the framed photograph on the coffee table. It was my brother at sixteen. He was wearing a jersey and grinning at the camera, knowing life was there for the taking.

“We got the call, Bodie.”

There was no answer. There never was, and yet I spoke to him all the time.

My brother died when we were eighteen. Our friend’s house where he was staying caught on fire and he was there alone.

It was faulty wiring apparently. I could never figure out why his wolf hadn’t warned him and woken him up if he was asleep.

But I’d never get that answer because of course his beast perished with him.

One day Bodie was beside me, and the next he was ash and memory. And the wolf that had run alongside mine since their first shift was gone. For both me and my beast, the loss was like a phantom limb that we never stopped reaching for or talking to.

Bodie was the one who'd planned our careers. We'd go pro together, play on the same line, and the Lowery twins would tear up the league. He'd say it like it was already decided while his feet were on the coffee table. I’d tell him he was delusional, and he’d just shrug and grin.

But he was better than me. He had faster instincts, softer hands, and a presence on the ice that made people forget to look at anyone else. If anyone was going to make it, it should have been him.

But it was me, seven years later, with a contract offer from a team that actually won games. And he was a photograph I couldn't bring myself to put in a drawer.

After he died, I almost quit. I showed up to tryouts, but I was in so much pain, I barely remembered what I did or rather didn’t do.

My wolf had retreated deep and unreachable inside me because his brother wolf, his twin, was dead, and like me, he no longer wanted to exist. Without my beast's instinct and reflexes, my game was flat.

I could execute the drills and be in position, but the freedom that once made hockey feel like flying was gone.

It took me two years to claw myself back to being a functional, not human, but shifter.

There were another two where I was in limbo before getting noticed by a scout.

They saw something in me worth investing in, and that landed me a spot on the Glacier Saints.

It was at the bottom of the league table with rotating coaching staff, and a locker room that smelled like defeat.

But it was professional hockey, and that was enough.

I’d played three seasons here, kept my head down, and trained harder than anyone. And I waited. Bodie wouldn't have waited. He'd have charmed every scout in a hundred-mile radius and talked his way onto a better roster. But Bodie had been the sun, and I was whatever stood in the shadows.

My wolf came alive for games. He retreated afterward and muted himself. The pair of us existed, but that was it.

I returned Kimura’s call and accepted his offer, and two weeks later, I loaded everything I owned into the back of my truck and drove four hours to the Frosthaven Cutters’ home town.

I'd looked up the facility online, but photos didn't prepare me for the real thing. The building was impressive and huge, and the parking lot was full of vehicles that cost more than my annual salary with the Glacier Saints.

My wolf peered through my gaze. He took in the size of the place, the logos on the building, and the faint scent of ice that reached us in the parking lot.

This is what you wanted.

This was what Bodie and I wanted. There was a difference, but my wolf didn't understand, and I'd stopped trying to explain it.

I grabbed my gear bag and walked in through the main entrance.

The lobby was bigger than the Glacier Saints' entire front office.

There were championship banners on the walls and framed jerseys behind glass.

I stared at my reflection in the polished floors.

And there were fresh flowers at the reception desk. Wow, this really was a different world.

I followed the signs toward the locker room, passing the weight room, which contained expensive equipment and a film room with theater-style seating.

There was a menu board in the cafeteria with meals designed by a nutritionist. At the Glacier Saints, we'd had a vending machine and a mini-fridge someone donated.

My wolf could sense my excitement, and for the first time in years, he wasn't retreating.

A guy was waiting outside the locker room. He carried himself the way alphas did when they'd stopped needing to prove it. I caught his scent when I was ten feet away.

“You're Lowery.”

“Chartris.” Axel Chartris. I'd watched enough game film to recognize him without an introduction. He'd been one of the top defensemen in the conference for the past few years and led Frosthaven Cutters to the playoffs twice.

“Coach asked me to show you around, but I see you've already started without me.”

“Hope that’s okay. This is very different from where I’ve been the past few years.”

He gave a brief nod. “Come on. I'll show you the rink.”

We walked through a corridor and pushed through a set of double doors. The cold hit me before I saw the ice. The rink was freshly resurfaced and gleaming under the overhead lights. I stood at the boards and breathed it in.

“Coach has you slotted on the second line.” Axel followed my gaze. “Left wing."

“Great.”

“You'll get ice time if you earn it. This isn't the Glacier Saints. Nobody here is coasting.”

“I don't do that.”

“Good.” He studied me, and I wondered if he’d been filled in on my history. “I’ve seen your tape. You're solid, but you play like you're holding something back.”

I clenched a fist at my side, making sure he couldn’t see it. “I play smart.”

“You play safe.” He pushed off the boards. “First practice is tomorrow at six. Don't be late.”

He left, but I didn’t move. Instead, I was embracing the silence of the ice and wishing my brother were here. He should’ve been elbowing me in the ribs and telling me we'd made it.

He didn’t, but we did, my wolf murmured. I hope that’s enough.

I pressed my palm against the boards. The cold seeped into my skin, and I held it there until it ached.

“It has to be.”

But nobody answered.