My fingers twitch over the outline of the bag, and Finn’s arm tightens around my chest—protective, warning, or maybe just steadying me while my world reassembles itself molecule by molecule.
6
RAFE
Practice is already falling apart, and we’ve barely been on the ice ten minutes.
The others are running drills—Misha taking passes like a wrecking ball, Luca chirping mid-spin, Bishop doing that thing where he pretends he doesn’t know the difference between a puck and someone’s teeth—but my attention isn’t on any of them.
It’s on Julian fucking Reaver. No longer trembling. No longer hollow-eyed or pacing like a dog waiting for execution. Whatever Kai gave him worked—but not the way it should have. Not to stabilize. Not to steady.
Itunleashedhim.
He’s tearing across the ice like he doesn’t care if he crashes into someone at ninety miles an hour. He’s skating too fast, too sharp, too reckless. The kind of skating you only do when your brain’s been replaced with fire and you want the world to burn with you. He cuts through drills, ignores whistles, throws a shoulder into Finn for chirping too loud, and nearly slashes Vlad with his stick during a scramble at the crease.
He is feral and I know exactly why. Because I know Kai. I know his dosage habits. I know thatlook—the weightless, sweaty, glass-eyed storm Julian’s skating inside of.
He’s high. Not falling-apart high. Not withdrawal-hitting-the-wall high. No—this is the other kind. The dangerous kind. The kind that makes people forget they’re made of skin and bone and breakable things.
Julian has no fear left. And that means he’s going to fucking crash. Hard.
I slam my stick against the post, letting the sound echo, sharp and clean. “Reaver!” I bark.
He doesn’t hear me. Or maybe he does and he just doesn’t give a shit. He loops around behind the net like he’s chasing a ghost only he can see, nearly collides with Corso, and skates backward fast enough to spray ice in Bishop’s face.
“Fuckinghell,” Bishop grumbles. “Someone put the rabid dog back in its crate.”
And I’m already moving out of the net, rage crawling under my skin, tight and hot. Because I can smell it now—the chemical high, the sweat, the smugness.
Kai gave himsomething.And Julian is daring me to do something about it.
Finn gets to me before I hit the blue line. He grabs my arm, digs in with more strength than anyone expects from him, and forces me to stop cold. I look down at him, growling low in my throat, fury bleeding out of every inch of me like heat off pavement.
“You break him now,” Finn warns, voice low and tight, eyes serious for once, “there’s no putting him back together.”
I bare my teeth. “Then maybe he shouldn’t come to practice high.”
But before I can shove past him, both of us snap our heads to the left because Julian’ssnarlingat Luca.
Luca’s eyes are already slitted with that wild-glint he gets right before a knife appears. Body coiled, lip curled, fingers twitching like he’s choosingwhereto stab. But it’s Julian who catches my attention first. Because he’s not backing down. He’sdaringhim. Mouth curled in a twisted grin, hands loose but ready. Hewantsthe fight.
“Can I break him now, puppy,” I hiss at Finn, “or do I need to watch him die first?”
Finn moves a step back, a glance away. That’s all the answer I need.
Luca lunges, but Julian’s already swinging. It’s full-on brawl now—gloves flying, snarls and curses ripping out of their throats. It’s not a fight, it’sviolence, and everyone else backs off because they know how this goes. No one gets in between Luca and red, except Kai.
Luca dives again, blade already half-drawn, but Kai is there. He grabs Luca by the wrist, the elbow, the back of the neck, andLuca just folds.Like a flame snuffed out mid-flicker. Melts into Kai’s grip with a sound that’s all fury and submission, letting himself be hauled back.
Julian doesn’t fold, hethrashes.Like a wild fucking cat, limbs kicking, voice shredding against the air, trying to claw his way forward even as I grab him by the back of the neck andyankhim off the ice like a misbehaving rookie.
I haul him back, feet scrambling, teeth bared, his whole body fighting mine like he thinks he can win. Like hewantsme to hit him. And maybe I fucking will.
Because he’s high, he’s dangerous. And he’s going to burn this whole place down if I don’t get him under control.
He claws at my arm like he wants to take me down with him, still spitting, still snarling, still shaking with that chemically-induced rage that Kai pumped into his bloodstream like gasoline. I drag him off the tangle of limbs and blood and Luca’s feral snarls, and I don’t bother being gentle. Islamhim into the nearest wall hard enough that the boards rattle, hard enough that he feels it in his fucking teeth.
“Come high on my ice again,” I growl against his cheek, breath hot, voice razor-close, “and I’ll break your goddamn legs.Are we clear?”
