Eventually, Holden pulls back and gazes up at me through tear-stained, bloodshot eyes. His face is a mess of cum and saliva and he’s never looked more perfect than he does right now, on his knees before me, totally spent. His chest rises in uneven breaths, and I watch the water rivulets cling to the strands plastered to his forehead before trailing down his flushed skin.Steam curls around us, softening the sharp contours of his body, and for a moment, nothing else exists.
Mine.
“You almost killed me, motherfucker!”
And there goes that. I roll my eyes before reaching down, dragging my thumb through the mess coating Holden’s chin. I smear it across his swollen lips before nudging my way back inside, forcing him to take every bit of what he’s earned. But I don’t stop there. I sink deeper until a muffled groan vibrates around me, then lower myself until our faces are barely inches apart.
“Those pretty tears tell a different story, Beta. You know you like it. You were the one who asked me to try breath play with you.”
With a roll of his eyes, he climbs to his feet and moves back beneath the spray of the shower we had long since forgotten. Water streams over his shoulders, plastering dark curls to the nape of his neck and tracing the muscles beneath his skin. It’s near impossible not to get caught up in the feel of my Beta’s body. He doesn’t even have to try. One look at him and I want to bury myself inside of him. Which only becomes worse when my other Alpha is in the room.
Dominic.
Thank fuck he’s too busy with whatever strange post-training ritual he’s got going on after a brutal day on the ice. Otherwise, neither Holden nor I would have made it out of this shower. I hang my head, my eyes closed as the scalding water beats against my sore muscles and bruised skin. Training was fucking insane today. Every one of us pushed harder and harder, chasing exhaustion until there was nothing left in the tank.
Because Coach is dead. Here one day. Gone the next.
One minute he was barking from the bench, screaming himself hoarse because our defense was playing like a bunch of beerleaguers. And within hours of collapsing during our match against the Lions, he was gone.
Just like that.
None of us knew he was sick. Sure, we noticed the weight slowly sliding off his body, the dark circles beneath his eyes. The moments where he’d pause, gathering himself before tearing into us after a shit practice. But Coach was Coach. Patrick Gilmore.
The old bastard had won five cups as a player, two more behind the bench, and had spent years running this organization with an iron fist. His name is etched into every banner hanging from the rafters.
Men like him weren’t supposed to die.
They were supposed to outlive us all.
We were wrong.
Now, the future of the Cardinals hangs in limbo. The management team has been locked in endless meetings, suits pacing the halls like the world is ending. Maybe it is. Because without Coach, the whole damn place feels off, and we’re all on edge because of it.
We’re all waiting for answers, and nobody seems willing to give them.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Especially when we’ve only just kicked off the season. Three wins. One loss under our belts. That loss came the week after we got the news. None of us had our heads on straight. The Steelers knew it too. They smelled blood in the water and took advantage of every defensive breakdown, every missed assignment, every second we spent thinking about anything other than the game. And they buried us for it.
It wasn’t good enough.
It’s not the kind of play Coach expected of us.
Patrick Gilmore didn’t care what we had going on outside the rink. Wives leaving. Sick parents. Broken bones.Funerals.Play for the crest on the front, not the name on our backs. That’s what he preached. That’s what he expected. And fuck, it was the only thing I respected about the old cunt. When we’re in that arena, the only thing that matters is the game.
Don’t get it twisted, my shit game against the Steelers had nothing to do with grief. I wasn’t grieving. I was angry. Furious, actually.
Because out of all the things in this world that could’ve finally brought Patrick Gilmore to his knees, it was fucking cancer.
Not Karma. Not justice. Not some divine intervention making the bastard answer for the things he’d done.Cancer.The same thing that takes fathers from children and husbands from wives. The same thing that doesn’t give a single shit whether you’re a Hall of Famer or a homeless man. It robbed me. Robbed me of seeing the old prick brought to account.
He took so fucking much from me.
More than he ever knew.
It was his fault that my father was dealt a career-ending injury. One that should have been Patrick’s. If he hadn’t gone completely feral on the ice like the fuckhead he was, my father would have still had years left in him. Years that never happened. Hockey was the reason he moved his entire family from Russia when I was a toddler. For him to do the thing he loved the most. A love every hockey player can understand.
Instead, that didn’t happen. Because that dream had been short lived.
I watched the game he loved get ripped away from him in the blink of an eye. Watched as alcohol slowly replaced hockey. Watched the pain fester. I watched as it twisted into bitterness. Into rage. And eventually, that rage needed somewhere to go. Unfortunately for five-year-old me, I happened to be standingclosest. Bruises fade. Broken ribs heal. Fear doesn’t. All because of Patrick Gilmore. Former owner of the Vadena Cardinals.
