Page 91 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Skate blades scraping. Equipment bags unzipping. The low rumble of conversation punctuated by forced laughter. The kind of laughter alphas make when they're nervous and pretending they're not.

Somewhere in that room, Wade Kelly is suiting up to face the team harboring the omega who escaped him.

I keep seeing Ivy's face from our conversation. The steel in her eyes when she made me promise not to kill him. Like she'd already decided exactly how much violence she was willing to permit and had drawn her line accordingly.

Don't murder Wade.

I agreed.

And I meant it.

But promises have loopholes, and hockey is a brutal sport.

The Demons have made themselves at home inside, their garish red-and-black gear scattered across benches like an infection spreading. The devil crest with the curling tongue has always struck me as unimaginative. A team trying too hard to seem dangerous.

Wade's idea, of course.

I step through the doorway.

Conversations stutter. Heads turn. The newer players squint, trying to place my face. The veterans find somewhere else to look.

Wade keeps talking loudly to the nervous rookie beside him, but his eyes track me like I'm a threat he's pretending to ignore.

How hurtful.

"Well, well, well."

The familiar voice drips theatrical venom sweetened with honey. Raven pushes off from a row of lockers, golden hair falling artfully across his forehead. Four years in hockey and he's still every inch the figure skater he was before he beat the shit out of a rival and fell out of grace.

"Raven," I say with a slight nod.

"You remember me." He presses a hand to his chest, grinning. "I'm touched. Truly."

"I remember everyone."

"How deliciously ominous." His grin sharpens, but it isn't entirely insincere. Raven is a golden retriever beneath the menacing veneer, provided he doesn't hate you. "So what brings you here to slum with the enemy? Feeling nostalgic for the good old days?"

"I'm here to speak with Nikolai."

His shoulders sag with a dramatic sigh, as if I've driven a knife straight into his heart for coming here with a reason other than chatting with him. "He's in the back, doing his brooding-in-the-corner thing. I've tried to cheer him up, but you know how he gets."

Cheered him up?

I arch an eyebrow at Raven. Raven and Nikolai are sworn mortal enemies. They grew up as best friends in and out of the same foster homes, then had an apocalyptic relationship with an equally apocalyptic ending and have been known to viciously attack each other on the ice even though they're on the same team.

It's the shit fans salivate over.

"Are you friends now?" I ask him, unable to keep the incredulity from bleeding into my voice.

Raven pulls a horrified face that isn't half as convincing as the theatrical alpha likely believes it is. "Me and Nikolai? Fuck no. I was joking."

"Ah. I thought you had changed."

"I'm basically a saint. Always have been."

I snort and move past him. His unbothered soft laugh follows me.

Nikolai occupies the back corner like he's claimed it through sheer force of antisocial energy. He sits with his elbows braced on his knees, staring at nothing. The alpha's bleached white hair is disheveled, still damp, and the jagged scar running diagonally across his face and straight through his right eye looks deeper than I remember.