Page 9 of Pucked Around and Found Out

I come to a stop in front of Masen and stare down at my rival. On the ice, I can admit he’s good. He had the talent to make it. He could have avoided ever getting to know me off the ice, but he stole my reasons for wanting to be good. Without them, I had no choice but to become this version of myself, so I could seek justice for them and make these cunts pay.

I nod to my man to let him go. Cas comes to stand beside me. His face is a mask of anger and fury as he eyes his ex-best friend. Kellar looks between the two of us, trying to find a crack in our armor but he won’t. There is no mercy to be granted for this piece of shit.

Gone is his alpha persona.

No longer is he the King of Somerset and he knows it.

I’m about to take that title from him and he knows it.

I step to the side so he can get a view of his sister. I finally look over at the bitch. I keep the surprise from my face as I see that she’s willingly sitting there, looking over at her brother. I look to Benton who stands behind her. He gives me a subtle shake of his head, letting me know he hasn’t had to hold her.

The fairy continues to surprise me.

“It wasn’t Tink who killed Kyle,” I announce. Masen snaps his gaze up to me and scowls. The anger in his eyes fuels the beast inside me. I relish the sight of it. I want him angry. I want him to fight. It makes breaking him so much more fun and satisfying.

“Guess we’re even then,” the stupid bastard grits out.

I scoff. “Even?” I press.

A smug look overtakes his features as he flicks his gaze to Cas, then back to me and smirks. “I took two of your best friends, you took mine.” I see red, my restraint snaps and all semblance of control flees. I’m a passenger to the monster inside me.

CHAPTER FIVE

TOREN

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste copper, desperate to keep from crying out.

Tears burn behind my eyes, scalding, relentless and no matter how many times I blink, they won't disappear. They spill down my cheeks in silent rivers as I watch the man I've fallen in love with without meaning to, without wanting to, without any ability to stop it, beat my brother into oblivion.

Cas doesn't try to intervene. Doesn't even flinch. He just stands there watching as Xaden lands punch after devastating punch on Masen's face.

Each impact makes a wet, sickening sound that reverberates through my bones.

There is something that has always bothered me about Masen and my father's relationship that I never found the right words for until right now, watching Xaden's fists land on my brother's face.

My father loved hockey. He attended every game. He spoke about Masen's career the way other fathers spoke about investment portfolios, with the long-view certainty of a man who had already calculated the returns. But he never once, not in all the years I watched them together, treated hockey as the point. He treated it as the front.

I never understood what it was the front for.

I think I am starting to understand.

Even now, with the bones in his face rearranging under the force of Xaden's precision, Masen looks, in the specific moments when the pain recedes enough to let him less like a boy who was cornered and more like a man who knew there were outcomes to this night and is calculating which ones he can still influence.

That is not the expression of someone who was unprepared.

I push the thought away. There is too much happening right now to follow it.

But I don't lose it entirely.

I file it.

A roar of pure agony tears from Masen when Xaden's fist connects with his nose, the cartilage shattering with an audible crack that makes my stomach lurch.

Blood pours from the ruin of his face. His lip is split open, swelling grotesquely. One eye has already disappeared into puffy, discolored flesh.

But Xaden doesn't stop.

He's a monster. A beautiful, terrible monster who's shown me exactly who he is, and I was too blind, too desperate to truly see it until now.