Chapter 143 - 3 on 3

"I’m always ready, McCoy," I muttered, but my heart gave a treasonous, erratic thump against my ribs that had absolutely nothing to do with the hockey game.

​I looked down at his large, gloved hand still firmly gripping my thigh under the bench. The heavy, anchoring heat of his touch was a grounding wire, pulling me back from the brink of total exhaustion. Slowly, Reid let his hand slide away as the referee’s whistle blew, signaling the end of the brief intermission. The open ice was waiting.

​3-on-3 overtime was an entirely different beast. With two less skaters on each side, the rink looked massive, a vast sheet of white gloss that demanded flawless skating and lethal instinct. One bad turn, one slow recovery, and the open ice would turn into an immediate breakaway for the opponent.

​"Keep the puck moving," Coach Devin barked one last time, his clipboard smacking the top of the boards. "Don’t get caught deep!"

​I hopped over the boards, my blades cutting cleanly into the ice as I skated out to the center circle. Miller slid into position on the right wing, his Alpha pheromones tightly contained but buzzing with pre-game adrenaline.

To my left, Reid materialized like a shadow, his towering frame casting a long reflection under the stadium lights, his frozen pine scent flaring thick and absolute.

​And right across the red line, lining up for the Avalanche, was Edward Stein.

​The rival captain looked tired, his burgundy jersey damp with sweat, but his eyes were sharper than ever. He looked at me, then his gaze briefly flicked to Reid, noting the way the rookie was already leaning forward, his stick pressed hard against the ice like a predator waiting to strike.

Edward gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of his head—a quiet acknowledgment that this final stretch was going to be a bloodbath.

​The referee stepped into the circle, the black puck held tight in his hand. The crowd fell into a suffocating, breathless hush.

​"Face-off, Serpents," I muttered under my breath, dropping low into my stance, my eyes locking entirely onto the referee’s hand.

​The puck dropped.

My stick slammed down against the ice, but Edward’s reaction time was terrifyingly sharp. Our sticks clashed with a deafening crack, the puck squirting loose toward the left boards. Miller reacted instantly, digging his edges into the ice to hunt it down, but the Avalanche winger was already on his tail.

​The back-and-forth was frantic. With so much open ice, the game transformed into a high-speed, heart-stopping track meet. Miller cycled the puck back to me, and I tried to push deep into their zone, but Edward was right there, matching me stride for stride, his positioning flawless as he used his long reach to cut off my passing lanes to Reid.

​"Kain! Left side!" Reid roared, accelerating down the slot, his frozen pine scent cutting through the humid air of the rink with a desperate, chaotic urgency.

​I made a split-second decision to cut inside, trying to fake Edward out with a hard drop-step. But the ice was too chewed up. The toe of my skate caught a deep rut, and my balance shattered.

​As I stumbled forward, Edward was already committing to the check. Unable to stop his own momentum, his heavy frame collided heavily with mine.

​We crashed into the ice together with a brutal thud, the sheer force of the impact sending us sliding across the blue line.

Before I could even register the breath being knocked out of my lungs, I found myself pinned flat on my back against the cold ice, with Edward’s full weight landing directly on top of me.

​"Ah—" a sharp gasp escaped my lips.

​Edward’s hands immediately came up, instinctively bracing himself against my shoulders to avoid crushing me completely.

"Sorry, Evans! You good?" he muttered quickly, his voice entirely devoid of malice as he tried to find his footing to get up.

​But to a fiercely possessive Alpha like Reid, the nuance of a clean hockey collision didn’t exist. All he saw was the rival captain pinning his Omega to the ice.

​A sudden, terrifying spike of frozen pine exploded across the rink, so thick and suffocating it felt like a physical blow. Reid’s grey eyes went completely bloodshot, his face contorting into a mask of raw, unadulterated fury.

He completely abandoned his coverage, turning on his heel and charging toward us like a runaway freight train, his stick gripped tightly in his white-knuckled glove.

He looked ready to kill. He was going to drop his gloves and tear Edward off me, completely losing his mind right in front of the referees.

​"Reid, no!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice echoing off the plexiglass as I struggled under Edward’s weight. "Focus on the puck! Focus on the puck!"

​My authoritative, desperate command hit him like a bucket of ice water. Reid flinched, his steel blades cutting into the ice, throwing up a massive spray of frost just inches away from us as he forced his body to halt.

His chest heaved violently, his jaw locked so tight I thought his teeth would shatter. He wanted to rip Edward to shreds, but my order pinned him in place.

​"Get the puck!" I roared again, pushing hard against Edward’s chest to shove him off me.

​Reid let out a low, animalistic growl, tearing his gaze away from us just as the loose puck drifted out of the corner from Miller’s battle. Forced to leave me to handle Edward, Reid channeled every ounce of his explosive, jealous fury into his skates.

​He didn’t just chase the puck; he hunted it.

​The Avalanche winger tried to sweep it up, but Reid slammed into him with a monstrous, bone-crushing shoulder check that sent the player flying straight into the boards. The glass rattled violently. Reid snatched the loose rubber, his movements fluid and filled with an unstoppable, dangerous power.

​By then, I had twisted out from under Edward, scrambling back onto my skates. I didn’t care about the bruising ache in my ribs. I sprinted straight down the center line, completely open.

​Reid didn’t look back, but his territorial instinct knew exactly where I was. With a fierce, lightning-fast flick of his wrist, he rifled a flawless, hard pass right through the open lane.

​The puck landed dead on the tape of my stick.

​I was one-on-one with the goaltender. Time seemed to slow to an absolute crawl. The crowd was screaming, my sisters were likely throwing themselves against the VIP glass, but all I could hear was the ragged sound of my own breathing.

I feigned a shot to the blocker side, forcing the goalie to commit, and then smoothly dragged the puck across the crease to my backhand, lifting it sharply into the roof of the net.

​The red light exploded. The horn wailed, long, loud, and definitive.

​3-2.

​Game over. The Seattle Serpents had won.