Chapter 204: They Wanted A Fight

Pedro lunged from my left, his heavy shoulder coming in hard to try and plaster me against the glass, but I didn’t take the hit.

I hit the brakes, carving a sharp arc on my edges that left him crashing uselessly into the boards. I picked up Russo’s long breakout pass in stride, crossing the blue line with speed.

"Evans with the entry!" the arena announcer roared over the PA, the crowd exploding into a deafening wall of sound.

Two Wolves defensemen collapsed on me immediately, their sticks flashing out to pin me, but I didn’t hold onto the puck. I drew them both toward the high slot, using myself as bait, before sliding a blind, crisp backhand pass right into the open ice behind them.

Reid was already there.

He didn’t hesitate. He took the puck in stride, stepping into a thunderous wrist shot that screamed over the goalie’s glove and pinged sharply off the inside of the far post—DING!—before slamming into the back of the net.

The goal horn blared, a deep, rhythmic foghorn that shook the glass, accompanied by thousands of fans leaping to their feet.

"GOAL!"

I let out a breathless roar, turning back toward Reid as he skated straight toward me. Before I could even raise my arms in celebration, Reid closed the distance, wrapping a broad arm around my waist and lifting me clean off my skates for half a second in a fierce, crushing embrace. His visor pressed against mine, his chest heaving, his dark grey eyes burning with an electric, triumphant light.

"That’s how we start!" Reid yelled into my helmet, his voice cutting right through the thunderous noise of the crowd.

"Great pass, McCoy!" I shouted back, slapping my glove against his shoulder as my boots hit the ice again.

Gerald and Russo flooded in behind us, pounding our shoulders and yelling over the horn as we glided back toward our bench. Less than two minutes into the first period, and we had already drawn first blood.

As I skated past the Wolves’ bench, I caught sight of Pedro. His face was twisted in a dark, murderous scowl as he slammed his stick against the boards, his bitter Alpha pheromones souring the air.

I looked him dead in the eye through my visor, giving him a cold, slow nod.

They wanted a fight.

They wanted to test how much I could take. But as I took my seat on the bench, Reid settled into the spot right beside me, his shoulder brushing warm against mine, I knew one thing for certain—we weren’t giving them an inch.

The goal gave us the momentum, but the Wolves were a wounded, angry animal—and they fought back with brutal, methodical aggression.

By the end of the second period, the scoreboard gleamed 2–2. The game had turned into a punishing grind of neutral-zone battles, dirty cross-checks, and heavy hits along the boards.

As the horn sounded for the start of the third period, I skated out onto the ice, but my legs felt heavier than lead.

The adrenaline that had carried me through the first two periods was beginning to burn out, leaving a terrifying, hollow exhaustion in its place. Sweat soaked through my hair, cold and heavy against my skin.

My vision flickered—just for a fraction of a second—the bright arena lights blurring into soft, bleeding halos around the scoreboard. My lower back was screaming, like there was a sharp knife twisting into my spine with every push of my skates. My hands trembled against the shaft of my stick, but I gripped it tighter, forcing my jaw to lock.

Not now, I pleaded with my body, my chest heaving beneath my pads. Just twenty more minutes. Just give me twenty more minutes.

"Kain," Reid’s voice cut through the haze as he glided up to my side before the faceoff, his sharp grey eyes searching my pale face. His hand hovered near my arm, his pine scent spiking with sudden, dark alarm. "You’re burning up. Kain, look at me—"

"I’m fine," I rasped, refusing to make eye contact as I set my skates into position. "We need this win, Reid. I’m not sitting back."

Before Reid could push further, the referee blew the whistle and dropped the puck.

The Wolves had been waiting for this moment. They had read the exhaustion in my posture, and they had devised a dirty, precise strategy to tear us apart. The second Russo played the puck up the boards to me, two Wolves players charged Reid, locking him up against the glass in an illegal, double-team interference that pinned him completely out of the play.

"Ref! That’s a hold!" Reid roared, fighting frantically to shake them off, his broad frame thrashing against the boards as he tried to break free to reach me. "Kain! Look out!"

I turned to take the puck, but I was too slow. My reaction time was gone.

Pedro came out of nowhere, charging from my blind side at full, terrifying speed. He didn’t even pretend to play the puck—his entire weight, all two hundred and thirty pounds of dirty Alpha aggression, came flying straight into my left side like a freight train.

The hit was illegal, vicious, and blindingly violent.

The impact threw me clean off my skates, sending my body airborne before slamming me face-first onto the unforgiving ice. A sickening, violent SNAP echoed through the loud arena, followed instantly by a sensation of my left leg being ripped apart from the inside out.

A ragged, terrifying scream of agony tore out of my throat, tearing through the noise of the crowd.

Pain—pure, and agonizing pain—exploded through my leg, shooting up my spine and flooding every nerve in my body. I curled into a tight, desperate ball on the ice, my gloves clutching at my shattered leg as tears instantly blurred my vision.

The referee’s whistle blew violently, frantically, as Pedro was immediately given a match penalty and signaled off the ice, but the game had already ceased to exist for me.

"KAIN!" Reid’s voice wasn’t a hockey player’s call anymore—it was a guttural, desperate roar of pure terror.

He broke through the two players holding him, his skates carving deep, chaotic grooves into the ice as he sprinted toward me, throwing his gloves and stick aside.

"Don’t touch him!" Miller screamed from his crease, charging out as a bench-clearing brawl threatened to erupt around Pedro.

But the physical pain in my leg was suddenly overshadowed by something far, far worse.

The sheer biological trauma of the broken bone, combined with the rising fever and the extreme stress on my body, snapped my final line of defense. The suppressants I had taken to at least hide my pheromones completely broke down under the shock.

I lost control.