The Hockey Alpha’s Boxing Bride

CHAPTER 5

Kieran

"To the great Kieran Frost." Marcus raised his glass high enough that half the bar turned to look, which was exactly the reaction he wanted. "Captain of the Frostfang Hawks, three championship rings, official heartbreaker of every unmated she-wolf north of the border, now... semi-married."

"Watch it," I said, though I was already laughing despite myself, the first real laugh I'd had in what felt like weeks.

"Semi-married," Marcus repeated, grinning wide enough to show teeth. "Engaged, not mated. There's still time to run, Captain."

"There's no time to run. You've read the contracts."

"I've read the headlines." Tomas leaned back in his chair, smirking around the rim of his glass. "The Ice King, tamed by a boxer. My father says half the arena's betting on who throws the first punch at the wedding."

"My money's on her," Marcus said.

"My money's on him," Tomas said, "purely out of self-preservation. Man's been engaged two weeks and already looks like he hasn't slept since."

I didn't argue that, because it was true. Being captain of a team meant I was used to pressure, used to a stadium full of people expecting me to perform flawlessly on command. This was different. This was pressure with no game clock, no final whistle, and no season that eventually ended.

"I hate it," I admitted, swirling the whiskey in my glass instead of drinking it. "I hate that I don't get a say. I hate that my entire life got decided in a study by two old men playing chess with my future. I've spent my whole life following the rules, the training schedule, the media training, and the captain's code, and it was never enough. Now I don't even get to choose who I spend the rest of my life with."

"Careful," Marcus said, quieter now. "You're starting to sound like a man who might actually care what happens next."

"I don't care," I said it too fast, and Marcus's grin told me he'd noticed.

That was when the air in the bar changed.

I felt him before I saw him, the particular prickle of old resentment crawling up the back of my neck, and when I turned, Dorian was already crossing the floor toward us with three of his usual shadows trailing behind him like they'd been bred for the purpose of agreeing with everything he said.

"Hey! Daddy's boy." Dorian's voice carried easily over the music, pitched exactly loud enough to draw attention without technically shouting. "Look who finally came out to play, now that he's got a leash and a collar waiting for him."

Marcus's smile vanished. Tomas set his glass down slowly, like he already sensed where this was going.

I stood. My friends stood with me, and we closed the distance until we were close enough that I could see the satisfaction sitting behind Dorian's eyes, the particular joy of a man who'd been waiting years for a reason to say exactly this in exactly this place.

My wolf pushed hard against my ribs, a growl building low in my throat before I'd even decided to let it out.

"I dare you to call me that one more time."

"Easy, tiger." Dorian raised both hands in mock surrender, though his smile never wavered. "You can't lose your cool here. Even though I hate you, this place is lined with hidden cameras. Go off on me in public, and you think the Blackwood family wants to hand their precious champion daughter over to a man who can't control his temper in a bar?" He shrugged, almost bored. "Not that I care about your engagement. I just care that the alliance benefits me either way it goes."

"Leave." My voice came out barely above a whisper, the kind of quiet that used to make rookies flinch during drills, because they'd learned quiet meant I was one word away from losing it entirely.

"Easy, little bro." Dorian clapped a hand against my shoulder like we were old friends catching up, and it took everything in me not to break his wrist for the gesture alone. "I came here for a drink. Public space, in case you hadn't noticed. So keep drinking before you do something crazy and show the whole world your weakness." He leaned in, lowering his voice just for me. "Your father would hate that. My little boy."

The bar went very far away for a second.

My mother had called me that. Only her, only ever her, in the last months of her life when her voice had gotten too thin to say much else and when she'd hold my hand and whisper it like it was the only prayer she had left in her. My little elf and boy. Nobody else had ever been allowed to say those words to me. Nobody else knew what they cost.

Dorian's grin widened when he saw it land.

I didn't remember deciding to move. I only remembered my fist connecting with his jaw, the satisfying c***k of it, the way his head snapped sideways before his friends lunged at me and Marcus and Tomas lunged right back, and then the whole bar dissolved into chaos, glasses shattering, chairs overturning, people screaming and scrambling for the exits while Dorian and I tore into each other with nothing held back, years of resentment finally given somewhere to go.

I don't know how long it lasted. Long enough for my knuckles to split open. Long enough for a table to break under someone's weight. Long enough that by the time Marcus grabbed my arm and shouted my name close enough to my ear that it finally cut through the haze, Dorian was on the ground, and I was standing over him, chest heaving, wolf snarling just beneath my skin, wanting more.

That was when I saw him.

A man near the far wall, phone raised, the small red light of it blinking steadily and dimly in the dim light of the bar. Recording. Every second of it. My fists. Dorian's blood. The exact kind of weakness my father had warned me could dissolve a charter and end a bloodline overnight.

Dorian was still on the ground when I looked back at him, blood at the corner of his mouth, and he was smiling. Not wincing. Smiling up at me, like a man who'd gotten exactly what he came for and was only sorry it had taken this long.

Our eyes met for half a second.

Then he bolted, shoving through the now empty bar toward the open window at the back of the bar, and something in me went cold and clear and utterly focused, the way it did in the final minute of a tied game, when there was no room left for anything except the outcome.

He wasn't faster than my anger. He wasn't faster than my wolf.

I went after him into the dark, praying to whatever was left listening that I didn't catch him, because if I did, I wasn't sure anymore what I'd be capable of.