Chapter six
Penalty Kill - Defending while short-handed after taking a penalty.
Taranis
The lights were too bright, the ice too white, the kind of rink that made everything feel exposed. I settled into the crease and forced myself to breathe.
Behind the bench—behind it, not on it, not in my space—Cinder sat with the rest of the traveling staff. Team-branded jacket. Clipped badge. Calm, watchful posture that my dragon noticed anyway. I could feel him there like a low-pressure system at my back, my magic stirring in response whether I wanted it to or not.
I pushed the thought away and focused on the ice.
Puck drop.
The Vancouver Kodiaks came out hard, fast, and loud, feeding off the home crowd. Their first shot came from the blue line, heavy but clean. I dropped, sealed the ice, and caught it against my chest.
The second followed almost immediately—traffic in front, sticks and skates everywhere—but I tracked it through the mess and snatched it out of the air with my glove.
Two shots. Two saves.
Good. Solid. Stay sharp.
Then the puck took a bad bounce.
A wrist shot from the blue line hit their right winger’s skate and jumped sideways. I was already moving, already set for where the shot should have gone. The deflection sent it slipping past my pad and inside the post before I could recover.
Red light.
The crowd roared.
I straightened slowly, jaw tight, heat flashing through my chest before I forced it down. It wasn’t a mistake—just bad luck—but that didn’t matter on the scoreboard.
Their right winger, Brady Collins, glided past my crease with a grin that said he knew exactly that. “Gotta be faster than that,” he said, tapping his stick on the ice. “Or maybe you’re losin’ it.”
I didn’t look at him. Didn’t answer. Because reacting was what he wanted—and because losing control, even for a second, was never an option. Not here. Not now. Not with Cinder close enough to notice if my temperature slipped or my magic stirred. I reset my stance, blades digging into the ice, eyes locked forward as the next faceoff lined up.
The next few minutes blurred into bodies and noise.
Shots came from everywhere—low, high, through traffic—and I stayed locked in, tracking the puck, kicking out rebounds, stopping play when I could. The Kodiaks crowded my crease onevery rush, hacking at my pads, leaning just close enough to be annoying without drawing a whistle.
Then the puck stayed loose.
It dropped in front of me, buried under skates, and Tyson McCrae dove for it like he’d been taught—head down, all heart, no hesitation. He got his stick on it just as Brady Collins crashed the net.
Too hard.
Collins slammed into Tyson and didn’t stop there. Another player followed, driving his shoulder down, pinning Tyson on his back right in the blue paint. I heard the sound he made—a sharp, breathless noise that punched straight through my chest.
The whistle blew. Tyson tried to twist out from under them, panic flashing across his face, legs tangled, stick pinned uselessly to the ice. Collins leaned down, pressing a knee into his ribs.
Something ice-cold snapped in my chest. I dropped my gloves first, then the blocker, stepping forward out of the crease as the ref shouted my name. Collins looked up just in time to see me coming.
“Get off him,” I said, low and final.
He smirked.
That was the last mistake he made.
I grabbed his jersey and hauled him backward, ripping him off Tyson and shoving him hard enough that he flew backwards. The other Kodiaks' player came at me immediately, hands up, and suddenly there were bodies everywhere—sticks skittering, gloves flying, the crowd losing its mind. Max and Ash both dived in, but I didn’t throw wild punches. I didn’t need to.