Back-to-back games meant no one was going to push it very hard in practice today.

I kept my mind on my own game, and no one paid attention to me.

Except Slade, who broke free from his drill and did the strangest thing. He passed me the puck. I was so surprised, I almost missed it.

“Lame,” he chirped. “You suck, Sparkle.”

His smile was a challenge. He bared his teeth at anyone who came near us, anyone who even looked like they wanted to come at him for talking to me, playing with me. It was a clear message that he’d be more than happy to take down all comers.

It was…weirdly humbling. I had never had a problem making friends. I wasn’t the popular guy, but I was fun and funny, easy to hang out with. In school, I’d made my way into every group and club I was interested in, and had kept most of the friends I’d made in those places.

But to have this one guy choose to stand beside me, stand against the team with me, meant more than all those easy friendships.

I whistled and hucked the puck back at him. He caught it, smooth and easy, then took off down the ice. I dug it out after him, on the chase, hassling for possession of the puck.

He won the race—damn fox—took a shot at the backup goalie who caught it easy as waving a yawn down off his face.

“Gotta work harder, boys,” he said.

And then there was the next puck, the next pass, and the next drill, just Slade and me running plays. Coach Nowak ignored us. So did the assistant coach. But I caught players watching us, watching me.

So I showed them what I could do. All bullshit aside, I was a fine hockey player. Not the best, but I hadn’t been given my place in the league being lazy or slow.

I was good. Fast. I had power and good ice sense. My puck handling was solid, and I didn’t hog the play. I was too good to be scratched.

With a winger down, they needed me on the roster.

Not that coach would play me.

Their loss.

Literally.

I was marked as a healthy scratch again, and sat through another game, up in the nose-bleeds watching my team choke a two-point lead and go down for the count three under.

At least there were no fights this time.

At the end of the game, when the last buzzer went off and the overly silent crowd put a little gumption into booing both the Tide and the Rumblers, something happened.

Slade took off his helmet, red hair flame-bright. He turned to where I was watching in the stands, looked straight at me, and tapped his stick against the ice.

It was short, just a moment that could be misread as him applauding the audience, or being a good sport and cheering for the visiting team.

But that’s not what it was.

That was a teammate recognizing another teammate.

That was—

—pack—

—a second-marked recognizing a second-marked, that was—

—beta—

—something no one had ever done to me before.

I was so going to make fun of him for it.

“You know that player?” the guy next to me asked.

“Yeah.”

“Icarus Slade, innit?” The guy’s words were slippery and smelled of beer.

“Yep.”

“He’s up for a trade, right?”

Cold shot through me. I hadn’t heard about it. Maybe it was just a rumor going around? After all, not every drunk guy got his facts straight.

“Don’t know,” I said easily. “Maybe.”

He frowned then blinked to clear his vision. “Hey, you’re that guy. That dead guy. The wolf, right?”

Busted.

I smiled and nodded. “I am.”

He thrust his hand at me and I took it even though it smelled like hot dogs and grease. “You ever gonna get your ass on the ice and earn your keep?” He said it with a smile.

“Plan on it. When Coach says I should.”

“We wanted the wizard. No offense, but at least the wizard would have been entertaining. Coulda cast a spell or something. All this bullshit team does is lose.”

I didn’t reply. I might be a nice guy but even I had a limit.

Slade waited for me and we walked out to the parking lot together.

“That stick thing? You’re fond of me, buddy. Real fond. Wanna wear friendship bracelets? Wanna braid my hair?”

He punched my shoulder. Hard.

I couldn’t stop grinning. We didn’t speak after that, but we didn’t have to.

More than one player watched us as we made our way to our separate cars.

Maybe Slade accepting me would make other players accept me. But at this pace, it was going to take me approximately three point eight lifetimes before anyone wanted to play with me on a line.

I did not have time for this shit.

My hotel suite was quiet, dark, and empty. I paced until the street sound disappeared and passing headlights became more and more infrequent. I paced until night went deep and silent. I hadn’t eaten since…a vague memory of breakfast and a meal bar flickered through my head. It didn’t matter. My stomach was a knot of stress. Just the idea of food made me want to barf.

What I needed was a run, a shift. I needed to get away from the anger and guilt and worry churning in my brain. Being a wolf was easier in some ways. When I went wolf, all the tangled emotions and stress softened and smoothed out, replaced by clear, easy instinct.

I needed that break. I needed not to be Duncan for a few hours.

But shifting had its drawbacks. Using magic messed up my coordination when I changed back to man form. If I shifted too often, it was going to screw with my game.

Maybe I should try meditating. I closed my eyes, shook out my arms, inhaled, exhaled. My nose itched. My feet hurt. My stomach growled. This was boring and annoying.

Nope. Still didn’t understand meditation.

I carried a pair of sweats outside and stashed them beneath the stairs then stripped off my T-shirt and boxers. Deep breath, standing naked in the dark and drizzly rain.

My lungs hurt, but not as bad as they had a few days ago. Exhale, dropping my arms and closing my eyes. Let go of worry and pain. Inhale, coil up on the balls of my feet, muscles stretching.

Then....

Push. Dive. Leap off the top of that great cliff and soar out, out, out…

…and down.

I woke up naked in the middle of my bed. I didn’t remember finding my way back.

My phone screen lit up. I tapped it with the pad of my thumb.

Don’t do anything stupid. I miss you, asshole.

Hazard.

Goddamn him.

I huffed out a laugh, more relieved than I thought I’d be at one stupid text.

You’re stupid, I tapped back.

Yeah, it was poetry between my boy Ran and me.

If they healthy scratch U on the road, I’m gonna yell at the walls.

I shook my head and texted, Yeah, that won’t look like crazy. Healthy scratch is easy street, bro. No worry.

Minutes ticked by. He was typing things, changing his mind and typing new things. I waited. I didn’t care what he said. Just the fact that he was texting me was a huge relief. A knot of darkness in me unwound. Some of the noise in my head quieted.

Hearing from him made the world feel stable, solid.

Your dad’s worried.

I waited. I knew that. He knew I knew that.

I hate U not being here. Then: We were supposed 2 do this together, dammit. I hate what U did. But…I’m not as mad.

I typed quickly. U loooove me.

How many hits to the head have you taken? Of course I love you, jerk.

Asshole, I replied. Stop trying to drop pass to JJ. He’s never in the right place at the right time.

JJ’s not my problem. Vargas took left wing. He’s not even half as good as U.

Awww…

But at least he’s playing.

I sent him middle finger emoji, the devil and a rooster.

Srsly, he texted, don’t get dead.

And just like that, we were back to the real world, the real problem. Being on the Tide was a dangerous thing.

You too, bro, I replied. Not that he had to worry. The Thunderheads had his back.

So did I.

Early the next morning, I showed up at the arena with all my gear and got on the bus with the rest of the team.

No lingering eye contact, but a couple quick glances up at me, a nod, before looking away. At least they acknowledged I existed. That was more than yesterday.

Slowest progress ever.

A foot shot out into the aisle blocking my progress.

“Where you going, Sparky?”

I hated that nickname. I’d beat up a kid in second grade for calling me that. Dad hadn’t approved of my actions, but mom laughed so hard when she heard why I got detention, she had to leave the room. Later, she smuggled me a huge cupcake with gold stars sprinkled on it.

I looked down at the foot, leg, and player blocking my way. Philippe Nadreau, the coyote who had left me at the mercy of his thug friends, Paski and Zima.

“Move your leg, or I break it,” I said. “I ain’t got nothing to lose.”

I stared him down. Instead of looking away, one corner of his mouth rose. He looked devilish and mean, but there was something else behind that look I recognized. I’d seen it in the mirror plenty of times.

A sense of humor. He liked pushing his luck and messing with people.

He dropped his foot, but didn’t move it out of the aisle, which meant I had to step over it and hope he didn’t try to kick me in the nuts.

“Break it straight in half, Wile E.” I stepped on his foot, which made him grunt, then headed down the aisle.

Paski and Zima lounged on either side of the next row, both with headphones hanging around their necks and jackets rolled up for pillows. They ignored me as I passed.

“Here.” Something flew at me. I caught it out of reflex, turned it over in my hands. It was one of the cheap blankets busses like this kept stocked for overnight runs.

“That seat’s open.” Slade pointed at the row across the aisle from him.

“Yeah, I’m not going to sit there,” I said.

He scowled, gaze dipping to the blanket in my arms as if trying to decide if he’d already offered it to me, then flicking back to my face.

“Why not?” That scowl was going full pissed off. Like he was ready to fight me.

“Because you probably touched everything over there with your ass.”

The scowl flattened, eyebrows creeped upward, eyes widened, then blinked, blinked, blinked.

And then he laughed. It was a hissy, high giggle.

“Oh, my god,” I breathed.

He clapped his hand over his mouth.

“You laugh like a baby!”

“Fuck you.” He relaxed back into his seat, taking up the row even though he wasn’t a big guy. “Like I care where the hell you sit.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away from me, staring out the window.

“You probably licked the rest of the bus.” I dropped down into the seat he had pointed me toward. “Totally gross. At least this one only smells like fox butt. I’d hate to find out what body part you touched the rest of the seats with.”

He worked on not smiling while I bitched some more and settled in with the blanket.

We were headed down to Bend, Oregon to play the Brimstones. They were a hard-hitting physical team that could handle a puck from their knees. They never gave up on a goal, even a total garbage scrum in front of the net.

The best way to shut them down was either speed or just smothering their plays. A lot of man-on-man work out there, closing off shot angles, forcing turnovers.

I loved that kind of game. Loved it fast, loved it physical, and loved it when the other team gave as hard as they got.

I knew Nowak wouldn’t play me, even though he’d insisted I travel with the team. The push-pull of being ignored, with only a dangling thread of hope was doing weird things to my head.

I wasn’t sleeping well, wasn’t eating well, didn’t like being in my own skin. All I wanted to do was shift to wolf and kill something.

I rubbed my eyes, put in my headphones. Somewhere between Tacoma and Bend, I drifted off into that half-asleep/half-conscious state.

Someone was staring at me. I opened my eyes.

Turned out it was a fox, half curled in his seat, back to the window, eyes steady like he’d never seen me before. I yawned, scratched my pits, and flipped him off before turning my back on him.

A wadded up candy wrapper hit me in the head. I looked over my shoulder and jerked back.

He was sitting right there in the seat next to me, all curled up as much as a guy his size could curl leaning forward enough that his eyes looked huge.

“Jesus, asshole,” I yelped. “What the hell are you doing there?”

“Sleeping beauty is a sleeping beast.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You snore.”

“I do not.”

“Like an old busted car.”

“Go away, you’re creepy.”

“I thought you wanted to be friends.” He gave me a dead-eyed serial killer smile.

I snorted and shoved his face.

He unfolded out of the seat and popped back over to his own row just as the bus rumbled to a stop outside a hotel.

“All right,” Coach Nowak said from the front of the bus. “Double up. Get your bags, leave your gear on the bus. Go to your rooms, shower, change. We meet in the lobby in forty-five minutes.

“You will be on the bus at exactly fifteen after the hour for pre-game skate. Puck drop is at seven. There will be local news, but this will not be broadcast nationally. Osler has your room assignments. Move!”

He strode off the bus while the team muttered and gathered their shit.

I was one of the last to leave my seat. Paski and Zima were just ahead of me in the aisle. Slade fell into place behind me. The friendship with him might be new, but having him at my back was a hell of a lot better than having ass one and hole two behind me.

I stepped out into the freezing air. Jesus. I shivered in my hoodie. The ground was covered in a thin layer of snow and the blacktop sparkled with ice.

“Fuckall,” I exhaled in a plume of winter. Some of the guys already had their room assignments and were fast-walking to the door.

“Mr. Spark,” Coach barked.

“Present,” I said, trying not to sound like a smart ass.

“You bunk with Paski.”

I froze for a moment, all the blood rushing out of my head. Paski twitched like he’d been slapped. I half expected him to lick his lips. Instead, he cracked his knuckles.

Real subtle, asshole.

I must have made some kind of sound, though I was just silently working through how not to be in the obituary section tomorrow.

Coach blinked slowly, cold as a snake. “Do you have a problem bunking with Mr. Paski, Spark?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Not unless he hogs the covers.”

Paski snarled under his breath and cracked his hands into fists.

Coach held out an envelope with two key cards in it. I took it from him without looking away from his reptilian gaze.

“Thank you.”

The fire of death blazed in his eyes but his face remained impassive.

And it was that—that contrast of hot and cold—that finally got to me.

This guy didn’t just hate. He didn’t just yell and get angry. This guy had a taste for murder, and he was ravenous for blood.

Mine.

Probably Hazard’s.

Probably anyone who got in his way.

But right this minute, he was imagining he was dining on my liver.

And just like that, I made it my life’s goal to take him down.

I pivoted to the hotel, damn well planning to reach the room before Paski so I could land the first punch. I’d taken it from him once, but I refused to be his personal knuckle duster.

He rolled quietly behind me. Even in snow the big guy moved like smoke and shadow.

But I heard his breathing. I heard his heartbeat running higher, faster. Hungry.

He knew this was going to go down. Tiger versus wolf.

The room was first floor, down a hall, to the left.

I pressed the key card to the door, then stepped inside.

He was right there, right there behind me. My pulse drummed fast, faster. If I paused, if I turned, there’d be a fist in my face.

Naw, he was the one who should worry. I was going to pound the crap out of him.

Three more steps and we’d be far enough into the room no one would hear us. At least not if I made this short.

Just a little more. And…

…now.

I twisted, pulled from my core, loading my entire body like a spring coiling up and releasing in one hard, precision punch…

…that whiffed through thin air.

Ducking and dancing out of my reach was not Paski.

“Asshole,” Slade said. “I cash in favors and this is how you repay me? We don’t have an understanding, Sparkle? I thought we had an understanding.”

I blinked. Opened my mouth, closed it. Looked at the door that was still slightly open. Paski was not there.

This wasn’t…this didn’t… I walked past Slade and surveyed the hall.

Paski strolled into a room about six doors down. He must have sensed me because he lifted a middle finger behind his back, then slammed the door shut.

“That was…” I said. “He was right behind me.”

“Yeah. I told him to take a hike.”

Slade was a creature in constant motion. He combed fingers down curtains and across the window sill. He ducked behind the pull shades so that just his legs were visible. I heard the squeak of palms petting frozen glass.

Such a weirdo.

“Stop humping the window and talk,” I demanded in my “dad” voice.

He muttered, “stupid” and “obvious” but finally came out from behind the drapes. “I switched rooms.”

“With Paski?”

Slade wandered over to the dresser and proceeded to open every drawer. Twice. He even stood in the bottom drawer, and looked like he was going to try walking up the next drawer level before he shrugged. “Who else was your roomie?”

He gave up on the drawer, which was good. I didn’t care how short he was, and he wasn’t that much shorter than Hazard, which is to say he was a lot shorter than me, but he was at least five-seven. He was too big to bounce around in hotel room dresser drawers.

I rubbed my hand over my face, and took a deep breath so I didn’t growl. “Why did you switch rooms? How can you even do that? We had assignments.”

With a happy little grunt, he claimed the TV remote and pressed the controller against the screen, then flipped through every button in order. Top of the remote to the bottom, then bottom of the remote to the top.

I was going to throttle him.

The TV made a lot of noise and blinked through a lot of color. Slade looked like he was in heaven.

He still hadn’t answered me. “Why, Slade,” I repeated. Why did you trade rooms with Tony the Tiger?”

“He hates you. You want to break his spleen. And I told you already, I follow you.” He turned and gave me a dead-serious nod. “Me. I follow you. He just wants you dead so he can mount your teeth on the wall.”

“Specific,” I allowed. “Why would he trade with you?”

“He owed me.”

“For what?”

“No. That’s private.” He tossed the controller back into a drawer, then dragged his fingers across the crappy dead-flower wallpaper and around a framed picture of an apple. Like, just one lone, sad yellow apple picked sometime back in the sixties.

He made it to the corner with the closet. He palmed the doors like he was about to bash his head into the middle of them, and then he dusted his fingertips down to the handle.

He twisted slightly. There was a delicate “click” as he tugged the doors open. Then he disappeared inside.

I could hear the slide of hangers moving across the bar.

Forget throttling him. I was going to smother him in his sleep.

“What am I going to owe you for taking Paski off my ass?”

The hangers clanged hard.

Slade walked out of the closet, annoyed. “Look. You’re. That. So I’m…this.” He pointed down to himself.

“A jerk?”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re going to be the alpha of the team, I’m going to be a part of that. Because I choose it.” He bared his teeth at me. “I choose.” He was anger and challenge. I didn’t think that had anything to do with me.

He’d only been with the Tide for the last few months. Big D wasn’t the kind of alpha—if he was even an alpha, which I doubted—to accept anyone into the pack. Not me. Not, apparently, a wayward fox.

Instinct told me there had been an alpha in Slade’s past that had turned him away, made him feel disposable.

And that, well, it was terrifying that he had put all his bets in my square.

“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to figure out how to break this to him. He had to get the idea of me being an alpha out of his head.

“Look,” I scratched my forehead, then moved my hand to cover the back of my neck.

“You do that when you’re uncomfortable,” he said.

“What?”

“You…” He lifted his hand and put it on the back of his neck. “You get bitten there?”

I opened my mouth to tell him no. But there was something about his voice, a vulnerability.

This was a test. Would I tell him something about myself that I hadn’t told the others? Would him changing rooms with Paski add up to me accepting him? Would I allow him to know me better?

Or maybe he just wanted to know if I would trust him with a personal thing.

And the weird thing was, I did trust him.

I’d pretty much liked him on first sight. I knew we could be friends. And maybe that’s what this was really about.

Maybe being the only fox on a team rife with assholes was hell. Maybe all Slade wanted was a friend. That, I understood.

“Yeah,” I said. “Ex-girlfriend.”

“Oh? You into the rough stuff?”

“No. I broke up with her and she bit me. Like…who even does that? She snuck into my room while I was asleep and sank her fangs into my spine. Freaked me the hell out.”

Slade nodded, watching my body language, which was uncomfortable and defensive. Listening to my heartbeat as it echoed the panicked beat of that night.

“Was she a cat?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of cat was she?”

“No, that’s private.” I dropped my hand. “You need to give up on this alpha idea, Slade. Seriously. The Tide aren’t going to follow me. No one likes me, no one wants me here, no one is going to trust me as an alpha, which I’m not even convinced I am.

Liar.

“So get that out of your head,” I went on. “If you want to be my teammate, if you want to be my friend, I’m all for that.”

He scoffed and gave me a judgy look like I was the slowest bus in Slowville. “You are just dumber than a bag of rocks made of rocks, Sparkle.”

“Okay, stop right there. Sparkle? Yeah, no. Call me Donuts.”

“Why?”

“Because all my friends do.”

He gave me that head tilt that I was starting to think meant he was dealing with so many thoughts, his neck couldn’t hold up the weight of them.

Then, like a wind-up doll whose switch had flipped, he was moving again. “Which bed do you want?”

“Door.”

He huffed and took a few giant steps backwards, just like in a game of Mother May I, and took a running leap at the bed.

Landed like a 747 that had lost both wings, and blown the engines.

Which is to say he landed hard. And loud.

I threw my extra pillows at him, followed it up with the comforter because those things were never washed and nasty. He snarled and complained, gathering the pillows like spoils of war, and kicking the comforter onto the floor.

I stripped to my boxers and crawled under my sheets. I flipped my pillow one way, the other, folded it a couple times and settled facing the door, Slade in his bed at my back.

The beast in me trusted him. I knew he wasn’t going to take a shot at me.

At least not off the ice.

I hadn’t slept well or much since I’d come to Tacoma. Maybe with Slade here in the room, I could let down my defenses long enough to get some much-needed REM.

“Good night, Slade.”

“We’re not sleeping, stupid. We have to change and eat. And play hockey.”

I groaned. “Fifteen minutes. Then I’ll do anything you want.”

There was a long pause. I twisted toward him. He lay horizontally across his bed, staring at me.

“Wake me up in fifteen, okay?”

I closed my eyes, turned my back again, and took a couple deep breaths. Just as I felt the feather numb fingers of sleep reaching out to cradle me, I heard Slade’s voice.

“Okay, Donuts.”

I smiled.

And got whacked in the back of the head with a balled up, dirty comforter.