“Spark, my office,” Coach Clay ordered.

The guys didn’t give me shit for being called out of the locker room.

Random nodded though. He had my back. If there was anything left of it by the time Coach got done chewing my hide.

I wiped the towel over my hair—rusty-brown just like my mom’s—and scrubbed fingers through it to smooth it down.

I was careful mopping my face. Kremlin Kitty had gotten in a lucky claw. Or maybe it was just his big dump truck fist that had split skin under my eye, lip, and weirdly, by my ear.

Things were a little leaky on the face front even though Leon had disinfected, glued, and taped me.

By tomorrow, these cuts would be scratches.

By the next day, the black bruises would be yellow.

By the day after, it would all be gone and I’d be my handsome, healthy self again.

Shifters bounced back quickly.

I chucked the towel on the pile and headed down to Coach’s office.

The door was open, but I knocked anyway because I had manners and I respected Coach. He’d taken a chance on both Hazard and me this year. Picked us for the team. That gave me all kinds of warm, loyal feelings toward him.

Dad always told me I was too quick to adopt people into my close circle. I just thought I found good people easier than most.

I’d adopted Hazard—given him my old hockey gear when we were still in first grade and forced him to learn the game so we could play together. Told him he was my brother and he was never going to be alone again.

Gave him my parents since his were always absent, and along with them, gave him a home. His mother had been out of the picture pretty much since he could dress himself.

I hated that he’d been without family for six years before I’d met him. It was hard to even imagine what that would be like. My family was solid. My mom and dad were stable as stone.

And that was good. Every wolf needs family. Every wolf also needs an alpha. It grounds us. Helps us make good, human choices. Keeps our brains clear.

Here, in my hockey life, with my hockey family, Coach was as close to an alpha as I could find. Even though he was a fourth-marked Felidae shifter. And yes, him being a cat made it a little weird.

“Come in, Spark.” Coach stood behind his desk and that meant this was going to be a serious talk. When he sat, that was a let’s-work-together talk.

But standing Coach was irritated Coach.

Standing Coach was a retired right wing player.

Standing Coach was a snow leopard, deadly and cold.

I could see the beast in him now. Could smell it, that slightly sweet spice that was particular to snow leopards. Coach always smelled like cedar and sunshine, salt and honey. His eyes flashed lighter blue between blinks.

“Sit. I’m not going to bite your head off.”

I guessed I was throwing off a little more wolf than I thought. I was healing, and it took wolf to do that quickly.

He didn’t sit, which put him in a position above me. But I was okay with that because he was pack. He was as close to an alpha as our team had.

I did sit in the chair closest to the door, though.

Coach noted my choice. Probably noted my body language—uncomfortable, but trying not to be—and adjusted his own stance in response.

Like I said, he was the kind of man I respected.

“Let’s talk about the fight first.” He was all California cool, but I could tell he was angry that we’d assed up the end of the game.

I’d fucked up out there. I expected him to penalize me for it. That was fine. That was right.

I could take my lumps just like any other guy. Maybe better since I tended to get into lump-worthy situations with some regularity.

“Sure, Coach. I’m sorry I let it go that far.”

He nodded. We both knew I had no control over Paski’s shift. The only thing I had control over was my own shift—and I’d kept that shit locked down.

We both also knew I’d totally provoked that dude. I’d seen him teetering on the edge of beast and threw him a verbal elbow-to-the-face and one between the legs just for good measure.

No regrets.

“Fighting is not the answer, Duncan.”

That startled me. He never used my first name unless something was really serious. Unless something was really personal.

“Sorry, Coach. I shouldn’t have run my mouth.”

“We still lost. You understand that, right? You got mauled and we still lost.”

I opened my mouth to argue.

“You got mauled by a cat, Spark. Face that or we aren’t going to be able to go forward.”

I inhaled logic, exhaled my habit of brushing everything off as a joke to redirect conversations.

“Okay,” I said. “Yeah. He got the upper hand. Can’t argue with his work.” I waved a finger in a circle around my face to indicate all the bleeding I’d been doing.

“You hit back, which I expect,” he said. “And you did not shift, which I did not expect. So, good job on that. That’s the kind of control I want out of my players, and doubly want out of you.”

“Thanks, Coach.” My cheeks and neck flashed warm. Yes, I was blushing. Pleased. I was a sucker for praise.

“But you were the cause of that circus. You, Duncan. One minute before the end of the game. Do you want to explain to me what the hell you were thinking?”

This was normal, this was how things went in hockey. In life mostly too. If I screwed up which I did occasionally (okay, constantly) I paid whatever price made sense. Hopefully, I learned from my mistake, and went forward from there.

“He was edging beast, and we were down by one,” I said. “We couldn’t huck anything past that Iowan giant they have in net. But if we broke their stride, we could have gotten a goal in. Maybe two. Except the Great Wall of Russia out there was in front of the net every time we got in the zone.”

“China,” Coach said.

“What?”

“It’s the Great Wall of China. Russia doesn’t have a wall.” I couldn’t tell if he was amused or irritated.

“Gee, Coach. If they don’t have any walls, how do they keep their roofs from falling down?” I delivered that with the puppy head tilt that almost always made people laugh.

Coach gave me one slow blink and the corner of his mouth twitched up.

Score one for the Donut.

He rolled his finger in a little circle telling me to wrap it up.

“So I thought I’d get him off his game. Get in his head a little.”

“A little?”

“Tomato, too-much-o. He snapped, so of course I pushed. But I didn’t think he’d go beast. I thought if he went claws, he’d keep it to himself. But he wanted blood. Weird, right? I mean, they were winning. What did he have to be pissed about?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“What did you say to set him off?”

I looked up at the ceiling trying to remember. There was a brown water stain in the corner, a sort of wavy circle that looked like the chalk outline of a dead jellyfish. Like a jellyfish had floated all the way down the Columbia River just to land in that ceiling corner and die.

“The usual,” I said.

“Which is?”

“Whatever crosses my mind. Made fun of him being a cat—no offense, Coach. I don’t have anything against cats, but you know how it goes on the ice.”

“And did he say anything back?”

“He expressed displeasure with my face.” I grinned. The edge of the tape under my eye stabbed into my skin and stung a little. “Which explains why he rearranged it to his taste. He apparently likes his Duncan Spark bloody.”

Coach stared at me. Hard.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I read the game wrong. I thought a little scuffle would rev up the crowd and give us some gas going into the next game. Thorn was hating that she let that one puck past her and I wanted to get some energy onto the ice.”

He was quiet long enough I started worrying I’d been wrong to apologize.

But I’d told the truth, and really what more could I do?

A fight wasn’t always about winning. Sometimes it was a statement saying that even if we lost, our fans, and any of the other teams we were going to face, would know that we were not beaten. The Thunderheads did not go down with a whimper. We went down swinging.

“I also, uh, kind of wanted to see if the big Russian knew enough English that I could get under his skin. Because I am crap at learning other languages. Those guys from outside the US can throw insults in three languages. It’s not fair.”

I grinned again and coach finally breathed out. He smiled. “You are a hard guy to hate, you know that?”

“You hated me?” It came out a little cracked. Like I was a kid, which I most certainly was not. I was one of the toughest, hardest-hitting offensemen out there. A fourth line left winger any team would love to have on their roster.

“No. I’ve never hated you. Stretch out your attention span past that five second loop and listen to me. You are a hard man to hate. Everyone on the ice likes you, even though you are constantly talking, just constantly talking. So much talking.”

“You should hear all the things I don’t say.”

“The only reason you don’t say them is because you run out of oxygen.”

“Oooh. Nice chirp, Coach.”

This was good. This was right. This was me and Coach figuring things out. Getting the world back to square. Back to where it felt right and made sense.

I liked this.

“But you took a chance out there that I don’t approve of.” Coach dipped his head to look me in the eye. “Are you listening?”

I nodded, giving him all of my attention.

“When we are down by one—that’s not the time to stop playing. That’s the time to play harder, play cleaner, play our game. And our game is about hockey, Spark. Putting that little black disk in the back of that big, wide net. That’s our game.

“There’s a time for fighting, I have no argument about that. There is a time to do just what you did tonight. A time to push another player until they have to decide how much losing control is worth. There is a time to play the player.”

“Yeah,” I breathed. Because I was ready for this. For some of that wisdom I knew he had stored up inside him. He was filled with high octane Zen. He saw the world with a cold-eyed clarity a wolf shifter, a regular guy like me, would never have.

“Tonight wasn’t it, Spark.”

I waited. He was waiting too. Maybe for me to talk?

“I should have hit hard, but stuck with the play?” I didn’t want it to come out as a question, but hey, I was feeling my way through this.

“That’s right,” Coach encouraged.

I got that electric happy tingle in my stomach and chest that made me wish I had a tail in human form so I could wag it.

“He probably would have shifted anyway, Coach. He was that close.”

“I know. I saw it. Leon saw it too.”

Leon was our trainer and also a sensitive. He knew when players were going to shift, could see the way magic worked in the marked: people infected by magic.

The way Joelle Thorn, our goalie who was also a sensitive explained it, a sensitive saw the way magic worked inside of everything. Even rocks and trees and French fries and sunsets.

I knew because I’d asked her about each one.

“So here’s what I need you to do for the team, Spark,” Coach said. “I need you to play like hell out there. You’re strong, you’re fast. You can keep up with Hazard, which is no small feat. But I need you to play smart. Smarter than you have been playing. I need you to think like a man, and not like a wolf.”

I could take that as an insult, because wolves were amazing. In the wild, they had complex groups that hunted together, employing a lot of strategy and teamwork. Wolves were the perfect animal to represent hockey. Fast. Strong. Team players.

Apex predators, baby.

But this was Coach. I had to trust him. He’d been in this game, in this pack longer than I had. He knew strategy I’d never heard of. And if he wanted me to learn something new, then by Gretzy, I’d learn.

“I understand, Coach. Stay in control. Don’t start fights?”

He nodded. “Don’t assume starting a fight is the first thing you should do. I want you playing on the ice and on my team for a good many years. And at the rate you’re going, rookie, you aren’t going to have a larynx by the end of the next game.”

I barked out a laugh. “Losing my voice box won’t stop me from talking out there. I know how to swear in American Sign Language.”

“Of course you do. All right. I’m not going to make you grind out a bag skate because you would probably like it.”

He was right. I would. Bag skates were absolute hell. So hard and long, they usually only stopped when someone barfed.

“You are going to go to a meditation class instead.” He grinned serenely.

I groaned and went boneless in the chair.

Coach had made me and Random meditate at the beginning of the season when our team was losing every damn game. Back then Hazard was having a hell of a time controlling his magic.

He’d spent all his life hiding it. So once he actually used it, magic sort of took over his control. Like a dam breaking under a wrecking ball impact, magic had roared out of him in a torrential flood. He’d almost drowned under it.

The meditation helped him. I had told coach it was great for me too.

I had totally lied.

I hated holding still.

Hated being quiet.

Hated emptying my mind, which frankly was like scooping out an ocean, one teaspoon at a time. In a monsoon.

Meditation made me feel alone. And I hated being lonely. It was one of the worst things that could happen to a wolf shifter, to me. I needed contact, people, noise.

“It’s at the local health food store,” Coach went on like meditation was just some kind of regular thing anyone could do. “Tomorrow night. You will show up on time, you will behave as I expect a player who is representing this fine team should behave. And by that I mean you will be on your best damn behavior. No fights.”

I groaned again, still boneless in protest.

“And you will follow what the instructor tells you to do. Respect the students, the teacher, and the art of inner peace. Understand?”

“Yes, Coach,” I muttered.

“Didn’t hear you, Spark.”

I opened my eyes. Stared at the ceiling. Wondered if the jelly fish had felt like this right before it had just dried up and died.

“Yes, Coach,” I said clearly. “I understand.”

“It’s a three week class.”

He was enjoying this. I could tell from the gleam in his eye.

I pressed my lips together hard enough I felt the bite of my busted skin against my teeth and the pulse of blood behind the swollen, healing knot.

Exhaled through my nose.

“Yes, Coach.” I could do this. Now that the shock of it had dulled down, I figured it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’d ever had to do for hockey. And if it made Coach happy, then it made me happy.