I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep that going if I knew Blake was the reason Chloe was so scared.
As it turned out, I couldn’t. I played a lot more aggressively than usual. I took all my pent up frustration and fierceness out on the ice and on the other team. The Cougars followed my lead and the sudden onslaught of a strong offense was an unexpected move from us for The Bears and we creamed them.
It made me start to rethink our regular strategy though it had always served us pretty well before.
“Goddamn, boss!” That was Miguel who was grinning at me like I’d just given him a puppy as we crowded into the locker room after the game, sweaty and more revved up and tired. I’d tried to get all my energy out but instead I just felt like shifting and running twenty miles. Or potentially beating up Blake if he happened to cross my path. Maybe that was foolish considering I didn’t even know what he’d done. But I couldn’t help how I felt. “Played like a maniac!”
“I didn’t play like a maniac,” I muttered. I frowned and took a swig of water as I unstrapped my pads and tossed them on a pile on the floor.
Dylan and Charlie were exchanging significant looks that I didn’t miss. “For you,” Charlie said. “You did kinda play like a maniac. I mean you were playing like Miguel on a bad day. Which, ya know…”
“Is like a maniac,” Dylan said.
“I resemble that remark,” Miguel said with a wink. He clapped me on the back. “I don’t know, boss. It was kinda badass to see you fight like that. Almost felt bad for The Bears.”
“He got the box three times,” Charlie pointed out. “When’s the last time you even got the penalty box? That’s Miguel’s turf.”
“You looked good in there,” Miguel said, laughing. He was never usually so cheerful. Even if it was because of my aggression, it was kind of nice to see. He clapped and whooped and the rest of the team joined in and then somebody shook a can of soda and opened it, spraying everyone as if it were champagne.
I didn’t join them, instead stripping down to shower. I was bracing myself on the tiles and bowing my head under the scalding and comforting spray when Charlie appeared in the shower next to mine. He looked way too concerned. Honestly, even the expression on his face seemed like overkill. It was just a hockey game after all. A change of pace. An aberration.
“Are you alright?” Charlie said.
Then again, maybe I was easier to read than I thought.
“Yeah, dude,” I muttered. “Of course.”
I’d known Charlie since we were kids. By now, I should have known that I couldn’t blow him off. He could always tell when something was wrong. It was good to have somebody around like that.
“C’mon, man,” Charlie said wryly. He rolled his eyes as he shampooed his auburn hair. “It’s me, guy. I bet it’s this Chloe situation, huh? Got you going? That’s understandable.”
“I think she’s my mate,” I said. I couldn’t quite look at him. I shut my eyes and let the water engulf me. I was always able to talk to Charlie in a way I couldn’t quite talk to the other guys. Sometimes I got in my head that as alpha, I shouldn’t show that kind of weakness. As in, feelings. There was a lot of macho bullshit among our kind I didn’t subscribe to. But it was a job and a half to let go of all of it. Talking about things like fated mates didn’t exactly make you look like a tough guy.
“Yeah?” Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. “Like…”
“Like fated,” I said. “I mean it happens.”
“How do you know?” Charlie said. I flashed back to us as teenagers, quietly whispering our theories about certain details concerning sex.
“It’s just this feeling,” I said now, rinsing off one more time before I finally shut off the water and grabbed my towel. I glanced around and saw no one near enough to hear us. But still, I leaned in close on the other side of the tile partition, whispering. “It’s like I knew her before I knew her? Like...some puzzle piece has just fallen into place.”
“That’s cool,” Charlie said. “Seriously. And the way you were playing?”
“Just felt like fighting,” I muttered now, wiping water from my face. “I think Blake from The Fangs might be on Chloe’s case. I don’t know why. But the thought makes me want to kill somebody.”
“Well, if ya do, I got your back!” Charlie said. I snorted at that and he clapped my shoulder before turning back to his shower.
Chapter Seven: Blake
“Where’s the offense, you pussies!” My voice thundered and echoed in the rink and catching an annoyed look from Thompson as he went past, I picked up the pace on my blades and shoved him to the ice with my stick, the scrape of my blades on the ice satisfying as I smirked to myself. “You got something to say, Thompson?”
Everyone cowered and quickly formed a neat line as they skated in laps around the rink before coming together for another play again. Thompson grunted as he got back up on his blades. I didn’t miss how startled that little brat, Gabe Perkins, was. He still wasn’t quite used to my way of doing things. Well, he would be soon enough or I’d teach him a lesson or two. Although, holding his continued spot on the team over Chloe’s head would be sweet too. That little whore had shown her true colors. Now I knew there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her dear, sweet brother.
It was a juicy little piece of information. I couldn’t wait to take advantage of it. If that bitch thought things were over between us, she was sadly mistaken.
“Again!” I shouted. I skated to a stop at the wall. Captains hold a lot of power in our region’s minor league. The coach was more like a supervisor. Even now Lenny was just sitting back, reading sports on his phone, squinting through his Coke bottle glasses as he sucked on a cigar. I had the run of the team. That’s how I liked it. “Again, you pieces of shit!”
By the end of practice, everyone was about to fall over and Gabe had a black eye. I ran my guys especially hard before Cougars games. I hated those tender little kitty cats. Especially that captain, Luca. He was so fucking nice. It made me want to rip his throat out.
They kept winning too. That didn’t piss me off any less.
After the practice, I took a swig from the flask I kept in my duffle and leaned on my shiny, vintage Camaro outside as I smoked.
When my buddy, Jepson, came walking across the lot from the street, I didn’t think anything of it. That was until he got near and I saw that look on his face. He knew something. My ears perked up and I licked my teeth in anticipation. Jepson was a toady but he was good at it. He kept his ears and eyes open around town and gave me useful information. I took another swig of whiskey and just waited. He was practically pissing himself with excitement as he came loping up.
“Blake, man,” Jepson said, sidling up to me. “Got somethin’ for you.”
“I’ll bet you do,” I said, taking a drag from my cigarette. “What is it, Jep?”
“Didn’t you tell me you fucked Chloe a while back?” Jepson said, all but leering.
“Just a few weeks ago,” I said, nodding. “Fucked her good.”
“Well, that piece of ass sure gets around,” Jepson said happily. He tapped his fingers on my hood and I had an urge to smack him for threatening the paint job. “I saw her sucking face with Captain Cougar himself, Luca Barelli.”
All at once, I felt a kind of rage I hadn’t felt in a while. It was a white, hot kind of rage. It felt good. Adrenaline rushed through me. I wanted to take some heads off. I wanted to shift and show my teeth. I curled my lip and when I spoke, it came out like a growl.
“Chloe...is fucking Luca Barelli?” I looked at Jepson steadily. If any of this was bullshit, I might have to kill him. “You sure about that, Jep?”
“I saw them sucking face in his car at Tom’s,” Jepson said. “Early. Beginning of her shift. Looked like he was taking her to work. So you tell me.”
“That pansy ass fucker was with Chloe on my turf,” I hissed. I clenched my fists and my nails dug into my palms so hard I drew some blood. “On my turf?”
I wa
nted to kill Luca and Chloe. I just wasn’t sure which of them I wanted to kill first.
I’d never been interested in Chloe beyond fucking. It had been a revelation to see that uppity bitch who thought she was so much better than the rest of the Stone River pride spread her legs for me. But for her to go straight to Luca Barelli of all people… It was like she wanted to start a goddamn war.
Well, I could give her one.
The guys were still trickling out of the rink and when I saw Gabe come walking out, his gait just a little stilted because I’d whacked him hard during a bad turn, I was on him in a flash, dropping my smoke and pocketing my flask. I growled as I shoved him up against the stone wall of the rink, my every muscle flexed as I sneered in his face.
He looked terrified and it got my blood up.
“What’s going on with your whore sister, you little shit?” I said. I curled my fingers around his throat. If I hadn’t needed to talk to him, I would have shifted and got his neck in my jaws to really scare him half to hell.
His eyes got huge. He knew something. I could feel it. “Wh-what’re you talking about, Blake?”
“Don’t play with me, asshole,” I hissed. “You think you were King Shit in high school? My team’s just fine without you, bitch. I’ll make you a shit stain on the pavement if you don’t tell me what you know this second. What’s your sister doing with Luca fucking Barelli?”
He looked a little confused. I doubted he knew what had happened between his sister and me to get him on the team. That was a juicy tidbit of information. I’d love to see the look on his face if he knew his precious big sis had whored herself out just for him. But I wouldn’t enjoy it just now. I’d save that for later.
“If you don’t tell me,” I whispered in his ear, “just imagine what I’ll do to her.”
Gabe looked genuinely terrified at that and I grinned at him, licking my teeth.
“She’s pregnant,” he blurted out. “Luca Barelli is the father. She’s claiming asylum with his pride. She can do that because-”
I gripped his throat harder, breathless with my rage.
Luca was the father?
I doubted that.
“Because of that stupid rule,” I said, sneering. “You think I don’t know something you know?” I let him go and he moved fast to get away from me.
“Please don’t hurt her,” he said.
For a kid who played decently, he was really a pussy.
“Ya know, your dad was an alpha,” I cracked. “Are you sure you aren’t adopted? Although I guess the old man’s just a broken down old piece of shit now, isn’t he?”
His expression darkened but he didn’t get pissed. He just ran a hand through his hair and turned away. He looked so pathetic with his black eye as he cowered there. Well, it was good to know I could fuck with him anyway. “I didn’t know there was anything between you and my sister, Blake,” Gabe said carefully. “I mean...if there is. I just thought, I thought… I mean she says he’s the father-”
“Jesus, get the hell out of here before you piss your pants.” He practically ran away and I shook my head, lighting myself another cigarette.
The first most obvious answer to a question tends to be the right one. My first thought was that Chloe was pregnant with my kid. That kid belonged to me and so did Chloe. I could wage the war now but it would be better if I could prove she was the lying whore I thought she was.
Lucky for me, there were magic ways to prove parentage. All I needed was the right witch with the right spell. And maybe as long as I had some magic on my side, I’d fuck with The Cougars too.
If Chloe and Luca and his pussycats thought they were getting away with this...they were sorely mistaken.
Chapter Eight: Chloe
When I was a little girl my mother told me all about fated mates. She made it sound so lovely. She said that destiny would bring two souls together and when they met each other, they would see the missing half of themselves. But she also said it was something for fairy tales. She said she loved my father as much as she could and she knew he loved her dearly. But they weren’t fated mates.
“Magic is real,” she’d said, sighing. “But not all magic is real.”
It made me think maybe fated mates weren’t real either. But I’d met couples who had experienced what sounded to me like that thing, that call of destiny that made you feel you’d met your other half.
I was feeling that so strongly with Luca, it made me lightheaded as I tried to work. Maybe all that was hopeful thinking. Maybe I was just hoping for a fairy tale. That kind of thinking also made me try to convince myself that maybe my math was wrong. Maybe there was some fluke and Luca was the father. Wouldn’t that fix everything? But I knew that was just a fantasy. Blake was the father and I knew it and I’d lied. There was no getting around it.
I got through the work day and afterwards, I shifted and ran to Luca’s house. It was a good run and it calmed me a little. Luca had given me a key and I let myself in. They’d get home later after the game but for now, I made myself at home. The thing was, it did feel like home. The scents of the guys; their lion musk, the sharp cinnamon potpourri that Charlie apparently put out because he thought the place smelled like a zoo, the sweat and dirty laundry, it was like home. It made me feel close to the guys, especially Luca.
Without Luca around to stop me, I did a bunch of work around the house. I did the dishes and gave the sink a much needed scrubbing. I mopped, tidying up without going too far and hiding things that the guys were obviously used to having readily at hand. I picked up around the living room and vacuumed. By the time I was done I was exhausted and I felt the increased hunger of being pregnant. I found some frozen ground beef in the freezer and thawed it out and before I knew it I’d made spaghetti and meatballs. I suspected it might not be up to snuff enough for a guy named Barelli but hopefully the guys would like it well enough. I served myself a big bowl and left the rest warming in the pot for when the guys eventually got home.
“It’s very good,” Luca said firmly later after a few big bites. The other guys had no complaints as they scarfed their pasta down. Even Miguel seemed friendlier than he had been so far.
“You’re just saying that,” I said, blushing under the compliments as the guys gave me their thumbs up.
“No really,” Luca said. “Most people around here make meatballs too bland. This is nice and spicy.”
“Thanks.”
Charlie insisted on root beer floats and the night passed pleasantly enough. Luca and I ended up snuggled up alone in his room, talking while watching Star Trek until we both fell asleep. It was such a simple thing but it was the most like a regular date of anything we’d done and I’d fallen asleep smiling.
The next day The Cougars were playing The Fangs.
I’d had one really nice day but the morning I woke up and realized The Cougars would be playing The Fangs for the first time since this whole thing had started and that Blake’s buddy had seen me with Luca, I was totally stressed out.
I woke up at four in the morning and I was full of energy. I had half a box of Luca’s Cheerios for breakfast and that only made me feel bad, my thoughts plunging me into a spiral of shame and worry. I was eating his food, sleeping in his house, and it was all based on a lie.
Luca found me scrubbing his already clean sink half-crying and he took me in his arms.
“What’s the matter?” He asked. “Hey, hey…”
“What if he knows?” I whispered.
It was a stupid question to ask of Luca. He didn’t even have the context, but I was a bit of a mess.
“I’ll protect you,” he whispered in my ear, wrapping his arms around me. “I’ll always protect you. But can you tell me why he’d be after you so hard? Is it really just for pride loyalty?”
The words were stuck in my throat. A reasonable voice in my head told me that I could actually trust Luca with the truth. That he’d understand why I’d lied and he wouldn’t leave me to fend for myself with Blake but the ot
her, much louder part of me that was used to people being a little bit cruel if only because others had been cruel to them just wasn’t letting me speak.
“I know there’s something,” Luca said quietly, stroking my cheek. “You don’t have to tell me now. But when you do, I’m still gonna be here.” He kissed my forehead and my vision blurred with tears. “Please believe me, sweetheart.”
That night I went to the game, a little scared to show my face. But I knew if I didn’t go I’d just lose my mind thinking about it. I sat in the Cougars section and I wore one of Luca’s ball caps low over my eyes and tied my hair back, hoping to subtly disguise myself just enough that Blake wouldn’t see me, or at least not right away.
I consoled myself with a cherry soda and popcorn and put my feet up, even though I wasn’t at all feeling relaxed.
The game started out brutally.
Blake and his guys were going after Luca and the Cougars like they had more than just a feud. It was like Luca had insulted Blake’s mother and they were having it out. Blake got the penalty box almost immediately for very deliberately slamming Luca into the wall and that was just in the first two minutes of the game. I forgot all about my popcorn as I watched Blake’s crew go after Luca individually until they had him so discombobulated he fell on the ice. I hissed and stood up, sitting back down again as he got to his feet and skated on. Miguel sped up and got between Luca and the Fangs as they made their way to Dylan’s goal. It was more of a confrontation than a game but then the Fangs scored and their section cheered, Blake hooting and pounding his fist from where he was still trapped in the penalty box.
If nothing else, I noticed Gable playing very well like he always did. I knew he’d be forced to go along with whatever Blake wanted so he was playing very aggressively but he caught my eye soon enough (I couldn't hope to hide from my own brother) and smiled a little apologetically.
Dark and Forbidden Luca's Secret Baby Page 6
