Killian

The Ice Queen cometh

Chapter 1

Killian

I ducked, but I was too late. The puck had been fired directly at my head, and it bounced off my mask, knocking me off balance. I slipped but regained myself, digging my skate blades into the ice.

"Who the fuck did that?" I demanded, casting a furious gaze at the third line. No one said a thing, but I saw two of the guys glance quickly at the third man in their line. Anderson. His ass was mine.

"Fuckin' big shot, are you?" I skated toward him and he tried to flee, but he wasn't fast enough. I jumped him, knocking him to the ice and making sure he felt every one of my two hundred pounds of pissed off fury.

I was on top of him in a nano-second and landed my first blow to his gut. He grunted.

The shrill sound of the coach's whistle made us both stop.

"Get up, ladies!" our coach Orion yelled. "Work it out later."

I got up, pushing off of Anderson's chest. He gave me a murderous glare, and then silently pulled himself to his feet.

"Everybody on the line," Orion shouted.

There was a collective groan. Bag skate. We'd lost 5-1 last night, which meant today we were facing a grueling practice. It would start with suicides – rigorous skating back and forth between the rink lines. It was something our old coach wouldn't have dreamed of making us do. I hadn't done them since my college days.

The three-man lines skated to and from the blue lines on the rink, most of the guys panting and swearing under their breath within a few minutes.

"My fuckin' thighs are on fire," my winger Liam said. "We're paying the price for the dead weight once again."

"Enough of this shit," muttered Bennett, my other winger.

I was still too busy thinking about the ass beating I owed Anderson. If the bastard was lucky this bag skate would probably work out some of the fire in me.

Ten minutes later our punishment ended and, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, the coach moved us on to running plays. Believe it or not, we couldn't do that right either. We were worse than we'd been in the game last night, which seemed impossible.

The puck got away from one of the guys twice in rapid succession, and Orion was silent for a few seconds. He'd only been coaching us for a couple of weeks, but I knew what that quiet meant. An explosion was on the way.

"Boys, if you can't get this shit done in practice, think about what we're gonna look like in our next game. I think I need to take some of you over to the fucking peewee practice so you can learn how to move the goddamned puck." He was looking each of us in the eye and there was no doubt what he thought of us. "OK, again, and this time move it."

I was getting to know that pissed off glare very well. Two weeks ago he'd started off mild-mannered and cool, but after seeing this fucked up team in action his fuse had shortened fast.

Our line wasn't the problem. Me and Bennett and Liam were the first line, and we knew our shit and worked in tandem. But one line couldn't hold up an entire team. The other lines were the problem, and everyone knew it. They never failed to blow our lead.

When it was our turn to do the play I charged down the ice and I didn't even have to look at Liam to know he had the puck I'd passed to him. Bennett finished the play by sliding it into the net and then we all got back in line. Orion said nothing because we'd done the play perfectly.

Things didn't go so well for Steve Grayson and his line. He just missed his pass.

"Grayson, you live to fuck with me, don't you?" Orion yelled. "Everyone get over here so I can go over this play again."