Chapter 71: The Conference Finals

The first hit on my knee told me exactly what kind of game this was going to be.

I felt it before the boards rattled, before the crowd reacted, before the defender’s shoulder drove into the same spot I had been trying not to think about for days. They had seen it; the tape, the hesitation, the fraction slower turn when I pushed off.

They knew.

Round three was supposed to be the hardest one yet. Bigger bodies, meaner play and a team that did not care about finesse as long as they could grind us down long enough to take the series.

They were not trying to beat us clean.

They were trying to break us.

I got up from the first hit and kept skating.

That was the only option.

The shift after that felt too long, the ice too bright, the crowd too loud. My leg throbbed with every stride, but I ignored it and fed the puck up the wall before they could trap us in the zone. Their defense was heavy on contact and short on patience. Every time I touched the puck, someone finished on me late enough to send a message without drawing a whistle.

I took the messages.

Then I took the next shift too.

On the bench, the trainer asked if I needed to come out.

I shook my head before he finished the sentence.

Cassian was watching me from the far end of the bench. I could feel it even when I did not look at him. When I finally did, his face was hard in a way I had learned meant he was trying not to react in public. He leaned slightly over the boards when I sat down.

“You good?”

“Fine.”

His jaw tightened immediately. “That sounded fake.”

I looked straight ahead and took my water bottle from him without letting my expression change. “I am fine.”

He did not answer, that was worse. Cassian silence always meant he was counting hits, decisions, and outcomes in his head, trying to decide which one was going to get him into trouble first.

He went back out a shift later.

So did I.

By the second period, it was obvious they had noticed the knee.

Not because I showed weakness, but because they looked for it too often. They finished every check lower than they needed to, they crowded the boards harder. They started stepping into me half a beat late every time I turned up ice, just enough to make me feel it without making the refs useful.

The building got louder after each hit.

Our bench got quieter.

Cassian did not.

He kept looking at me after every shift I came back from, and I could tell he was trying to decide whether to trust my answers or pull me off the ice himself. I had seen him angry before, I had seen him calm, I had seen him possessive in ways he did not even notice himself.

Tonight he was all three.

I came back to the bench after a hard battle along the boards and dropped my stick hard enough to rattle the rack.

Cassian caught the movement immediately. His eyes went straight to my leg.

“You are favoring it.”

“No, I am not.”

He stared at me. “You are lying.”

I took a breath through my nose, kept my face level, and looked back out at the ice. “Focus on the game.”

He let out a short breath that was almost a laugh, but not quite. “You are not helping.”

I ignored that and stood for my next shift.

The hit that changed everything came late in the third.

I had the puck along the boards, trying to get it back to the point, when their defenseman came in low and late. The contact caught my knee just wrong, the ice felt like it dropped out from under me for one sharp second, and my leg buckled before I could fight it.

I did not go down fully.

That was almost the problem.

I caught myself with one hand and tried to push up, but the defender leaned in again, shoulder and stick and weight all wrong, all deliberate enough that even the crowd caught the tone of it.

The whistle had not come.

The hit had.

And then I heard a sound from behind me that cut through everything else.

Cassian.

At first I thought he was just yelling for the puck. Then I saw him move.

He slammed his stick down once, hard enough that the entire bench turned. He was off before anyone could stop him, skating straight towards the play with a face I had never seen on him in a game before.

Not just anger.

Fury.

Clean and bright and immediate.

I was already trying to get back to my feet when he dropped his gloves.

The arena went wild.

Cassian went straight at the defender who had hit me. Shoulder first, then fist. The other man swung back, Cassian answered without hesitation. They crashed into the glass in a tangle of bodies and gloves and shouting while the refs rushed in too late to stop the first few blows.

I said his name before I could think better of it.

“Cassian.”

He did not look at me.

He was still throwing punches when the linesman finally got his arms around him. Another official came in from the side. The whistle had been blowing for what felt like forever by then, but it all sounded distant, like somebody else’s game. Our bench was on its feet, their bench was yelling. Danton was shouting at the refs from behind the boards, the crowd was roaring so hard the glass shook.

Cassian got one more shot in before they dragged him back.

The defender went down against the boards and came up looking just as furious.

The refs were already deciding the rest.

Penalty.

Major.

Ejection.

I knew it before I saw the signal.

Cassian was still fighting the official’s grip when they turned him towards the tunnel. He yanked once at the hold, then stopped and looked over his shoulder.

He looked at me.

That was the part that hit hardest.

The whole arena was still noisy, still in motion, still full of people and anger and the ugly aftermath of a play that had crossed the line. But in that second, it was just Cassian looking at me from the ice with a jaw set hard enough to crack and eyes still hot with what he had done.

He had done it for me.

The officials kept walking him off.

I could not breathe properly.

He looked back one more time before disappearing into the tunnel, and something in my chest shifted so fast it almost hurt.

The game kept going.

That was the cruel part.

The crowd was still screaming, our bench was still furious. One of our defensemen was shouting at the official to check the replay. Danton looked like he was one second away from ripping the whistle out of somebody’s hand. I got back to my feet, then back on the bench, and tried to keep my head in the game while my pulse kept dragging itself back toward the tunnel.

We lost the shift after that.

Then another.

The period ended with us down by one, the kind of loss that sat in the room like an insult. I barely heard the horn.

All I could think about was Cassian being walked off alone.