Page 3 of Aries (PAHL #1)

Aries

Nearly tripping over his own feet as he crossed the threshold of his front door, Aries yelped as a strong hand on his shoulder helped right him. Aries looked up, and up, into Vin’s dark eyes and smirking face.

“Are you okay there?” Vin asked.

“Yep!” Crap, the day just kept getting better and better. Not!

“Do you have everything you need?”

Aries patted his suit jacket. They had to dress up on game days. He had his keys in his hands, phone in his pocket, gym bag and insulated snack bag over his shoulder. “Yep!”

Vin raised a brow.

Jealous! Aries had always wanted to do that, but he looked like an idiot. Gemini was the only triplets who had mastered the singular eyebrow raise.

“What?” Aries asked. Had there been a question?

“How about we work on not answering yep to everything,” Vin suggested.

At least Aries thought it was a suggestion. “Okay.”

“Good.” Vin waved him forward. “I’ll drive you to the arena.”

Did someone tell on him? “I haven’t gotten in a wreck in like six weeks. And it wasn’t my fault. The streets are confusing. Traffic is crazy. People are nuts here!”

“I hadn’t known about that,” Vin said. “Now I insist on driving. I just thought it would be easier since we were going to the same place.”

Crap! He’d told on himself. “It really has been weeks. I have a new car! It’s a Subaru. Because they support dogs! I love dogs.”

“Of course you do,” Vin commented. He pressed the button for the elevator.

“I brought apples!” Aries said. “You can have one if you want.” He really needed to see if the farmers market would be set up before he went out of town for the games on the road. Not that they took a car or were really on the road. They had a plane. A giant pretty plane. Aries hated flying in it.

“You did eat, right?” Vin asked.

“I did!” Aries told him. He’d had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They had been good. Not as good as apples though.

Vin narrowed his eyes. Luckily the elevator arrived. Aries stepped in, hopefully avoiding the conversation. Vin probably wouldn’t think that had been a good lunch. He seemed judgy like that. His luck kept until they had climbed into Vin’s huge black SUV and were on the road.

“What did you eat?” Vin asked.

And…Vin was not going to let this go. “I ate a sandwich!” And apples.

“A sandwich,” Vin repeated.

“Yep! Two in fact.” He cleared his throat. “I mean yes?”

“Good boy.”

Aries squirmed. That…that sounded like approval. Not that Aries needed anyone else’s approval. He was pretty damn fantastic as he was! It was nice though.

The arena was located close to the Strip center, which made getting there difficult and time-consuming. Aries was glad that he wasn’t driving when a couple of drunk gym bros stepped in front of their SUV.

Vin slammed on the brakes, his arm naturally coming across Aries’s chest. Like Aries wasn’t buckled in. Vin was the one that had insisted he wear his seat belt.

Aries would be cursing and screaming at the guys, but Vin just waved them on before getting them back on their way. How Vin could stay so calm was beyond Aries. Even when they got caught behind an accident, Vin didn’t utter any protest.

It was sexy. No! Aries was not thinking like that about his teammate! Teammate! That was what he needed to remember. Aries needed a snack!

“Can I eat in here?” It appeared they would be stopped for a little bit until the road was cleared.

“Eat?”

Reaching into the bag between his legs, Aries pulled out an apple.

Vin closed his eyes for a brief moment.

“Did you want it?” Aries tried to pass it over.

“No thank you,” Vin replied politely. “And yes, you can eat in here. There are napkins in the glove box.”

“Snack!” Aries wiggled. He bit into his fruit, the juices running down his chin. These really were the best apples ever!

Vin made a choking sound as Aries wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“Are you okay?” Aries asked.

Reaching over, Vin popped the glove box open to hand Aries a napkin.

Crap! That was rude of him. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Vin grinned. “How many apples do you eat a day?”

“They’re my favorite!” Aries defended. “We had apple trees, and I could climb higher than Nix or Gem, so I got the best ones!”

“That didn’t answer my question,” Vin said.

“I don’t eat more than twelve, usually,” Aries answered. “I got sick when I was little, so my mama started to monitor how many I ate.”

“Is that a concern now?” Vin questioned.

It totally was. Aries wasn’t doing so well on his own. “I’m fine.”

Yep, Vin could totally do the one-eyebrow raise. “Good to know.”

He groaned. Aries had a feeling that Vin was going to start counting his apples. “Wait, do you not like apples? I’ve seen you eat before so I know that you eat real food.”

“Real food?” Vin repeated with a smirk.

“Food, food. Like apples. Not just blood. Although I imagine that you drink blood. I know that much about vampires.” He didn’t know a lot. Maybe he should look into vampire lore? Would that be rude? No, it was polite to know things about his teammates. That was what Aries was going to go with.

“Yes,” Vin said. “I eat real food. The older a vampire is the more we can do. I had to give up real food for about a century, but I enjoy eating so I slowly started introducing food back into my diet.”

“And blood?” Aries pressed. He couldn’t help being curious about Vin.

“I drink blood,” Vin confirmed.

“But not from people?” Aries asked.

“It is frowned upon by the council. They provide blood bags to my kind,” Vin said.

“That couldn’t have been easy. Going from people to blood bags.”

“It’s,” Vin paused. “It’s fine.”

Aries doubted it. He didn’t want to make Vin grumpy so he dropped the questions about blood. “But you do like apples?” That was the real question anyway.

“Yes, I like apples,” Vin told him.

“Cool.” Aries would have been devastated if his new friend didn’t like apples. Were they friends? Aries thought so.

“So you grew up on some kind of farm?” Vin asked. They inched forward in the SUV. They weren’t getting anywhere fast, that was for sure.

“Not a farm-farm,” Aries replied. “It’s complicated.”

“I think we have time.”

“We grew up in Texas with our mama,” Aries supplied.

“Dallas? Houston?”

That was the normal guess. “No, West Texas. Oilfields and not much else.”

“And you played hockey?”

“Well, you see,” Aries drawled. He purposely added his accent. He’d worked hard to lose it, but this was fun. And he loved talking about his mama. “Phoenix has always been kind of a rebel. We lived in Friday Night Lights territory, seriously where the book the author wrote about before it became a movie and television show. So the entire town was about football, but they had a junior hockey team and offered ice hockey camps. We joined up at age four and took to it naturally.”

“That couldn’t have been cheap. Three boys.”

“My mama is amazing. She met a man when she was working an event, and they started dating. He was a bigwig at an oil company. She was a waitress, but he was nice to her. And handsome. That’s what she says anyway. They dated for two years before she got pregnant with us.”

“I get the feeling this doesn’t end with a happily ever after,” Vin said. They finally made it around the accident.

“Sure, it does!” Aries told him. “He admitted to being married with children of his own when she announced she was pregnant.”

Vin frowned.

Aries got that reaction a lot when he told this story. “He promised my mama money if we never contacted him again.”

“What?” Vin growled.

“Yep! If his wife never found out, then he would pay. And he paid plenty. Mama didn’t have to work. We had a big, beautiful house. She had her gardens and a small acreage for trees. She made her own crafts and sold them at the farmers market around the area. She was able to take us to all our games, practices, and our sperm donor paid for all our hockey gear. He even paid for our college. It worked out just fine as far as we’re concerned.”

“You mom sounds like a very smart, kind and wonderful woman,” Vin commented.

“She is.” Aries loved his mama. “When we were in high school, she met a man at the farmers market, and they fell in love. My father is a great man too. He’d never had kids of his own and treated all three of us like his.”

“And you mom got her happily ever after,” Vin said.

“Yep!”

Vin turned his head to stare at him.

“I mean yes.” Crap! Aries was going to have a hard time remembering that. He tossed the apple core back in his bag as Vin pulled into the entrance of the underground parking structure. Aries was so happy that he hadn’t had to drive. “Thanks for the ride, by the way.”

“Probably a good idea if I drive from now on. You are a menace,” Vin responded.

Really? Aries didn’t think he was that bad. “I’ll be a menace on the ice tonight.”

Vin laughed. “I’m sure you will.”

* * * * *

Vin

The boy was an absolute menace. There was no question. He skated hard, passed smoothly, and mouthed off quite a bit.

In Aries’s defense, he hadn’t started the shit talking. Aries was responding to it, and the boy had some zingers. The opposing team was not happy with him. Aries also scored once and had two assists.

As cocky as Aries was on the ice, he was also a good teammate. He didn’t hog the puck. Aries had no problem sharing the space with his line mates. Even passed to Vin and the other defenseman on ice.

The game was fast and furious.

The Dallas Hawks had been the number one team in the standings the previous year, winning the Iron Cup. When the paranormal players had been removed from the human leagues, the teams established had all voted on what to call their championship. Vin wasn’t in love with the title for the Iron Cup but also didn’t really care. He’d lifted the Stanley Cup twice before paranormals were forced from the human league.

Dallas was trying to play the team that Vin and his Vikings had been last year. The problem being that they weren’t the same team. Trades had been made. Two rookies added to the roster. A brand-new goalie was in net. The Vegas Vikings hadn’t lost a game yet. They were not going to lose tonight’s. Someone on the Hawks was going to lose a head if they slammed or slashed Aries one more time.

The buzzer blared, announcing the end of period two. One more to go.

Vin rose from the bench with Aries excitedly babbling at his side.

“…believe that jerk!” Aries was saying.

“Which one?” Vin questioned. Aries had been bitching at all the name calling. He didn’t seem to mind the physical roughness, but the name calling, that seemed to piss the little one off.

“Well!” Aries smacked the end of stick into a glove. “All of them! They’re…they’re…jerks!”

“Jerks,” Vin repeated as he shook his head. On ice Aries had a horrible but inventive vocabulary. He had no idea what happened once Aries stepped off the ice.

“Jerks!” Aries’s nod was definite.

“You can say assholes!” Shawn called back. “Your mama is not here to wash your mouth out with soap.”

Aries hissed. “You say that now, but as soon as I cuss, she’ll pop up to surprise me and I’ll be in so much trouble! Mama said that I could only cuss on the ice!”

Vin nearly tripped. He did stop walking. Ahead of him, Aries and Shawn continued to bicker.

This…this crazy little bat shifter was who Vin had become obsessed with. What the fuck was Vin thinking? He was one of the oldest of his kind. Vin had fought in wars! How was it that some tiny twenty-two-year-old little shifter had him picturing a future for the two of them?

“Hey!” Zany smacked his back. “Coming?”

“Yes.” Vin had to physically shake himself. He had another twenty minutes of hockey to play. Twenty minutes of protecting his boy. Because Aries was going to be his. He returned to the locker room, making his way to his cubby which was across the room from Aries.

Of course, Aries was munching on an apple. Vin really needed to find out why Aries was so obsessed with the fruit. He listened to his coaches but kept an eye on Aries.

The little shifter never remained still. He rocked side to side while nodding along with the coaches then Matty when the captain gave his pep talk. Aries’s legs was constantly bouncing and his gaze never stayed in one place for long. As much energy as Aries used up during the game, Vin had no idea how the little shifter was still on his feet, much less a bundle of energy.

Their gazes met and Aries beamed at him.

That was the look that had hooked Vin. The first time that he’d seen the little shifter had been in an interview about him and his brothers being accepted into the same hockey program at a top-rated university.

Vin had seen that cocky smile and had been intrigued.

Drawn in by the fruit bat shifter that most thought was too small to play with the big guys.

He’d followed along with the triplets’ college careers as he’d known they would be in his league soon. Vin had expected them to skip college or play for one year when they’d proven themselves. The boys had surprised everyone when they’d stayed all four years at the university, each getting a degree.

Now that Vin had spent more time with Aries, he had a good suspicion that the decision to stay in school had to do with their mother. He already knew that Aries loved and respected the woman. He believed the other brothers felt the same way. The triplets’ mother seemed to be a force to be reckoned with. He hoped that he’d meet the lady someday.

Movement around him pulled Vin from his thoughts.

He rose to his feet and followed the rest of the team from the locker room.

They returned to the ice and thankfully for Vin’s peace of mind and Aries’s body, the opposing team didn’t have their shit together. They were all over the place and no real threat to anyone.

For his team they were starting to click. The season was just starting but already Vin knew they would be real contenders to lift the Iron cup this year. Aries and the new teammates were bringing the energy and fire that had been missing previously.

Aries was fast and his line mates were in the spots he needed them to be in. Vin and the other defenseman, Robbs, kept the opposing players off their guys. Each shift that they were on the ice had Vin’s blood pumping like the old days.

He’d been bitter about being yanked out of the NHL.

Vin had put his heart and soul into playing professional hockey at the highest level. He’d worked hard. He’d formed bonds with his teammates. They’d been successful.

It had all been taken away from him.

The men he’d called brothers had turned their backs.

The fans had booed him.

Ten years ago, humans found out about the paranormal world. Six years later the decision of the paranormal council affected Vin’s life when he was made to hang up his skates.

He wasn’t the only player that had been booted from the sport.

Luckily, the paranormal community had plenty of money.

Several rich members of the paranormal world had started the PAHL. Bought teams and began the process of opening a new league. At first their fans had only been the paranormals around the country.

Instead of whatever the NHL had hoped to achieve by kicking the paranormal out of their league, it had backfired. Fans started to flock to their games at the end of the first season. They wanted action. Fights. Rough and tough players. Without the paranormal members on the rosters, the human league wasn’t the same.

Rule changes for the PAHL also helped.

Being paranormal meant that they could put on one hell of a show.

Vin checked an opposing player into the boards to the roar of the crowd. They loved it! Vin loved it! He threw his head back and laughed. For the first time since he’d been plucked away from this NHL team, Vin loved hockey again.

Aries skated past him on the way to the bench so the next shift could take the ice. The little shifter grinned at him while giving Vin a fist bump. “Nice hit!”

The praise shouldn’t matter to him. Vin was big and brutal. He knew how to hit. How to fight. Warmth and pride still filled him that his boy had seen and approved of the actions he took.

If it kept a smile on the little shifter’s face then Vin would throw a hundred men into the boards.