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The puck hit the cross bar and bounced back, but it didn’t matter. The buzzer sounded, and the game was over.

The players broke out of their attacks and coasted toward their respective benches. The Spriggans pounded on each other’s backs and shoulders in celebration of their victory. They’d actually played better than I’d ever seen them play.

Maybe the analysts were right. For the first time in decades, the Spriggans’ roster had significant talent. They might have an actual shot at making the playoffs.

“That’s it,” Jen said. “Did you get everything you needed? ”

“Enough,” I said. It would have to be.

Most everyone in the stands rose to their feet and started moving in mass exodus toward the exits.

The players gathered around the bench, listening to what Coach Erikson had to say. I spotted my brother’s number-five jersey. He and the two other human players were noticeably smaller than the rest, which was saying something. Evan was six-one and over two hundred pounds.

Someone from the huddle, presumably Rafe MacConall, yelled, “On three. One, two, three!”

The rest of the team replied on a roar. “SPRIGGANS!”

“You’ll do great tomorrow,” Amy said, and she put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

“Thanks, Ames.” I rose from my seat as the players headed into the locker room. “Let’s wait for Ev by the exit. Maybe I can convince him to buy us dinner.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jen said, grinning. She fastened the snap on her vest again.

“Yeah. Maybe somewhere with nachos,” Amy mused, zipping her jacket. “I’m in need of a cheddar fix.”

We navigated our way down the steps, then toward the end of the rink where we waited among the autograph seekers for the players to emerge, freshly showered and dressed in their street clothes.

After thirty minutes, several players came out and swaggered right past us. There was no other way to describe the fluid confidence of their movements. A few stopped to sign autographs.

The gancanagh came out next, gave us a flirtatious wink and a toss of his silky blond hair. He pushed open the doors that exited into the parking lot .

A blast of September wind rushed into the arena before the doors closed behind him.

Another fifteen minutes passed before two more groups of players came out. By then, the fans had mostly cleared out, but my friends and I still waited at the end of the rink. My brother always took his own sweet time.

“There he is,” Amy said, letting out a rush of air. “Hi, Evan!”

I glanced over my shoulder as my brother strolled out of the locker room. His hair was wet, and he was dressed in jeans and a thick hoodie bearing the image of a Spriggan, a menacing, spindly, warrior fae that looked a bit like a tree. Evan slung his hockey bag over his shoulder.

“Ladies,” he said in greeting, then nodded at me. “ Tiny .”

Evan never called me Elli, like my friends did. And he definitely never used my full name, Elliette, because everyone knew how much I hated the constant reminder I was supposed to be an Eliot .

After my very feminine arrival, my disappointed father had decided I wasn’t worth his notice. It got worse after Mom died. Without her, I became virtually invisible.

One time, after dragging me to another one of Evan’s out-of-town junior hockey tournaments, my father had gone so far as to forget me at the hotel. I was five years old.

So, because of all that history, Evan continued to call me “Tiny,” just as he had from the very beginning when his five-year-old self couldn’t get over how tiny I was.

These days, the nickname was a joke. I wasn’t obese, but then, those Saturday morning donuts meant I wasn’t hurting for curves. Still, Evan refused to let the nickname go.

“Ev,” I replied in response to his greeting. “Took you long enough. ”

He put his arm around my neck and pulled me in close so he could plant a kiss on my forehead.

I wiped it off. “Good game. Tate Brass killed it out there.”

Evan blew out a breath. “He’s a beast, isn’t he?”

“He is that,” I agreed. Most berserkers were. “Want to take us to dinner?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’m starved. What did you have in mind?”

Before any of us could answer, the doors to the administrative offices opened behind me, and a spicy, devastatingly familiar scent hit my nose. It triggered visceral memories that shot a wild tingling sensation down my arms and made the little finger on my left hand tremble.

My brother’s eyes widened, then his face broke into a befuddled smile.

I didn’t have to turn around to know exactly who was causing his reaction. Blood pulsed in my ears, and my skin felt hot and prickly despite the chill. Well-honed survival instincts told me to run.

Jen bit down on her lips and gave me a worried glance. She’d been around me and Evan long enough to have met Lukas Bakken several times. She was also well aware of my history with him.

I stiffened my spine and held my breath.

“Lukas!” Evan shouted, louder than necessary because, by then, the bastard was only a few feet behind me.

“Rogue,” Lukas said, using Evan’s nickname—a derivation of our surname, Rogan—and the deep timbre of his voice made my nipples go hard as cherry pits. I folded my arms to hide the evidence.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Evan asked. “You’re supposed to be in Baltimore. ”

Outside my periphery, Evan pulled his oldest friend and former teammate into a hug. They pounded on each other’s backs before breaking apart.

I maintained my position, refused to turn, and closed my eyes as the memory of my teenage humiliation washed over me.

“Had a meeting with the league president,” Lukas said.

“Why meet here?” Evan asked.

“He’s in Minnesota for the next couple of weeks,” Lukas explained.

“Well, you should’ve called me,” Evan said, “let me know you were in town. Tiny, look. It’s Lukas.”

There was no way to avoid him now. I turned, tipped my head back to look up at the nearly seven-foot berserker wolf. Moodiness wasn’t unusual for him, but his body seemed uncharacteristically taut. Also unusual: he was wearing a suit and had a close shave.

What hadn’t changed was his dark brown hair, which hung to his shoulders in loose waves. His eyes were the same pale ice-blue that haunted my dreams, and they were fringed in thick black lashes.

His lips were full and smooth, except for the small scar at the corner of his mouth that he got from a skate blade seven years ago. It was practically invisible now, but if I closed my eyes, I could still see the blood.

Just to be polite, I forced a ghost of a smile, but my attempt at civility was unnecessary. Lukas iced me out; he didn’t even glance my way.

Invisible as always, I thought dejectedly.

“What was your meeting about?” Evan asked.

“Still confidential,” Lukas said, and he switched the folder he was carrying from one hand to the other. “But you’ll know soon enough. ”

Evan smirked. “Cagey as always.”

“But can I just say…” Lukas added, “your new team owner…Oisín O’Rourke…he’s a massive prick.”

“Yeah, well…” Evan said. “What do you expect from a berserker?”

That last bit was a good-natured dig, but Lukas made a humorless grunt. “I’m a berserker wolf , you asshole. Not a boar.”

Evan grinned, but it wasn’t the same easy-going smile I’d seen him and Lukas share in the past. Their friendship was old, but it wasn’t the same as before. Distance and three years of silence had that effect.

“We were just gonna grab some dinner,” Evan said. “Wanna come with us? It would be good to catch up.”

I jabbed the point of my elbow into Evan’s side. Hard . There was no way I was going to eat dinner with Lukas Bakken.

Lukas still hadn’t looked at me, but he couldn’t have missed my assault on Evan’s ribs—not even before Evan shot me a “what gives?” expression.

Regardless, that infuriating wolf had no discernible reaction to me. I was persona non grata . A squashed bug under his shoe.

Well, it’s not like I cared. I had a life now. I had Daniel . Soon an engagement ring. And come tomorrow, I’d have a kick-ass job, too, while Lukas would be back in Baltimore.

“Can’t,” Lukas said. “Got shit to do.”

My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t even realized how high they’d risen. This made me consider Lukas’s own shoulders. It looked like he was recovering from his injury okay.

“Well, that sucks,” Evan grumbled.

“Sorry,” Lukas said. “I’d love to catch up. And we will. But I gotta go. ”

Evan clamped his hand around Lukas’s arm, then stepped out of the way to let him pass.

“Later, Evan.” Then—still without looking at me—Lukas added a casual acknowledgment of my existence. “ Elliette .”

My name on Lukas’s lips had a two-fold effect. One, it surprised the hell out of me to be seen. Two, it pissed me off that when he finally deigned to recognize me, he used the name he knew I hated.

“Actually,” Evan said to Lukas. “I’ll walk you out. Ladies , you wait here. I’ll pull my truck around.”

Evan and Lukas left, bringing another blast of wind into the arena. This time, I was glad for it. My body felt feverish, and the air evaporated the sweat off my forehead.

“Well,” Jen murmured, “he looks as tasty as always. Jesus .”

“Who was that?” Amy asked. “Besides, of course, one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the door. Like, any minute, Lukas would sashay back in and ruin me for good.

“ That ,” Jen said, “was the infamous Lukas Bakken.”

I clenched my teeth at the sound of his name.

“I take it he’s another hockey player?” Amy asked. “What was with the business suit?”

“Oh, he’s a player all right,” Jen said.

“I’m sorry…” Amy looked back and forth between mine and Jen’s faces. “Am I missing something?”

“No,” I snapped. “Nothing important.”

Amy flinched at my uncharacteristically curt tone.

I shot her an apologetic grimace and, drawing in a deep breath, forcefully switched gears. “So, are we thinking Mexican? ”

Amy frowned and narrowed her eyes on me. She wasn’t going to let me out of an explanation so easily.

“Fine,” I said in defeat. “Lukas played on the Spriggans with my brother for seven years, from the time I was fifteen until three years ago when he got traded to the Baltimore Boggarts. When they played together, Lukas spent a lot of the off-season and holidays at our house.”

“That doesn’t sound bad,” Amy said. “Why were you so unfriendly?”

“Why was I unfriendly?” I railed in protest.

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Evan acted like this Lukas guy was a member of the family, which makes sense given what you just said. He seemed happy to see him, but you sure didn’t.”

“Well, maybe my brother and I have very different relationships with him.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “You had a relationship with Lukas Bakken?”

“Hell no!” My years of fantasizing coupled with Amy’s blunt question made my stomach clench.

“Then…?” Amy asked.

“Just forget it, okay?” This was getting embarrassing, and Lukas Bakken didn’t deserve so much of our bandwidth.

Amy looked to Jen.

“All I know,” Jen said, raising her hands like a shield, “is that Bakken is an asshole. Which should not be a surprise. All men, no matter their species, are assholes. I say we pledge our undying loyalty to our vibrators and forget about the whole lot of them.”

The locker room doors flew open again, and the last six players came out—the two berserker bear goalies, three I didn’t know, and the hell hound captain, Rafe MacConall.

Of course, they were all incredibly good looking—though maybe not like Lukas; no one looked like Lukas.

Amy got a lock on her freight train—Rafe MacConall—and allowed her gaze to follow him out of the building.

I hated to break the news, but I didn’t want my friend to go down the rocky path I knew far too well. “He’s got a girlfriend.”

“Who’s got a girlfriend?” Amy asked, her gaze still fixed on the doors.

“Rafe MacConall,” I said. “She’s fae. And she’s a swimsuit model. ”

“Ah,” Amy said. “That makes total sense.”

A car horn blared right outside the arena doors.

“That’ll be Evan.” I pulled the hem of my thick wool cardigan down over my hips. “Let’s get out of here. I need a beer.”