Page 64 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

Luke

A ce goes down, and I die a thousand deaths. Fuck, his head. From this high up, I can’t tell how badly he hit the ice. He’s wearing a helmet, which protects his skull, but you don’t need to crack your skull open to get a concussion. If your brain rattles enough, that’s all it takes.

From where I am up in the bleachers, I can’t tell. And Ryan isn’t done. Something’s snapped, and I don’t think it has anything to do with Ace, but Ace is there.

It takes three refs to pull Ryan away from him. They drag him off the ice as the medics swarm my man, sliding across rivers of his blood.

Ace’s Dad goes gray beside me. “Grace,” he rasps. “His head.”

The same thing had happened to Ace’s mom—a concussion she never woke up from.

Instinct takes over. I catapult over Shae and East and rush toward Ace. I’ll carry him off the ice myself if I have to.

Security outside the locker room recognizes me, letting me by.

“I’m fine,” a voice I recognize says from behind a curtain. “Let me back out there.”

I rip the curtain open.

Ace sits on a bed, still in his gear, jersey off. His face is beat to shit, someone’s holding his—likely broken—nose to stop the blood coming out. It drips down his chin. His eyes are already darkening as bruises form around them.

All the boiling rage fermenting inside me explodes. I become something else. Something inhuman. The same monstrous creature I am in the ring.

A storm wearing skin.

“McKinnon—” the medic starts.

“Out,” I say, my voice quiet but with enough edge to cut through the room.

“But he needs?—”

“This is my brother, he’s a specialized medic,” Tate says.

I’m sure I’ll be touched by that later, right now I want every fucking person in this room gone.

Even him. I can’t handle anyone touching what’s mine, not when there isn’t a good reason.

McKinnon’s beat to shit, he could still have a concussion, but he’s conscious, and well enough to complain. That means I can take over.

Everyone files out, and I pinch the soft part below the bridge of his definitely broken nose.

Ace doesn’t dare rush me or demand to be let back onto the ice for celebrations.

He knows better. He’s not going anywhere until I’m sure he’s okay.

Maybe not even if he is. My fingers stain with his blood as I hold tightly, applying enough pressure to choke off the bleeding.

I pin him in place with my eyes. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t his fault, not when I’m like this.

The silence thickens, and my heartbeat grows loud in the absence of sound.

Ace licks his dry lips, swallowing carefully as if he’s trying not to move too suddenly.

Trigger my baser instincts. Perceptive. That’s where I am.

The soft Daddy who spoils him rotten isn’t here.

The other side of me, the one even I’m afraid of, took over sometime around when he went down.

Ace can’t control him, and neither can I.

This hellhound, this fucking creature of instinct bound to me forever, is always fighting to get out. I restrain him, keep him on a leash, let him out enough to claim Ace when I need to.

But the leash is broken. Snapped. And I don’t know that I want to recapture him.

Because we’re not two entities. I’m him.

The beast is me. This is the side of me that’s best for protecting him, and this is what’s gonna come out every time something like this happens.

Ace is gonna have to decide if that’s a dealbreaker.

I get the bleeding to stop and release him. “Stay.”

He flinches but doesn’t move. I fish out the supplies I asked Tate to bring for me—my own McKinnon repair kit. His eyes widen.

“You really stashed one here too?” he says with a little upward quirk of his lips.

A growl leaves my chest. I’m not capable of words right now. I won’t be until I have him patched up. Running my thumb lightly alongside the bridge, I assess the break, testing for tenderness and deviation. It’s swollen, but not visibly crooked. Probably a clean break.

I get to work splinting it with medical tape and two sterile padded strips. I’ve clocked the restrained way he’s breathing, so I search for more injuries, starting with his ribs. I tape those up and then use the flashlight in my kit to check his pupils.

“Eyes on me,” I grunt.

Moving the light side to side, I watch for a response. Equal. Good—for now. Concussion symptoms can be delayed. I’ll be watching his every move, his every breath until I know for sure.

“If your head hurts or your vision blurs, you tell me. Immediately, princess.” It’s a threat and a warning. He nods. “Do you feel nauseous?”

“No, but kinda horny if I’m honest.”

“ McKinnon .”

“What? You’re so fucking scary right now. My heart’s racing, and it’s a major turn-on.”

“I’m a hair away from hunting Ryan down and murdering him, and you’re … hard?”

“As a hockey puck. Wanna check out my cock the way you did my nose?”

A violent hand—my hand—juts out, gripping under his chin hard enough to add bruises to the motif Ryan left on his face. “You need to behave.”

He moans and pants. “S-Sorry, Daddy. You’re only making it worse. All of this? I’m into it. Everything about it. I was serious about the touching my dick thing.”

If he wasn’t half-broken and maybe concussed, I’d have him bent over this table. But he is.

“Sorry, baby. This side of me has no interest in making you come. I’d rather hold your orgasm hostage.” But this time, it has nothing to do with seeing him suffer. Control. Mine. Caged. I need to have him on lockdown in every way possible.

“Oh … oh god.” His lip trembles as his teeth catch it, and he pulls in a sharp breath. His ribs remind him they’re broken. “Ow!”

“You need to relax, and forget about your dick, McKinnon.”

“I’m fine . I could totally still play like this if the game wasn’t already over.”

Hockey players are certifiably unhinged enough to play with broken ribs and noses while maybe concussed. They’re pain-tolerant mythic war creatures.

A dark laugh rumbles from the depths of me. “You belong to me, princess. I say what condition you play in from now on. Broken bones mean you don’t step foot on the ice, and I don’t care how much you complain about that.”

I wait. Wait to hear how he responds, because—unfortunately—a day could come where he decides I’m too much. But restraining myself when he’s hurt like this isn’t an option. It’ll never be on the table. It has to be what he wants, and he can’t just tolerate it, he has to connect with it.

Or we’re just a railway car racing toward derailment.

I’m frozen, watching him, tracking his breath, his movements, trying to pull the thoughts from his head.

Ace takes my hand, one of the ones washed in his blood, and presses it into his cheek, closing his eyes.

“Mmm,” he murmurs. “Wanted to see what that felt like. You’re warm.”

I squint. What the fuck does that mean? “You’re not making any sense, McKinnon.”

“I know, but … okay, this’ll probably make me sound crazier, but lemme give it a shot. So, you know that story about the beast? The one where he’s cursed, but he falls in love and then turns human again?”

“Yeeessss …”

“I was so pissed when he turned back into the human. How fucking disappointing.” He rolls his eyes. “Anyway, this is, like, the opposite of that.”

“Because…?”

“I got the beast.”

“Are you implying I turned from human to beast?”

“If I’m being honest, it’s hard to say you were human to begin with.

More like, you try to be human, but you’re not really.

You’re better. Plus, remember, it was the beast who gave that chick a library, because she was into books and shit.

Not my thing, but I’d take an indoor hockey rink in our house in Vancouver, Daddy. ”

He’s such a fucking spoiled princess.

I push his sweaty hair off his forehead, so I can rest mine there. He’s here. He’s safe. He wants me—even the rawest part.

“You can have an indoor hockey rink, baby.”

“Sweet—ow! God that fucking stabs. I’m gonna end Ryan.” He wraps his arms around me, shoving his hands in my pockets. He looks up, and his eyes widen.

Shit. Forgot about that. I knew he’d win this game. Never a doubt in my mind. I’d planned to ask him at the hotel later, the way I’d originally planned. Have him turn around, and I’d be on one knee.

He pulls the velvet box from my pocket, and I take it from him. “Give me your hand, McKinnon.”

“Okay, Daddy,” he says, biting back a smile, holding out a hand that’s more caked in his blood than mine is. I got the ring from the estate. I was surprised Uncle Jasper had kept it for me. It belonged to my father. I had it cleaned up and resized for Ace.

I slide it onto his ring finger. “You’re branded on my soul, princess.”

“Not gonna ask me, huh?”

“Try to leave, and I’ll drag you back by your throat, McKinnon.”

He laughs, sinking against my chest. “Never change, Wolf Daddy.” His teeth chatter. Drenched in sweat and half covered in damp gear, the chill air’s catching up with him now that he’s stopped moving.

I strip off my jacket, a black, white-lined Scorpions jacket, the one Tate gave me with VanCourt on the back, and drape it over his shoulders.

“P.S. I’m stealing this,” he warns me, burying his face in the collar, taking a deep inhale. “It smells like you.”

“And it’s got your blood on it.” I pull it around him tighter, so it keeps the warmth I left him with.

“You didn’t have to give me a ring,” he murmurs. “This jacket would’ve been enough.”

“I can’t wait to add my name to yours.”

“Me too. I love you, Luke. Every fucking part of you. Forever.”

He says it so easily now. An “I love you” from him heals the places in me I thought were ruined without hope.

“I love you, Ace,” I murmur, kissing his cracked lips.

These are mine—and only mine—to kiss forever.

He’s mine.

Shadowridge U Captain Honors His Mother’s Legacy with Major Gift to Launch Woman’s Hockey Program

By Katrina Dumas| The Shadow Gazette Sports Correspondent

In a move that left both fans and faculty misty-eyed, Shadowridge University hockey captain Ace McKinnon announced a lead personal donation to establish the school’s first-ever women’s hockey program.

The surprise gift was announced during Alpha Kappa Epsilon’s final chapter meeting, capping a whirlwind season of triumph, controversy, and redemption.

McKinnon stated that the donation was in memory of his late mother, Grace McKinnon, former captain of the now folded CWHL’s Calgary Fire.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” McKinnon said in a short statement. “Sorry boys, you gotta share the ice now, but I know you won’t mind too much—watching women’s hockey is kickass.”

While the university has not disclosed the amount, sources close to the athletic board confirmed it was “significant enough to fully fund the program’s startup needs”, including equipment, staffing, and recruiting.

The gesture cements McKinnon’s legacy not only as a decorated athlete, but as a builder of the program’s future.

McKinnon’s leadership has made headlines throughout the season—from an early scandal that nearly cost him his captaincy, to a raucous paintball rivalry with Beta Sigma, once a hostile fraternity that, in a twist nobody saw coming, became unlikely allies in one of the most successful student-led fundraisers in school history.

When pressed for a glimpse of his future, McKinnon didn’t talk prospects or playoffs, leaving us with this cryptic little pearl instead.

“Turns out, some people don’t leave; they kick the door down just to stay. If he’s the storm, I’m the fool who runs toward it.”