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Chapter 1

Eoghan

D uring one of the skill sets, I noticed Theo walking through the rink towards the offices.

Seeing him on site always gave me pause, although there was a chance he was here to meet up with his boyfriend. But with it being only a couple weeks away from the trade deadline, the likelihood that he was here to take Dino out was almost nil.

He would be here on official business since he represented about half the team.

Just don't be about me.

Rumors were intense lately, saying that I might be traded, and some news outlets were even speculating which teams I would waive my no-trade clause for.

I haven't waived my non-movement clause at all yet. Everyone liked to speculate since my contract was up and I would be a free agent at the end of the year. I hated not having a renewed contract or even being in talks about my contract, which fed the speculation that I might be traded. Even my own fears that it might happen.

I was on the wrong side of thirty, but thanks to my werewolf genes, my play wasn't deteriorating at all.

The problem was that we had too many shifters coming up through the ranks, and they needed to make space. Plus, we had to look like we weren't a team full of werewolves. So that meant some guys leaving the team from time to time, especially if they were levelheaded (for werewolf standards) and a good team player. Unfortunately, I fit the bill as an ideal candidate for someone to play on another team.

Dino punched me in the arm. "Look alive."

I launched to the back of the net to take my spot in front of the net in preparation to stop the shots on our goal. It was a twist on the classic Gretzky game, but we had two guys positioned behind the net and up by the red line. Then it was a two on two in the middle where they had to pass to either the guy by the red line or behind the net before passing it in. The idea was to get creative with shooting behind the net.

I loved this drill since you always had to look both ways since the guys behind the net could get dirty with their assists.

It was me and Jayden defending against Demon and Ripper. It was a little weird to be paired with Jayden since he'd usually been paired with Dino most of his defensive career, but coach had been playing with the pairings lately. Demon and Ripper were two of our stronger wingers that were desperately trying to score on us.

Somehow, Jayden and I were able to defend off the onslaught of shots from them. Didn't help that Hef kept trying to do the lacrosse toss with either Demon or Ripper bunting it. That was all on our goalie.

When the two minutes were up, we held the score at none, but it was taxing.

As we skated off the ice, I held a fist out to Jayden. "Great job. I love how you're getting into position so much quicker."

He returned the fist bump. I leaned on my stick to watch the last match up while he and Dino chatted behind me.

As the last scrimmage went on, I noticed Paddy came out of the office area but Theo remained up there.

"Dammit."

Dino rested his arm on my shoulder and went, "What's wrong?"

"Impeding trade." He blinked in surprise and I explained myself. "Theo is in the office and Paddy is coming to pull one of us up there. It has to be a trade."

The whistle blew and the coaches sent us off ice. Although, as we all filtered off the ice, Paddy stood by the tunnel. He said a few kind words to everyone as they lumbered toward the locker room on their skates.

As I passed by the owner and my alpha, Paddy said, "Coop, a word after you get out of your gear."

I nodded and my mood tanked.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Wait, it can't happen today. I haven't waived a damn thing .

I tossed my helmet and the gloves onto the top shelf. Then I hung my pads up and then worked on my skates. After that, I tossed all the sweaty shit into the laundry bin. I took a quick shower before getting dressed.

My head spun. I hated knowing that I might be asked to leave the pack.

Knowing that I couldn't keep my alpha waiting, I rushed to throw my stuff on and up to the office area. Instead of going to Paddy's office, Theo and the general manager were sitting in the conference room.

Fuck.

The vampire rarely showed up for meetings with the shifters. So they thought I wouldn't like what was coming next and wanted to control me if necessary.

I tried to keep an open mind.

There was an empty seat next to Theo, so I sat there. Theo gave me a pitiful smile, which only confirmed my fears. The vamp had one of those undead smiles I hated so much. Trying to be a team player, I asked. "I take it that there's no chance that I can get re-signed and you want to trade me?"

Paddy nodded. He rested on his elbows on the desk and folded his fingers together. "Unfortunately so. You see how good the guys are and with the flat cap, we just can't afford to keep you. Besides, you're thirty-six Eoghan. You deserve a real cup run and I thought we might do it this year, but we're slipping in the rankings."

While I understood what he was saying, I didn't have to like it.

Theo gave me a tight smile and said, "We'll come up with the options and we'll talk things over tonight."

I didn't have an option except to give him a select list of which teams I would play for, which absolutely sucked.