Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Drag out their ugliest, darkest vulnerabilities or secrets.
It’s what allows me free access to their heads. I don’t need to put my all into the game; I just have to mess with them, and they’ll make mistakes on the ice.
They all do.
Play harder, not smarter.
I’m a master provocateur and the reigning champion of pissing people off and poking them exactly where it’s paralyzing.
You’d better not have any issues and be perfect when facing me, because I’ll go there—I’ll go everywhere—while wearing a smile.
It’s impossible to be perfect, though, so I’ve always, and I mean always, gotten into my opponents’ heads and dragged them on the ice for the world to see.
Dicky is just the latest addition.
He faces me, his eyes injected with tiny red veins, his fists clenched as he raises his hand holding the stick.
Now, if he hits me hard enough and we get rid of him before we even start, the Wolves will be so cooked.
Let me give him one more push.
“Aw, you’re mad?” I tilt my head. “Hit a nerve, Dicky? You must’ve given such a lackluster performance for her to find another dick—”
He lunges at me, and I smile, closing my eyes. Referees better be watching, because I’ll be the most dramatic drama queen to have ever existed when I take the punch.
My blood roars in my veins at the prospect. The pain. The crunch of bones. The possibility of spilling blood.
It makes me feel alive.
Though this was so easy, I’m slightly offended.
I wait for the hit.
And wait.
But it doesn’t come.
I open my eyes, and fuck it all straight to hell. Someone has shoved Dicky away from me right before he could hit me.
Who the fuck—
My eyes narrow as a wall of muscle who’s built a bit like Kane but with Jude’s height shoves Dicky out of the way. “Position. Now.”
“But—” Dicky tries to argue.
“Now, Richardson.”
The order is nonnegotiable. I don’t even catch his face when he says it, but I hear that low, rumbling voice that hits like a commandment. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make Dicky—who’s twice his size and built like a fridge—mutter a curse and skate the hell away.
Osborn. Eleven.
That’s what his jersey says.
So I lied, there actually is a male Osborn heir. It’s this clown.
Marcus Osborn.
Pathetically a nobody.
Certified bastard child.
And comes from the peasant rank.
You know, Stantonville, the shithole town that neighbors our town and I’d rather never visit, because I heard it’s full of rats? Yeah, this particular Osborn happens to live here and definitely not on Ravenswood Hill where the founding families’ mansion sprawls above Graystone Ridge.
Because he’s a nobody.
He’s not recognized by his paternal family, except for the last name, which is weird—they should’ve removed that, too.
A nobody spawned by Uncle Andrew because he couldn’t keep it in his pants once upon a time. Not that I’m judging, but come on, protection. Condoms. They exist for a reason, and you can find them in a grocery store near you.
Yes, this is an unpaid ad as I’m a firm believer in those plastic balloons. Diseases? Hell no. Spawning a child? Even more of abso-fucking-lutely not.
Anyway, because a condom didn’t prevent his existence, Osborn stopped my genius plan concerning Dicky before it started.
He turns to face me, a lazy curve settling over his mouth as if he’s been expecting me.
What a nuisance.
He blocks my view like a damn wall in motion, his orange jersey glaring under the rink lights with that stupid snarling wolf in the middle. It’s not even subtle. We get it—you’re the big, bad predator. Congratulations, want a cookie?
I’ve played Osborn before—against him, I mean—but annoyingly, my provocations didn’t get me inside his head. And it wasn’t for lack of trying.
He’s the Wolves’ wild card who’s always moving everywhere, so I had to cripple him. In the games I played against him in previous seasons, he was always slippery.
If anything, I’d say he’s the one who targets me on the ice instead of the other way around. Asshole seems to love checking me into the nearest surface.
There’s been this strange rivalry going on between us since high school. A type of intensity that’s tucked close to the surface, looming there without spilling over.
But ever since our first college game three years ago, I’ve been feeling a sort of…threat whenever we face off. As if he intends to fucking devour me. No, just kidding. I can’t be threatened. I do the threatening myself.
During our last game in Vipers Arena, I attempted to get a rise out of him by saying, “Did the rats let you out to play, or did you bribe them?”
What? Not my best line, but it was a good one, come on.
He just smiled and skated away.
He smiled.
The audacity.
So I tried again with, “Your mama rode the right dick but didn’t finish the job. That’s why you’re with the rats instead of being here. So sad.”