Page 28 of Wooing the Wiccan
I don’t know! Something that a wise king with the connection to the life force would have thought of!
Not. Helpful.
Raðulfr:
We’re just going to have to ride it out and hope for the best. I’ll try to keep him distracted.
So much for Dáithí’s idea that we were at the stage of our relationship where we could spend time together but focused onother things. I need all his attention to be on me, and not the hellhound across the aisle who’s growling in a way no human ever could about the goal the Glaives just scored.
A sideways glance at Jared shows he’s too busy clapping and cheering to notice. This is going to be a nail-biter of a game, but not for the reason competitive sports usually are.
He turns to me with a huge smile. “Did you see that goal? It was so fast, I missed it!”
“Me too.” I sound a lot less enthusiastic than I should, but he just laughs.
“Aw, come on. Don’t be sore just because your team isn’t winning.”
Pulling myself together, I nod. “You’re right. There’s plenty of time for the Warhammers to turn this around.” Hopefully without doing anything too inhuman.
He gives me a quick, affectionate kiss and then goes back to watching the game, and I divide my attention between what’s happening on the ice and the crowd. How did this happen? Why would Dáithí?—
Shit. This is my fault. I never told Dáithí that Jared is human, and Eoin wouldn’t have told him either, since he doesn’t know I’ve been consulting his sort-of boyfriend for dating advice. When Dáithí said hockey, I assumed he meant the human league, not the Community Hockey League. And the “hockey primer” email he sent me so I could “study” for tonight only covered basic hockey terms and rules (like the puck has to go into the net to score a goal), plus a four-line summary about the team names, their colors, and the names of the most popular players on each. I know better than to enter an unknown situation without full background, but living on Earth, at peace, without the imminent threat of my whole species being destroyed, has dulled my edge.
Plus, maybe Eoin had a point that I was getting back at my security team. Not by coming here and risking exposure, but by not giving them full access to my plans ahead of time and letting them do the risk analyses I know they prefer. Just because they’re trained to react to any bad situation that comes up doesn’t mean I shouldn’t give them whatever they need to be prepared. This whole mess?—
“Is that a streaker?!” I shout as a demon two rows in front of us teleports out. He’s huge like most demons, and he was standing… My heartbeat picks up pace while I wait to see if Jared noticed.
“Where?” he asks, his head swiveling left and right, and I try not to sigh with relief as I point to the top level on the opposite side of the stadium.
“Over there… no, to the left… there, do you see him?” There isn’t a streaker, of course, but I must be convincing, because most of the people around us are now also looking, and I can only hope I’m not creating a problem for myself.
“I don’t see him,” Jared says. “Are you sure it was a streaker? Nobody seems to care, and who’d take their clothes off in an ice rink, anyway?” He’s still scanning the mostly empty seats in that section, and I’m grateful for his distraction when the demon teleports back in, a can of beer in each hand. He passes one to his friend, and they both sit.
“Maybe it was just somebody wearing a beige coat,” I suggest. “I don’t see them now. Sorry—I guess I overreacted.” I really hope I don’t have to do that again.
He pats my arm. “Don’t worry about it.”
We both look back at the ice just as “my favorite player,” Ansas, swings his stick at the head of another player on his own team. The other guy, who’s about a foot taller and wider than Ansas, goes down like a pile of bricks… amid the pieces of Ansas’s broken stick. The whistle blows.
“Whoa,” Jared says. “That’s gonna get him ejected for sure. Suspended, too.”
I wince. I may not know much about hockey, but I do know how the community plays sports.
The referee makes the call.
“Two minutes?” Jared turns wide eyes to me. “That was aminorpenalty? He assaulted another player! His own teammate!”
I shrug. “I don’t get it either,” I say weakly as Ansas is dragged toward the box by four of his much bigger teammates, shouting threats and obscenities the whole way. Someone needs to remind him that these games are supposed to be family friendly.
“This is the weirdest game I’ve ever been to,” Jared says, shaking his head as the play resumes. “So much rougher than any league I’ve ever seen.”
“They probably weren’t allowed to play in any of those,” I offer, and it’s the most truthful thing I’ve said since we arrived.
A few minutes pass without any other disasters, and I’m actually watching the game—which is better than I expected—when someone tugs my sleeve.
“Psst!”
I look right. There’s an empty chair beside me, but the woman—a vampire, I think—in the one next to that is gesturing for me to lean over. With a quick glance to make sure Jared isn’t paying attention, I lean.
