Page 20 of His Reward
I sighed, my insides sagging, even though I kept my posture stiff and proud, and started skating around the perimeter of the ice again. Every professional at my level had days where they questioned whether it was worth it. All of my friends had days where they wanted to give up and find some sort of normal life. It was part and parcel of competing at the top level. To say it was hard was the understatement of the century.
I didn’t want to give up. I loved skating, despite the bad days.
But fuck, it would have been amazing if Boston marched through the door, all decked out in his mafia boss persona, grabbed me off the ice and hauled me off over his shoulder to some dark sex lair. It would be poetic justice to have him tie me and spread me and fuck all the way into my womb until he put a baby in there for real. It would serve Father right if a better alpha than him claimed me and bred me and cut my skating career short.
I shook my head to clear those tempting thoughts and skated harder to gain speed for another jump. I didn’t really want my career to end. I actuallydidwant to win the gold medal at the Winter Games. My father really was the best coach to take me there.
But once I had that jewelry around my neck, I would need to seriously think about pulling back from international competition, or at least getting a new coach.
“You made yourself look like an idiot out there today,” Marco told me once I finally stepped off the ice an hour later. The lights flickered again, making his sour face look even more comically jealous.
“At least I was on the ice,” I said, stepping past him to the bench where I’d left my skate guards.
“Why can’t you just work and train like every other skater out there?” Marco asked, following me to the locker room once I had my skate guards on.
The lights in the hallway were all flickery, too. Something must have been wrong with the rink’s electricity. Maybe the storm we’d had the night before had something to do with it.
“I am working like all the other skaters,” I snapped, not really wanting to get into it with my brother. “I’m working harder than the other skaters.”
“Falling over and over isn’t working hard,” Marco said with a smirk. “You’d think that you were still in elementary school skating classes.”
“At least I can still land a quad when I need to,” I told him just before opening the door to the locker room and stepping inside.
The room was dark. I wondered why no one had turned on the lights. It was the middle of the day on a weekday, and aside from the premium time my father reserved for training, the rink was busy all day. I reached for the light switch, but it was already in the on position. I flicked it down then up again, and the lights sputtered on. Weird.
“I landed a quad,” Marco said, voice raised. “I almost landed it in competition five years ago, before anyone else.”
I turned to give him a sarcastic look as I reached the locker where I’d stashed all my stuff earlier. “Face it, Marco. You were good, but you were never Father’s gold medal boy.” Those words came out bitterly. I wasn’t thrilled about being the chosen sonany more than Marco liked being second best. If only our roles had been reversed.
No, I didn’t really think that. I was a champion and I liked it. I wanted that gold.
“Stephen Dousegard’s parents approached dad while you were off doing whatever you do when you’re not talking to us,” Marco said, crossing his arms and leaning against the side of the lockers as I sat to remove my skates.
“So?” I asked with a shrug. “Father coaches other people besides me.”
“Dousegard is the number one junior, but he’s looking to make the leap to seniors. This year. Immediately. He only needs to win one competition on the Grand Prix to qualify for the Winter Games.”
“Good for him,” I said, laughing as I stood to put my skates away. I really did wish Stephen all the best. He was a good kid, though not much of a kid anymore. He’d had his first heat, if skate world gossip was to be believed, which qualified him to compete on the senior circuit.
Marco was just jealous. Always had been. He was easy to ignore as I peeled out of my sweaty, long-sleeved t-shirt and tossed it into the basket I kept at the bottom of my locker for laundry.
A few seconds too late, I realized my mistake. Marco sucked in a breath, then huffed it out. He’d seen my back.
“What’s all that?” he asked, lip curled in distaste as he scanned my still-striped back.
It was too late to backtrack, and with the attitude Marco had been showing me lately, I didn’t feel like sugarcoating anything. “What do you think it is?” I asked with cocky confidence.
I took it a step farther by pushing my leggings and underwear down so my mottled ass and bruised thighs were on display,then took my time tossing my clothes into the basket before reaching for the terry robe hanging in my locker.
Marco made a disgusted sound then met my eyes as I threw the robe around my shoulders and pulled it closed. “You’re a sex freak, aren’t you,” he said.
I laughed. Genuinely laughed. “You’re such a prude,” I said.
“I’m not a prude,” he said. For an alpha approaching thirty, he sure sounded like a grossed-out teenager. “What did you do to get those marks?” he asked.
Still not in any sort of mood to be discreet or go easy on him, I shrugged and said, “I let an alpha tie me to a St. Andrew’s cross and beat the hell out of me before fucking me until I cried,” I said. Well, it was a paraphrase of what Boston and I had done.
Marco made another disgusted noise. “That’s what you do with your so-called reward weeks? You go to some kink thing and let alphas abuse you?”
