Page 53 of Vampire Pack

Stepping into the locker room, I found most of our teammates going through their usual rituals.

Some were sitting with their eyes closed, listening to music.

Two were eating their required bags of pregame popcorn. Who the fuck knew why they'd started with that one in the first place.

A few were talking animatedly about the clothes they wouldn't be washing for the next few months.

Jude and Hollis were in the corner of the locker room that we'd claimed for ourselves a long time ago. No one protested it. They all knew how vampires were about our space. Carmen's locker was over there, too.

Hollis was listening to music, his headphones resting over his ears as he stared ahead silently, not really seeing anything.

Jude was swirling the insulated shot glass he always used to transport his pregame blood shot. I'd told him that tradition was a shitty idea from the beginning, but he wasn't one to listen to reason.

"Have you told Mallory that you're shooting her blood before every game?" I asked, dropping my bag on the bench and unzipping it.

"Nah. What she doesn't know won't kill her. She knows I'm drinking it. I'll talk her into supplying it through the season."

I shook my head.

There was no point in arguing with that bastard. Since he'd bitten Mallory, he'd grown even less reasonable than he used to be.

Hollis pulled one side of his headphones off his ear. "How's the bond?"

I ground the base of my palm against the center of my chest. "Tight."

Jude snorted.

Hollis grinned.

I grimaced, when I realized what that sounded like. "Fuck. Not like that. It's the mental pack bond. I'm not used to it."

"Can you imagine Yorkie's reaction if she heard you say that? You'd be walking around with a black eye all day," Jude said.

"She'd probably punch him again when she saw it healing," Hollis remarked.

Jude unscrewed the lid covering his shot glass. "Hey, maybe she'll be more careful with his mug now that she's stuck with it indefinitely."

"Not likely," Hollis said.

I grabbed my hockey clothes out of my bag and dropped the bag in my locker. "Why the fuck are we friends?"

Hollis lifted a shoulder. "Trauma bond from being surrounded by werewolves all the time."

Jude tossed his blood shot back, making a sound that couldn't have been anything other than sexual as the taste rolled over his tongue. "That's so fucking good."

Hollis and I exchanged deadpanned looks.

The coach came in, calling out a warning about how much time we had left.

"Alright, guys," Hollis called out. As the team captain, he tried to keep people motivated. Jude and I had been surprised when he accepted the role, but after some initial struggles, he was good at it. Had been for years, now. "We don't have Yorkie, but we can still wipe the floors with them. Let's win this thing."

A few of the guys made sounds of agreement. Someone started a chant.

"Should we throw some kind of party with Yorkie's pack now that we're sort of linked?" Hollis asked me, as I changed my clothes. "We all know she's not close with her blood relatives, so Paige and Mallory are family to her."

"I think Mallory would kill Jude if they were trapped in a room together," I said. "Better not."

"We can make it a team thing, and invite everyone," Jude decided. "We'll host it in the yard. I'll handle the invites. Is Carmen warm yet?"