Chapter 12

 

They worked together to clear the ice, and then they skated.

Dmitri was trying to soothe him. Thierry knew it, and he appreciated it. The day ahead had seemed an impossible thing to face when he’d woken that morning, but Dmitri had been there, warm at his back, strong arms around him to bolster his will.

“I’m with you,” he had said.

“Merci, mon loup.”

“De rien.”

He had insisted that Dmitri keep his writing schedule after breakfast. He wouldn’t be the cause of that going off the rails, and he had launched himself into the physical work that needed doing around the cabin. They had eaten lunch in companionable quiet, and then Dmitri had suggested they stretch their legs. Thierry had started to strip, in order to shift, but Dmitri had caught his hand in a light grip.

“Skates and stick. Oh, and helmet, knucklehead.”

The sun peeked from the cloud cover occasionally, but mostly the day was gray, the light flat. Evergreen trees surrounded the pond, their resident birds coming and going. An occasional scuffle in the brush below signaled some small mammal taking advantage of a relatively sunny day to soak up some light.

On the ice, Dmitri was the only sun he needed.

They began with some light passing, up and down the pond. His wolf was still a formidable player, and Thierry wished he could have seen him play as a younger man. He could picture Dmitri’s thighs flexing as he surged down the ice, his blades set wide for power, the twist of his torso before he made a shot. He smiled, occasionally, wondering if Dmitri had been a hot head, if he’d ever lost his shit on the ice, but then he dismissed the thought. His wolf was game, but conservative. He kept a cool head. He did now, at least, speaking to Thierry in his deep, calm voice, until this moment was all that mattered to Thierry.

This day, this hour, this minute on the ice, under the sky, with the man who had talked him back home.

That had been four days ago. Thierry had rung his mother later that morning, told her she owed him an explanation and that she would give it to him in person. He had ended the call on her stunned silence.

Dmitri had grinned at him from his watchful place at the kitchen counter. “Well done.”

“One more.”

Then he had phoned Sorenson and told him about the next game, the one on this night. Told him they would pick him up. Sorenson, at least, got in a grunt before Thierry hung up.

His mother hadn’t shown up yet, but the game was tonight, and so they skated. His guts were in knots. Half the day he had wanted to vomit in the snow, but then Dmitri would say something, something low, just for him, and he would rally.

When they had finished passing in a ladder pattern, they began to slalom, their blades etching a double helix in the ice, the puck forming bonds between them, back and forth, to and fro. When they reached the end of the pond, they skated the same drill backward. Dmitri had complimented him on his footwork, but his wolf was a sight to behold. He’d had a dozen more years on the ice than Thierry, and it showed. Not in his technique, perhaps, but in the sureness with which his whole body moved. Thierry wanted to stop and simply watch the man own the ice, see him tell the sky overhead that this pond was his and he would care for it, thank you. But if he were to stop and ogle the way he longed to do, Dmitri would become self-conscious. And so he kept on, skating toward his man and away, stretching their tether to the perimeter of the pond, snapping back to cross in the middle, bound always by the path of the puck between them and the warmth of Dmitri’s gaze. It should have melted the ice. They should have broken through its surface by now, should have flailed in the cold water, struggling for shore.

But it was just warm enough, buoying Thierry like an updraft.

After an hour or so, they were skating in broad concentric circles, passing each other twice per orbit. On Dmitri’s next approach, Thierry stopped. Dmitri slowed, gliding into his body until their torsos bumped.

His wolf smiled. “I’m not familiar with this drill.”

“Oh, I think you are.” Thierry dipped his head, set a small kiss on Dmitri’s nose.

Dmitri raised his chin and kissed him, his gloved hands firm and comforting at Thierry’s back. Dmitri tasted of the chicken soup they’d eaten for lunch and of the past hour’s exertion. The heat of him warmed Thierry’s front, kept his heart thawed and beating for what would come later this day.

After a few seconds, Dmitri pulled back and grinned. “We probably shouldn’t do that on the ice tonight.”

“Why not?” He pressed his nose to the man’s sideburn, where his breath had condensed into droplets. “The games would be much friendlier.”

Dmitri’s chuckle in his ear was one of the best things he’d heard all day. “That they would. But I would insist on preassigned partners.”

Thierry drew back. “Jealous? You?”

Dmitri gave him a very possessive look, and Thierry’s right blade slipped under him.

He caught himself, just.

“Very,” Dmitri said softly.

“Thank you.”

“For being jealous?”

“No.” Thierry gestured to the pond and the forest around them. “For this. For today, for now. For tonight.”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t ask for any of this. Your life was so much easier without it.”

“Less complicated,” Dmitri said, “but not easier.” He slid backward a few inches, held Thierry by the shoulders. “You’re going to do great.”

Thierry took a bracing breath, wishing he had as much confidence in himself as his wolf seemed to have for him.