004

CRACKS IN THE ICE

~DARIN POV~

The door clicks shut behind her, and the room goes dead quiet.

Maybe too quiet.

I stand there staring at the wood like it owes me a refund for the last four lives. Her scent is still hanging in the air—rain-soaked concrete, sharp wolf, and that sweet, ghostly undertone that makes my chest ache like a fresh break. I know that scent. I’ve known it four fucking times before. Different hair, different names, same soul.

But this time? This time, there’s an echo I haven't felt before. That ultrasound she was carrying… Even through the paper, the scent of it hit my wolf like a physical blow.

A phantom ache that matches the one rotting in my own gut.

My fist hits the wall before I can talk myself out of it.

Plaster cracks. Knuckles split. The pain flares bright and clean—better than the numb that’s been sitting in my bones for years. I lean my forehead against the cool surface, breathing through the roar of my wolf.

“Fuck you,” I mutter. To the Moon Goddess. To fate. To whatever sick bastard keeps rewriting the same ending where I end up standing over a casket.

I’m done. I told myself I was done.

I’ve tried everything to break the Legacy Curse. In Life Three, I locked her in a safe house; she still died. In Life Four, I tried to stay away entirely, thinking I was the poison; she died anyway. And both times, she wasn't alone.

I still wake up hearing the ghost-echoes of heartbeats that never got to shift. Little heartbeats. The heirs that fate won't let me have.

But tonight? Tonight she walked in here dressed like trouble, offering me a lie that felt more real than my actual life. She didn't look like a victim. She looked like a woman who had found a knife and was looking for a heart to bury it in.

That hooks deeper than it should.

I shove off the wall and grab my phone off the couch. My agent’s number is already pulled up—same guy who’s been cleaning up my messes since Life Three.

He picks up on the second ring. “Darin. It’s late. This better be a ‘I’ve been framed’ call and not a ‘get me out of jail’ call.”

“Got a girlfriend,” I say. Flat. No emotion.

Silence. Then a slow, disbelieving exhale. “You’re shitting me. Since when?”

“Since tonight. Real thing. Public. Spin it. ‘Salvator finally settling down.’ Give the pack elders the reformed-heir bullshit they want. Make it sweet. Make it boring. Make the tabloids yawn so they leave us alone.”

He laughs—short, humorless. “You? Settling? Who’s the girl? Please tell me she’s not another model.”

“Mable Thorne,” I say. Saying her name feels like swallowing a hot coal. “Just do your job, Mike.”

I hang up before he can ask why my voice sounds like I’m at a funeral.

I open my contacts. Her number is already there—typed in so fast earlier that my fingers still feel the electric jolt from when our skin touched. I stare at it for a long minute.

Then I type: ‘tomorrow. 7pm. rink-side bar across campus. wear something normal. We sell this.’

I hit send.

I need to see if she’ll actually show. I need to know if she’s just desperate or if she’s brave enough to handle a man who knows exactly how her life ends.

I grab a hoodie, yank it on over bare skin, and head out. The suite is too small. It smells too much like her and the future I’m not supposed to want.

I end up at The Ice House—the dive bar near the university where the hockey guys and pack kids hang out. It’s a Friday night crowd, and usually, people give me a ten-foot radius because I look like I’m looking for a reason to kill someone. I slide into a corner booth, hood up, back to the wall. I order a whiskey, neat, and watch the room.

Until I hear the name.

Aiden.

Two pack guys at the next table are leaning in, their voices low, but wolf ears catch every syllable.

“…ceremony’s locked,” one says, smirking into his beer. “Aiden’s rejecting the Thorne reject right on the stage. Full pack audience. Lola’s idea—make it public, make it hurt so she never shows her face in Silver Ridge again.”

The other one snorts. “Girl’s got no spine. She will probably cry and run. Like she always does.”

My grip tightens on the glass.

‘Like she always does.’

They don’t know I’m listening. They don’t know I’ve heard versions of this plan in three different lifetimes. It’s always the same trigger.

The public humiliation that sent Aiden's mate running out into the rain. Running toward a car. Running toward a knife.

My whiskey glass cracks—a thin, jagged spiderweb spreading across the bottom.

She’s walking straight into it again. She thinks she’s being clever. She thinks she’s using me to get revenge. She has no idea that Aiden and Lola aren't just planning a rejection—they’re planning an execution of her spirit.

My phone buzzes.

Mable: ‘Fine. 7. Don’t be late.’ No emojis. No bullshit. Just words.

I stare at the screen. This time, she didn't come to me crying. This time, she came to me with a contract.

Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe that’s how we break the loop. I pocket the phone and stand up, leaving the cracked glass on the table.

Tomorrow, I will test her. Tomorrow, I see if she’ll run when the bond starts screaming. And tomorrow, I decide if I’m going to be her shield—or if I’m going to be the one who finally burns the "fate" of this pack to the ground.

Because if Aiden thinks he’s going to cage her, he’s going to find out what happens when you try to trap a wolf who has already died four times.

I’m the monster they should be worried about. Not the girl.