Chapter One: The scent of blood and ice

Sloane's POV

A majority of persons believe that cold is merely absence of heat. They are wrong. To be in the VIP section of the Briarwood University arena, the chill was that of frozen ammonia and bad sweat and impolite male ego. It reeked of athletics and dollars to cover up a short but deep-rooted problem.

I looked at my Cartier watch. It said 6:00 AM. The Briarwood Ice Devils were performing difficult exercises below. I heard the noise of the steel scraping ice up into the black rafters. It was violent and rhythmic. A dozen large blacks and reds walloped the boards. They were the champions of the country--as though gods of the campuses--but they were also fearful nightmares.

“You see they are angelic boys, coach Higgins muttered to himself.

He was too close to me, and the dripping sweat was going through his suits despite the fact that the luxury box was climate-controlled. This was because Higgins smelled of cheap coffee and a sharp dilemma of recognizing that his life, which was more than his career, was on a wire.

"“Spirited,” I repeated. The word tasted like ash. Is that three accusations of assault, a fraternity house that has been ruined and a video of your goalie pistol-whipping a competing dealer the night before at a nightclub?

Higgins turned a sickly red. His tongue struggled and struggled to shout at me. But he couldn’t. He had no power here. I did. The university board, being terrified by FBI, paid my firm an enormous sum of money to conceal their secrets- both literally and figuratively.

The board employed you to clean up the image of theirs, Ms. Mercer. Not to condemn their more than attendant activities.

I at last looked back and smiled at him. I smiled the cold, cold-blooded smile every healthy man uses on feeble men, who believe that their titles save them.

"I don't judge culture, coach. I handle risks. Your locker room is a waste dump at this time. I smapped my fingernail on the bulletproof thick glass that looked down into the rink.

A defenceman was then hit on the mouth, threw a tooth on the ground, and laughed. I replied, I will break this crew to pieces. I will determine what they talk about, what they pull to eat, and with whom they are intimate with. Should they decide to touch a freshman girl without my consent, I would cut the college life of a girl before lunch.

I hated him and all of them. It was the instinctive club of the powerful boys, which made my flesh crawl.

This veil of protection around powerful men and the heads of the mobs allowed them to abuse young helpless women. Briarwood had been designed to defend monsters.

I was going to tear that machine, bit by bloody bit.

Practice is over I said, taking my clip board. “Take me to the locker room. I want to meet the patients.” It was loud as the walk down within the arena. The bad rap music with its heavy bass sounded the reinforced concrete walls. The deeper we went the more the air got thicker with locker room steam, and pure testosterone.

Higgins opened the heavy double doors yet he did not enter. He kept on the corridor, dashing about. Coward.

I walked in alone. The music didn’t stop. No one looked up.

Thirty college athletes were packed in enormous crimson-carpeted room.

They were de-skating, ripping off damp jerseys, laughing, thus. It was a kingdom of highest and deadliest arrogance.I high-heeled to the centre of the room. There was a sharp click of my stilettos on the concrete edge of the carpet. Click. Click. Click. They still ignored me. The females in this locker room were a prize, a hostage or a jest. They did not take me as a supervisor.

I headed directly to the large Bluetooth speaker with the table of the trainer. I picked it up and threw it in a half-full bucket ice water that had melted.

The music ceased in an unhappy sealed hiss.

Silence hit the room. Thirty heads were turned to look at me. Their weapons were hidden. They clenched their jaws. Their gaze drew into intense dark lines. The bad blood in the air was oppressing. I felt my adrenaline fighting in the back of my teeth. I liked that. Angry people make mistakes.

I said: My name is Sloane Mercer. It was a low voice; however, that sufficed. My name is I am the new Director of Public Relations of this program. Hereby, your social media profiles are mine. Your weekends belong to me. Your social existence is my property.

A big, badly scarred defense man was laughing up at the corner and thrown his towel on a bench. "Yeah, right. Who hired a babysitter?"

I didn’t blink. "I’m not a babysitter. Babysitters are concerned about death and life. I am concerned that you trend in T*****r in the right causes. They employed me due to the reason that you are a team of greedy, dangerous individuals that cost the university millions and attract too much federal attention to this field.

I amused myself by going round and round in the middle. I met their stares. I sorted them. The weak ones turned away. The concealed ones stared too long in my breast.

You will put your signatures on the non-disclosure documentations on your lockers. You will get the needed press trainings. And you suppose you are indestructible because of your sporting ability or the acquaintances of your dad... I hesitated and allowed it to become painful as a result of silence. "Try me."

Next temperature of the room fell.

The locker room was heavy metal, which opened to the room leading to the captain.

Roman Thorne stepped out.

The air changed instantly. The other players withdrew, fleeing off. It was a primal reaction. Men and tough warriors cleared a way to the supreme predator.

Roman was massive, six four feet tall, with hard, developed muscles, bleeding pale skin, and inky-black eyes. He had just low-cut athletic shorts. There was a new nick cut in his left eyebrow bleeding slowly down his temple. His hair was dark and curled somewhere at the ends.

His eyes did my stomach drop though.

They were pitch black, empty. No frat‑boy swagger. No simple thug posture. Cold, dreadful, hyper-violent, intelligence.

He did not look like the other people did. He did not gaze in my tight pencil skirt or legs. He gazed directly in my eyes and it only took him one agonizing second to tear my professional armor to pieces. He was looking me over trying to find the right place to hit.

Roman came to me slowly, very deliberately. His naked feet were like a death march on the carpet.

The room held its breath.

He stopped inches from me. He smelled too strong: fresh blood and mint soap and ozone and a strange buzzing of violence that raised the bristles of my skin. I was forced to lean backwards to maintain eye contact. The beat of my heart was too close to my throat, as a mad bird in a cage.

But I didn’t step back. I were not willing to yield to any other deserving jerk, regardless of his number of bodies buried.

He stared at me. A drop of blood had come down off his eyebrow upon my clipboard which was white.

A stark red stain.

Roman leaned close. His chest was in contact with my silk blouse. I felt the heat of his skin. My breath caught for a moment. His dark eyes were delving at my lips.

He never yelled and never even threatened me when he found out that I broke the speaker of his team or insulted his men.

Rather he breathed gradually, just at my pulse point, at the jaw. A smelled my terror, a smelled the falsehood.

Well, you come not to save us, do you, Sloane? he whispered. His voice was very monotonous, rough, and a great shiver rushed up my spine and there into my stomach. His bruised face, smiles slowly and with terror spread across it. "You’re here to bury us."

So, what would happen to you when the very creature you attempt to kill puts you in his cage?