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CHAPTER 21: FIRST RUN
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2026-08-25 20:57:50
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The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 21: FIRST RUN
LENAThe sensation of the shift wasn't painful, not exactly, flowing too quickly through my body to be grasped, all my bones twisting and reforming in a rapid, riotous pace that should've left me screaming and gasping and begging for it to stop, but instead I simply gasped and gasped and gasped, over and over again, air that couldn't come fast enough to sate the sudden, writhing panic inside me.I heard Cole's voice next, steady and grounding like he'd promised he would be, anchoring me even as the very ground seemed to twist beneath me. "Easy, Lena. Easy, I've got you. Just let it happen, don't fight it. Fighting it is what makes it hurt.""I'm not fighting it," I told him.I felt the world swell and tilt and spin and lurch, colors bleeding together into shapes and shades that weren't right, sounds sharpening into a crystalline clarity that made my stomach twist in unfamiliar apprehension, all the things around me - smells, feels, sights, sounds - no longer blending the way they were
The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 20: THE ANCHOR
COLEShe called me at 2 am, which was how I knew something had gone wrong before she could say anything at all.I'd already been lying awake staring at the ceiling trying to stop hearing my father's ultimatum running through my head again and again and Noah's warning about a third player that refused to let me sleep properly anyway so the fact that the phone had even rung out in the first place seemed almost like an expected sign."I need you" she said her voice fraying at the edges with a kind of fear that was new to me on her, not fear of Damien or even my father's council as much as something deeper and older running beneath her voice "Something is happening to me and Astra says that only you can help and I don't... Cole I don't know what is happening to me."I was already halfway to her before I could consciously decide to move, my pulse hammering in my ears in exactly the same way it had when I'd been called to the training facility the last time.I found her in the parking lot o
The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 19: WHAT’S CHANGING
LENAThe dream came again that night, sharper than ever before, the forest, the chase, and the eyes watching from the darkness, and this time was no different from the hundred other times before, except that each shadow seemed three times clearer, the smell of pine and moss more palpable than I ever remembered, so real that I woke up shaking, convinced that I smelt the damp earth still clinging to my skin. But this time I did not wake up screaming, because somehow, I was still half-asleep even when I opened my eyes. My hands were clawed something inhuman and curved, but only for the briefest moment before they snapped back to normal.I stumbled to the bathroom, flipped the switch, and nearly screamed at the pale reflection staring back at me, eyes the same shape as always except that at the very edges the brown had bled into gold. As I blinked furiously to convince myself it was not there, the strange coloration vanished as if it had only been a trick of the light. My hands were still
The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 18: THE COUNCIL’S PATIENCE
COLEMy father did not take it well.I found him at the window when I came to the study, hands clasped behind his back as he always did when he was speaking to me with the certainty that he'd already made up his mind long before he'd even said the words, the late afternoon light throwing his shadow long and sharp across the old rug that had belonged to his father before him. He didn't turn around immediately, and it made the silence between us feel like something far more tangible than the absence of sound."You told her no?"His voice was even, the kind of even that meant he was far more furious than he was at that moment, far more furious than he was at any point, and the worst part was, he was right to be."Cole. Do you understand what you've done? Ridgeview's council meets in eleven days. If Damien Holt saunters in there with the last of the Corwins on his arm and we stumble in with nothing to show, we don't just lose our leverage. We lose the throne. You lose the throne.""I'm no
The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 17: LEVERAGE
LENACole shows up to my dorm the following afternoon, all messed up from his practice game, which is not exactly a surprise since he looks like he hasn't gotten much sleep that week. He's still in his practice gear when he arrives, his hair damp from the shower he probably took right after the rink, which makes me realize just how much he must have wanted to talk and why he was in such a hurry."We need to talk," he tells me when I don't immediately invite him in, standing in the hallway, unsure of his welcome, which is completely understandable given the circumstances."So talk."I don't move, and he looks over my shoulder to where Astra is and knows she's at class, and I'm being petty, if I'm being completely honest, but I'm not ready to let him in."I'm in a hallway.""You said something like that last time, too." Cole sighed as he ran a hand over the back of his neck, looking down the hallway as if he was expecting someone to pop out and listen in. "Can we at least have a convers
The Captain's Forbidden Mate CHAPTER 16: WHAT ASTRA DIDN'T SAY
COLEShe didn't show up the next day, which was perfectly normal, since she had never had any reason to before, but I still found myself wasting precious minutes looking up and down the bleachers between drills anyway, hoping, just hoping that she might appear.Noah was the one who caught me doing it during a water break."You're doing it again.""I'm not doing anything.""You're doing the exact same thing that you always do. You're staring at empty seats like they're going to fill up if you concentrate hard enough. He shoved a water bottle into my hands, giving me a shake of his head. "C'mon, man, give her the day. You blew the one chance she gave you, so let her be mad about it before you try doing anything else."He was right, which sucked, and I spent the entire practice mentally berating myself instead of paying attention to the drills, my mind wandering to a certain set of four drawers in a certain girl's dorm room that I had no business thinking about.It was my dad who found m
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