LOGIN# Not the way I'd kissed him before — those times had been urgent and desperate, the release valve of too much pressure building too long. This was different. Slow. Deliberate. My hands on his face, tilting him up, learning the specific weight of his jaw in my palms.Finn made a sound against my mouth that moved through me like a current.His hands found my waist. Pulled me closer. I went — no resistance, no calculation, just forward — and felt him breathe out against my lips like he'd been holding something and had finally let it go.I walked him backward.He went easy, trusting, his hands sliding up under my jacket, finding the hem of my shirt. I sat him down on the couch and stood over him and looked at him in the lamp light — flushed, breathing hard, his dark hair falling across his forehead — and felt something in my chest open so wide it almost hurt."Tell me what you want," I said.Finn looked up at me. His hands were still fisted in the front of my shirt, holding on. "I want
The words landed simply. No preamble, no hedging, nothing around them.I looked at him. "Finn—""Not for her." Something shifted in his expression. Became very direct, very still. "Not because of her or for her or because of anything except this." He took a single step toward me. "For us. Come over because you want to. Because we've been doing this dance for four years and I am done with the choreography."The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.I could hear my own heartbeat.I thought about four years of fights that were never really about hockey. Four years of getting close enough to feel the heat of him and then finding a reason to create distance. Four years of lying in the dark knowing exactly what I wasn't letting myself have.I picked up my bag."What time?" I said.Something moved across Finn's face. Relief, maybe. Or the specific look of someone who has been patient for a very long time and has just been told the waiting is over."Eight," he said.I walked out without looking
LUKEI knew something was wrong the moment I saw her.She was doing that thing with her clipboard — holding it slightly higher than she needed to, her pen moving in those precise, controlled strokes that meant she was using the task as a container for something she didn't want to spill. Three weeks of watching Nadia Torres and I already knew her tells the way I knew my own skating stride. The slight lift of her chin when she was managing something. The way her eyes tracked a little too carefully, landing on faces and then moving on before anyone could read anything into it.She was fine. She was performing fine.Something had happened.I ran drills for twenty minutes after practice trying to work out the fury.The ice helped. It always helped — the cold and the speed and the singular focus of blade against surface, the way the rest of the world went quiet when you were moving fast enough. I ran the same sequence over and over until my lungs were screaming and my thighs were burning an
He stood outside the glass with his hands in his jacket pockets, his breath a small cloud in the cold, looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. He'd changed out of his practice gear into dark jeans and a jacket, his hair still slightly damp.I unlocked the door.He got in without being invited. Closed the door. Settled into the passenger seat like he had somewhere to be and this was it.The parking garage was dark and echoey around us, the low hum of the ventilation system the only sound. A fluorescent light two rows over buzzed and flickered.We sat in the dark and said nothing.Cole didn't ask what was wrong. Didn't offer solutions. Didn't do the thing people did where they filled silence with themselves. He just sat there, his big frame taking up most of the passenger seat, his hands loose on his thighs.After a while I said: "How did you know I was here?""Saw your car when I was leaving. Lights were off." A pause. "You've been sitting here a while.""Forty minutes,
The meeting lasted eleven minutes.I knew because I counted. Watched the clock on the wall behind Assistant GM Patrick Reeves's head tick through every single one of them while he talked at me in that particular corporate register that's designed to sound reasonable while delivering something that isn't.Unprofessional conduct.He said it twice. Both times with the same careful neutrality, like the words were a scalpel he was trying not to press too hard."Someone filed a complaint," he said. "I want to be transparent with you about that, Nadia. We value transparency here.""What kind of complaint?""Conduct unbecoming of a medical professional. Inappropriate relationships with players." He paused. "Nothing specific. No names, no incidents. Just a — concern, raised through the appropriate channels."I kept my face completely still. I'd gotten good at that in my marriage — the particular skill of presenting a smooth surface while everything underneath was moving fast."I see," I said.
The thought arrived without permission. Why is it doing this, why is it doing this, why is— "Whitmore." Nadia's voice. Clear and firm from the boards. I didn't move. "Cole." Softer this time. She stepped onto the ice. Skated to us in three confident strokes — she'd been on skates enough to manage it, not gracefully but with the same sure practicality she brought to everything. She put one hand flat on my chest and one on Finn's shoulder. I looked down at her hand. Flat against my practice jersey. I could feel the pressure of it even through the padding. Five points of contact, firm and warm and completely professional. I let go of Finn's jersey. I didn't step back. But I let go. Nadia looked up at me and there was nothing in her face but steady, careful attention, the same look she had when she was assessing an injury, deciding how bad it was. I wondered what she was deciding about me. "Walk it off," she said quietly. "Both of you." Finn skated away without a word. I stoo
Three days had passed since that night. Three days of my body slowly recovering from being claimed by all three of them at once. My ass still ached when I sat down—a reminder of Daemon's cock stretching me open for the first time. The brand on my shoulder was healing, the angry red fading to pink s
CHAPTER 25I came to slowly, consciousness dragging me up through layers of pain.My shoulder was on fire. Not the white-hot agony of the brand itself, but a deep, throbbing burn that pulsed with every heartbeat. Even the smallest movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating down my arm.I was in a
The words were meant to hurt, to break me. And they did. Tears spilled down my cheeks, mixing with the blood from my split lip."Please," I sobbed. "Please don't—""Where should we put it?" Luna examined me like I was a piece of meat. "Her face? No, too visible. The Alphas might object.""Her shoul
Chapter 18CASSIAN'S POVI carried her to the bed like she weighed nothing. Because to me, she didn't. My omega. My mate. Even if I couldn't fully admit it yet.Her body was warm against my chest, soft curves pressing into my hard muscle. I could feel every breath she took, could smell her arousal







