All Chapters of Claws on Ice: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Yasmine's POVI didn't sleep much that night, Lenin's words looping on repeat behind my eyes every time I closed them. It wasn't an accident. I've known that for years and never told a single person outside my own pack. Eight years of carrying a truth that heavy alone, and he'd handed me the first piece of it like it cost him everything he had left to give.I kept replaying the way his voice had cracked on the word accident, the particular rawness of someone finally setting down a weight they'd carried so long they'd forgotten what it felt like to stand up straight without it. I thought about Hugo too, inevitably, the comparison arriving whether I wanted it to or not. Hugo had never once handed me anything that cost him. Everything he'd ever given me had been calculated, weighed, designed to extract something in return before I even realized I was being asked for it. This felt different. This felt like someone handing over a piece of themselves simply because the weight had finally b

Trixie's POVMy mother had opinions about ceremony dresses that rivaled her opinions about tomato spacing, which was saying something considerable given how much time she'd spent lecturing Theo about proper garden rows all summer."This one," she said, holding up a third dress against my shoulders, "makes you look like you're apologizing for existing. Absolutely not.""I liked that one."We'd already been through six dresses by that point, one that made me look like a wedding cake topper, one that Yasmine vetoed on principle because the color reminded her of a hospital waiting room, one that fit perfectly except for a neckline my mother declared "a conversation with your father-in-law I am not prepared to have.""You liked it because it was the first one and you wanted to be done shopping in under an hour. Sit back down." She pushed me gently toward the fitting room bench, already scanning the racks for her next candidate with the focused intensity of a woman who'd waited years for th

Yasmine's POVI called Lenin at four in the morning, unable to wait even the few hours until a decent time, some old wolf instinct insisting that news this important couldn't wait for sunrise without risking something breaking in the meantime. I'd spent the hour since Harlan's call pacing my bedroom, phone gripped so tight my knuckles had gone pale, rehearsing a dozen different versions of what I actually wanted to say. None of them felt right. In the end I just dialed, trusting that whatever came out would matter more for being honest than for being carefully composed.He picked up on the first ring, voice tight with the particular alertness of someone who'd apparently been awake and dreading exactly this kind of call. "Yasmine. It's the middle of the night.""I know. I'm sorry. I needed you to hear this from me before anyone else got to it first." I took a steadying breath, everything Harlan had told me still sitting heavy behind my ribs. "Vale sent people across your border tonight

Lenin's POVI met Yasmine at the overlook again, the same place I'd first told her it wasn't an accident, because some part of me needed the rest of the truth to exist in the same place as the beginning of it, my wolf finally still enough to let me actually say the words instead of running from them one more time. The sun was setting behind us, throwing long shadows across the same ridge where everything had gone wrong eight years ago, and something about the fading light made the whole confession feel less like a courtroom admission and more like finally setting down something I'd carried alone for too long."His name was Aldric," I said, before I could talk myself into softening it further. "A border patrol captain from a rival territory, according to Vale. He told me Aldric pushed my mother off that ridge over an old land dispute, made it look like an accident, and that pack elders would never believe an unproven accusation from a grieving nine-year-old against a respected officer

Trixie's POVThe rink looked strange in daylight without a game happening, echoing and vast in a way that made the whole space feel bigger than I remembered, folding chairs already being arranged in careful rows along one side of the ice by a small army of pack volunteers who'd apparently signed up for the honor of helping. Someone had already strung soft white lights along the rafters, catching the light pouring through the high windows in a way that made the whole space look almost ethereal despite the very ordinary scoreboard still hanging above center ice. Miller's cousin, apparently recruited for the day, was testing the sound system with what sounded suspiciously like the opening notes of our team's goal song, until Coach's voice carried across the rink telling him in no uncertain terms to find something more appropriate.Corwin met us at center ice, robed simply despite the setting, looking entirely unbothered by the incongruity of ceremonial tradition meeting hockey rink logi