All Chapters of Monsters on Ice ( 18+): Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

Chapter 2 : WatchdogHunter Conner"Tell that doctor to take one more step toward him and see what happens."My voice came out low, flat, and final. The doctor froze in the doorway, clipboard halfway raised, then thought better of whatever he'd planned to say and backed out into the hall. Good. Smart man.The room was too small for me. It was built for people who fit in plastic chairs and spoke in soft voices, not for someone my size standing over a bed like a wall. My shoulder brushed the blood pressure monitor every time I shifted, and I didn't care. Let it beep. Let something else in this room make noise besides that machine tracking his heartbeat.My knuckles were split open, and dried blood cracked into the creases. I'd put my fist through a locker door in the tunnel the second they carried him off the ice, and I hadn't felt it then, and I barely felt it now. Some distant part of me understood I should get it looked at. That part didn't matter.I wasn't leaving.A nurse had asked

Chapter 4: Unfamiliar HeatCody Brennan"I don't need another ice pack, Atlas, I need my actual clothes.""You need to stay still," Atlas said, not even glancing up from the pill bottle he was reading like it owed him money. "The clothes can wait.""I'm sitting in a hospital gown on your couch. Your very expensive, very cold leather couch." I shifted and immediately regretted it — the brace bit into my neck, and my collarbone lit up with a dull, furious throb. "This is humiliating.""You'll survive humiliation. You might not survive tearing that shoulder open again." He crossed the room, all unhurried authority, and dropped two pills into my good hand along with a glass of water. "Take these."I glared at the pills like they'd personally wronged me, then swallowed them anyway, because my ribs were staging a slow-motion mutiny and arguing took more breath than I had to spare. The house didn't help. Ceilings that went up forever, glass walls, a kitchen island longer than my old apartme

Chapter 6: Fractured Ground Atlas Kane "We didn't finish this six years ago in Chicago, Conner, but we can settle it right now." Hunter stopped pacing long enough to look at me like I'd said something worth hitting me for. "Careful, Kane." "I'm always careful." I poured the coffee slow, deliberate, not looking away from him even as the pot filled. "You've been wearing a track into my floor for twenty minutes. He's asleep down the hall. Keep it up and you'll wake him." "Maybe I want him awake." "No, you don't. You want him quiet and safe and entirely focused on you, which he can't be if you're stomping around this kitchen like you're back on the ice looking for someone to put through the boards." His jaw ticked. "You think you're the only one who's earned the right to be here." "I know I am." I set the pot down, unhurried, and finally let my eyes track fully onto him. "You've wanted him for months and done nothing but watch. I've done the same, except I actually plann