Chapter 1
Dante
The ice didn’t just feel cold; it felt like judgment.
It was a flat, unforgiving sheet of white that reflected the stadium lights with a blinding, clinical glare, demanding perfection. And tonight, perfection was the only thing keeping the monster in my chest from clawing its way up my throat and spilling blood onto the pristine surface.
The roar of the crowd at Blackwood Mountain University was a physical weight.
Thousands of students, locals, and scouts packed into the rafters of the Wolves’ Den, their voices merging into a singular, deafening thrum that vibrated in the marrow of my bones.
They screamed for the Blackwood Alphas. They screamed for violence. They screamed for me.
Captain. Killer. Beast.
I adjusted the grip on my stick, the composite carbon groaning under the pressure of my gloves. My knuckles were white, hidden beneath the thick padding, but I could feel the strain in my tendons.
"Moretti! Center ice!"
Coach Vane’s voice cut through the noise like a whip crack. He was a Bear shifter, a man of blunt force and zero patience, but even he looked small compared to the rage currently simmering in my veins.
I skated to the dot, the blades of my skates carving deep, aggressive ruts into the ice. Schk. Schk. The sound was sharp, rhythmic, grounding. I needed grounding. I needed to remember that I was Dante Moretti, a senior, a future NHL prospect, and a man of iron discipline.
I was not the wolf.
But the wolf didn’t agree.
It was restless tonight, pacing behind my ribs, a shadowy, snarling thing made of smoke and hunger.
My skin felt too tight, hot and itchy, as if I were wearing a wool sweater in a sauna.
My body temperature was spiking—a fever that had nothing to do with the flu and everything to do with the calendar.
The Rut.
It was coming. I could feel the pre-symptoms settling in like lead weights.
The migraine throbbing behind my left eye.
The hypersensitivity to sound that made the referee’s whistle sound like a gunshot.
The irrational, blinding aggression that made me want to tear the throat out of the opposing center just because he breathed in my direction.
The opposing center—a human from the University of Washington—smirked at me as he glided into position. He was big for a human, maybe six-two, two hundred pounds. He had no idea he was standing next to a predator who could snap his spine with a negligent backhand.
"Nice scar, Moretti," the human chirped, his voice tinny and grating. He gestured with his chin to the jagged line running from my jaw down my neck. "Mommy drop the kitchen knife?"
The wolf slammed against the cage of my control.
Kill him. Break him. Show him.
My vision blurred at the edges, turning a hazy, predatory red. I didn't look at him. I stared at the referee’s hand, hovering over the ice, holding the puck.
"Careful," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine. It was a low, subterranean rumble, a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the chest. It was the sound of tectonic plates shifting before an earthquake.
The human’s smirk faltered. He blinked, an instinctual flinch of a prey animal sensing a threat it didn't understand. He smelled like fear now—acrid, sour sweat—and cheap deodorant. It was disgusting.
The puck dropped.
I didn't just win the faceoff; I annihilated it.
I snapped the puck back to my winger, Jax, with a ferocity that nearly shattered the stick.
In the same motion, I checked the human center.
I didn't mean to hit him that hard. I really didn't. But my body was humming with excess energy, a nuclear reactor leaking radiation.
Shoulder met chest.
The impact sounded like a car crash. The human went airborne, his skates leaving the ice completely, before he slammed into the boards with a bone-rattling thud.
The crowd erupted. A chaotic mix of cheers and gasps.
I didn't watch him slide down the Plexiglas. I was already moving, my legs pumping like pistons, eating up the ice in long, predatory strides. The cold air rushed against my face through the cage of my helmet, but it did nothing to cool the furnace inside me.
Faster. Harder. Hunt.
Jax, looking like a golden blur, flicked the puck across the neutral zone. It was a sloppy pass, bouncing on its edge, but I didn't care. I reached back, snagging it with the toe of my blade, cradling it, owning it.
Two defenders closed in. Shifters. A pair of coyote brothers from the opposing defensive line. They were fast, scrappy, and smelled like wet dog and mischief.
One of them slashed at my ankles. A warning.
The wolf laughed.
I didn't deke around them. I went through them.
I dropped my shoulder, bracing for impact, and plowed through the gap.
Sticks clattered against my shin pads. Shoulders collided.
I felt a sharp pain in my ribs where a stick end jammed into the soft tissue, but the pain was distant, irrelevant. It was fuel.
I burst into the offensive zone, alone.
It was just me and the goalie.
The world narrowed down to a tunnel. The noise of the crowd faded into a dull roar, like the ocean during a storm. I saw the goalie’s eyes widen behind his mask. I saw the way he shifted his weight to the left, anticipating the shot.
He’s afraid.
Good.
I wound up for a slap shot, channeling every ounce of the frustration, the heat, and the terrifying need to breed that was pulsing in my groin into the swing.
My stick flexed. The ice exploded in a spray of white powder.
The puck left my blade at nearly a hundred miles an hour. It was a blur of black rubber that bypassed the goalie’s glove before his brain could even send the signal to move his hand.
Ping.
The sound of the puck hitting the metal crossbar and ricocheting into the net was pure, unadulterated sex.
The red light flared. The horn blasted.
I didn't celebrate. I didn't raise my arms. I didn't smile.
I coasted to the boards, chest heaving, sweat dripping into my eyes, stinging like acid. Jax slammed into me a second later, wrapping his arm around my neck in a jubilant chokehold.
"You're a machine, Dante! A literal freaking machine!" Jax howled, his Golden Retriever energy manic and suffocating. "Did you see that guy? You sent him into next week! I think he’s crying."
I shoved Jax off, harder than I intended. He stumbled on his skates, eyes widening as he looked at me.
"Space," I snarled.
Jax froze. His grin vanished, replaced by a look of sudden understanding. He leaned in, sniffing the air near me, then recoiled, wrinkling his nose.
"Whoa," he whispered, voice dropping so the humans on the bench wouldn't hear. "Dante. You smell like... you smell like smoke and burnt sugar. You’re running hot, man. Like, really hot."
"I know," I gritted out, bracing my hands on my knees, trying to breathe. But the air in the arena was stale. It smelled of too many people. Too many heartbeats. It was suffocating me. "I need to get off the ice."
"It’s only the first period," Jax hissed. "Coach will kill you."
"If I stay out here," I said, lifting my head to look at him, letting him see my eyes. I felt the burn in my irises, the shift from human brown to glowing, radioactive amber. "I’m going to kill someone else. Cover for me."
Jax saw the gold in my eyes and paled. He nodded frantically. "Go. Get to the Hive. Lock yourself in the freezer if you have to. I’ll tell Vane you pulled a groin muscle or something."
I didn't wait for permission. I turned and skated toward the tunnel, the sanctuary of the shadows calling to me.
I needed cold. I needed silence. I needed to lock the wolf away before he decided to climb out of my skin and burn this entire university to the ground.
I stomped down the rubber-matted hallway, past the locker rooms, ignoring the equipment manager who tried to hand me a water bottle. I knocked it out of his hand without breaking stride.
"Leave me alone," I barked.
I headed deeper into the bowels of the arena. Away from the noise. Down toward the old equipment archives in the basement level, where the air conditioning units hummed and the temperature dropped to near freezing.
I ripped my helmet off, throwing it against the concrete wall. It clattered loudly, the sound echoing in the empty corridor. I tore at the collar of my jersey, the fabric feeling like a noose.
I turned the corner, heading for the heavy steel door of the archive room, intending to sit in the dark until the meds I had in my locker kicked in.
But then I stopped.
I froze, my skates digging into the rubber matting.
The air shifted.
The stale smell of Zamboni exhaust and old sweat vanished, replaced by something else. Something impossible.
It hit me like a physical blow to the solar plexus.
Vanilla.
Not the fake, chemical stuff in cheap candles. This was real. Warm, sweet, creamy vanilla. And beneath it... petrichor. The smell of rain hitting dry earth. And beneath that?
Heat.
A soft, feminine heat that curled around my senses and pulled.
My nostrils flared, inhaling deep, greedy lungfuls of the scent. My heart, which had been hammering a frantic rhythm, suddenly skipped a beat and then slammed into a slow, heavy thud.
Mine.
The word whispered through my mind. It wasn't a thought; it was an instinct. Ancient. Biological. Irrefutable.
I growled, a low, dangerous sound that vibrated in my throat, and followed the scent.
Arabella
The basement of the Blackwood Arena was the only place on campus where I could hear myself think, which was ironic, considering three thousand people were screaming directly above my head.
The concrete ceiling vibrated with every check, every cheer, every blast of the goal horn.
Dust motes danced in the fluorescent light, shaken loose by the violence taking place upstairs.
But down here, in the archives, nestled between rows of metal shelving loaded with dusty trophies and boxes of jerseys from the 1980s, it felt safe.
Safety was my currency. I hoarded it like gold.