Chapter 16
Riley
The Dean’s office smelled of lemon polish and impending doom.
It was a smell I would never forget. It was seared into my sensory memory, right next to the scent of Spike’s skin and the smell of ozone before a storm.
I sat in the hard wooden chair, my hands folded in my lap to hide the fact that they were trembling so violently I could barely feel my fingers.
Across the desk sat Dean Miller. To his right stood Henderson Senior, looking like a cat who had just eaten the canary and found it delicious. To his left was Vera.
Vera wasn't smiling anymore. She looked bored. Clinical. She had delivered the kill shot, and now she was just waiting for the body to stop twitching.
"Miss Bennett," the Dean said, sliding a folder across the mahogany surface. "The evidence is... substantial."
I didn't open the folder. I knew what was in it. The photos. The doctored texts. The "testimony" from anonymous students claiming I had bragged about trading grades for favors.
"It's a lie," I whispered. My voice sounded thin, reedy. Like a ghost.
"Is it?" Henderson Senior leaned forward. "Because we have photos of you entering the player's dorm at 3 AM. We have photos of you in the team equipment room. We have witnesses who say you and Mr. Thorne were... intimate... in public spaces."
He paused, letting the word intimate hang in the air like a dirty rag.
"And then there are the grades," Henderson continued. "A sudden spike in Mr. Thorne's performance, coinciding perfectly with the start of your 'tutoring.' It paints a very clear picture, Miss Bennett. Quid pro quo."
"I tutored him," I insisted, looking at the Dean. "He learned the material. He passed the oral exam!"
"He passed because he is smart," Henderson dismissed. "But the integrity of the program is compromised. If this gets out—if the NCAA investigates—the entire athletic department could be sanctioned. Scholarships revoked. Titles stripped."
He leaned back, steepling his fingers.
"We have a choice to make, Riley. We can launch a full investigation. We can drag this out. We can interview every player, every student. We can put Mr. Thorne on the stand and ask him, under oath, exactly what happened in that cabin."
I froze.
If they put Spike on the stand... he wouldn't lie. He couldn't. His honor—his stubborn, Alpha honor—would make him confess. He would tell them he loved me. He would tell them we slept together.
And he would lose everything. His eligibility. His future. His mind.
"Or," Henderson said softly, "we can make this go away."
I looked up. "How?"
"You resign," Vera said. It was the first time she had spoken. Her voice was cool, detached. "You admit to... inappropriate conduct. You claim full responsibility. You say you seduced him. You say you pressured him."
"What?" I choked out. "That's insane. No one will believe that I pressured Spike Thorne."
"People believe what they want to believe," Vera said, checking her nails. "And people want to believe that their star quarterback—sorry, defenseman—is a victim of a predatory female. It fits the narrative, Riley. The poor, confused Alpha led astray by the manipulative Latent."
"If you sign a confession," the Dean added, looking uncomfortable but compliant, "we will expel you quietly. No police. No press releases beyond a generic statement. Mr. Thorne keeps his eligibility. The team plays in the finals. The scouts stay happy."
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't," Henderson said, his voice dropping to a growl, "I will make sure Spike Thorne never plays hockey again. I will pull my funding. I will have him declared mentally unstable due to his family history. I will have him institutionalized, Riley. Just like his father."
The room spun.
Institutionalized.
They would lock him up. They would put him in a cage. They would let the madness take him.
I looked at Henderson. I saw the cruelty in his eyes. He wasn't bluffing. He hated Spike. He hated what Spike represented—an Unbound lineage succeeding where purebreds failed.
I looked at Vera. She just wanted him back. Or maybe she just wanted to win.
I looked at the folder.
I thought about the cabin. I thought about the way Spike had held me while he cried. I thought about the garden and the dog and the boring life we wanted.
But we couldn't have that life if he was in a cage.
We couldn't have that life if he was broken.
"If I sign," I whispered, "he's safe?"
"He plays," Henderson confirmed. "He gets drafted. He lives his life."
"And me?"
"You leave," the Dean said. "Today. Immediately. You are banned from campus premises."
I took a breath. It felt like inhaling shards of glass.
"Give me the pen."
The walk back to my dorm was a blur. I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel my feet moving. I was numb.
I had signed my life away. I had confessed to things that made me sick to my stomach. Coercion. Manipulation. Sexual misconduct.
I was a monster on paper so that the real monster wouldn't eat him.
I packed my life into a single box. My textbooks. My clothes. The stuffed wolf Spike had won me at a fair (I hid that at the bottom).
I left my key on the desk.
I walked out the front doors.
And then I saw him.
Spike running toward me. His face wild with panic. His chest heaving.
Riley!
He roared my name, and for a second, my heart leaped. He came for me. He was going to save me.
But then I remembered the deal.
If I told him the truth—if I told him I was coerced—he would burn the school down. He would attack Henderson. He would get arrested.
I had to be the villain. I had to make him hate me.
It was the only way to sever the bond. It was the only way to make him let go.
I watched him fight the guards. I watched the desperation in his eyes.
"Tell them!" he screamed. "Tell them it's a lie!"
I looked at him. I memorized his face. The scar. The gold eyes. The way his hair fell over his forehead.
I killed the girl who loved him. I buried her deep inside, under layers of ice and resolve.
"They aren't fake, Spike," I said. My voice was steady. Cold. "They're real."
I delivered the lines Vera had scripted for me. I wrote your papers. It was a transaction.
I watched his heart break.
I watched the light go out of his eyes. I watched the confusion turn to shock, and then, slowly, horribly, to hatred.
You love winning.
The words tasted like bile.
When I got into the car, I didn't look back. I couldn't. If I looked back, I would scream. I would run to him. And I would doom us both.
The car drove me to the bus station at the edge of town. The driver, a campus security guard, didn't say a word. He just dropped me off and drove away.
I sat on a wooden bench in the freezing cold, clutching my box, waiting for the Greyhound to Ohio.
I was alone. I was exiled.
And I had saved him.
The bus ride was twelve hours of hell.
I stared out the window at the passing gray landscape, replay after replay running in my mind.
Spike’s face. The way he had fallen to his knees. The howl he had let out.
It wasn't a human sound. It was the sound of an animal in a trap.
I checked my phone. It was blowing up.
Maya: What the hell is going on? Riley, call me!
Jax: You better have a damn good explanation for this, Bennett.
Unknown Number: Slut.
Unknown Number: Hope you enjoyed the ride, gold digger.
I turned the phone off. I took the SIM card out and snapped it in half.
I couldn't be Riley Bennett anymore. Riley Bennett was a pariah.
I arrived in Ohio at 4 AM. My parents were waiting. They didn't ask questions. The Dean had called them. told them I was expelled for "academic dishonesty." They were disappointed, confused, but they were parents. They took me home.
I spent the next three days in my childhood bedroom, staring at the ceiling.
I didn't eat. I didn't sleep.
I just waited.
Waited for the news.
On Saturday night, I turned on the TV. I found the sports channel broadcasting the NCAA Frozen Four finals.
IMU Apex vs. The Wisconsin Badgers.
The camera panned over the ice. The announcers were talking about the "scandal" that had rocked the Apex team.
"A distraction," one announcer said. "But let's see if Captain Spike Thorne can put it behind him."
And there he was.
Spike skated onto the ice.
He looked terrifying.
He wasn't the passionate, fiery player I knew. He was cold. Dead. His eyes were flat. His movements were mechanical.
He played like a machine. He checked players with a brutality that made the crowd gasp. He scored two goals, slamming the puck into the net with a violence that looked like he was trying to break the glass.
He didn't celebrate. He didn't smile.
He looked like the Butcher.
And I knew, watching him, that I had saved his career. But I had destroyed the man.
Two weeks later.
I was working at a diner in my hometown. It was a cliché. The fallen academic, wiping tables, wearing a stained apron.
But it kept me busy. It kept me from thinking.
I was clearing a table when the news came on the TV in the corner.
brEAKING NEWS: NHL Draft Results.
I stopped. I couldn't help it.
"And with the third overall pick," the announcer boomed, "The Seattle Krakens select... Spike Thorne, defenseman from Ironclad Mountain University."
He did it.
He made it.
I watched as Spike walked onto the stage. He was wearing a suit. He looked handsome, rich, and utterly empty. He shook the commissioner's hand. He put on the jersey.
He didn't smile for the cameras.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly with my apron.
"You okay, hon?" the manager asked, passing by with a pot of coffee.
"Yeah," I whispered. "Just... happy for someone."
I went back to wiping the table.
He was safe. He had the money. He could buy the suppressants. He wouldn't go mad.
It was worth it.
I told myself that every hour of every day. It was worth it.
But then, the sickness started.
It wasn't grief. I knew grief. Grief was heavy. This was... nauseating.
I had been feeling it for a few days. A queasiness in the morning. A sensitivity to smells—the bacon grease in the diner made me gag. The smell of coffee made my head spin.
I chalked it up to stress. To heartbreak.
But then I missed my period.
I stood in the employee bathroom, staring at my reflection in the dirty mirror. My face was pale. My eyes were hollow.
No.
It wasn't possible. I was on the pill. I had lied to Spike about being on the pill, but I was on the pill. I had been careful.
Except...
I remembered the flu. The stomach flu I had caught right before midterms. I had thrown up for two days.
If you throw up the pill... it doesn't work.
And the antibiotics I took for the sinus infection... they cancel it out.
My hands started to shake.
I left work early. I went to the drugstore. I bought a test. Three tests.
I went home. My parents were at work. The house was quiet.
I took the tests.
I sat on the bathroom floor, waiting for the longest three minutes of my life.
One minute.
I thought about the cabin. The way he had looked at me. Mine.
Two minutes.
I thought about his father. The blood is tainted.
Three minutes.
I looked at the sticks.
Positive.
Positive.
Positive.
I wasn't just pregnant.
I was carrying the child of an Unbound Alpha. A child that Henderson Senior had threatened to institutionalize. A child that Vera would see as a threat.
And Spike...
Spike, who believed his blood was poison. Spike, who believed I had used him for money.
If I told him... he would think I trapped him. He would think this was the final play in my "long con."
Or worse. He would think he had passed the madness on to an innocent child.
I curled into a ball on the bathmat, clutching the plastic stick to my chest.
I had saved him from the cage.
But now, I was trapped in one of my own.
And I was entirely, completely alone.