CHAPTER 1 — THE CRUEL CAPTAIN #3
The reaction came fast, but not where I expected.
Not in his eyes—those stayed steady. It showed in his mouth, a small twitch, and in his breathing, which caught for half a second before evening out.
The satisfaction I should have felt never came.
In its place, something uglier surfaced: the urge to force Noah to deny it, to drag an explanation out of him, to find out if guilt tasted different when he finally stopped acting like he had any right to stay calm.
“Not now,” he said, and his voice lost some of its neutrality, revealing a hairline crack I hated myself for noticing. “You can hate me after I make sure you didn't dislocate anything.”
“Generous of you,” I replied, falling back on sarcasm because it was the only weapon I could wield without feeling like he was evaluating that too.
“Practical,” Noah corrected, keeping his hand near my arm without touching again—as if he knew the absence of contact could be its own provocation. “If you make this injury worse out of stubbornness, you'll be out for the season before you even get the chance to blame me for that too.”
Mason let out a low whistle, and I didn't need to look to know he was enjoying this more than he should.
Coach Bennett approached from the side, flanked by the senior physical therapist and the athletic coordinator, but didn't interfere.
His gaze shifted between me and Noah with a strange tension—almost personal—as if watching his son kneel before an injured Blackwood cracked open a door he preferred to keep locked.
I filed that away. I always filed away signs of weakness in others, even when I was the one on my knees on the ice.
Noah slid his hand to my upper arm, testing stability, and the pain wrenched a sharp breath out of me.
He felt it before I could hide it. His palm steadied—not squeezing, just supporting—and for one ridiculous instant my body wanted to lean into that support.
The anger came right after, warm and saving, shoving the vulnerability aside.
“Enough,” I said, jerking my arm away harder than I should have. The movement sent a jolt through my shoulder, but I twisted the grimace into contempt before anyone could read it. “I'm going back to practice.”
Noah rose with me when I tried to stand, matching my movement without touching me again.
That irritated me too. I wanted him to insist so I could reject him.
I wanted him to back off so I could prove I didn't need him.
Noah, as always, chose the one thing that left me with no win: close enough to catch me if I fell, far enough to deny me an excuse.
“You're not going back,” he said, and the way those words carried across the arena hit me harder than the boards had, because there was no hesitation, no request, no room for negotiation.
The silence that followed was so sudden that even the freshmen stopped dragging their skates.
I felt the weight of those words land on the benches, the stands, the sponsors—Valerie with her pen frozen mid-air, Mason with his mouth hanging open.
Nobody said that to me in my arena. Nobody set my limits in front of my team.
“Say that again,” I said, voice low, because cold fury always worked better than shouting, and I wanted him to understand exactly how much he was risking by challenging me in front of everyone.
Noah held my gaze. Standing now, he was shorter than me, but that didn't diminish his presence.
There was steadiness in his shoulders, in his hands relaxed at his sides, in his chin lifted just enough to say he knew exactly who I was—and still wasn't backing down.
My body, traitorous and stupid, responded to his courage with the same heat I should have saved for a fight.
“You're not going back on the ice without a full evaluation,” Noah said, louder this time, so Coach Bennett, the medical staff, and everyone around could hear. “Until I know what's going on with that shoulder, you're out of practice.”
Coach Bennett took a deep breath, and for a second I thought he'd save his son from his own audacity.
Instead, the coach looked at my shoulder, then at Noah, and nodded once, hard, like he was signing a death warrant.
The senior physical therapist agreed too, saying something about protocol, inflammation, and risk—words that washed over me without sinking in. I could only stare at Noah.
Four years ago, he'd taken an entire version of my life from me. At least that's what I told myself until it became true. Now here he was, in the center of my arena, badge on his chest, ice under his feet, his hand still warm from my body, telling everyone I didn't even control my own pain anymore.
The most dangerous part wasn't the humiliation.
Humiliation I knew how to turn into fuel.
The dangerous part was something else, lower and dirtier, lodged at the exact point where rage met desire: Noah Bennett had touched my body for less than two minutes, and I already knew I'd spend the entire season hating every second I wanted him to touch me again.