6. Wren
WREN
Monday marks the beginning of my first week of classes at Valehurst. After spending the rest of the weekend hibernating in my apartment after the austere gala my parents threw, I’m forced back into the world.
Reluctantly, I have to admit that the Valehurst campus is beautiful—if you’re into the whole intimidating stone monoliths built by dead men who definitely owned land and people vibe.
Valehurst isn’t just elite. It’s ancient.
Regal brick buildings that drip with history and arrogance, carved stone archways, and ivy so well-manicured it might as well be a legacy student.
The kind of place where money doesn’t whisper—it signs checks and rewrites policies.
It’s also the kind of place where, when you set foot on campus, you’re not just expected to succeed. You’re expected to excel. To dominate. To thrive in an ecosystem of ambition, cold-pressed green juice, and trust funds with more zeros than any one person could spend in a dozen lifetimes.
I hate how much of it feels familiar. Akin to the old life I thought I’d freed myself from. I grew up in this world. Went to school with kids like these…and then I readily turned my back on it all when I left for BSU.
Despite my attempt to put this life in my rearview mirror, it appears everyone knows who I am already…
at least, they know my name. Everywhere I go, I’m chased by whispers of “Winslow.” At a school where my parents are illustrious alumni and significant benefactors, not to mention the fact that hockey runs in the blood of every local within a hundred-mile radius of this small college town, means you’d have to be living under a rock not to know who the Atlantic City Serpents Winslows are.
Which is just my luck.
While BSU was a hockey-heavy college—and I loved it for that—my family’s name didn’t carry the same weight or influence. I could easily get lost in the crowd. Be a faceless fan in the throng.
But not here.
I might as well be wearing a neon sign with my name on it for all the staring I’ve gotten today.
It makes it difficult to keep my head down and focus on just getting through classes and my internship.
Made even worse by the fact that it is becoming increasingly clear I’m playing catch-up, trying to turn an Applied Stats degree into one in Sports Business there’s just a shift…like the air has curved around someone else’s presence.
Tensing, my fingers tighten around the skate still in my hand, my body going on the offense.
My pulse kicks up.
Bracing myself, I whirl toward where he stands, hidden in shadow by the door.
I go still. Every part of me locks up for one heartbeat, then another. He doesn’t move. Just watches—a silhouette carved out of shadow and steel.
I can’t see his face, but I feel him in the small equipment room. All that coiled violence, radiating from the doorway like heat off asphalt.
My fear surges, raw and immediate, before something colder rises to meet it. Something that doesn’t flinch, that strengthens my resolve and smothers that initial fearful reaction. I’ve been hurt before, which means I know how to survive.
Spine straightening, I adjust my grip on the skate, feeling bolstered by the weight of it in my hand. “Show yourself,” I demand, grateful that my voice comes out steady.
There’s a beat of silence, then boots scrape concrete, slow and unhurried. Lucian Caulfield steps into the light. Gray eyes like frozen storms. Dark hair wild like he just came from a fight. Broad shoulders with ink snaking under his collar. Every inch of him screams predator.
Fury rises up inside of me, along with a hefty dose of fear that I try my best to squash. “Didn’t I tell your buddy that I want all of you to leave me alone?” I snap.