Chapter 15
Zayden
“You have a cabin with an ice rink in the basement?” Her eyes light up like a kid seeing candy.
I lean against the wall, watching her.
She takes a seat on the bench as she switches her boots for her skates. Slowly, she glides onto the ice, turning to face me. “Coming?”
I raise an eyebrow.
“You brought me here. You either skate or talk.” She circles once, turning back to face me, again. Her eyes lock on me, and I can’t look away.
So I walk to the locker on the wall, pull it open, and grab a pair of skates. I lace them up in silence, then step onto the ice. The second I do, it’s like the air changes. It always feels different being on the ice with her, like something just clicks in place.
She watches me for a second, her eyes unreadable. Then we move, and I stay a few feet behind her. She circles wide at first, testing the rink, owning it.
She glides backward, eyes flicking over her shoulder to find me, and I follow without hesitation. Our paths overlap and intertwine naturally.
We mirror each other without trying. We turn at the same time. Lean in the same direction. Like this is instinct, not effort.
She turns again, skates past me, close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. I feel it all the way down to my spine.
She slows, pulling into a soft glide beside me. “How do you know how to skate like that?”
I don’t answer at first.
“Hockey players don’t skate like that,” she adds.
“I didn’t start with hockey.”
She turns her head, and her eyes land on me.
“I used to just skate.” My voice drops a little. “Back then, it was just me and the ice. Before the games, before the pressure.”
She watches me with that soft expression.
“My mum was a figure skater before she gave everything up when she had me. She taught me how to skate before my dad handed me a hockey stick.”
“So what happened?”
I glance away. “My dad happened.”
When I turned ten years old, figure skating became off-limits. That’s not what gets you drafted. That’s not what Aldenhursts do. My dad made it all about the game. Drills, speed, checking, points.
But I couldn’t give it up completely. I would sneak out to where no one could see me and skate in secret.
I taught myself jumps, spins, and crossovers.
When I first moved to campus, I found the Shadow Rink.
At night, when I couldn’t sleep because of my nightmares, I would sneak up there and just skate.
She moves again, slower this time. “So you’re self-taught?” She glances over her shoulder. “You’re really good.” She gives me a soft, unexpected smile.
My chest does this weird thing it’s never done before, twisting and tightening, like it forgot how to function for a second.
She’s always frowning and glaring at me. I don’t know how to react or what to feel when she’s not.
“So are you,” I say, quieter than I mean to.
She bursts out laughing, her voice bouncing off the empty rink.
“So, I’m not just another ice princess anymore?” she asks casually, but there’s something vulnerable underneath it.
“You were never just that,” I say, watching her skate around me.
“Yeah, right,” she mutters under her breath, like she doesn’t believe me.
I hate myself for putting that look on her face. For making her feel small when she’s anything but.
Before I know what I’m doing, I reach out for her, pulling her closer. My hands find her waist, and she doesn’t pull away.
Her eyes lock on mine, and I get lost in them. I didn’t realize they had gold flecks in them before.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “I shouldn’t have said that,” I murmur. “I was just trying—” I shake my head. “I was being stupid.”
She studies me like she’s trying to figure me out. I have a feeling she sees more than others do. Her chest rises and falls rapidly. Her mouth parts like she wants to say something, but forgot what.
She blinks and steps back. “You’re not very good at saying sorry,” she teases, skating backward.
And I’m left standing in the middle of the rink with every nerve lit up.
She skates a slow circle around the edge, dragging her hand along the boards like she’s thinking. “I started skating when I was eight. It was the only place where I felt free and in control at the same time. The only place that felt like home.”
I know exactly what that feels like.
“But lately, it’s just been pressure. Pressure to be better. To prove something. It hasn’t felt like mine anymore…”
She hesitates, then glances at me.
“Except the few times I was on the ice with you.” The words slip out too fast, and she immediately stiffens like she didn’t mean to say them.
“I mean—not like that. I just meant…” She looks away and clears her throat. “It felt…easier. That’s all.”
She spins away before I can say anything, gliding backward across the rink. “Anyway. The Shadow Rink?” Luna quickly changes the subject.
My spine straightens. If she knows the name, that means she’s been digging. I was hoping she would forget about it and let it go. But I should’ve known better.
“I want the truth.” She glances at me over her shoulder, her brows pulling in slightly.
She steps in closer. “You knew the second we got those texts. I think you knew what the place was before I ever stepped foot on that ice.”
I keep my mouth shut, because if I start talking, I’ll tell her too much.
She keeps going. “I need to know who’s sending me those messages and why. So if you know something, Zayden, say it.”
She deserves to know the truth, but I also know what happens when people dig too deep around here. I don’t want her in this any deeper than she already is. Not until I figure out why she received the message or why someone wanted her at the rink.
“Zayden.” Her voice sharpens.
I look up, and she’s staring at me, demanding the truth. Besides my dad, no one has ever dared to demand anything from me. They talk behind my back; they murmur things when they think I’m not listening.
Not Luna.
“You brought me here and said we’d talk. So talk. I deserve to know what the hell we’re getting pulled into.”
My hands clench at my sides, because I do know. Not everything, but enough to know about the Midnight Challenge. That someone died there. That my family has been tied to this school and its secrets for a long time.
But I can’t tell her any of this, because if I do, I might put her in danger. If anything happens to her…
“I’m trying to protect you,” I blurt out.
She laughs. “I don’t need your protection, Zayden. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was eight years old.”
What is that supposed to mean?
“Why the fuck did you bring me here if you weren’t plannin’ on telling me anything?”
She’s still talking, but I can’t hear her words anymore.
My eyes are drawn to her, the rise and fall of her chest, the tilt of her head, the fire in her gaze.
She’s fucking radiant, in the way a wildfire glows before it consumes everything.
And I’m standing there watching it burn, unable to breathe.
I don’t even think, I just move.
Her voice dies mid-sentence as I take her face in my hands, crushing my lips to hers, letting out everything I’ve been holding back since the first time she confronted me in the athlete lounge, or all the times she glared at me from across a room.
The need, the heat, tension, desires, all spill out into that one motion.
She gasps into my mouth, hands curling against my chest like she doesn’t know whether to push me away or pull me closer.
Then she kisses me back like she’s angry that it feels this good, like she’s cursing me with her mouth.
Her hands fist my shirt. My fingers thread through her braids. We move like we’re fighting and falling at the same time.
Then she presses her teeth into my bottom lip, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough for me to feel the sting. Just enough to make me lose it for a second.
“Fuck.” I groan into her mouth. Because it feels too good, and she’s too fucking much.
Then she pulls back, breathless and eyes wide.
“That didn’t mean anything,” she says quickly, skating away, and it didn’t. She was talking too much, and I needed a way to make her stop.
I’m grateful when she bends down to swap out her skates for her boots, taking the opportunity to adjust my pants.
“Can we go?” she asks without looking at me.
I skate over to the bench and sit beside her. I pull my skates off one at a time and switch them for my boots.
She follows me up the stairs without a word, the tension heavy in the air.
We don’t speak the whole drive down, and that shouldn’t bother me.
Usually, I like the quiet, crave it, need it.
Growing up, when my father’s voice was too loud and impossible to escape, silence was my safe place.
He didn’t yell because he was angry. Not always.
Sometimes it was about training, my stats, my footwork.
Whether I was too soft on the ice, or if I was ever going to be the kind of player “an Aldenhurst should be.”
Every correction came louder than the last. So I learned to be quiet. And over time, I started needing it. In locker rooms, on buses. In my head, silence meant control.
But right now, I hate it, because it’s too loud.
Loud with everything I didn’t say.
Loud with the way her lips felt against mine.
I shove the thought away and drown out all the noises. I welcome the quiet back as I watch her step out of the car and into her dorm without a glance back at me.