Chapter 30
Chosen POV
The rhythmic, tearing scrape of black friction tape cut through the quiet of the carriage house living room.
Outside the high cedar window sashes, the sub-zero Adirondack wind swept across Lake Mistassini, driving dry snow against the glass in faint, whispering scratches. In the hearth, thick birch logs burned down to deep orange embers, throwing a warm amber wash over the wide-plank floorboards.
Nine-fifteen on Friday night. Week eleven of the master calendar. Exactly four weeks until the Frozen Four in Lake Placid. Fourteen weeks until the draft in Nashville.
Session one hundred was in the books. At five-thirty this afternoon in The Vault, Marie had logged the final hour of our mandate, her pen signing the official NCAA return-to-play clearance with firm, clean strokes.
My right knee was functionally whole. The scar tissue had woven tight across the medial joint line; my lateral push-off was generating three hundred and eighty pounds of peak force on the force plates. Tomorrow night, we faced Brett Calhoun and Northbrook College for the ECAC Championship title.
I sat on a low wooden bench with my carbon-fiber stick resting across my knees, methodically wrapping the blade from heel to toe.
The sharp, clean scent of fresh adhesive, skate wax, and oiled leather palms filled the air around me.
For four years, this pre-game ritual had been an exercise in controlled rage—a grim, mechanical preparation to step onto the ice, bleed for sixty minutes, and pay down the unpayable debt I owed to Julian Mercer’s broken body.
Now, my hands smoothed the cloth over the blade with slow, steady precision.
The rage was dead. The phantom guilt that used to choke my lungs had leveled into quiet, immovable resolve.
Every stride, every check, every shift tomorrow was dedicated to a single, sacred purpose: lifting the championship banner, securing the three-year entry-level contract, and building a fortress around Marie Freeman so high that nobody could ever make her feel small or disposable again.
I set the stick against the wall and looked across the room.
Marie was sitting curled on the leather sofa, wrapped in my heavy dark-green #14 traveling sweater, her knees pulled tight to her chest.
She hadn't turned on the reading lamp. Her laptop sat dark on the coffee table beside her canvas satchel. She was staring fixedly into the glowing embers of the fire, her small frame held with an unnatural, fragile stillness that pulled the skin tight across my collarbone.
* * *
I wiped the wax residue from my palms, stood up from the bench, and crossed the hardwood floor in quiet strides.
I didn't take the opposite cushion.
I dropped down onto the leather couch, reached out with both hands, and scooped her off the sofa, pulling her straight into my lap.
Her breath hitched in a soft, startled gasp, but her body yielded instantly, folding against my chest like she had been waiting for the contact. I wrapped my heavy arms around her waist and shoulders, pulling her flush against my flank, burying my face into the warm curve of her neck.
Her scent—lavender, rain, and the faint, sweet citrus of her skin—flooded my senses, settling heavy and clean behind my ribs.
Beneath the thick wool of my sweater, she was trembling.
A fine, persistent tremor ran through her limbs, her hands ice-cold where they clutched the fabric of my long-sleeve thermal over my sternum.
Her face was pale in the amber firelight, the dark circles under her eyes bruised with a deep, silent exhaustion that made my throat tighten with fierce, protective gravity.
"You're shaking, Marie," I murmured, my voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that vibrated straight through her cheekbone.
I reached down, taking her cold hands into my large, calloused palms, rubbing warmth back into her fingers with slow, unhurried pressure. I traced the cool oval of the antique silver signet ring on her left pinky, feeling the fragile flutter of her pulse beneath her skin.
"It's just cold in here," she whispered, her voice fragile, muffled against the cotton of my shirt.
"The thermostat is set to seventy-two," I said softly, my large hand moving to smooth down the back of her sweater in long, soothing strokes. "Look at me, sweetheart."
Her eyelashes fluttered, dark and heavy, before she lifted her face to meet my gaze. Her dark eyes were wide, luminous with an unshed, liquid sheen that made my chest cave inward.
"You're terrified about tomorrow," I said, misinterpreting the haunted, desperate look in her gaze. "You think Calhoun’s second line is going to take a run at my knee. You think the scouts from Boston and Denver are going to grade me down if we drop the banner."
Her throat moved on a dry, painful swallow, her fingers knotting into my shirt, clinging to me as if the floor beneath us were falling away.
"Chosen..." she whispered, her lips trembling on my name.
"Listen to my voice, Marie," I commanded gently, leaning down until my mouth hovered beside her ear, my breath warm and steady against her skin. "Good girl. Breathe with me. In and out."
Her chest expanded on a shaky, fractured inhale that shuddered against my ribs.
"My knee is solid," I rasped, holding her so securely our ribs compressed together.
"Thorne cleared me. You cleared me. Calhoun doesn't have the hands to touch me on the cycle, and Northbrook isn't taking that trophy out of our barn.
You did your job, Marie. You put me back together. Now let me take care of the rest."
A single tear broke from her lash line, hot and silent, disappearing into the collar of my thermal as she buried her face deeper into my throat.
* * *
I reached into the front pocket of my sweatpants with my right hand.
My fingers closed around cold, familiar metal.
I pulled out a heavy antique silver chain.
Hanging from the links was a small, scratched silver pin bearing the number 14—Julian Mercer’s original varsity captain pin, given to me in the locker room three years ago after his surgery.
I had carried it in the zip pocket of my gear bag for forty-eight games, a heavy lead anchor of guilt and self-hatred.
I held the chain between us in the firelight.
Marie lifted her head, her dark eyes tracking the silver links, her lips parting on a soft, breathless gasp.
"You carried this for Julian," she whispered.
"I carried it for a debt," I corrected, my baritone dropping into a dark, solemn cadence that echoed off the timber beams. "I carried it because I thought I had to bleed for the rest of my life to deserve to stand upright."
I lifted the chain, separating the links, and draped the silver over her dark hair.
The pin settled heavily against the center of her chest, resting warm over her sternum, right above her heart. I reached beneath the collar of my green sweater, tucking the cold silver against her bare skin, letting the metal absorb the heat of her body.
"Now it belongs to you," I said.
My large, calloused hand came up, framing the delicate line of her jaw. My thumb tilted her face upward, forcing her dark, tear-blurred eyes to meet mine.
My pulse sat slow, heavy, and unbreakable in my throat—fifty beats a minute, measuring out an absolute, unshakeable covenant.
"Tomorrow night, when the final buzzer sounds and we lift that trophy, the hiding ends, Marie," I vowed, the words carved from pure iron. "I am walking off that ice, taking your hand in front of the cameras, the scouts, and Reginald Sterling, and showing the entire world who you belong to."
Her breath hitched in a sharp, gasping sob that rattled through her frame. Her hands flew to the back of my neck, her fingers tangling into my hair with desperate, bruising urgency.
"Chosen, please," she choked out, her voice breaking on a wave of pure agony.
"I mean it," I growled softly, my thumb wiping the tears from her cheekbones with rough reverence.
"No more service tunnels. No more pretending in the hallways. I’m signing an entry-level deal that puts Julian's trust away forever, and we are walking into the daylight together.
Nobody is touching our future, Marie. I swear it on my life. "
She pulled my face down to hers.
Her mouth crashed against mine in a kiss that tasted of salt, raw desperation, and a fierce, starving hunger that stole the breath straight from my lungs.
She kissed me like she was drowning, like she was pouring every ounce of her soul into my mouth, her small body arched tight against mine in the amber glow of the hearth.
I held her in the dark, my arms locked around her back like an impenetrable fortress, feeling her heart hammering wildly against my ribs.
I held her, utterly certain of tomorrow. Completely blind to the butcher's knife already waiting in the shadows.