Chapter 6
Coast POV
The defensive breakdown tape was forty minutes of static and missed assignments, but I couldn't tell Coach Hayes which pairing blew the coverage at the blue line.
I sat on a wooden bench on the mezzanine level of the Garrison Athletic Center, the cold Friday afternoon sun cutting through the two-story glass facade, casting long, sharp shadows across the floorboards.
On the screen of the tablet propped against my knee, the Clarkson forecheck was cycling the puck behind our net in an endless loop.
I wasn't watching the puck.
My right ankle throbbed inside the carbon-fiber boot, a steady, rhythmic pulse of heat grinding against the bone. But the real fire was sitting behind my breastbone, sour and corrosive.
Four days. Four days since Monday night in Sub-Level 2, when I had backed Tallulah Barry into the diagnostic console until her spine hit the steel.
The memory was burned into my retinas. Her small, ink-stained hands flat against the counter.
Her chin tilted up, exposing the pale, fragile hollow of her throat where her carotid artery hammered like a trapped bird.
Her voice—whispering Then don't into the two inches of freezing basement air between our mouths.
I had barely slept six hours across three nights.
Every time I shut my eyes, my autonomic nervous system flared into overdrive, flooding my chest with adrenaline.
I could still smell her—dark roast coffee, rain-soaked wool, and that clean, sharp scent of pine needles crushed under boots.
It had taken every ounce of discipline I possessed not to tear her sweater off and bury my face in the crook of her neck right there on the concrete slab.
I ground my molars together until the masseter muscles in my jaw spasmed with an ache that shot straight into my skull.
"Stuart." Coach Hayes’s voice cracked through the fog, flat and demanding. He tapped the glass of the tablet with a blunt thumbnail. "Look at the gap control. When Mercer pinches from the right point, you have to slide three feet wider to seal the half-wall. You're cheating toward the slot."
"Ankle was slow," I rasped, the words thick and dry.
"Then get it fast," Hayes snapped, grabbing the tablet and shutting the magnetic cover with a sharp slap.
"Eighty-five days to the Frozen Four. Boston called Thorne this morning asking for the second-week telemetry report.
If your numbers on Monday aren't showing progress, Wesley is coming to Lake Placid to review the scans in person. Keep your head in the rink."
Hayes walked off toward the coaches' lounge, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the polished floorboards.
I didn't move. I braced my forearms on the galvanized steel railing of the mezzanine, staring down at the main atrium two levels below.
The concourse was bustling with the afternoon rush—students cutting through from the science quad, athletes hauling duffels, winter coats rustling in the draft from the revolving doors.
My gaze swept the crowd once.
It didn't take two seconds. My internal radar locked onto her with a sudden, violent jerk of my pulse that hollowed out my stomach.
Tallulah.
She was cutting across the flagstone atrium from the kinesiology wing, wearing an oversized black wool coat that swallowed her frame, a heavy canvas messenger bag slung across her chest. Her dark hair was pinned up with those two ridiculous brass drafting clips, a few loose strands trailing against the pale curve of her neck.
She was holding a manila folder open against her forearm, her eyes fixed on the data sheets, completely oblivious to the world around her.
She walked with that same stubborn, hurried stride—chin up, shoulders square, taking up space like she owned the building.
* * *
Then Derek Mercer stepped out from behind the brick pillar near the campus bookstore.
He was wearing his Garrison varsity bomber jacket, the blue-and-white wool stretched across his broad shoulders, his hair still damp from the afternoon skate.
He didn't just cross her path; he timed his stride to cut her off, planting his heavy training shoes directly in the center of the flagstone aisle.
From my perch on the railing, thirty feet above them, the noise of the concourse vanished.
The chatter of students, the rumble of the ventilation shafts, the distant thump of skates on ice—all of it dropped into a dead, ringing silence. My vision narrowed down to a six-foot circle of gray flagstone.
Mercer said something, a lazy, confident smirk spreading across his jaw.
Tallulah stopped short, her boots skidding on the stone. She didn't drop her folder. She looked up, her expression flattening into that familiar, razor-sharp mask of clinical boredom. She made a motion to step to the left, trying to route around him toward the exit.
Mercer slid sideways, blocking her again.
He laughed, leaning down into her space. He was six-foot-one, broad-shouldered, using his physical size to box her against the brick partition. Then his hand came up.
He didn't touch her shoulder. He reached out and hooked two fingers into the heavy canvas strap of her messenger bag, right where it crossed over her collarbone, tugging her an inch forward as he leaned closer to talk into her ear.
A blinding, red-hot wave of pure venom detonated behind my eyes.
The steel pipe beneath my palms groaned under the sudden, crushing pressure of my grip.
The white tape around my right wrist split with a quiet rip as the tendons flared, my knuckles turning bone-white.
The bile rose in my throat, sour and metallic, mixed with a rush of adrenaline so severe my breath stopped in my trachea.
Get your hands off her.
The command wasn't a thought; it was a physical compulsion that bypassed every rational circuit in my brain.
Down below, Tallulah reacted. Her hand came up, slapping Mercer’s wrist away with a sharp, audible crack that carried up to the mezzanine. Her chin tilted up at that lethal forty-five-degree angle, her lips moving rapidly as she dismantled him with words.
Mercer didn't back off. He smirked wider, stepping closer, his boots practically touching hers, his hand reaching out again—this time toward the bare skin of her neck, flicking at one of the brass clips holding her hair.
That was the end of it.
* * *
I didn't use the elevator.
I hit the concrete stairs, taking them three risers at a time. The pain in my right ankle flared into white-hot spikes with every impact, the high-ankle sprain screaming as the syndesmotic ligament sheared against the bone. I didn't care. I let the pain fuel the fury driving my legs.
I burst through the stairwell fire door into the main atrium.
Students scattered out of my path. I didn't slow down; I moved like an unchained bull cutting through a herd, my 228-pound frame carrying enough momentum to crack the flagstones.
Mercer still had his back to the hall, leaning over Tallulah, his fingers an inch from her hair.
I didn't tap him on the shoulder.
I hit him with my left shoulder square between his shoulder blades.
The impact drove Mercer forward like he'd been checked against the boards at full speed.
His boots lost traction, his shoulder slamming hard into the brick pillar with a dull, hollow thud that echoed off the high glass windows.
His mouth snapped shut on a gasp of pain as he rebounded off the masonry, spinning around with his fists raised.
"What the f—"
Mercer choked on the rest of the word.
I stepped into the space he had just occupied, towering over him, my chest heaving in deep, ragged expansions. The air coming out of my nose was hot enough to scorch. I didn't have my stick, but my hands were curled into iron fists, the scarred knuckles itching to break his nose across his face.
"Stuart?" Mercer stammered, his face draining of color as he took in the dead, unblinking rage in my eyes. "What the hell is your problem?"
"You're in the wrong lane, Mercer," I rasped. My voice wasn't loud, but it was low, gravelly, carrying the quiet finality of a loaded weapon.
"I was just talking to her—"
"You don't talk to her," I said, stepping forward until my chest was two inches from his nose, forcing him back against the cold brick. "You don't look at her. And if you ever reach for her again, I will tear your shoulder out of its socket and feed it to the Zamboni. Understand me?"
Mercer swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.
He looked past me toward Tallulah, then back at my face.
He saw what was waiting for him if he argued.
Without another word, he snatched his gym bag off the floor and shoved past the gathering crowd of students, disappearing down the hall toward the locker rooms.
The atrium was dead silent. A dozen students were staring, their whispers buzzing like flies against the glass.
I turned around.
Tallulah was standing against the opposite pillar, her folder clutched against her ribs like armor. Her dark eyes were huge, the pupils dilated until they swallowed the amber warmth. Her chest rose and fell in frantic, shallow hitches, a vivid red flush burning across her cheekbones.
She wasn't scared of Mercer. She was furious with me.
"Are you completely out of your mind?" she whispered, her voice trembling with a lethal edge.
I didn't answer. I stepped forward, backing her deeper into the alcove between the brick pillar and the structural glass, using my mass to block the staring crowd from seeing her face. I planted my left hand against the brick beside her head, trapping her entirely within my perimeter.
The heat radiating off her skin hit me like a furnace blast. Up close, I could hear the rapid, fluttering rhythm of her breathing, could see the tiny pulse point jumping at the base of her throat.
"What were you doing?" I growled, leaning down until my mouth was inches from her forehead.
"I was walking to the library," she bit out, her hands coming up to press against my chest, trying to shove me back. It was like trying to move an oak tree; I didn't yield a millimeter. "What gives you the right to tackle a teammate in the middle of the student center? What is wrong with you?"
"He was touching your hair, Barry."
"And that gives you authority over who I speak to?" Her chin snapped up, her eyes blazing into mine with absolute defiance. "You don't own me, Coast. You don't manage my schedule, you don't manage my friends, and you sure as hell don't get to act like a rabid territorial animal in public."
"He's not your friend," I whispered, my voice dropping an octave, becoming a dark, rough rasp that vibrated against her skin.
I leaned down further, turning my head until my lips were barely a fraction of an inch from the sensitive shell of her ear. Her breath hitched, her fingers curling into the fabric of my long-sleeve shirt, clutching the cotton instead of pushing me away.
"You're in my lab," I murmured, each word deliberate, heavy with a possessive weight that made my own blood burn. "You're holding my clearance. Until this ankle is signed off and this season is over, you belong to the protocol. That means you stay clear of trash like Mercer."
"And if I don't?" she breathed, her voice trembling, her lips brushing the stubble along my jaw as she spoke.
A low, ruined sound rumbled in my chest. I pressed my palm harder against the brick, my body leaning in until my chest was flush against hers, crushing her soft curves against the hard line of my ribs.
"Don't test me, Tallulah," I rasped against her skin. "You won't like what happens when I stop holding back."