Chapter 18
Stan
Monday morning arrived like a death sentence.
The sky over Blackwood Mountain was a bruised purple, heavy with clouds that promised a blizzard. The wind howled through the quad, rattling the windows of the Administration Building where Rachel’s fate was about to be decided.
I stood outside the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall.
Inside, the hearing had already begun. I could hear the murmur of voices. The shuffle of chairs.
My father was in there. The Enforcer was in there. Wolfowitz was in there.
And Rachel was in there. Alone.
I was wearing my game-day suit. Charcoal grey. White shirt. Black tie. I had shaved. I had combed my hair. I looked like the model student-athlete. The Golden Boy.
But under the suit, I was sweating. My heart was a jackhammer against my ribs. In my pocket, I clutched the USB drive and the painted wolf figurine.
"Mr. Kowalski?"
A security guard—human, bored—stepped in front of me.
"The hearing is closed to students until the witness testimony phase," he droned. "You're not on the list."
"I am the list," I said. My voice was low. Dangerous.
"Sir, I can't let you—"
I stepped closer. I didn't touch him. I just looked at him. I let the amber bleed into my irises. I let the predator surface.
"Move," I commanded.
The guard blinked. He swallowed hard. His survival instincts kicked in.
He stepped aside.
I pushed open the double doors.
The Great Hall was cavernous. Stained glass windows. Rows of wooden benches filled with students—the ones protesting, the ones with signs.
At the front of the room, on a raised dais, sat the disciplinary committee. Dean Patterson. Three faculty members. And, sitting in the corner like vultures, my father and the Enforcer.
Rachel stood at a small podium in the center of the floor.
She looked small. She was wearing a simple black blazer and slacks. Her hair was pulled back tight. She wasn't wearing my necklace.
She was speaking. Her voice was steady, but I could hear the tremor underneath.
"...and I maintain that the accusations are fabricated," she said. "I never accepted payment. I never wrote a paper for him. I tutored him. That is all."
"Ms. Miller," Dean Patterson sighed, adjusting her glasses. "We have the bank records. A deposit of five thousand dollars was made to your parents' account on Friday."
I froze.
My father. He had deposited the money anyway. To frame her. To make the lie real.
Rachel gripped the podium. "I didn't authorize that deposit. I didn't know about it until yesterday. It's a setup."
"A setup?" My father spoke up. He stood, buttoning his jacket. He looked regretful. "Ms. Miller, please. Don't make this harder. We all know my son has... difficulties. You took advantage of a troubled boy. Just admit it, and we can end this."
"I didn't take advantage of him!" Rachel shouted. "I loved him!"
The crowd murmured.
"Love," my father scoffed. "An convenient emotion for a gold digger."
He turned to the committee.
"I think we've heard enough. The evidence is clear. Expulsion is the only—"
"Objection."
My voice rang out. It echoed off the stone walls, silencing the room.
Every head turned. Three hundred people looked at the back of the room.
Rachel spun around.
When she saw me, her face went white. She looked terrified. Not relieved. Terrified. She thought I was there to bury her. To deliver the final nail in her coffin.
I walked down the center aisle. My footsteps were loud on the stone floor. Click. Click. Click.
I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at the Dean.
I looked at my father.
"Stanley," my father said. His voice was a warning growl. "Go back to the locker room. This doesn't concern you."
"It concerns me," I said, reaching the front of the room. "Since I'm the 'troubled boy' in question."
I stopped next to Rachel. I didn't look at her yet. I couldn't. If I looked at her, I would lose my nerve.
I turned to the committee.
"Everything you've heard today is a lie," I said.
Dean Patterson frowned. "Mr. Kowalski, be careful. You are implicating yourself."
"I am implicating everyone," I said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the USB drive. I held it up.
"This drive contains proof," I said. "Not of cheating. But of a conspiracy."
My father took a step forward. "Stanley. Stop. Now."
The Enforcer stood up. He looked ready to vault the table.
I ignored them. I looked at the students in the benches. I saw Rizzo. I saw Johnson. I saw the girl from the coffee shop.
"You want the truth?" I asked the room. "Here it is."
I took a breath.
"I didn't pay Rachel Miller for grades. I didn't pay her for sex. And I sure as hell didn't break up with her because I was bored."
I turned to Rachel then.
She was staring at me, her mouth slightly open, tears swimming in her eyes. She looked like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I broke up with her," I said, my voice cracking, "because I was threatened. Because these men"—I pointed at my father and the Enforcer—"told me that if I didn't destroy her reputation, they would hurt her physically. They told me she was a liability."
The room erupted. Gasps. Shouts.
"Order!" Dean Patterson banged her gavel. "Order!"
"He's lying!" my father shouted. "He's unstable! He's off his meds!"
"I don't take meds!" I roared back. "I take hits! And I take orders! But I am done taking orders from you!"
I faced my father. The Alpha. The man who had terrified me my whole life.
"You wanted a monster?" I asked him. "You wanted the Butcher? Well, congratulations, Dad. You made one. But the problem with monsters is... they don't have loyalty. They just have hunger."
I stepped closer to him. The Enforcer moved to intercept me, but I snarled at him. A full, open-mouthed snarl that revealed my canines lengthening.
The Enforcer stopped. He saw it. He saw that I was on the edge of a shift. And he knew that if I shifted here, in front of the Dean, the secret was out forever.
"Sit down," I growled at the Enforcer.
He sat.
I turned back to Rachel.
The room was silent again. Tension hummed in the air like a high-voltage wire.
"Rachel," I said softly.
She flinched. She didn't trust me. Why should she?
"I lied," I said. "In the truck. Everything I said was a lie. You weren't a warm hole. You weren't a project. You were the only real thing in my life."
I reached into my pocket again. I pulled out the little painted wolf.
I held it out to her on my flat palm.
"You left this for me," I whispered. "You were building a defense for me while I was busy betraying you."
She looked at the wolf. A tear spilled over her cheek.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you do it, Stan? Why didn't you just tell me?"
"Because I was scared," I admitted. "Not of the Council. Not of the scouts. I was scared that if I asked you to fight with me... you would get hurt. And I couldn't live with that."
I dropped to my knees.
Right there on the dais. In front of the Dean. In front of the team. In front of the whole damn school.
"I am a coward," I said, looking up at her. "I thought I was saving you. But I was just saving myself from having to watch you bleed. I was selfish."
I took a breath.
"I love you, Rachel Miller. I love you more than hockey. I love you more than this stupid legacy. I love you enough to burn my life down just to make sure you're okay."
I gestured to the room.
"I just nuked my career," I said. "I just exposed my family. I probably just got myself expelled. But none of that matters. The only thing that matters is you."
I waited.
The silence stretched. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
Rachel looked at me. She looked at my father, who was purple with rage. She looked at the Dean, who looked confused and horrified.
Then, she looked at the little wolf in my hand.
She reached out and took it.
She closed her fingers around it.
Then she looked at me. Her eyes were fierce. The hazel fire I loved so much was back.
"Get up, Butcher," she said.
I blinked. "What?"
"Get up," she commanded. "You look ridiculous on your knees."
I stood up slowly.
She stepped closer. She grabbed my tie. She yanked me down until our faces were inches apart.
"You are an idiot," she hissed. "A giant, dramatic, self-sacrificing idiot."
"I know," I whispered.
"You almost ruined everything."
"I know."
"If you ever try to 'save' me again without consulting me first," she warned, "I will personally break your other shoulder. Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
She kissed me.
It wasn't a sweet kiss. It was a claiming. She grabbed the back of my neck and mashed her mouth to mine. It was angry and desperate and full of forgiveness.
The room exploded.
This time, it was cheering. The students were on their feet. Rizzo was standing on a bench, pumping his fist. The sign holders were waving their placards.
We broke the kiss. We were breathless.
"So," Rachel said, wiping lipstick off my mouth with her thumb. "We're at war."
"Yeah," I said, glancing at my father. He was on his phone, furiously whispering. Calling the lawyers. Calling the High Council. "We're definitely at war."
"Good," she said. She turned to the Dean.
"Dean Patterson," Rachel said. "I move for a dismissal of all charges. Based on the testimony of the alleged victim."
Dean Patterson looked at me. She looked at the USB drive on her desk. She looked at the riot happening in her hall.
She banged her gavel.
"Charges dismissed," she said quickly. "Everyone clear the hall. Immediately."
We didn't stay to chat.
I grabbed Rachel’s hand. We ran.
We ran down the center aisle, past the cheering students. We burst out the doors into the cold mountain air.
We kept running. Across the quad. To the parking lot.
My truck was there.
We jumped in.
"Where are we going?" Rachel asked, breathless, buckling her seatbelt.
"Away," I said. "My dad is going to come for us. The Enforcer is going to come for us. We need to disappear for a few days. Until the heat dies down."
"Where can we go? They know about the cabin."
"I have a place," I said. "An old hunting blind up in the peaks. No roads. No electricity. They can't track us there if we hike in."
"A hunting blind?" She laughed incredulously. "That's your romantic getaway?"
"It has a wood stove," I defended, starting the engine. "And it's safe."
She reached across the console and took my hand.
"Drive," she said.
I drove.
We parked the truck at a trailhead ten miles out of town. We hiked for two hours in the snow.
By the time we reached the blind—a small, sturdy shack hidden in a grove of spruce trees—the sun was setting.
I got the fire going in the wood stove. It wasn't much, but it was warm.
There was a single cot in the corner with a pile of old blankets.
We sat on the cot, huddled together, watching the firelight dance on the rough wooden walls.
"So," Rachel said, leaning her head on my shoulder. "You nuked your career."
"Yeah."
"No draft?"
"Probably not," I admitted. "The Red Wings don't like drama. And 'publicly denounced his wealthy donor father' is a lot of drama."
"I'm sorry," she said softly.
"Don't be," I said. I meant it. I felt... light. The weight of the expectation was gone. "I didn't want to play for them anyway. I just wanted to play hockey. I can play in Europe. I can play in the minors. I don't care."
"Europe," she mused. "I hear Switzerland is nice. Lots of mountains."
"And good medical schools," I added.
She smiled.
"Stan?"
"Yeah?"
"You didn't answer one question."
"Which one?"
"In the hall. You said you loved me. But you didn't say... you know."
"Say what?"
"Say if you meant the bond part."
I turned to look at her.
"Rachel. I told my father I was done taking orders. Do you know what that makes me?"
"Unemployed?"
"No," I smiled. "It makes me a Rogue. A Lone Wolf."
I took her hand and placed it on my chest.
"But a Lone Wolf can start a new pack. If he finds a mate."
I leaned in close.
"I bonded to you the night we slept together," I whispered. "My wolf... he settled. He stopped pacing. He knows. You're it, Rachel. You're the Alpha Female. Whether you want the job or not."
"I'll take the job," she whispered.
"Good."
I kissed her.
"Now," I said, standing up and pulling off my jacket. "We have about forty-eight hours before my dad finds a way to freeze my bank accounts and send a SWAT team. What do you want to do?"
She looked at the cot. She looked at me.
"I want to make up for lost time," she said.
She stood up and started unbuttoning her blazer.
"And I want you to show me exactly what a Rogue wolf can do in the wild."
I growled. A happy, deep sound.
"As you wish, my Queen."
I tackled her onto the cot.
The war was waiting outside. The future was uncertain.
But in that little shack, with the fire crackling and the snow falling, we had everything we needed.
We had the Pack.
And the Pack was strong.