Ruthless Blade (Silvercrest University #1)

Prologue

ICE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT your dreams.

I learned that at seventeen, under the fluorescent glare of the Riverside Arena, with three hundred pairs of eyes getting ready to watch me skate into oblivion.

The cold bit through my costume, a midnight blue with silver sequined dress that caught the light like shattered glass.

I remembered thinking that I'd never been more exposed, and seen in that moment before my world tilted.

He was there. Row seven, seat twelve. Kayden Daniel.

He sat beside my brother with that infuriating slouch of his, like he couldn't be bothered to sit up straight even for this. Even for me. His dirty-blonde hair fell across his forehead, and from the ice, the weight of his attention was on me.

I took my starting position, closed my eyes, and concentrated on my breathing. I needed to ignore the sounds around me—from the whispers and cheers, to feeling the ice beneath my skates. I needed to focus only on the music and the ice beneath my feet.

The music began, Chopin, Nocturne in C-sharp minor, and I pushed off, letting muscle memory guide me through the opening sequence.

My blades carved whispers into the ice, each movement precise, controlled.

I'd practiced this routine over a thousand times until my legs screamed and lungs burned.

Coach Martinez had to physically pull me off the ice because I refused to stop.

I couldn’t stop. Skating was a passion, a dream. I had to be one with the ice at all times to feel even somewhat normal.

I moved into the combination spin; the centrifugal force pulled at my body, the world blurring into streaks of color and light.

When I came out of it, I caught a glimpse of my family.

Mom's hands clasped together as if she were praying.

Dad leaned forward, his face tense with concentration.

My brother Jake, grinned, oblivious to the world around him.

Then there was Kayden. My brother’s best friend. Watching. His expression was unreadable, carved from stone.

Why is he here? He’s never come to my events.

The triple axel was coming. The jump that separated the good from the great, the one I'd landed ninety percent of the time in practice. Coach Carter suggested that I play it safe; to go for the double instead, but I wasn’t one to play by the rules when it came to giving it my all.

I pushed off harder than I should have.

The takeoff was wrong. My weight distribution was off; my rotation too fast. One minute I was in the air, spinning.

The next, the blades scratched against the ice, the cheers from the arena turning into a collective gasp then just dreadful silence.

The ice was fierce and cold, waiting to swallow me whole.

No, no, no.

Pain comes and goes when you fall, and some falls are worse than others.

I’ve had friends that have had careers ruined because of a fall, landing the wrong way.

Others have been able to get back up. Trying to move, searing pain spreading in waves across my body, proved that this was more severe.

Different from anything I’d felt before.

My lungs burned, as if I’d swallowed some broken glass.

The air I desperately needed refused to come.

The world tilted sideways, and I was staring at the ice.

My eyes were so close that I could see the tiny grooves from other skaters' blades, the imperfections in the surface that looked like cracks in a frozen lake.

The girl looking back at me had small flecks of tears in her eyes, as if her dream was fading right before her eyes.

I tried to move and my body refused, sending fresh waves of nausea rolling through me. My right arm hung at an unnatural angle, and when I tried to push myself up with the left, my wrist buckled, and I collapsed back down, my cheek pressed against the ice.

Get up. You can do it. Just get up, Alexis. You’ll be fine; you just have to get up. I had those words on repeat as my eyes closed, trying to give myself enough courage. I would be fine. I’d recover, and try again.

Yet, I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t...move.

Footsteps approached; a warm jacket was placed on top of me. My eyes opened as Coach Martinez, the medics, and officials came. Their voices sounded distant, underwater. Someone was calling my name.

The medics reached me then, their hands gentle but firm as they assessed the damage. Someone was asking me questions. Could I move my fingers, feel my toes? What was my pain level on a scale of one to ten? So many questions all at once made my head hurt...or maybe that was just from the fall.

Shortly after, they lifted me onto a stretcher. My parents and brother were already off to the side, patiently waiting to see if I would be okay. I laid my head back, and my eyes drifted to the stands, meeting Kayden’s gaze.

The all-knowing star hockey player. The man who was given a full-ride scholarship to SilverCrest University for his skills with a puck. His blue gaze was focused on me, his jaw clenched, and his hands fisted, as if he was actually...worried about me.

I knew better. Even though I had wanted nothing more than to be noticed by him. To be treated as an equal, instead of his best friend’s younger sister. Nothing would ever change, no matter how much I wanted it to.

Kayden Daniel was so far out of my reach, and he was part of the reason I competed so hard.

To get away from him.

To forget him.

And to move on from the pain he caused me every day.

He and my brother were born to be stars on the ice, and I’d lived in their shadow my whole life. Choosing to go the next step was my way of proving I belonged. That I was good, that I wasn’t ordinary.

Once again, everything I strived for would shatter.

I’d grown up broken, and as much as I wanted to become unbroken, this fall proved I was weak.

That no matter how hard I tried, I would always live in their shadow.

And that was a hard fact to swallow.