FORBIDDEN ON THE ICE

"Guess who scored the winning goal," Milo said, dropping onto the bench beside Reyna, his grin too wide for someone who had spent the whole game on the ice.

Reyna Castellan didn't look up from her skate laces. "The guy who's about to walk in here is bragging about it," she said.

"Wrong," Milo said. "Guess again."

"I don't have time for this, Milo," Reyna said, tugging the lace tight.

"Come on. One guess," Milo said.

"Fine," Reyna said. "You."

"Wrong again," Milo said, leaning back against the lockers, arms crossed, clearly enjoying himself. "Kade Ashwood."

Reyna's hands stopped moving. For a second, the locker room felt too small, too warm, like the air had gone thin.

"Yeah," Milo said, looking at her face like he had been waiting all night to see it. "Number nineteen. Ashwood pack. Scored top shelf in the third. Your dad's going to lose his mind."

"He already lost it years ago," Reyna said. She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder, forcing her voice to stay flat and bored, anything but what it actually felt like inside her chest. "Why do I care who scored?"

"You don't have to worry," Milo said. "You just have to survive the handshake line in about four minutes." He checked his phone. "The league's making both teams do the post-game thing. Cameras and everything. Community relations, or whatever they're calling it this year."

"They're not putting us in a handshake line with the Ashwoods," Reyna said.

"They are," Milo said. "I saw the schedule."

Reyna's stomach dropped somewhere near her skates, four minutes, a hallway, cameras and somewhere in that line, walking toward her with that same easy grin his whole pack seemed to be born with, would be the last person on earth her father had ever wanted her within ten feet of.

She checked the clock on the wall. Three minutes, fifty seconds.

"Reyna," Milo said, his voice dropping, serious now. "Are you good?"

"I'm fine," Reyna said.

"You don't look fine," Milo said.

"I said, I'm fine, Milo," Reyna said, grabbing her jacket off the hook. Her hands felt steadier than the rest of her.

"Okay," Milo said, holding up both hands and backing off, though his eyes lingered on her a beat too long. "Just don't do anything your dad's going to hear about tomorrow."

"Why would I do anything?" Reyna asked.

"Because last time you two were in the same room, somebody broke a table," Milo said.

"That wasn't my fault," Reyna said.

"I didn't say it was your fault," Milo said. "I said somebody broke a table." He pushed off the lockers and headed for the door. "Two minutes. Try not to shift in front of the cameras."

The door swung shut behind him, and Reyna was alone with the hum of the fluorescent lights and the sound of her own pulse, which had picked up a rhythm she didn't like. Fast. Low. Not entirely her own.

She told herself it was adrenaline from the game.

She knew better.

Her chest felt tight, and underneath her skin something old and restless stretched awake, the way it always did when he was close. She hated that her body knew before her mind did. She hated it more than some small, traitorous part of her had been waiting for this all night.

Two minutes later, she stood in the tunnel, jaw tight, watching the opposing teams file out of their locker room in a loose, laughing note, until the group split, the way water splits around a rock, and there he was.

Kade Ashwood stopped walking the second he saw her.

"Castellan," he said, his voice low and easy, like they hadn't spent the last two years pretending the other didn't exist.

"It's my team's rink, Ashwood," Reyna said. "Where else would I be?"

"Fair point," Kade said, tilting his head, studying her in a way that made her skin feel too tight, too aware of itself. "You gonna shake my hand, or should I guess the answer to that one too?"

Reyna felt her pulse climb higher, and somewhere behind her ribs, something that was not quite human bared its teeth.

"Careful, Ashwood," she said quietly. "You already know what happened last time you got too close."

Kade's grin didn't waver. If anything, it got worse.

"Yeah," he said, stepping in, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off him, close enough that every instinct in her screamed to run and stay at the exact same time. "I remember."

The cameras started rolling before Reyna could stop him, before she could stop herself, and the last thing she heard before the flashbulbs went off was his voice, low enough that only she could hear it.

"So," Kade said. "Are we finishing what we started, or are you going to keep pretending you don't want to?”