Icebound Vows

CHAPTER 5 – First Blood

POV: Elara Reyes

The text message was sent by someone I didn't even know was watching me, and by the next evening, the entire mood at the university arena was buzzing because the official hockey season had finally begun. The school was hosting a massive opening celebration, and the grand lobby was completely packed with wealthy alumni, team sponsors, and local media reporters who were all eager to see the Voss family arrive together. Victoria had forced me to put on another expensive dress and stand right beside her and Ryker to maintain our perfect public appearance, but the moment the photographers turned their attention toward the team coaches, I quietly slipped away from the bright lights to look for a restroom.

I turned down a quiet hallway that led into a restricted section of the sports arena, but before I could find a door, Lila and three of her friends stepped out from around a corner, completely blocking my exit and looking at me with malicious smiles.

"Where do you think you're going in that dress, you little fraud?" Lila asked, stepping directly into my personal space while her friends spread out across the narrow corridor to ensure no one else could see what they were doing. "You actually think standing next to my mother makes you a part of our world, but everyone here knows you are just trapping my brother for his money, and we are completely sick of looking at your face."

"I am just trying to use the restroom, Lila, so please let me go back to the lobby before your mother notices I am missing," I said, trying to push past them, but one of her friends grabbed my shoulder and shoved me backward toward a set of heavy doors.

"Don't you dare walk away from us when we are speaking to you," Lila snapped, her face turning completely ugly with rage as she gave me a massive shove that sent me stumbling through the open doorway and straight toward the top of a steep, concrete staircase.

I lost my balance completely, my heels sliding off the edge of the top step, and before I could grab the metal handrail, Lila's friends gave me one final push that sent me tumbling directly down the hard concrete steps.

POV: Ryker Voss

"Have you seen Elara anywhere, Ryker?" Victoria asked, walking up to me in the crowded VIP lounge while she held a glass of champagne, her eyes looking around the room with a sharp expression. "The main team sponsors want to take a family photograph with you and your fiancée, and she has been gone for over fifteen minutes."

"I don't know where she went, Mother, and I really don't care," I muttered, looking around the lounge and feeling a strange knot form in my stomach because Lila was also missing from her friends' table. "I'll go check the back corridors near the locker rooms to see if she got lost, so just tell the sponsors to wait for five minutes."

I left the crowded room and walked down the quiet, restricted hallways of the arena, calling out her name a few times, but as I turned the corner near the service stairs, I saw a crumpled figure lying completely still at the bottom of the concrete steps. I sprinted down the staircase, my heart pounding violently against my ribs, and when I rolled her over, I saw that her ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle and a small trickle of blood was running down her forehead from striking her head against the floor.

"Elara, wake up, can you hear me?" I yelled, shaking her shoulder gently, but her eyes remained completely closed, and for the first time in my entire life, absolute panic flashed across my face as I realized she wasn't responding to my voice.

Without thinking about my reputation or what the media would say, I scooped her small body up into my arms, holding her tight against my chest as I kicked open the heavy exit doors and marched straight into the crowded main arena lobby.

"Get out of the way, someone call an ambulance right now," I shouted, pushing past the shocked alumni and sponsors while hundreds of cameras immediately began flashing, capturing the exact moment the Ice King carried his bleeding fiancée through the crowd.

"What happened to her, Ryker?" Marcus asked, running up to me with a terrified expression as he saw the blood on my shirt, quickly helping me push through the glass front doors toward the emergency vehicles that were arriving outside.

"She fell down the stairs, Marcus, just get the car or tell the medics to hurry up," I barked, my voice cracking under the pressure as the flashing lights of the media vans followed us all the way to the ambulance.

Two hours later, we were sitting in the quiet waiting room of the university hospital, and the main doctor finally stepped out of the room to tell us that her head injury was minor and her ankle was just severely sprained, meaning she would make a full recovery with some rest. I leaned against the white wall, letting out a long breath I didn't even know I was holding, while Victoria stood nearby, looking completely calm as she adjusted her jewelry.

"You made a massive scene at the arena tonight, Ryker, and tomorrow the newspapers will be filled with pictures of you carrying that girl," Victoria said, her tone smooth but disapproving as she looked at the blood stains on my jacket.

"I only helped her because she represents the Voss family right now, Mother, and it would look terrible for our name if the captain left his future fiancée bleeding on the floor of his own arena," I lied, refusing to admit the truth to her or to myself about why I had panicked so much when I found her unconscious.

"Good, then you can wait out here while I go speak to the administrators about keeping the medical files private," Victoria replied, turning around to walk down the quiet hallway toward the empty office corner.

While everyone waited outside Elara's hospital room, Victoria's phone suddenly began to vibrate in her hand, and she slid it open to answer, expecting it to be our public relations manager, but a heavily distorted electronic voice spoke before she could even say hello.

"You've brought the wrong girl into your house, Victoria," the voice whispered, making my mother stop dead in her tracks as she listened to the dark warning. "And if you don't get rid of her soon, everything you buried twenty years ago will come back to life.”