ON ENEMY ICE

CHAPTER FIVE

ELIAN

The Maybach pulls away and I'm still standing in the doorway light.

I watch the taillights disappear around the corner. My fingertips are still warm from where I brushed Jace's bare wrist. Bare skin. Light. Like it was nothing.

He looked at me like he wanted to kill me and like he wanted to be killed by me at the same time. No one else looks at me like that.

The team bus honks behind me. I turn around and head inside.

It's loud inside. It always is after a win, but after beating Ashford on their home ice, it's chaos.

I climb on and the guys are shouting over each other, still in their sweats, replaying the last ninety seconds.

"Did you see their faces?" Liam yells from the back. "Ashford's golden boys looked like they were gonna cry on their own bench."

"Rhys choked," someone else shouts. "Captain Ashford choked on his own ice. You love to see it."

I slide into a window seat. Tian Westin, our Left Wing and my best friend, throws his arm over the back of my seat. He's grinning.

"My captain, my captain," he says. "You stripped the ice prince clean. You saw his face?"

I laugh it off. The noise helps. Mingling with them keeps my mind off Jace for exactly four minutes at a time, then it slips back. The way his pulse hammered under my fingertips. The way he shoved off me like if he stayed one second longer he would do something he could not take back.

The bus rolls out of Ashford. Everyone's talking about celebrating. About how Ashford thought they were untouchable this season. About how their donors were in the box tonight and had to watch them lose.

We get off at campus. The parking lot is bright and cold and everyone is still loud.

"Condi's place!" someone shouts. "First round is on me. We beat Ashford, we have to do it right."

Everyone cheers. They start heading toward their cars.

I start heading to mine, which I parked in the opposite direction.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Liam calls out. "Cole, where are you going?"

I turn and wave a hand. "I'm gonna head home. I'm tired."

The lot goes quiet for a second. Then they all start.

"What? No."

"Come on, El. It's not every day you beat Ashford on their home ice."

"You can't skip, Captain. It's tradition."

Tian steps forward. "You sure, man? You good?"

"Yeah," I say. "I'm just tired. Next time."

They keep persuading and pleading for a minute, then they give up. Tian claps my shoulder.

"Alright. Get some rest. You earned it."

I nod and bid everyone farewell and get in my car and drive to my condominium.

My condo's warm. There's a lamp on in the corner that I forgot to turn off this morning, my playbook is open on the couch and there's a hoodie on the floor where I left it.

I drop my duffel by the door.

My phone buzzes.

It's Tian.

[Video: 1:00]

A group of girls partying in what looks like someone's living room. Northwood's finest. Loud music. Skimpy outfits, most of them sheer or showing off bare skin, dancing and laughing and looking right at the camera.

Caption: Sure you don't wanna take your pick tonight? Chicks are hot and looking for the legendary captain.

I watch it for maybe eight seconds and then I lock my phone.

Me: Next time. Not in the mood today.

Tian: 😳

Then my phone rings.

I answer. "Sup, Ace. Having a good time, I hope?"

"This party is lit, mahn, but don't change the subject."

"Oh, is that what I was doing?"

"If you think these are getting old, you do know we could just find you someone new? It's wild tonight. Lots of girls are here."

"Mm."

"C'mon, El. It's not everyday you beat Ashford on their home ice."

"I'll pass. I'm not in the mood to drink or f**k tonight."

"Not even a—"

"No."

He whistles. "Who are you and what have you done with my El?"

I roll my eyes. "You done?"

"Seriously, mahn. This isn't like you. Either that golden boy complex is getting to you too much or—" He gasps, dramatic. "Don't tell me."

"Tell you... what?"

"You found someone else?" Another dramatic gasp. "Are you dating someone? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Relax, Tian. I'm not dating or seeing anyone."

He exhales, relieved. "That was a close one. I'm not ready for a wedding or to be an uncle."

"If you got nothing else to tell me, I'll hang up."

"Okay, bro. Get some rest. The EPC roster will be out soon. Better prepare yourself. You definitely have a shot."

"Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow."

"Night, El."

The line disconnects.

I grab a towel and head to take a shower.

The hot water hits my shoulders and I close my eyes. I should be thinking about the game. About the strip on the blue line at Ashford and the breakaway and the score. About the fact that we won on their ice and their crowd went silent. I should feel satisfied.

I don't. Not really.

I get out, a towel on my head, wiping my still- damp hair. I get dressed, pajama pants and a t-shirt, fully clothed.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I pick up my phone. I ignore the group chat blowing up with videos from the party and I open my gallery.

There's a hidden folder in there with almost a hundred pictures of Jace. Some are from his i********:, some are candids from the media and from games, and others are ones I took myself when he wasn't looking.

I scroll all the way down to the last photo. The first one.

June 14, 2022. The inception of my career as a Northwood Eagle. It was our first official conflict against Ashford, and I took this frame right after the final buzzer.

In the image, his eyes are a void of grey ice. It’s the exact same flat line I stared down during the initial puck drop. There was no rage in his expression, no triumphant surge. Just a blank, unyielding landscape that seemed to stretch into infinity.

It was a perfect mirror of the anatomy inside my own chest.

To the league, I am Northwood’s immaculate golden heir. I am my family’s pristine legacy, a textbook pillar of hope for the fans, and a god to the scouts. But beneath the corporate PR and the athletic performance, I know the architecture of the charade.

No matter how flawlessly I execute the golden boy routine, I cannot outrun the quiet death in my own chest. I’ve always categorized it as the Abyss—a bottomless, lightless gravity that consumes everything.

Or at least, that was the operational theory until the first time I deliberately poked the monster. Not a bear. A apex predator resting in the dark, more like.

A low, humorless laugh escapes my throat.

I remember the exact moment the ice cracked that day. I had crossed into his personal space, dropping a calculated insult just to test his threshold, and a spark ignited in the center of his dead eyes. It was sharp, lethal, and undeniably alive. And the moment it flared in him, a matching current detonated in my own soul, shattering the blackness like it wasn't a total void after all.That was the precise date my fixation with Jace became absolute.

From that hour forward, I engineered every interaction to draw blood from the ice prince. I would pull reactions out of him by any means necessary, just to feel the heat of the friction before the emptiness swallowed me again.

I pull the sleeve of my t-shirt up to the shoulder.The inked band spanning my upper forearm is dark against my skin. Heavy Roman numerals wrapping completely around the bone like a permanent cuff.

XIV.VI.MMXXII.

I trace the raised lines of the black ink with a slow, deliberate fingertip, my mouth curving into a slight, dangerous smile.

I drop the phone onto the nightstand, securing it to the charger.

I lie back against the pillows, locking one arm behind my head as I fix my gaze on the ceiling. The golden-boy mask falls away completely.

I let out a slow, quiet breath into the empty room.

"I almost feel bad for you, Rhys," I murmur to the shadows. "It is an exceptionally dangerous thing to become the axis of my obsession."