Iced Over

Chapter 6

GWEN

“We know where you are, Gwen.”

That was all he said, then the voicemail end. But Caius’s chillingly calm voice echoed on a relentless, agonizing loop in my head.

The air in my lungs seemed to freeze completely, making it even harder to breath. What had once been the warm, bustling noise of the locker room just a few yards away now felt impossibly heavy. Decker’s booming laugh, the clatter of hockey sticks, all of it faded into a muffled hum that I could barely hear.

Six months.

For six months, I had been a ghost. I had scrubbed my scent and buried my bloodline as much as I could. I worked, strived and forged an absolute fortress of ice around a heart they had been left to rot in that dungeon.

And with one eight-second audio clip, the walls of that cell slammed back down around me.

“No…” The word left me breathlessly.

My vision tunneled. A phantom ache throbbed beneath my fingernails as the visceral memory of scraping tally marks into stone scratched at my mind. They found me.

I couldn’t let the team see this. I couldn’t let anyone see me now. A cracked, bleeding girl with her past now on full display

Shoving the phone deep into my pocket, I turned on my heel and bolted in the opposite direction of the locker room. I didn't know where I was going. Just that I needed the cold. I needed the dark to shield every part of me.

I pushed through some double doors, stumbling into a dim maintenance corridor beneath the bleachers. The temperature drop there was more evident. The hard concrete walls alone radiated an indescribable chill that smelled of ammonia and shaved ice.

“Breathe, Gweneviere,” I struggled to wheeze. Just breathe

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my trembling hands against the cold wall in a bid to ground myself

And yet my wolf, being as dormant as it had been for half a year, was whimpering in the dark recesses of my mind. The knowledge of the invisible snare pulling tight around our throat was more terrifying than anything.

The rising panic had completely blinded me. I pushed myself off the wall and hurried down the corridor, only to slam directly into a wall of immovable muscle.

“Oh—”

The impact knocked the breath out of me. I stumbled back, my hands instinctively flying up to catch my balance against a broad, sweat-dampened chest.

“Watch it.” A low voice rumbled, sending a cold chill down my spine

I snapped my head up. Kieran.

His tall frame easily towered over me. He wasn't in his gear, just a clinging black compression shirt and workout shorts. One massive, taped hand loosely gripped his hockey stick gripped.

He was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with exertion. That alone meant he’d been running brutal drills while the rest of his team was in the locker room.

His cold blue eyes dragged over my face, his expression instantly hardening into hostility.

“Already looking for the exit, Corporate?” Kieran mocked, his voice dripping with condescension. “I figured you'd last at least a full day before the scent of sweat and actual hard work sent you running back to your little desk.”

I swallowed hard, desperately trying to summon my usual biting sarcasm. “I wasn't running. I was just trying to find a trash can large enough for your defensive stats.”

It was a decent comeback, but the delivery was a disaster. My voice was shaking badly while my chest heaved uncontrollably. I couldn't stop the visible tremor in my hands.

Kieran’s mocking smirk vanished instantly. The shift in him was terrifyingly fast. One second, he was an arrogant, cynical hockey captain. The next, the human facade cracked and something ancient and something distinctly primal bled into his eyes.

His nostrils flared slightly. I could tell he was catching my scent. He took a small step towards me. The temperature in the hallway dropped even more, suffocating the space between us with his immense, dominating presence.

“You're shaking.” He finally stated.

The hostility in his voice was completely gone, replaced instead by unbridled intensity.

“It's freezing down here.” I lied, crossing my arms over my chest to hide the tremors. “And you're blocking my way.”

He didn't move.

Instead, he leaned in, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated directly against my bones.

“Who did this? Who put that look in your eyes?”

It wasn't a question. It was an Alpha's demand.

Every instinct in my body screamed at me to submit, to let the massive, protective Alpha step in front of me and handle all my problems. But submitting to an Alpha was exactly what had landed me in that dungeon.

The fear instantly melted into an intense, defensive fury. I straightened my spine, tilting my chin up to meet his icy stare.

“Don't you dare use that tone on me.” I snarled back steadily. “I am not one of your players, and I am certainly not part of your pack.”

Kieran’s jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing as he registered the pure venom in my rejection.

“Speaking of your pack,” I continued, stepping into his space instead of backing away. I twisted my anger into a shield and forced it to do my bidding. “Where the hell were you? While I was up there breaking down the Badgers' plays and handing your team a tactical advantage, where was their captain?”

“I don't need a corporate babysitter to tell me how to win a game.” He shot back in a tight voice.

“No, you just need an ego check.” I fired back. “You think hockey is a solo war, Frost? I watched your team in there. They look to you. They were waiting for you. And you were down here hiding in the dark, hitting a piece of rubber by yourself.”

I poked a finger directly into the center of his chest. It felt like jabbing a slab of hard stone.

“A real captain doesn't abandon his pack. You aren't a leader. You're just a ghost.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

The muscle in Kieran’s jaw ticked wildly. I had hit a nerve. A really deep one too. The air between us crackled with anger, defensive fury, and an emotion that was too dangerous to name.

He looked down at where my finger was still pressed against his chest, then slowly brought his eyes back to mine.

“You talk a big game about ghosts, Gweneviere.” Kieran murmured. He stepped so close I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. “But you're the one trembling in a basement. Keep your walls up all you want. I'm going to strip away whatever lies you're hiding behind.”

My breath caught in my throat. I held his stare for one long, defiant second before dropping my hand and pushing past his shoulder.

He let me go. I felt the heavy, piercing weight of his gaze on my back until I finally shoved through the exit doors and out into the freezing, chaotic streets of Ashford City.

The icy wind hit my face like a slap, finally clearing the fog of panic from my brain. I survived the encounter. Somehow, I had managed to survive it. I had pushed the intimidating Kieran Frost back on his heels.

I took a deep, shaky breath, feeling a hollow sense of victory. Then, my pocket vibrated. Again.

It wasn't a phone call this time. It was a single text message. My blood froze as I pulled the phone out and unlocked the screen.

There was no text. Just a photograph. It was a picture of the Huntley Corp building.

My office building.

The image was taken from the street level, capturing the high glass under a grey, sweltering sky. At the bottom edge of the frame, slightly out of focus, was the side mirror of a sleek, black SUV.

“No…” Dread pooled in my stomach