Icebound hearts

Episode2

BELLADONNA

I made it exactly forty steps before my ankle gave out.

The fall wasn’t graceful. I hit the snow hard, palms first, bag flying sideways, dignity completely absent. For a long moment I just lay there, cheek pressed against the cold ground, staring at a patch of ice and reconsidering every decision I had made in the last three hours.

This is Ryder Kane’s fault, I thought bitterly. Every single part of this.

“Are you done?”

I looked up. Kael Draven stood a few feet away, hands in his jacket pockets, watching me with an expression that wasn’t quite amusement and wasn’t quite concern.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re lying in the snow.”

“I’m aware of that.”

He stared at me for another second, then walked over and held out his hand. I looked at it. Then at him. Then at my throbbing ankle. I took his hand. He pulled me up with an ease that was slightly offensive, steadied me when I wobbled, and stepped back the moment I had my footing. Like touching me any longer than necessary was against some personal code of his.

“The messages on your phone,” I started.

“Weren’t about you.”

“You changed direction the second you read them.”

Something crossed his face — too fast for me to name it. He reached down, picked up my bag from the snow and held it out. “You left this.”

I snatched it from him. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing anything.” He turned and walked back toward the car. “You can stand out here and freeze or you can get in. Either way, those men are still somewhere in that forest.”

I hated that he was right. I hated it with every fiber of my being. I got in the car.

He drove for about twenty minutes without saying a word. I spent the entire time pressed against the passenger door, watching him from the corner of my eye. The heat in the car was doing something deeply unfair to my ability to stay alert. My hands had stopped shaking. My ankle had settled into a dull throb.

The car slowed in front of a building I didn’t recognize, a private residence just outside Ravenwood’s outer boundary. Not a dorm. Not a faculty house. Something separate entirely.

“Where is this?” I asked.

“Mine.” He cut the engine. “Off campus. My parents own the property.”

I didn’t move. He glanced at me. “I’m not going to do anything to you, songbird.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Everyone knows the girl that sings. You’re also the scholarship girl.” He said it without cruelty, which somehow made it worse. Just a fact. “Come inside. You’re limping and it’s below zero.”

His place was warm and aggressively clean in a way that felt deliberate. Like someone who kept order on the outside because something on the inside was not quite settled. I sat on the edge of his couch, back straight, bag on my lap, watching him move around the kitchen. He came back with a cloth and a small first aid kit and crouched in front of me without asking permission.

“I can do that myself,” I said.

“Your hands are still shaking.”

They were. Slightly. I hated that he noticed. I let him wrap my ankle in silence. His hands were careful in a way I hadn’t expected from someone with his reputation.

I looked around and noticed double plates on the counter. “You don’t stay alone?”

“Corvin is around,” he said. “You know Corvin, right? Your…”

“My music tutor’s son, yeah I do,” I answered hurriedly.

As if Corvin heard his name, he hurried down the stairs bare chested, holding his laptop. “The scholarship girl?” Corvin announced, a little excited.

“I found her on her street. Quit your assumptions,” Kael got rid of his excitement immediately. He tossed the rest of the bandage away and stood. “Corvin will look after you. I’ll be back.” Then he was gone. I watched him drive off into the night from the window.

“Hungry?” Corvin asked.

“Nahh, I’m fine.”

He was tall, easy-smiled, with the kind of face that made you trust him before you’d decided to. “Corvin Dorne,” he said. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”

I looked outside the window again. “Will he be back before six?”

“Obviously.” Corvin grinned. “He’s always like this. You’ll get used to it.”

“I won’t be around for that long,” I muttered.

Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours. Kael didn’t show up until the second hour. He walked into the house holding my bag. That was when I realized I forgot it in his car.

Fuck.

I grabbed it from him. The zip was open. “Did you go through my bag?”

He ignored me, moved to the kitchen, washed his hands and reappeared with two mugs. “Kael.”

“What?”

His expression had shifted into something carefully neutral, which told me everything. “You went through my bag,” I said flatly.

He set a mug on the table in front of me and sat across in the armchair, wrapping both hands around his own mug with the audacity to look completely unbothered. “Your notes fell out when I picked it up from the snow,” he said.

“My notes.”

“And a few other things.”

I knew what he’d seen the moment he said it. The sketches. The songs. Three pages of lyrics with R.K written in the margin like a signature. The doodles of a hockey jersey with a number I had memorized without meaning to. The embarrassing, meticulous, deeply personal evidence of a crush I had never intended anyone to see. Heat crawled up my neck.

“You went through my things!” I said.

“Just the important ones.” He took a slow sip. “Like Ryder Kane.”

“Don’t.”

“You’ve been watching his practices for weeks.”

“I said don’t.”

“The songs are actually good. The lyrics, I mean. You have a real —”

“If you finish that sentence I will pour that drink on you.”

He stopped. The ghost of something moved across his mouth. Not quite a smile. Close enough to be irritating. “From the look of things, songbird, you need something. The good thing is that I need something as well.”

I grabbed my mug. It was hot chocolate. I hadn’t expected that. It made it harder to stay fully hostile. “What do you mean?”

Kael leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m suggesting we make a deal.”

“A deal.”

“I know you aced geography last month, scoring way higher than anybody else. All I ask for is three months. You tutor me —”

“I can’t —”

“Let me finish.” He cut me off. “I’m failing two subjects and my reinstatement depends on my grades. If I fail, I won’t be able to play at the all stars hockey competition later this year. And you —” he paused, “— you also pretend to be my girlfriend during this period.”

The silence that followed was the loudest silence I had ever sat inside. “Excuse me.”

“My family.” His jaw tightened slightly, the first real crack in the composure. “They have expectations. My parents want to see me settled. Focused. They’re attending the winter showcase next month and if I show up alone again there will be consequences that affect my reinstatement more than my grades do.” He looked at me directly. “I need someone convincing. Someone smart enough to handle my family and keep the story straight.”

“And you picked the girl you found running for her life in a forest.”

“I picked the girl who writes three-page love songs and thinks nobody notices her. Someone underestimated is actually very useful.”

“In exchange,” he continued, “I keep what I found in your bag between us. I protect you from the bullies who have been making your first month difficult. And —” another pause, “— I help you get Ryder Kane’s attention.”

Everything stopped. “You can do that?” I said before I could stop myself.

“I know exactly what catches his attention. Three months. Tutor me, play the role, and by the time our agreement ends, Ryder Kane will know your name.”

“If you tell anyone about the songs,” I said quietly, “the deal is off and I will make your life extremely difficult.”

“Noted.”

I picked up my mug. Took a long sip. I looked at the fire. “Three months,” I said.

“Three months,” he confirmed.

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