Prologue
If you had told me a year ago that I would become the most hated person at Moonfang University before I even attended my first class, I would've laughed in your face.
Now, it was not so funny.
I still remember the day the university posted the varsity hockey roster.
There had been twenty-four names with twenty-three of them being guys and ond one very unfortunate girl.
That was me, Lena Hart.
The internet had lost its mind that very moment.
"This has to be a publicity stunt."
"Women's hockey isn't enough anymore?"
"She's taking a scholarship from a real player."
"She's only there because she's pretty."
That last one almost made me throw my phone across the room.
Pretty?
I hadn't spent fifteen years waking up before sunrise, breaking bones, playing through bruises and cracked ribs, and training until my legs gave out just to be called pretty.
I had earned my place. Every f*****g Inch.
Coach Donovan knew it, the scouts knew it and the statistics proved it. Unfortunately the captain didn't.
Axel Conri.
If Moonfang University had a king, it was him. He was the future Alpha of the powerful Moonfang Pack, captain of the hockey team, national champion, every sports magazine's favourite player, every girl's fantasy and, apparently, my biggest problem.
The first thing he ever said to me wasn't "Welcome to the team." It wasn't even "Nice to meet you."
No, he looked me dead in the eye and said, "Women don't belong on my team."
I smiled sweetly and replied, "Good thing I wasn't asking for your permission."
He had hated me ever since.
He never yelled louder than he did when I had the puck, never criticised anyone more than me and some days I wondered if he remembered the rest of the team had names.
The worst part, nobody stood up to him. Not because they agreed but because he was Axel Conri.
Nobody challenged the captain.
Especially when he was also the future Alpha of one of the oldest werewolf bloodlines in the country.
I should've quit, honestly, most people expected me to.
Every morning I woke up wondering whether today would finally be the day I snapped. Every night I went to sleep reminding myself why I couldn't.
I wasn't playing to prove girls belonged in hockey. I was playing because hockey was the only place I had ever truly felt like myself.
The ice didn't care if I was female, the puck didn't care, the goal certainly didn't but only people did.
So I kept showing up, kept skating, kept proving those mouth breathers wrong.
One practice, one game, one goal at a time.
I had no idea that everything was about to change, because tonight wasn't just another hockey game. It was the night I would score the winning goal, the night my captain would look at me like he had never seen me before.
And the night a single impossible mark would turn my entire world upside down.
