FORBIDDEN ON THE ICE

"Smile, Castellan," Kade said, his voice barely a whisper. "The cameras like a good rivalry."

"There is no rivalry," Reyna said through her teeth, keeping her face still while the flashbulbs kept firing.

"Could've fooled me," Kade said.

"Handshake," a man in a league blazer called out, waving them forward. "Come on, we need this for the broadcast."

Reyna forced her hand out first, steady, businesslike, the way she had practiced a hundred times in her head on the drive to the rink. Kade took it. The moment his palm touched hers, heat shot up her arm like she had grabbed a live wire, and she saw his jaw tighten, just barely, like he felt it too.

"You felt that," Kade said quietly, not letting go.

"I felt nothing," Reyna said, pulling her hand back.

"Liar," Kade said, smiling like he had won something.

The league man cleared his throat. "Great, great. Can we get one more, both of you looking at the camera this time, not at each other?"

"Sure," Kade said, still watching Reyna instead of the lens.

Reyna turned, jaw locked, and let the second flash go off. The second it was done, she stepped back, putting distance between them like the space itself could undo what had just happened.

"Nice seeing you too, Castellan," Kade said, already backing toward his team.

"Wish I could say the same," Reyna said.

"You're a terrible liar," Kade said. "Always have been."

He turned and walked off before she could answer, disappearing into the knot of his teammates, and Reyna stood there a second too long, her heart still going too fast, her palm still burning where his hand had been.

"Okay," Milo said, appearing at her elbow like he had been waiting just out of sight the whole time. "That looked normal. Very normal. Nothing weird about that at all."

"Don't," Reyna said.

"I'm just saying, for two people who hate each other, you sure spent a long time not letting go of his hand," Milo said.

"It was three seconds," Reyna said.

"It was six," Milo said. "I counted."

"Why were you counting?" Reyna asked.

"Because I know you, and I know what your face does when you're lying to yourself," Milo said. "And your face was doing a lot right now."

Reyna grabbed her bag off the bench and started walking, fast, toward the parking lot, needing air, needing distance, needing anything that wasn't the memory of Kade Ashwood's hand around hers.

"Reyna," Milo said, jogging to catch up. "Your dad called me twice during the third period."

Reyna stopped walking. "What did he want?"

"He wanted to know if you were talking to Kade," Milo said, and his voice had lost its teasing edge now. "I told him no. Was that a lie?"

"It wasn't a lie ten minutes ago," Reyna said.

"Reyna," Milo said. "You know what happens if he finds out."

"I know exactly what happens," Reyna said, and for the first time that night, the fear in her voice was real, no performance in it at all. "He pulls me off the roster. He sends me back to the estate. He makes sure I never see the inside of a rink again, and he makes sure the Ashwoods know exactly why."

"Then why did you just stand there holding his hand for six seconds?" Milo asked.

"I don't know," Reyna said, and it was the most honest thing she had said all night.

They walked in silence for a moment, the parking lot lights buzzing overhead, the cold air doing nothing to slow the racing in her chest.

"Can I tell you something?" Milo asked, quieter now.

"Depends what it is," Reyna said.

"I've known you since we were pups," Milo said. "I've watched you follow every rule your dad's ever handed you. Curfews. Territory lines. Who you're allowed to look at twice." He paused. "And I've never once seen you look at anyone the way you just looked at Kade Ashwood."

"That's not true," Reyna said, but her voice cracked on the last word, just slightly, just enough.

"Ren," Milo said gently. "It's me. You don't have to do the flat voice thing with me."

Reyna stopped at her car, resting her hand on the cold metal of the door, and let herself breathe for the first time since the tunnel.

"It's the mate pull," she said finally, so quiet Milo almost missed it. "Isn't it."

Milo didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was careful, like he was handling something fragile.

"I think you already know the answer to that," he said.

Reyna closed her eyes. She had felt it the second Kade's hand touched hers, that same pull she had heard whispered about her whole life, the kind her grandmother used to warn her about, the kind that didn't care about pack lines or her father's rules or two years of pretending a person didn't exist.

"It can't be him," Reyna said. "Out of everyone in the world, it cannot be him."

"I don't think the pull cares what it can and can't be," Milo said.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out with a shaking hand, and the name on the screen made her stomach drop straight through the pavement.

It's her Dad on the line.

She stared at it for three rings before she answered.

"Hi, Dad," Reyna said, forcing her voice steady.

There was a pause on the other end, long enough to make her chest go tight.

"I saw the handshake line," her father said, his voice low and flat in a way she had learned to fear a long time ago. "We need to talk. Tonight."

"Dad, it was nothing, it was just a handshake for the cameras," Reyna said.

"Then you won't mind explaining," her father said, "why Kade Ashwood was smiling at you like he already knows what you smell like."