FORBIDDEN ON THE ICE

"Dad, can we talk about this tomorrow?" Reyna asked, gripping the phone so tight her knuckles ached.

"No," her father said. "We can't."

"It was a handshake," Reyna said. "The league made us do it. It's on camera. You can watch it yourself if you don't believe me."

"I already watched it," her father said. "Three times."

Reyna closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold window of her car. "Then you know it was nothing."

"I know what I saw," her father said, "and I know my daughter well enough to see when she's not telling me the whole truth."

Milo stood a few feet away, pretending very hard to be interested in his phone, but Reyna could see his ears twitch, and could tell he was catching every word.

"Come home," her father said. "Tonight. We're having this conversation in person."

"Dad, it's an hour drive, I have practice at seven tomorrow," Reyna said.

"Then you should have thought about that before you let an Ashwood hold your hand for six seconds in front of every camera in the building," her father said.

Reyna's stomach dropped. He had counted too.

"Fine," she said quietly. "I'll come."

"Good," her father said, and the line went dead before she could say anything else.

Reyna lowered the phone slowly, staring at the black screen like it might still hold some kind of answer.

"That bad?" Milo asked, finally giving up the pretense of not listening.

"He wants me home tonight," Reyna said.

"Tonight?" Milo asked. "Like, right now tonight?"

"Right now, tonight," Reyna said.

Milo winced. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," Reyna said. "If he's already this worked up, showing up with backup is only going to make it worse."

"Are you sure?" Milo asked. "Because you're shaking."

Reyna looked down at her hands and realized he was right. Her fingers were trembling, faint but steady, the way they always did right before a shift she was trying to hold back.

"I'm fine," she said, even though she didn't believe it this time.

"Ren," Milo said, softer now. "You don't have to keep saying that word like it's going to make it true."

She managed a small, tired laugh, the first real one all night. "It's worked so far."

"Has it?" Milo asked.

She didn't answer that one.

The drive back to the estate took fifty minutes, and every mile of it felt shorter than it should have, like the road itself was in a hurry to deliver her to a conversation she wasn't ready to have. By the time she pulled through the gates, her hands had steadied, but her chest hadn't. Her father was waiting on the porch when she arrived, arms crossed, the porch light throwing long shadows across a face that had looked younger before her mother died.

"Inside," he said, before she had even shut the car door.

"Dad, can we at least sit down first," Reyna said, following him through the door. "You look like you're about to yell, and I'd rather do that sitting."

"I'm not going to yell," her father said, though the tightness in his jaw suggested otherwise. He stopped in the middle of the living room and turned to face her. "I want you to tell me the truth. Did something happen with Kade Ashwood?"

Reyna hesitated one second too long.

"That's not a no," her father said.

"Nothing happened," Reyna said. "We shook hands. That's all."

"Then why," her father said, stepping closer, "Do you smell like him?"

Reyna froze.

"You think I can't tell?" her father said, his voice rising now despite what he had said on the porch. "You think twenty years of being your father hasn't taught me what it looks like when my daughter finds her mate, and it's the one boy on this earth I have spent my entire life keeping her away from?"

"Dad, it's not like that," Reyna said, though her voice wavered at every word.

"Then what is it like?" her father demanded. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks exactly like the thing your mother begged me to protect you from before she died."

The mention of her mother landed like a slap. Reyna's throat tightened, and for a moment she couldn't speak at all.

"Don't," she said finally, quiet and sharp. "Don't use her to win this."

"I'm not trying to win anything," her father said, softer now, though the fear underneath his anger was impossible to miss. "I'm trying to keep you alive. You don't understand what the Ashwoods did to this family. You don't understand what happens if their heir marks a Castellan."

"Then tell me," Reyna said. "You've never told me anything. Just old warnings and locked doors and a name I'm not allowed to say out loud. If it's this serious, then for once in my life, tell me the truth."

Her father was quiet for a long moment, long enough that Reyna thought he might actually do it, might finally hand her the piece of the story she had been missing her whole life.

Instead, he walked to the window, looked out at the dark tree line beyond the estate, and said the last thing she expected to hear.

"Because the last Castellan who loved Ashwood," he said, "is the reason your mother is dead.”