FORBIDDEN ON THE ICE

"You're not seriously going," Milo said, leaning against Reyna's car in the arena parking lot the next morning, arms crossed.

"I didn't say I was going," Reyna said, pulling her bag out of the back seat.

"You checked your phone four times in the last thirty seconds," Milo said. "That's not a person who isn't going."

"I'm allowed to check my phone," Reyna said.

"Sure," Milo said. "Totally normal amount of checking. Very casual."

Reyna shot him a look, and he held up both hands, backing off with a small laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Look," Milo said, more seriously now. "After what you told me your dad said last night, you really think meeting Kade before practice is a good idea?"

"He said he knows something my dad isn't telling me," Reyna said. "Don't you want to know what that is?"

"I want you to be careful," Milo said. "That's different from wanting you to know things."

"I can be careful and curious at the same time," Reyna said.

"Can you, though?" Milo asked. "Because your track record on that is not great."

Reyna didn't answer that one. She slung her bag over her shoulder and started walking toward the side entrance of the arena, the one the players used before the doors officially opened, the one that was mostly empty this early.

"Fifteen minutes," she said over her shoulder. "That's all I'm giving him."

"I'll be right outside," Milo said. "If you're not out at fifteen, I'm coming in."

"You don't have to do that," Reyna said.

"I know," Milo said. "I'm doing it anyway."

Reyna pushed through the side door into the empty hallway, her footsteps echoing off the concrete, and found Kade already waiting, leaning against the wall near the equipment room like he had been there a while.

"You came," Kade said, straightening up.

"I have fifteen minutes," Reyna said. "Start talking."

"No hello?" Kade asked. "No, how was your night, Kade?"

"My night was terrible, thanks for asking," Reyna said. "My father told me your uncle got killed defending my mother, and that your family has been quietly at war with mine ever since, and that I'm apparently supposed to stay away from you forever because a Castellan loving an Ashwood tends to end in a body count."

Kade's easy smile fell away completely.

"He told you about Silas," Kade said quietly.

"You already knew," Reyna said, and it wasn't a question.

"I've known him since I was twelve," Kade said. "Found an old photo of him in my grandfather's study. Nobody would tell me who he was for years. When I finally got the story, it wasn't from my dad. It was from my grandmother, and only because she was dying and wanted someone to remember him right."

"So you knew this whole time," Reyna said, "and you still texted me. You still stood in that handshake line and made jokes about mate pulls like it was nothing."

"I knew the history," Kade said. "I didn't know the rest of it until my dad called me last night, right after your dad probably called you."

"What do you mean, the rest of it?" Reyna asked.

Kade hesitated, and for the first time since she had met him, he looked genuinely unsure of himself.

"Your dad told you Silas died in a territory fight," Kade said. "That my family and yours have hated each other because of some old feud that got out of hand."

"That's what he said," Reyna said.

"It's not the whole story," Kade said, in return.

"Then what's the whole story?" Reyna demanded.

"My dad told me last night that the fight that killed Silas wasn't a random clash," Kade said. "It was set up. Somebody tipped off both packs about where Silas and your mother would be that night, knowing exactly what would happen when they showed up."

Reyna felt her stomach turn to ice. "Are you saying someone did this on purpose?"

"That's what my dad thinks," Kade said. "He's thought about it for years. He just never had proof, and he never told me because he didn't want me carrying it around before I was old enough to do anything useful with it."

"Do it now," Reyna said. "Tell me who he thinks did it."

Kade glanced toward the hallway behind her, like he was checking they were still alone, and lowered his voice.

"He thinks it was someone inside his own pack," Kade said. "Someone who wanted the feud to keep going. Someone who's still around."

Reyna's pulse spiked so hard she could hear it in her own ears. "Who?"

Before Kade could answer, the door at the end of the hallway swung open, and a voice Reyna knew instantly, one that made every hair on her arms rise, cut through the silence between them.

"There you are," the voice said. "I was wondering how long it would take you two to find your way back to each other.”