The sound of shattering glass was drowned out by the roar of pure Alpha rage.

Ronan didn't just tackle Jace; he drove him through the boards and slammed him flat against the ice with enough force to rattle the arena steel. This wasn't a standard hockey fight. Ronan’s hands were bare, his gloves discarded on the ice, his nails lengthening into thick, dark claws as his wolf surged violently against the surface of his skin.

He pinned Jace by the throat with one forearm, the fabric of Jace’s jersey tearing under the strain.

Four referees piled onto Ronan’s back, digging their skates into the ice, pulling at his shoulders with everything they had. They couldn't move him an inch. Ronan was vibrating with violent heat, his jaw snapping as a guttural growl ripped from his throat.

Underneath him, Jace choked on blood, his face swelling where Ronan’s first punch had landed. Yet despite the terror in his eyes, Jace flashed a bloody, mocking grin.

“What’s the matter, Cross?” Jace gasped out, his voice hoarse and broken. “Afraid I’ll damage your new toy?”

Ronan drew back his fist, his knuckles bone-white and lethal. If that punch landed, Jace’s jaw would shatter.

“Ronan.”

The word tore from my throat, raw and trembling.

I dragged myself through the open bench gate, my knees shaking as my sneakers slipped on the wet ice. Blood ran hot and sticky down the side of my neck, soaking into the collar of my shirt.

I reached out with my left hand and grabbed the heavy fabric of Ronan’s jersey, right over his shoulder blade.

“Ronan, stop.”

The effect was instantaneous.

Ronan’s arm froze in midair. The low growl in his chest cut off like a severed wire. Slowly, the rigid tension in his massive back eased, his dark head turning toward me. His eyes were pure, terrifying pitch black, but the moment they locked onto the blood dripping from my jawline, the frenzy snapped.

He shoved the referees off him with a single shrug, let go of Jace’s throat, and dropped to both knees on the ice in front of me.

“Don't move,” Ronan commanded, his voice rough and ragged as he reached up to hover his hands over my head, not daring to touch the wound. “Medical staff! Get out here now!”

***

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on the examination table in the Blackridge private locker room.

Dr. Gable, the veteran Blackridge team physician, cleaned the gash near my temple with an antiseptic wipe while an assistant ran my blood through the rapid diagnostic analyzer. He had already run a concussion screen and found no neurological deficits, though he kept me under observation. The throbbing behind my eyes was intense, but the bleeding had finally slowed.

Ronan stood by the door, refusing to sit, his arms crossed over his chest like an iron sentinel.

Dr. Gable pulled the digital readout from the analyzer, his gray eyebrows knitting together in deep frustration. He looked from the screen to me, then back at the numbers.

“Miss Lawson, when did you last take a dose of your scent blocker?” Dr. Gable asked, his voice unexpectedly stern.

“This morning,” I replied, squinting against the harsh overhead lights. “Just the standard maintenance tablet.”

“Who wrote the prescription for this compound?”

“The Ironfang pack clinic,” I said, frowning at his tone. “Jace always picked it up for me directly from their internal pharmacy. My wolf’s biology has been unstable since I was eighteen. Jace said the team doctors recommended a customized suppressant so my scent wouldn't distract the roster during training.”

Dr. Gable tossed the tablet onto the metal tray with a sharp clatter.

“This isn't a customized maintenance dose, Miss Lawson,” he said bluntly. “Your blood concentration of synthetic blockers is nearly four hundred percent above the legal medical ceiling.”

The room went completely still.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“A dose this heavy doesn't just mask a scent,” Dr. Gable explained, pointing at the glowing red indicators on the monitor. “It chemically paralyzes your olfactory receptors and forces your inner wolf into an artificial coma. You haven't been unstable. You’ve been chemically sedated for years.”

A cold chill settled in the pit of my stomach. “That doesn't make sense. Jace said—”

“Jace lied to you,” Ronan’s voice cut through the room, low and lethal.

Ronan stepped away from the door, his eyes dark with cold fury. “Open your Ironfang health portal, Wren. Check your prescription history.”

My hands were shaking as I pulled my phone from my pocket. I logged into the private Ironfang athletic network, bypassing the standard player view to access the master pharmacy logs linked to my employee ID.

Every single prescription refill for the last two years was documented with precise timestamps and batch numbers.

I scrolled through the dates, my breath catching in my throat.

The initial dosage had been normal when Jace and I first started dating. But starting exactly twenty-four months ago, the potency doubled. Then it tripled six months later.

Every single increase lined up with an exact event on my calendar.

The first spike happened the week after the All-Star tournament in Denver, where I had spent three days treating players from other packs. Jace had spent that entire week accusing me of smelling strange, demanding that I scrub my skin until it was raw.

The second spike happened right after Blackridge played Ironfang in the winter classic.

The door to the medical room swung open.

Jace stood in the entryway, a large white bandage taped over his nose, his Ironfang warm-up jacket zipped up to his chin. Two arena security guards lingered in the corridor behind him.

“Wren,” Jace said, ignoring Ronan entirely as he stepped into the room. “We’re leaving. The team bus is waiting, and we need to get ahead of the press before Cross’s PR team spins this.”

I didn't move. I turned the phone screen toward him, displaying the glowing pharmacy logs.

“What is this, Jace?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.

Jace glanced at the screen, and for a fraction of a second, his confident facade fractured. “That’s your medical file. You know you have an endocrine imbalance.”

“It’s not an endocrine imbalance,” I said, standing up from the table. My knees were steady now, fueled by a cold, burning rage. “This is clinical suppression. You had the pack pharmacy dose me high enough to put my wolf to sleep. Why?”

Jace looked around the room, noticing Dr. Gable and the security guards outside. “Wren, this is pack business. Come outside and we’ll talk about it privately.”

“Answer the question, Mercer,” Ronan growled, taking a single step forward that forced Jace to back up against the doorframe.

Jace’s jaw clenched. Trapped between the logs and Ronan’s towering presence, the mask finally slipped.

“Because you were changing!” Jace snapped, his voice sharp with resentment. “Two years ago, after the Denver tournament, your scent started shifting. The bond between us never clicked into place the way it was supposed to. It was weak. I could feel it thinning every time you walked near an Alpha from another pack.”

The words struck me right in the chest, colder than the ice out on the rink.

“You knew,” I whispered.

“I knew you had a True Mate out there somewhere,” Jace said, not a shred of shame in his voice. “I knew that if you ever walked past him with your scent open, you’d recognize him in a second. You would have left me.”

“So you poisoned me?” I asked, tears of pure disbelief burning the edges of my eyes. “You told me I was sick. You told me the high doses were to protect you from being distracted during the playoffs.”

“I was trying to keep us together!” Jace shouted, stepping toward me with desperate intensity. “I built my entire career with you in my corner, Wren! We had seven years! I did what I had to do to protect our future until I could secure the Captaincy and the sponsorship!”

He reached out to grab my hand, expecting the same compliant woman who had taped his ankles and managed his pain for nearly a decade.

I pulled my hand back before his fingers could even graze my skin.

I looked at him. I looked at his expensive suit, his bruised, handsome face, and the selfish cowardice rotting beneath his Alpha title. There was no grief left in me. No heartbreak. Only a deep, clean void where seven years of devotion used to live.

“You weren't keeping me, Jace,” I said clearly. “You were keeping me from finding the door.”

Jace stared at me, his eyes widening.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my personal phone, and unlocked the encrypted secondary profile I had never once opened in his presence.

I tapped a single contact and held the phone to my ear.

Jace watched me, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Who are you calling?”

The line clicked open on the second ring. A brisk, authoritative voice answered from the other end.

“Lawson Orthopedic Research Group. Direct line.”

I looked Jace dead in the eye, watching the arrogance drain from his expression.

“This is Wren Lawson,” I said into the phone, my voice steady and cold as winter frost. “Suspend Ironfang's Hale Protocol license under the safety-breach clause. Effective tonight.”