"Guess who scored the winning goal," Milo said, dropping onto the bench beside Reyna, his grin too wide for someone who had spent the whole game on the ice.

Reyna Castellan didn't look up from her skate laces. "The guy who's about to walk in here is bragging about it," she said.

"Wrong," Milo said. "Guess again."

"I don't have time for this, Milo," Reyna said, tugging the lace tight.

"Come on. One guess," Milo said.

"Fine," Reyna said. "You."

"Wrong again," Milo said, leaning back against the lockers, arms crossed, clearly enjoying himself. "Kade Ashwood."

Reyna's hands stopped moving. For a second, the locker room felt too small, too warm, like the air had gone thin.

"Yeah," Milo said, looking at her face like he had been waiting all night to see it. "Number nineteen. Ashwood pack. Scored top shelf in the third. Your dad's going to lose his mind."

"He already lost it years ago," Reyna said. She stood and slung her bag over her shoulder, forcing her voice to stay flat and bored, anything but what it actually felt like inside her chest. "Why do I care who scored?"

"You don't have to worry," Milo said. "You just have to survive the handshake line in about four minutes." He checked his phone. "The league's making both teams do the post-game thing. Cameras and everything. Community relations, or whatever they're calling it this year."

"They're not putting us in a handshake line with the Ashwoods," Reyna said.

"They are," Milo said. "I saw the schedule."

Reyna's stomach dropped somewhere near her skates, four minutes, a hallway, cameras and somewhere in that line, walking toward her with that same easy grin his whole pack seemed to be born with, would be the last person on earth her father had ever wanted her within ten feet of.

She checked the clock on the wall. Three minutes, fifty seconds.

"Reyna," Milo said, his voice dropping, serious now. "Are you good?"

"I'm fine," Reyna said.

"You don't look fine," Milo said.

"I said, I'm fine, Milo," Reyna said, grabbing her jacket off the hook. Her hands felt steadier than the rest of her.

"Okay," Milo said, holding up both hands and backing off, though his eyes lingered on her a beat too long. "Just don't do anything your dad's going to hear about tomorrow."

"Why would I do anything?" Reyna asked.

"Because last time you two were in the same room, somebody broke a table," Milo said.

"That wasn't my fault," Reyna said.

"I didn't say it was your fault," Milo said. "I said somebody broke a table." He pushed off the lockers and headed for the door. "Two minutes. Try not to shift in front of the cameras."

The door swung shut behind him, and Reyna was alone with the hum of the fluorescent lights and the sound of her own pulse, which had picked up a rhythm she didn't like. Fast. Low. Not entirely her own.

She told herself it was adrenaline from the game.

She knew better.

Her chest felt tight, and underneath her skin something old and restless stretched awake, the way it always did when he was close. She hated that her body knew before her mind did. She hated it more than some small, traitorous part of her had been waiting for this all night.

Two minutes later, she stood in the tunnel, jaw tight, watching the opposing teams file out of their locker room in a loose, laughing note, until the group split, the way water splits around a rock, and there he was.

Kade Ashwood stopped walking the second he saw her.

"Castellan," he said, his voice low and easy, like they hadn't spent the last two years pretending the other didn't exist.

"It's my team's rink, Ashwood," Reyna said. "Where else would I be?"

"Fair point," Kade said, tilting his head, studying her in a way that made her skin feel too tight, too aware of itself. "You gonna shake my hand, or should I guess the answer to that one too?"

Reyna felt her pulse climb higher, and somewhere behind her ribs, something that was not quite human bared its teeth.

"Careful, Ashwood," she said quietly. "You already know what happened last time you got too close."

Kade's grin didn't waver. If anything, it got worse.

"Yeah," he said, stepping in, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off him, close enough that every instinct in her screamed to run and stay at the exact same time. "I remember."

The cameras started rolling before Reyna could stop him, before she could stop herself, and the last thing she heard before the flashbulbs went off was his voice, low enough that only she could hear it.

"So," Kade said. "Are we finishing what we started, or are you going to keep pretending you don't want to?”

"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."

"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.”