I’d built something in my head that didn’t exist. I’d taken professional concern and a few kind gestures and the fact that he’d stayed with me when I had a concussion—which was literally his job as my coach—and I’d turned it into evidence of something more. Something that justified leaning in, closing that distance, trying to kiss him like I had any right to.
The humiliation was physical. I could feel it in my chest, hot and tight, mixing with the ache from my ribs until I couldn’t tell which pain was which.
He’d saidmistake. Not we can’t do this, not this isn’t appropriate, not any of the things that might have left room for interpretation. He’d said mistake, which was clear enough that even I couldn’t misread it.
Coming up here had been a mistake. Letting me think there was something between us had been a mistake. Maybe even staying with me in Chicago had been a mistake, though he hadn’t said that part out loud.
I lay back on the bed, careful of my ribs, and stared at the ceiling. The apartment building made sounds around me—footsteps above, a door closing somewhere down the hall, noise of people living their lives in close proximity. Normal sounds. The sounds of a world that was continuing on like nothing had happened.
Nothing except me confirming what I’d suspected for two months: that I didn’t belong here. Not really. Not in the way that mattered.
The team had my back on the ice. Max had made that clear. They’d come to my family’s house, eaten my ma’s cooking,treated me like I was one of them. But that was professional courtesy. Team solidarity. The kind of thing good teams did because it made them stronger, not because any of them actually gave a shit about Dante Russo beyond what I could contribute on the ice.
And Kincaid? Kincaid was doing his job. Protecting his investment. Making sure his players were safe and healthy and ready to perform when called upon. That was what good coaches did. It didn’t mean anything more than that.
And I mustn’t forget that ever again.
Chapter eleven
Forecheck - Applying offensive pressure in the opponent’s zone.
Theron
I made it to my truck before the full weight of what I’d just done hit me.
Idiot. I was a complete and utter idiot.
I sat in the driver’s seat with my hands on the wheel, not starting the engine, not moving, just breathing through the self-loathing that came from knowing you’d done the right thing in the worst possible way.
He’d leaned in. Dante had leaned in with those dark eyes and that bruised face and all that hope written across his expression like he’d never learned to hide what he wanted, and I’d stopped him. Put my hand on his chest and felt his heart hammering against my palm and said no like it was simple.
It wasn’t simple.
My dragon was furious with me. Not the quiet, persistent argument it had been making for two months—this was active rage, the kind that made my bones ache and my vision sharpen and the copper in my eyes burn hot enough that I was grateful for the darkness. It knew what Dante was. Had known since the first time I’d watched him skate, had been trying to tell me with increasing urgency ever since.
Mate.
The word sat in my chest like a brand. Undeniable. Inevitable. The kind of bone-deep certainty that dragons felt maybe once in a thousand years if they were lucky, and I was feeling it for a twenty-three-year-old hockey player who I was supposed to be coaching, protecting, keeping safe from exactly the kind of complications that a mate bond would bring crashing down on both of us.
I’d lost Clara to people who’d wanted to control me through her. I’d spent two hundred years making sure I never gave anyone that leverage again. And now my dragon was insisting that Dante Russo—bruised, vulnerable, still healing from what Antoine had done to him—was mine to protect in ways that went far beyond professional responsibility.
Protect.That was the key word. Not claim, not pursue, not any of the things my dragon wanted. Protect.
Which meant keeping distance. Maintaining boundaries. Being his coach and nothing more, no matter how much it costme to watch him lean in with want written across his face and then watch that want transform into humiliation when I rejected him.
The memory of his expression made something in my chest twist painfully.
I’d hurt him. I’d seen it happen in real time—the hope dying, the walls going back up, the shame that came from misreading a situation and being corrected. He’d looked at me like I’d confirmed something he’d been afraid of, and I hadn’t been able to explain why I was saying no without explaining things I absolutely could not explain.
I started the truck and pulled away from his building before I could do something stupid like go back up there and tell him the truth. That I wanted to kiss him so badly my hands were shaking with the effort of not doing it. That my dragon had claimed him as mine the moment he’d stepped onto my ice. That keeping distance from him was the hardest thing I’d done in two centuries and I was doing it anyway because the alternative was putting him in danger.
He didn’t need to know any of that. He needed a coach who could help him rebuild his confidence and his game. He needed professional boundaries and appropriate distance and all the things I should have maintained from the beginning instead of staying in his hospital room, getting in his bed, sitting beside him on the plane like proximity was something I could afford.
The drive to my house took twenty-five minutes through Denver streets that had gone quiet. I lived in the foothills west of the city, where the suburbs gave way to actual wilderness and property lots were measured in acres rather than feet. The house had cost more than I wanted to think about, but privacy was worth the investment when you needed space to shift without human eyes cataloging your every move.
It was beautiful, I supposed, in the way that places were beautiful when you’d stopped actually seeing them. Modern architecture that worked with the landscape rather than against it—glass and steel and wood, all clean lines and open spaces designed to bring the outside in. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the great room that looked out over the valley. A kitchen I never used because cooking for one felt pointless. Three extra bedrooms no one had ever slept in because no one ever came here.
I pulled into the garage and sat there for a moment in the dark, listening to the engine tick as it cooled.
