At eighteen, I had three plans for senior year: finish my sports medicine practicum, protect the scholarship that kept me at Blackridge Academy, and leave town with a college acceptance in my hand.

Finding a mate was not on the list.

So I stood at the back of the Moon Match Ceremony with my arms folded and waited for it to end.

Blackridge loved traditions like this. Old pack families got to parade their bloodlines across the courtyard. Elders talked about fate as if it were a scholarship committee. Everyone else pretended being paired by scent was romantic instead of inconvenient.

Then the ceremonial gong sounded, and biology ruined my morning.

Pine and winter frost cut through the courtyard.

The scent hit me so hard I forgot to breathe.

My head turned before I could stop it.

Jace Callahan stood beside the marble fountain in the middle of Blackridge’s most important families. Hockey captain. Future Alpha. Division I prospect. Son of Grant and Claire Callahan, who seemed to own half the town and expected everyone to remember it.

He was staring at me.

Gold flashed through his dark eyes.

Mine probably did the same.

The mate bond snapped into place with one brutal pull beneath my ribs.

Around us, conversation died.

Madison Vale’s hand tightened around Jace’s arm. She had been attached to his family for years, an Alpha daughter with the right bloodline, the right manners, and the right last name. Everyone at Blackridge assumed she would become his chosen Luna after graduation.

Claire Callahan looked from her son to me and went pale with anger.

Grant looked worse.

Jace saw their faces.

I watched the shock leave his expression and get replaced by something colder.

He stepped forward.

“There’s no bond.”

His voice carried across the entire courtyard.

A hundred people inhaled at once.

Someone behind me whispered my name.

For a female wolf, a public denial was supposed to be devastating. It was the kind of humiliation pack gossip circles discussed for years and girls cried about in bathrooms.

Jace held himself like he was braced for exactly that reaction.

I gave him nothing.

“Good,” I said. “Then stay away from me.”

Madison’s eyes widened.

Jace’s did too.

I turned and walked out before anyone could decide I needed pity.

I made it past the courtyard gates before the bond tugged hard enough to hurt.

I ignored it.

If Jace wanted to lie in public, he could live with the lie.

By seven that night, I had a trauma bag open behind the home bench and no time left to think about him.

Blackridge’s hockey opener had packed the arena. Students hammered on the glass. The pep band was too loud. Scouts sat above the blue line with notebooks on their knees.

Lauren, the school’s head athletic trainer, leaned close enough for me to hear her over the crowd.

“Watch Callahan’s left side.”

“I am.”

I had been watching it since warmups.

Jace had injured the same AC joint the previous season. Wolves healed faster than humans, but tendons and ligaments still punished stupidity. Tonight he was playing like he wanted to test that fact.

He finished every check. Took the boards instead of the safe lane. Held the puck a second too long whenever Grant was watching from the VIP section.

He was angry.

Whether at me, the bond, or his family, I couldn’t tell.

Midway through the third period, an opposing defenseman caught him near the left boards.

The hit drove Jace shoulder-first into the glass.

The crack carried through the arena.

He dropped to one knee.

He did not get back up.

Lauren was moving before the whistle finished blowing.

“Come on, Ivy.”

We went through the bench gate while the officials cleared space.

Jace had his right hand clamped over his left shoulder. His breathing came too fast. Gold burned through his eyes.

A growl rolled out of him.

Not anger this time.

Pain.

Pain was pulling his wolf too close to the surface.

“Jace.” Lauren crouched where he could see her. “We’re getting you off the ice.”

“I can skate.”

His fangs dropped halfway through the sentence.

“No,” she said. “You can’t.”

Two defensemen and our center helped him through the tunnel.

He made it three steps before his claws split the fingers of his glove.

By the time we reached the locker room, the injury was no longer the biggest problem.

“Everybody out!” Lauren ordered.

Jace ripped free of a teammate’s grip and shoved him into the lockers hard enough to dent metal.

“Get away from me!”

Players backed toward the door.

His wolf was taking over.

Lauren reached for the emergency sedative in her kit.

I moved first.

“Ivy, don’t.”

Too late.

Jace spun toward me with a snarl. Gold swallowed his eyes. His shoulders were rigid, his claws out, every instinct in the room warning me not to get closer.

I stepped closer anyway.

Then I put my bare hand on the back of his neck.

Jace froze.

The growl cut off.

His claws stopped lengthening.

Under my palm, the hard line of his neck loosened one muscle at a time.

He exhaled and bowed his head, almost leaning into me.

Pine and winter frost flooded the locker room.

My own scent rose to meet it.

The combination was unmistakable.

Every wolf near the door knew what it meant.

Jace’s body had just contradicted his morning announcement in front of half the team.

His eyes cleared.

He looked at my hand on his neck, then at the players staring from the doorway.

Color drained from his face.

He pulled away.

I dropped my arm and stepped back.

Lauren waited until his breathing evened out before examining the shoulder. She tested the joint, checked his strength, and finally shook her head.

“You aggravated the old AC injury. It looks like a moderate sprain, but I want imaging tomorrow.”

“Tape it,” Jace said. “I’m finishing the game.”

“No.”

“Lauren—”

“You are done tonight. Then we start rehab. Wolves heal quickly, but this joint is unstable because you rushed it last season. If you want it strong for playoffs, you do this properly.”

“How long?”

“Daily work for at least six weeks. Game clearance gets decided as we go.”

Jace swore under his breath.

Lauren looked at me.

“Ivy knows the protocol. She’ll run your student rehab sessions under my plan. Morning before class and afternoon after practice.”

His head snapped up.

“No.”

Lauren raised one eyebrow.

Jace looked at the hand that had calmed him.

Then at me.

“You’re not touching me.”

I picked up the evaluation clipboard.

“Then tell Lauren you’re refusing treatment.”

His jaw tightened.

“If she benches you, that’s between you and your ego.”

The locker room went quiet.

Jace Callahan was used to getting his way because he was the captain, the Alpha heir, and the boy every adult in Blackridge expected to become important.

None of that could stabilize a damaged shoulder.

Lauren clicked her pen.

On the official rehab schedule, she wrote two names side by side.

Jace Callahan.

Ivy Parker.

At six the next morning, Blackridge’s sports medicine room smelled like disinfectant, coffee, and bad decisions.

Jace arrived three minutes late.

I knew because I was watching the clock.

He came through the double doors in gray sweatpants and a black training shirt, his left arm held close to his ribs. The bruising had spread overnight. Even through the shirt, I could see how carefully he moved.

He looked around the room.

“Where’s Lauren?”

“Not here.”

His attention landed on me.

I held up his chart.

“She set the protocol. I run the morning session. Shirt off. Face down.”

Jace stayed by the door.

“I just need tape.”

“No.”

“I have a lift at seven.”

“You have a rehab appointment at six.”

His eyes narrowed.

I pointed to the table.

“If you skip the session, I document it. Lauren sees the note. Coach sees the note. Then they decide whether you dress Friday.”

“You enjoy this way too much.”

“I enjoy being right.”

That almost made him smile.

Almost.

He caught the hem of his shirt with his good hand and pulled it over his head. The movement dragged across his injured side, and he sucked in a breath.

The bruise along his collarbone was ugly. Purple and blue, with a swollen ridge over the AC joint.

I pointed again.

“Table.”

He climbed up and lay on his stomach.

“Pain level?”

“Three.”

I set the clipboard down.

“Try again.”

“Three.”

I pressed one thumb into the tight muscle beside his shoulder blade.

His entire body locked.

A hiss escaped him.

His right hand grabbed the edge of the table.

“Six?” I asked.

He turned his head enough to glare at me.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I needed an honest answer.”

“You could ask like a normal person.”

“I did.”

He muttered something I chose not to hear.

I worked along the muscle carefully, checking where the tension started and where it referred pain into the joint. Jace had torn through rehab too quickly the year before. The joint itself had healed. The support around it had not.

“You rushed this last season,” I said.

“I played the tournament.”

“You won the tournament and kept a weak shoulder.”

“We still won.”

“And now one clean hit put you on the ice.”

He started to push himself up.

I put a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Stay down.”

“Don’t order me around.”

“Lauren’s restriction stands. No contact drills. No upper-body lifting. If you ignore it, I write it down.”

Jace went still beneath my palm.

Not because he had decided to cooperate.

Because I was touching him.

The change was immediate.

The tension in his back eased. His breathing slowed. A quiet rumble vibrated through his chest, more content than threatening.

Then came the scent.

Pine. Frost. Clean winter air.

His wolf settled under my hands as if it had been waiting all night for me to show up.

My own wolf answered with a warm, embarrassing pull low in my chest.

I ignored both of them.

“Relax your right shoulder too,” I said.

“I am relaxed.”

“You’re gripping the table like you want to tear it off the floor.”

He loosened his hand.

“Better?”

“Marginally.”

The clinic door opened.

“There you are.”

Madison Vale walked in carrying two iced coffees.

Of course she did.

At six-thirty in the morning, her blonde hair was smooth, her sweater probably cost more than my monthly food budget, and she looked as if she had been awake for hours preparing to be photographed.

She did not ask whether she could enter the treatment area.

She walked straight to Jace’s table.

His muscles tightened under my hands.

Madison set one coffee on the rolling tray, directly over the corner of his chart.

“You left your phone in my car.”

She held it up.

Jace lifted his head.

“Thanks.”

“Your mother moved dinner to seven. She wants us at the estate early because the alumni gala list still isn’t final.”

Us.

Not you.

Us.

Madison picked up Jace’s discarded shirt and folded it over one arm without hesitation. Then she touched his good shoulder with the casual familiarity of someone who had done it a thousand times.

I took my hands off him.

Jace’s scent sharpened at once.

His wolf noticed the loss.

He did too.

He glanced at me.

I stepped back and reached for the chart.

Something in me settled as I watched Madison stand beside him.

She was not a random girl I needed to compete with.

She was part of a plan.

She knew his schedule. Had his phone. Ate dinner with his parents. Helped his mother organize pack events. She fit into the Callahan future like a piece of furniture chosen years ago.

I had no interest in fighting her for the privilege of joining that house.

Especially not for a boy who had denied me in front of the entire school less than twenty-four hours ago.

I finished the note, tore off the printed schedule, and held it toward Jace.

“Six every morning. Five every afternoon.”

He sat up slowly.

“Every day?”

“Unless Lauren changes it.”

Madison looked between us.

I kept my voice calm.

“And so we are clear: in this room, you are an athlete. I am a student trainer working under Lauren’s plan. That is the only relationship we have.”

Jace reached for the paper.

His fingers brushed mine.

A jolt went straight up my arm.

The bond tightened.

I let go.

He did not.

His hand closed over the edge of the sheet, keeping it between us.

“And outside this room?” he asked.

Madison stopped moving.

So did I.

Jace’s eyes stayed on mine.

The question was quiet.

The room was not.

His wolf was listening.

Madison was listening.

And for one reckless second, I wanted to know what answer he thought he had earned.

Then I pulled the schedule out of his hand.

“Outside this room,” I said, “you’re the guy who said there was no bond.”

I set the paper on his knee.

“Start with living up to your own announcement.”

By six that evening, Jace had complained about the resistance bands, the ice pack, my taping technique, and the fact that Lauren had banned him from contact practice.

I survived all of it.

Then I escaped to the rink.

My last assignment of the day was a sophomore winger coming back from a knee sprain. Lauren wanted me to watch his lower-body mechanics while he worked slow turns around the face-off circles.

I stood behind the open bench gate in sneakers and called corrections over the scrape of his blades.

“Lower your hips. Don’t let the knee collapse inward.”

He tried again.

Better.

I marked the change on my tablet.

Something bumped the toe of my shoe.

A pair of black hockey skates sat on the rubber mat.

I looked up.

Jace leaned against the boards in his team jacket, his injured arm tucked close to his body.

“You spend a lot of time yelling about edge control for someone who never gets on the ice.”

“I’m observing mechanics.”

“From land.”

“That’s where the medical equipment is.”

His mouth twitched.

“You can’t skate.”

It was not a question.

I looked at the skates.

Then at him.

“I can skate.”

“Prove it.”

The sophomore finished his last lap and headed for the locker room, pretending very hard not to listen.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I sat on the bench and changed shoes.

Jace watched without saying a word.

The skates were close enough to my size to be dangerous.

I tightened the laces, stood, and immediately regretted every decision that had brought me here.

“You’re smiling,” I said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Get on the ice, Parker.”

I opened the gate.

My right blade touched first.

My ankle wobbled.

My left foot followed and shot forward.

I grabbed for the boards.

Jace caught my waist from the rubber side of the gate before I could go down.

His good arm locked around me.

Heat pressed along my back.

Pine and winter frost rose between us.

My wolf went very still.

“Easy,” he said near my ear. “Bend your knees.”

“I know how knees work.”

“Your current performance suggests otherwise.”

I elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

He laughed.

It surprised me enough that I turned my head.

Without the audience, without his parents, without Madison, Jace looked younger. Less like the future Alpha everyone discussed and more like an eighteen-year-old boy enjoying the fact that I was terrible at something.

“Let go,” I said.

“You’ll fall.”

“Maybe I’d rather fall.”

His expression changed.

Not offended.

Thinking.

Then he released me.

I lasted three seconds.

My skates went in opposite directions, and I landed hard on my butt.

Pain shot up my spine.

Jace laughed so loudly it echoed off the empty seats.

I glared at him.

That made him laugh harder.

“You are a terrible person.”

“You told me to let go.”

“I did not tell gravity to humiliate me.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

For a minute, the last two days disappeared.

There was no mate ceremony. No family hierarchy. No Madison. No public rejection.

Just me on the ice and Jace grinning from the gate.

I pushed myself to my knees.

“Any useful advice, Captain?”

“Use the boards until you find your balance. Short pushes. Don’t try to walk.”

I followed the boards and tried again.

Jace stayed at the gate and coached instead of touching me.

"Push out, not back. Small stride. Let the blade glide."

"You know I spend all day telling athletes not to listen to injured captains, right?"

"Then consider this peer education."

I made it halfway to the face-off circle before panic tightened my knees.

"Don’t look at your feet," he called.

"They’re the part trying to kill me."

"Look where you want to go."

I lifted my head.

He was still there, one hand on the gate, not moving toward me even though the bond tugged when I got farther away.

That detail lodged somewhere inconvenient in my chest.

This time, I made it ten feet.

Then fifteen.

On the return, my left skate caught an edge.

I tipped forward.

Jace reached through the open gate and caught my forearm before my knees hit the ice.

His grip was firm.

The bond sparked between us.

I looked at his hand.

He did too.

Then, as soon as I had my balance, he let go.

No joke.

No excuse to keep touching me.

No Alpha grip around my waist.

Just space.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it.”

The small act unsettled me more than flirting would have.

He had listened.

We left the rink together a few minutes later. I carried the borrowed skates by the laces while Jace held the door with his good arm.

The lobby lights were brighter than the ice.

So was reality.

“Jace, sweetheart.”

Claire Callahan stood beside the trophy cases in a cream cashmere coat.

Madison was with her.

Jace stopped.

The easy posture he had worn at the rink vanished.

“Mom.”

Claire’s gaze passed over me without pausing.

“We came to see how the shoulder is doing. Your father wants an update before dinner.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll be better if you follow the schedule.” Madison stepped to his good side and rested a hand at his waist. “Claire and I were talking about playoff seating. My parents want the family boxes together.”

“It presents a unified front,” Claire said. “Especially with scouts attending.”

I stood two feet away holding skates.

Jace looked at me.

For one second, I thought he might say something.

This is Ivy.

She’s my mate.

She’s the reason my wolf didn’t tear apart the locker room.

Anything.

He said nothing.

Madison’s hand stayed on him.

Claire kept talking about seating charts.

The laugh we had shared on the ice suddenly felt stupid.

Private Jace could be warm. Funny. Careful.

Public Jace still disappeared inside his family’s expectations.

I stepped forward and pushed the skates against his chest. He caught them awkwardly with his right hand.

“Your skates, Callahan.”

His eyes darkened.

“Have a good night.”

I walked toward the doors.

“Ivy.”

My hand stopped on the metal handle.

Not Parker.

Ivy.

Behind me, Claire went silent.

So did Madison.

I could have turned around.

I didn’t.

He did not get to use my first name like a secret while pretending not to know what I was in the light.

I pushed the door open and walked into the cold.