POV: Lena Parker

I should have ignored the text.

THE RINK. ONE LAST TIME.

Instead, six hours before my transfer became official, I stood inside the abandoned community rink at the edge of Blackridge territory.

Half the fluorescent lights had burned out years ago. The ice was scarred from local youth practices, the old bleachers empty beneath a layer of dust. Damon and I had hidden here through two winters, using the rink on nights when the council thought he was inspecting border patrols and my parents thought I was studying late.

I told myself I came for closure.

My wolf knew better.

She paced the moment cedar and woodsmoke entered the building.

Damon stepped through the side door wearing dark boots and a heavy black coat. He didn't bother with skates. He crossed the rubber mat and stepped onto the ice carefully, moving toward me as if every old memory gave him the right direction.

"You came," he said.

"To say goodbye."

"Your car already left for Ravencrest?"

"At dawn."

His mouth tightened.

For a moment, he looked around the rink instead of at me.

"You remember Tuesdays?"

"Don't."

"You used to sit in the third row while I practiced shots."

"Damon."

"You'd yell at me when my shoulder dropped."

"Those memories don't fix what happened."

He finally looked at me.

"I'm not asking you to forget."

"You're asking me to stay."

"Yes."

At least he said it honestly.

I turned toward the exit.

He moved before I reached the boards.

Damon didn't grab me. He planted both hands against the plexiglass on either side of my head, trapping me without contact.

The result was almost worse.

His body heat cut through the cold. Cedar and woodsmoke surrounded me. The mate bond snapped tight enough to make my breath catch.

"Tell me you don't feel it," he said.

I pressed my palms to his chest, not to pull him closer but to keep space between us.

His heart hammered under my hands.

"Move."

"Tell me the bond means nothing."

"I never said it meant nothing."

He lowered his head until his mouth was near my ear.

"Then stop pretending leaving is simple."

My wolf surged toward him.

Every instinct in me wanted the same terrible thing—to lean into the man who had hurt me because he was also the man my body recognized as home.

Damon's nose brushed my jaw.

"You are still mine," he whispered.

The words cleared my head.

I shoved against his chest.

He didn't move far, but he lifted his face.

I looked directly into his eyes.

"I still love you."

Relief broke across his features so fast it almost made me cruel enough to regret saying it.

He leaned toward me.

I locked my elbows.

"But you don't get to reject me with your mouth and claim me with your body."

He stopped.

"Lena—"

"You chose Vanessa where everyone could see. You don't get to use the bond in an empty building to pretend that choice didn't happen."

His hands came off the glass.

That small movement mattered.

He took half a step back.

I slipped around him and moved toward center ice.

The cold rushed into the space between us.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a brass locker key.

Number forty-two.

The locker in the back hall still held a blanket, an extra Blackridge sweatshirt, and a cheap photo strip from the county fair we had attended under fake names. Damon once joked that it was the closest thing we had to a shared apartment.

I had emptied it an hour earlier.

I held the key up.

His face went pale.

"You cleared the locker."

"Yes."

"You kept that stuff for two years."

"I know."

I dropped the key.

It struck the ice and spun once before lying still between us.

Damon stared at it.

"I can end the arrangement," he said suddenly.

My heart stumbled.

He looked up. "Not tonight. The council would call it instability before I've even finished the transition. But I can fix this. Give me time."

There it was again.

Wait for me.

The same promise in a different coat.

"No."

His expression hardened with panic. "You don't understand what happens if I move too fast. The elders can challenge my authority. We could fracture the pack."

"Then lead your pack."

"And us?"

"There is no us to protect while I'm hidden."

He dragged a hand over his face. "What do you want from me?"

I thought about it.

For two years, I would have answered instantly: Claim me. Choose me. Fight for me.

Now I knew better.

"I want you to make your decisions without using my love as insurance."

For once, I did not need him to answer correctly. That was the strangest part. I had spent years measuring my future by his reactions. Standing on that empty ice, I realized his next move could be brave, selfish, political, or sincere, and none of it had to determine whether I boarded the car in the morning.

He looked stunned.

I walked toward the exit.

This time he didn't block me.

At the door, I glanced back through the scratched glass.

Damon had gone to the center of the rink. He stood over the little brass key without picking it up.

The bond still pulsed between us, painful and alive. It did not weaken because I walked away, and I stopped expecting distance to work like a cure. Distance was only space. What I built inside that space would have to be mine.

But for the first time, he wasn't the person deciding what that bond required from me.

I stepped outside into the dark and deleted his text thread before I could change my mind.

My phone immediately displayed the transport reminder for dawn. I set an alarm, sent Ravencrest my final arrival confirmation, and walked toward the parking lot without looking through the rink window again. The next time Damon saw me, I intended to be standing somewhere he had no authority over me.

POV: Lena Parker

Ravencrest Academy smelled like pine, floor cleaner, cold stone, and absolutely nothing like Damon.

For the first week, that alone felt like freedom.

I filled every hour I could. My transfer placed me in the academy's advanced sports therapy track, so I volunteered for early rounds, late lab sessions, and the heaviest contact-sport rotation available. If I stayed busy enough, I didn't have time to wonder what was happening in Blackridge.

My new clinical director asked whether I wanted a lighter adjustment period.

I said no.

At Blackridge Sports Medicine, my schedule had revolved around one Alpha. At Ravencrest, I wanted to prove I could handle anyone.

Three weeks into the term, I got my chance.

"Parker, tighter on the wrist," Jax Reynolds said from the treatment bench.

The senior forward had hands the size of dinner plates and the pain tolerance of a brick wall.

"Any tighter and you won't have fingers by warm-up," I said, smoothing the final strip of tape. "If you want to keep feeling the stick in your hand, leave it alone."

Jax flexed experimentally, then grinned. "Fair. Thanks, doc."

"Not a doctor."

"You yell like one."

"Go before I redo it looser."

He laughed and left.

A sprint athlete replaced him with a hamstring complaint. Then a defender needed an abrasion cleaned. Then Coach Miller called us to the indoor turf for a full-contact scrimmage.

The work was relentless.

I loved it.

Halfway through the scrimmage, two players collided near midfield. One bounced upright. Kaelen Rhodes, a starting forward, stayed down with both hands around his knee.

Coach Miller blew the whistle.

I was already moving.

"Give him space," I called as I dropped beside Kaelen.

His wolf flashed close to the surface, his eyes bright gold with pain.

"Don't touch it," he growled.

"Then tell me where it hurts."

"Everywhere."

"Useful. Look at me. Did you feel a pop?"

He swallowed. "More like it slid."

That mattered.

I stabilized his thigh, then tested the joint carefully. Swelling was already forming, but I didn't feel the loose movement I feared from a complete ligament tear.

"Kaelen, this will hurt for two seconds."

"That is never a comforting sentence."

"Two seconds."

I checked the kneecap and surrounding structures.

He hissed but stayed still.

"Patellar subluxation," I said. "It slipped partially out and reduced on its own. I don't feel major instability in the ACL or MCL, but you're getting imaging before anyone lets you train again."

Coach Miller crouched beside us. "Surgery?"

"Not if the MRI looks the way I think it will. Immobilize, ice, no weight-bearing until we know more."

The medical cart arrived.

As they lifted Kaelen, Coach Miller stayed beside me.

"Good assessment," he said. "You didn't let the crowd rush you."

Praise from him was rare enough that I almost checked whether he had a fever.

"Thank you."

"You belong on a field crew, Parker. Don't bury yourself in private clinic work."

The sentence followed me all afternoon.

At Blackridge, a poisonous little part of me had always wondered whether I was good because Damon needed me to be. He requested my sessions. He praised my hands. He brought influential trainers into the clinic and told them to watch me work.

Maybe I had mistaken his dependence for proof of talent.

Ravencrest was different.

No one here cared who my mate was.

No one even knew until the rumors eventually reached campus.

My work stood on its own.

I started keeping a private notebook of cases I wanted to study later: shoulder instability, patellar tracking, post-concussion balance testing, return-to-play protocols. For the first time, my career goals filled pages without Damon's name appearing once.

By the first heavy snowfall, I had stopped checking Blackridge news every night. The mate bond still ached in quiet moments, but it no longer decided the shape of my day.

Then the Winter Games assignments went up.

Students crowded the digital board outside the medical sciences building. The Four-Pack Winter Games were the academy's biggest event, drawing scouts, elite teams, and pack medical directors from across the region.

I scanned for my name.

TEAM ALPHA - LEAD STUDENT THERAPIST: LENA PARKER.

My stomach flipped with excitement.

Top bracket.

Lead position.

Exactly what I had worked for.

Then I read the next line.

PRIMARY DELEGATION: BLACKRIDGE.

VIP ATHLETE: ALPHA DAMON BLACKWOOD.

The paper cup slipped out of my hand and hit the floor.

Coffee splashed across my boots.

I barely noticed.

My wolf had already recognized his name. The bond, quiet for weeks, pulled tight enough to make me dizzy.

I walked straight to Dr. Evans's office.

He looked up from a stack of files as I entered. "Congratulations. Coach Miller specifically asked for you."

I set a recusal request on his desk.

His brows rose.

"I need another assignment."

"Why?"

"Conflict of interest. I'm from Blackridge. Their Alpha and I have history."

Dr. Evans read the form, then looked at me over his glasses.

"Can you treat him objectively?"

I wanted to say no.

I wanted to move to junior varsity, where nobody carried cedar in his skin or my history in his hands.

Then I pictured giving up the best assignment in the program because Damon might walk into the room.

I had already left one school because of him.

I wasn't letting him move me twice.

I took the form back.

Dr. Evans said nothing while I tore it in half.

Then he slid the acceptance roster across the desk.

I signed.

"Good," he said. "You'll supervise the primary medical station for all four captain-level athletes during opening week. Staffing is tight, so Blackridge won't be your only headache."

I looked up. "All four captains?"

"Blackridge, Northern Ridge, Ironwood, and Silverlake. Their medical clearances are grouped under your station."

Four rival Alphas in one bracket.

One of them was the man I had crossed an entire territory to escape.

Dr. Evans closed the folder.

"Opening camp starts Monday at seven."

I picked up my copy of the roster.

Damon's name sat at the top.

For the first time since leaving Blackridge, I knew exactly when I would see him again.