Page 49 of The Price of Ice

“I know,” Levy told him, shrugging a little with one shoulder. “I want to, though. Wanna help me make some breakfast?”

Kallen really didn’t. He wanted to get back under the covers and hope he could fall asleep again, but he was already taking enough from Levy, so he dragged himself to his feet and followed his friend to the kitchen.

He cut the veg he was passed and opened his mouth to try the yoghurt with fresh fruit when it was offered to him on a spoon. And he sat down and put the delicious food in his mouth and tried his damnest not to feel how it still hurt to swallow.

It was the least he could do.

But it wasn’t enough.

Levy waited long enough for him to finish his food to pounce, but pounce he did. “Look, can you please tell me what happened?”

He froze with his cup of tea halfway to his mouth, then very carefully placed it down, eyes stuck to its murky depths. It was cold, it always went cold because he took too long to drink it.

“I don’t care what it was, only...” Levy obviously wasn’t done. “I thought maybe you were mad at me, or I made things weird, or something. But... I’ve never seen you play like that.”

He winced, he couldn’t help it. And then he made himself meet Levy’s eyes and admit, tight but honest, “I know I’m playing like shit.”

“What? That’s not... You have been off, for the last few days. Since...”

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was, even if he was suddenly inexplicably furious. Mostly with himself, because heknewhe could do better and he hadn’t and Levy had every right to call him out on it, but it was just so fuckinghumiliating.

“Sorry?” Levy echoed. “Kallen, I’m worried aboutyou, not about your play. I’ve never seen you so out of it in the ice. Normally you go out there and... Well, you are magic, no matter what’s going on out here.”

Kallen cut his gaze to the side. It was true, it was one of the reasons he loved playing. On the ice, he could be himself, forget it all.

Only it was pretty hard to forget his captain’s threat. Or how... how it’d all fallen apart. He’d been feeling stupidly confident knowing he could use lure to influence the situation. He hadn’t been planning on it because McKinley wasn’t exactly an approachable guy, but...

But he’d convinced himself he was safe, somehow. Like he’d thought he’d become an alpha all of a sudden.

A delusion that had cost him dearly, and from which he was struggling to recover. “Heat... it was bad.”

Levy didn’t say a word, or even made a sound, but Kallenfelthim react anyway, and when he stole a glance he saw he’d been right. His friend’s hands were fisted on the kitchen island, knuckles white.

He wanted to apologise for that too.

“Bad how?”

He was on his feet before he knew it, swinging off the banquette and going straight for the door.

“Kallen!” Levy was following him. “What on earth—?”

Kallen could have got away if he’d run, but he wasn’t that far gone, so he allowed Levy to catch him by the back of the shirt. He stopped, facing away from him and not saying a word, but he stopped.

He gave Levy a chance, as much as he could manage with the blood roaring in his ears and the absolute terror pounding away in his chest.

“It’s okay,” his friend whispered at his back, hand coming to rest lightly on Kallen’s upper back—not holding on at all, just a warmth presence. “I... I just want to help.”

His silence felt like a precipice; one Levy could shove them both past the edge of if he wasn’t careful. And yet, he waited. He fuckinghopedlike he had any right to hope for anything when life kept slapping him awake any time he dared.

It wasn’t sane, he couldn’t have explained it to any rational person without blushing for shame.

But he did it.

“I can help you get back in the swing of things. On the ice, I mean.” The words were uncertain, an offer that truly could not know its welcome.

But Levy had said it.

AGREEING TO GO TO THErink in the afternoon, well past when everyone else would have left after morning skate, felt strangely underhanded.

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