Page 133 of Shots & Echoes

“Harder, Evans! Get your head up!”

She didn’t flinch. She never fucking did. But I saw it—the flicker of defiance, the way her body tensed like she knew I was watching. Like she felt it too.

The moment she stopped looking at me like I was just her coach? That was the moment we were both screwed.

“Again! Back to the line!” My voice echoed across the ice, sharp and relentless. They obeyed, bodies colliding, skates cutting into the surface with violent precision. This—right here—was where I controlled the chaos. Every drill, every order barked was a grip around my throat loosening, keeping the fire in my blood contained.

But then she laughed.

The sound cut through the cold like a blade, and my attention snapped to her.

Iris glided over to Brooke, her breath still heavy from the drill, her cheeks flushed. But that wasn’t what got to me. It was the way she smiled. The way something light and free slipped past her guard, like I wasn’t still standing here, still inside her head.

I drifted closer, barely realizing I was moving at all—a hunter tracking the shift in the air.

Then I heard it.

“So… you and Langley, huh?” Brooke teased.

My jaw locked. What?

Iris shrugged, casual—too casual. But she didn’t answer right away. Because there was nothing to answer.

“Saw that mark on your neck… boy’s getting confident,” Brooke added with a grin.

A mark? A slow, dark fire ignited in my chest.

My mark.

Mine.

I knew exactly where it was—the deep bruise at the base of her throat, where my teeth had pressed against her skin last night, branding her even as she gasped my name.

But hearing someone else mention it? Like it belonged to someone else?

A growl curled in my throat before I could stop it.

The laughter, the teasing, the fucking assumption that she was up for grabs?—

They didn’t know. No one did. No one had any idea what we’d done. How far we’d gone. How I’d already claimed her in ways no one else ever would.

And yet, standing there, hearing my mark mistaken for Langley’s? It burned hotter than any drill, hotter than any game, hotter than the consequences I should have been thinking about.

This wasn’t a trophy for Langley to fucking win.

This was a war.

And I wasn’t losing.

Iris froze—just for a second. Too long.

I caught it. Brooke caught it. And in that moment, something inside me snapped, a warning siren blaring through my skull.

“Unless…” Brooke smirked, leaning in like a shark scenting blood. “You got someone else keeping you warm?”

Iris laughed, but it was wrong—tight, forced. I knew her too well to miss the tension creeping into her shoulders, the way her eyes darted away, desperate for an escape.

But Brooke wasn’t stupid. She could smell bullshit from a mile away. And girls talked. One wrong word, one careless whisper, and this whole thing would fucking explode.

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