Page 63 of Shattered Ice
Another long pause. I listen to her frantic breathing, counting the beats between each gasp. Then, her voice, small but there. “The… the floor under my feet.”
“Good. That’s good, Clara. That’s real,” I murmur. My hand finds the edge of the table, and I slowly slide it across the cool surface until it’s near hers. “My hand is on the table. You can touch it if you want. I won’t move.”
Another moment of agonizing silence. I wait, every muscle tense. Then, I feel it. The tentative, trembling touch of herfingertips finding mine. She latches on, her grip surprisingly strong, desperate, her fingers ice-cold. I wrap my own fingers around hers, my thumb finding her frantic pulse, and hold on. A solid, warm anchor.
We sit like that for a long time as her pulse slows under my thumb and her grip loosens from a panicked clutch to a simple, trusting hold. The frantic edge in the air disappears, replaced by a quiet, fragile stillness. To keep her grounded, to keep her here with me, I start talking.
“You never told me,” I say softly. “What you’re majoring in.”
Her voice is still a little shaky. “You never asked.”
“I’m asking now.”
She takes a long, slow breath. “Sports Psychology. My focus is on athlete performance. Mental blocks, handling pressure… the psychology of winning.”
My mind reels.Of course.The girl who diagnosed my dyslexia. The one who built workarounds for my brain. The one who anchors my chaos and understands the pressure. It’s so perfect, it’s like the universe has been playing a long game all along.
“Why?” I ask, my voice rough.
“My dad,” she says, her voice so quiet I can barely hear it over the storm. “He loved hockey. After he died… understanding the game, the players, what was going on in their heads… it was my way of keeping him with me.”
The raw vulnerability of her confession hits me harder than any body check. She just handed me the key to the most important part of her, the piece that explains everything. The reason she, and she alone, was able to see me. I’m about to respond, to say something that can measure up to the gift she just gave me.
Just then, the power returns with a low electrical sigh. The fluorescents buzz back to life, flooding the room with a harshglare that feels like a physical assault after the intimacy of the dark.
She pulls her hand from mine as if burned. Her cheeks flush a deep, beautiful red. She looks exposed, raw, and more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. The adrenaline from the panic is still thrumming under her skin, a wild energy that hasn’t found an exit. But now it’s mixed with something new. Something fierce.
She stands, her chair scraping back with a sharp, decisive sound. “Come with me,” she says, her voice a low command.
Before I can react, she grabs my hand. Her grip isn't just firm; it's a manacle, her fingers locking around my wrist with a strength I didn't know she possessed. She pulls me to my feet. I follow, too stunned by her sudden audacity to resist, as she navigates the main stacks, pulling me deeper into the tall, dusty shadows of the history section. She stops in a narrow, deserted aisle and turns, pushing me back against an imposing bookshelf. I stumble back, thrown off-balance more by the audacity of the act than the force of it. The ancient wood groans, the spines of a hundred forgotten books digging into my back. She cages me in, her small body a wall of unexpected power, her hands flat on my chest.
“You just saw me at my weakest,” she whispers, her eyes blazing with a wild, unfamiliar fire. The adrenaline from her panic has clearly morphed into something reckless and powerful. “Now you get to see me in control.”
Before I can process her words, she drops to her knees, the thud of bone on the thin carpet a shockingly violent sound.
"Clara, what—"
"Shut. Up. Adrian." Each word is a gunshot. Her eyes burn into mine, pupils blown so wide they devour the iris. She doesn’t just unbutton my jeans; she rips them open, a button flying somewhere into the darkness. My zipper surrenders with a violent snarl. The library air slices across my exposed skin, butthen her hands—Christ, her hands—brand me with a heat that borders on pain.
She devours me. No hesitation. No mercy. Her mouth claims me with such savage hunger I taste blood where I've bitten through my own lip. My skull slams back against ancient encyclopedias, vertebrae cracking against leather-bound spines. I claw at the bookshelf, splinters driving under my nails as I fight to remain standing. The absolute surrender of control is like freefall—terrifying, exhilarating, fatal. Her tongue, teeth, and throat work me with such primal, vicious precision that reality fractures, my vision shattering into white-hot fragments of sensation.
I'm close—too close—the pressure building like a scream trapped behind my teeth. I reach for her, fingers trembling, desperate to reclaim some fragment of control from this freefall.
But she tears away, her lips glistening, her eyes black holes of newfound dominance. "I'm not done with you," she hisses, each syllable scorching my flesh.
She devours me again, relentless. Her nails dig crescents into my thighs that will purple by morning. The wet, animal sounds she makes reverberate through my bones. When she swallows me deeper, something inside me ruptures. The cry that rips from my throat isn't human. My body convulses, my consciousness fragmenting into shrapnel. She remains there, predatory, watching my destruction with savage satisfaction, my essence gleaming on her mouth like war paint.
When she rises, she doesn’t just wipe her lips. She smears the evidence across her skin with deliberate, territorial violence. The look she gives me isn't just triumphant.
It’s the look of someone who has consumed your soul and found it delicious.
Chapter 37
Adrian
Theroarofthecrowd is a physical force, a living thing that presses in on all sides. But for the first time in weeks, my head is clear. The score is tied, third period, clock ticking down under two minutes. Greystone is playing dirty, their chirps getting uglier, their checks landing a half-second late just to leave a mark. I can taste blood from where I bit the inside of my cheek. I’m running on fumes and fury, a familiar cocktail that usually keeps me sharp. But tonight, something is different.
We line up for a face-off at center ice. The air smells of ice, exertion, and the faint, coppery scent of my own blood.
