Page 81 of Shattered Ice
Chapter 46
Adrian
Theparty’sloudenoughto rattle glass. Bass shakes the floorboards, beer sloshes out of plastic cups, and the air reeks of sweat, spilled whiskey, and victory. For once, all that noise isn’t pressing down on me. It’s around me. Beside me. Clara’s hand is in mine—small, steady—and the second we step through the door, every head swivels. The shift is immediate. They don’t just see me anymore. They see us.
Calder is the first to break ranks. He shoves a cold bottle into my chest, grinning. “Finally tamed the beast, huh?”
I give him a look sharp enough to slit skin, but Clara only laughs, light and fearless. Somehow that diffuses the room faster than a threat ever could. Calder grins wider and slaps my shoulder.
“About damn time, Hale,” Gio cuts in, looping an arm around Clara for a hug that lasts a beat too long. My hand shoots out, gripping the back of his collar and hauling him back like a dog on a leash.
“Easy,” Gio chokes, laughing as he stumbles away. “Just making sure she’s real. None of us believed you could pull this off.”
“Pull what off?” Clara asks, amusement flickering in her eyes.
“Getting him to smile like a human being,” Calder calls from across the table.
The room laughs—sharp, genuine, not cruel. For once, it feels like they’re laughingwithme, not at me.
And then Declan pushes through the crowd. No grin. No joke. Just a steady gaze as he crosses the space, his presence alone pulling the volume down a notch. He stops in front of Clara first, not me. His eyes rake over her, measuring, testing, waiting to see if she’ll flinch. She doesn’t. She meets his stare head-on, her chin tilted the same way it was in the ballroom when she gutted those donors. Finally, he nods once. Sharp. Final.
“Good to see you standing with him.”
Clara’s lips curve, calm and certain. “There’s nowhere else I’d stand.”
Declan looks at me next, his jaw tight, as if the words are being weighed and sharpened. He clasps my shoulder, hard. “Don’t fuck it up, Hale.”
The laughter picks back up, louder now, rougher. Calder whoops, Gio whistles, and shots slam down in celebration. Clara squeezes my hand, and for the first time in years, I feel it: acceptance. Not just tolerated, not just feared. One of them. And I brought her here. She's part of it because she's part of me.
Graduation comes fast, but it hits like a collision.
The stone steps are crowded with black robes and tassels, the air thick with the smell of fresh-cut grass and cheapperfume. The band plays something formal and forgettable, but underneath it, the hum of the crowd is restless, buzzing, alive.
The team sits in the first rows, a wall of black gowns and broad shoulders, fidgeting with their caps like they’d rather be gripping sticks. Their laughter is rough, their whispers sharp, but when my name is mentioned in the opening roll, they clap harder than anyone. Not polite. Not hollow.Real.
Clara walks just ahead of me in line, a tassel bouncing against the dark fall of her hair. The robe can’t hide her. Every step is steady, confident, and it punches me harder than any check I’ve taken on the ice. She’s not the girl who dragged me out of a fire. She’s the woman who rebuilt me inside it.
When the dean calls her name, the sound echoes through the speakers, and before I can think, I’m on my feet. Breaking protocol. Breaking silence. My brothers follow, a ripple of movement—chairs scraping, hands clapping. She turns, her eyes scanning until they land on me. For a moment, the whole ceremony vanishes. It’s just her and me, locked across the space. Her mouth curves into something small, secret. Not a smile. A promise.
Later, after I’ve crossed the stage myself, we find each other in the swirl of robes and cameras. She presses through the chaos until she’s in front of me. Her hand slides up my chest, fingers firm over my heart, staking her claim in plain view.
“You made it,” she whispers, her eyes burning into mine.
I lean down, our foreheads pressing together, our tassels tangling. “No,” I murmur, my voice low and certain. “Wedid.”
The kiss is quick—one second, maybe two—but it’s enough. Heavy. Loaded. The sound of a camera shutter clicks somewhere too close, sealing the moment. It carries more weight than any vow I’ve ever spoken. A promise in front of everyone, disguised as nothing at all. And from the roar that erupts behind us—from my teammates whooping, from Gio’s wolf whistle, from Caldershouting something obscene—I know they see it too. We’re not just together. We’re untouchable.
But the undercurrent doesn’t stay buried.
The ceremony dissolves into chaos—caps arcing into the blue sky, families shouting names, flashbulbs popping. I’m about to let myself believe this moment is ours when I see her.
Maya.
She cuts through the crowd like she doesn’t need permission, a press badge swinging from her lanyard, her eyes sharper than any camera lens. She’s not smiling. She’s hunting. She stops in front of us, close enough that I feel Clara tense at my side.
“Word is your father’s lining up a move before the draft,” she says, her voice low and clipped. “Donors. Maybe theChronicle. He’s setting the board, and you’re the piece he wants to crush. Be ready.”
My hand, which was halfway to waving at my teammates, freezes in midair. The ground tilts under me, the roar of celebration muffled into static. My jaw locks so hard it aches. “What move?” I demand, my voice a growl.
