Chapter 1: Wren
Boston air hits differently.
Sharper.Colder.The kind of cold that gets under your skin and stays there, swirling with the smell of harbor wind, espresso from the street carts, and the burnt-toast scent of the subway grates.I breathe it in anyway, forcing it deep, letting it scrape the inside of my lungs like I deserve the punishment.
I can handle the cold.
It’s the ice I’m not sure about.
TheBoston Reapers Training Centerrises in front of me like something out of a sports documentary—steel, tinted glass, banners flapping with players’ faces, and a massive Reaper logo looming overhead, grim and iconic.The city hums behind me: traffic, horns, the distant yell of a vendor, the brutal honesty Boston is famous for.
The second I walk through the doors, it hits me:
Hockey.
Men.
Heat wrapped in cold.
The scent of sweat and skate oil and expensive cologne.Bodies moving with purpose.Voices echoing off concrete and metal.Pucks clacking against boards.The low growl of someone cursing from the rink.
My pulse stutters, then steadies.
This is exactly what I signed up for.
And exactly what I promised myself I’d avoid.
But bills don’t care about promises.
A receptionist waves me through.“Wren Harper?Coach is expecting you.Locker Room Hall C.”
I adjust my bag on my shoulder and start down the hall.Every step drags up memories I don’t want—bright lights, screaming fans, ice so clean it glittered like a mirror.
And then the fall.
The sabotage.
The humiliation.
I swallow hard and force the past down.
This is different.
New city.New job.New version of me.
I stop in front of Hall C.The door is cracked.Voices spill out—loud, unfiltered, rough.There’s laughter.The clatter of gear hitting the floor.Something thumps against a locker.
I push the door open.
And stop breathing.
Eight men—half dressed, half undressed, all sculpted like Greek statues that swear too much—turn their heads toward me.
The room goes silent.A stretched, vibrating silence that thickens the air until it feels humid.
Then someone whistles low.
“Well, shit,” a player mutters.“Management finally got something right.”
