Chapter 1
~~MILA~~
“Are you really going to keep hiding me forever, Kelvin?”
Lilian’s voice rang out through the half-open crack of the locker-room door, dripping with an entitlement that made my stomach twist.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my fingers tightening around the cardboard box cradled in my arms.
It was supposed to be a surprise to celebrate the milestone we had been building toward for years.
Inside rested a pair of custom-ordered silver goalie pads, crafted to the exact specifications Kelvin had obsessed over for months.
Because tonight was supposed to be his moment, I had spent three years believing that supporting him was the utmost expression of love.
With a soft breath, I pushed the door open and time shattered.
Kelvin sat sprawling across the bench, his broad shoulders tense beneath a Ravencrest jacket.
Straddling his lap, her fingers curled lazily into the nape of his neck, was Lilian.
She was wearing his game-day jersey and laughing, her hips shifting against him with a familiarity that burned my eyes.
For several seconds, my lungs forgot how to breathe air. My brain simply refused to assemble the pieces of the picture in front of me.
Lilian.
My greatest rival on the ice, the lady who had spent years trying to tear me down, currently draped over the man who had promised me forever.
They both stayed still for a moment until Lilian tilted her head my way.
Instead of looking guilty, Lilian smiled slowly, as if she had won.
“Oh, it's Mila,” she murmured, her voice dripping with fakeness.
I looked away from her and turned to the man I had given three years of my life to.
“What are you doing here?” he asked with no single remorse in his eyes.
The question scraped against my ribs like a dull blade.
“I came to see you,” I whispered, the words barely clearing my teeth.
“And I brought you...” The words couldn't even leave my lips.
I lowered my eyes to the package, offering it out like an offering to a god who had already abandoned the altar.
Kelvin only glanced at the box, then back to my face with a dull, dismissive sigh.
“You should have stayed home.”
My heart sank at once.
“Why is she sitting on you?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer but it was just hard to accept.
Lilian let out a soft, mocking laugh as she shifted closer to Kelvin and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
“You still don’t know?” she asked.
I looked straight at her, my voice hollow. “Know what?”
“That I am his true mate.” The sentence dropped into the space of the room like a bomb.
Deep inside my chest, my wolf let out a high, distressed whimper, clawing desperately at the walls of my consciousness.
My gaze snapped back to Kelvin, silently pleading for him to laugh it off, to deny it, to tell me it was a cruel joke, but he didn't say a word.
“Kelvin?” I breathed.
He sighed again, an impatient sound, and gently nudged Lilian off his lap so he could stand.
He smoothed down his shirt, looking at me with the coldness of a stranger on the street.
“Yes, you are not my true mate.” My fingers went numb against the cardboard.
“I was never your true mate?” I asked as I almost lost my balance.
He didn't even blink as he spoke. “Yes, Lilian is my true mate and she is now carrying my child.”
The floor seemed to drop away beneath my boots.
For three years, I had loved this man with everything in me.
I had coached him through his slumps and buried my own aspirations so he could stand in the spotlight.
Above all else, I had swallowed daily doses of suppressants.
Numbing myself just to keep my powerful alpha aura under control because Kelvin had a fragile ego and needed me to play the part of a weak partner to feel secure.
I had reduced every single piece of myself so he could shine.
And now, he looked at me as if I were a minor inconvenience on his path to greatness.
Lilian slid her fingers through his, lacing their hands together with casual ownership.
“Hmmm.. The way she acts this dumb I bet she even knows about her land.”
My eyes snapped back to Lilian, confusion warring with the rising terror in my chest. “What land?”
Kelvin’s expression hardened, annoyance flashing in his eyes.
“The property your family owns,” she replied almost immediately.
My stomach plummeted at once hoping it wasn't what I was thinking.
“I don’t understand.” I let out.
“The training facility,”
Kelvin clarified, his voice calm and detached, like a businessman discussing a simple transaction.
Then he looked straight at me and delivered the words that made my entire body go cold.
“Well, it’s mine now because you signed it a few weeks ago.”
In a horrifying flash, the memory slammed into me.
The documents Kelvin had brought home weeks ago while smiling and pressing a cup of tea into my hands.
He had told me the paperwork was just a routine administrative form.
I had trusted him without question.
I had signed those papers because I believed every word that came out of his mouth.
My fingers tightened around the box in my arms as I stared at him.
“You took my land?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
Kelvin broke into a loud laugh, It was a real, chilling laugh, completely devoid of guilt or regret.
He looked almost amused by the horror on my face.
“You lied to me.” He shrugged as if it were nothing. “Well, you signed the papers yourself, Mila.”
I stared at him, unable to breathe properly. The training facility had belonged to my family for generations.
It wasn't just a piece of property. It was part of my family's legacy, and I had trusted the man I loved enough to put it in his hands.