The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen

Sage POV:

I marched down the sunlit brick path across Briar's central quad, clutching my heavy field notebooks like a shield. All I wanted was to vanish into my dorm and fix my creek data before anyone noticed me.

"Hey, Julian! That one! The brunette!"

A burst of booming laughter shattered my focus. A wall of Briar University hockey players blocked the path, smelling of cold air and athletic sweat. Two girls walking toward the dining hall stopped dead in their tracks, whispering frantically behind their coffee cups as they pulled out their phones.

Julian Andrews.

Briar's star forward, varsity captain, and the undisputed golden boy of the athletic department. He had half the student body memorizing his jersey number, and an infuriating reputation for never looking twice at anyone. Now, he was being shoved directly in my direction, his dark hair slightly ruffled, his pale blue eyes landing squarely on me.

I frowned, trying to sidestep the group. Right now, boys were just unnecessary friction in my project timeline. Especially him—the kind of athlete who took up too much space everywhere he went.

Julian blocked my path in a single, fluid motion. He was tall, his broad athletic frame casting a shadow that swallowed me whole, and he smelled clean, like fresh cedar and winter frost.

My heart did a sudden, traitorous flip against my ribs.

"Sorry to bother you," his voice was surprisingly low and warm, devoid of the cocky shout I'd braced for. "I'm dealing with a locker-room wager."

Behind him, Landon and Beckham started whistling, cupping their hands. "Ten seconds, Cap! Get a kiss, or you're skating suicide drills solo at five AM!"

My brain stalled. The papers in my arms nearly slipped from my grasp. A kiss? From me?

I took a step back, my guard shooting straight up. "I don't have time for your team's punishment drills."

A faint, reluctant smile touched Julian's lips. He shot a warning glance at his teammates, then turned back to me, his pale blue gaze unexpectedly sincere. "Trust me, I hate team bets. But I hate losing to Landon even more."

I turned to walk away. I had zero interest in being a prop for fraternity amusement.

"You're Sage Kelley, right?" he said.

The sound of my own name stopped me in my tracks. I turned back in genuine surprise. I spent every day keeping my head down; nobody outside my department knew who I was.

"Des—Professor Beaumont's research student," Julian continued, his voice dropping into an easy, intelligent cadence. "I saw your Havenwood Creek proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."

My pulse tripped. Beaumont was my advisor, the only faculty member who believed my restoration project was worth funding.

Julian stepped half a pace closer, dropping his voice so only the two of us could hear over the wind. "Professor Beaumont is my uncle. I spent an hour looking over your data."

My mouth parted slightly. "You... read my proposal?"

"Your simulation keeps crashing because the water flow is too turbulent for standard lab software," Julian murmured, his eyes locking onto mine with razor-sharp clarity. "My uncle's team can't solve that algorithm. But I can."

He wasn't an arrogant jock trying to score points with his friends. In that split second, he was a computational prodigy who had actually paid attention to my work.

"If you help me shut them up," Julian said, his blue eyes glinting with a subtle, dangerous challenge, "I'll debug and process your entire hydro-model. Consider it family academic support."

Sage POV:

"Get me my bat!"

Analia hung upside down from the top bunk, her wild red curls dangling toward the floorboards, her green eyes wide as saucers. "You traded a kiss with Julian Andrews? The Julian Andrews who hasn't looked at a girl since freshman orientation?"

I sat at my desk, staring blankly at my computer screen. "It was on the cheek. And it was a transaction. He's Professor Beaumont's nephew—he's going to help me debug the Havenwood data model."

"I don't care if he's the Pope's nephew!" Analia swung down the ladder, landing with a thud and shoving her phone two inches from my face. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Look at the campus forum!"

I looked.

Someone had filmed the entire encounter on the quad. The clip was already trending with hundreds of comments, but pinned right at the very top was a post from a verified account with a crown emoji:

@brookesterling_official: Some girls will do anything for five seconds of attention. See you at practice Saturday, J.

My stomach tightened. "Who is Brooke Sterling?"

Analia stared at me as if I'd asked who George Washington was. "Head cheerleader. Queen bee of the athletic department. She has spent two solid years telling everyone on campus that Julian belongs to her. And you just let him kiss you on camera."

"He's not her boyfriend," I muttered, but my cheeks were betraying me, heating up fast.

"Try telling that to her cheer squad," Analia said, flopping onto her mattress. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Wait. You're blushing. Sage Kelley, did you actually like it?"

"I did not!" I grabbed my notes and buried my face in them. "He smelled like winter air and his jawline was very close, that's all. It was an involuntary sensory reaction."

Before Analia could laugh, my phone buzzed on the desk.

I grabbed it. A text from an unknown number glowed on the screen:

It's Julian. Favor number two. Coach is making us cross-train on figure skates to fix our lateral edges, and the front toe picks are an absolute nightmare. Word is you know your way around an edge. Free to coach a desperate captain this Saturday at 2, at the rink?

The breath left my lungs all at once.

"Word is you know your way around an edge...?" I repeated the sentence out loud, the words tasting like ice on my tongue.

A cold prickle of panic flared across my shoulder blades.

How could he possibly know?

I had moved three hundred miles across the state, purged every old competition photo, and buried myself in soil samples specifically so no one at Briar would connect me to the girl on those national junior broadcasts. The only person on this entire campus who knew I used to skate was Analia.

Did Professor Beaumont have an old sports clipping in his study? Did someone from my past recognize my face?

"He's just talking about physics," I stammered, my brain scrambling to rationalize the dread clawing at my throat. "Center of gravity. He knows I study fluid mechanics, so he thinks I understand ice friction."

Analia didn't laugh. She stared at the glowing screen, her playful expression completely vanishing.

"Sage, be serious. Julian Andrews is a projected first-round NHL draft pick," Analia said slowly, looking at me with dead-serious eyes. "If the varsity captain actually needed an edge-work coach, the athletic department would hire a retired Olympian with a whistle. Why on earth would he ask a quiet girl from environmental science?"

My hands went clammy.

Nervously, my heels tapped twice against the floorboards—click, click—an old skater reflex I had never been able to break.

"It's a coincidence," I insisted, though my voice wavered.

"Briar's hockey prince doesn't do coincidences," Analia countered, her eyes widening as the pieces clicked together. "Either he figured out who you used to be, or that bet on the quad wasn't random at all."

Before I could snatch the phone away, Analia's thumbs flew across the screen.

She's free! We're both free! See you Saturday at two!

"Analia!" I lunged, but the message was already sent.

The reply was almost instant:

Unknown: Great. Try not to let the captain break a wrist. Coffee is on me.

I threw myself face-down onto my pillow, groaning into the duvet as my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

He was pulling me back toward the ice, and I had no idea how to stop him.

Sage POV:

Saturday afternoon. The Briar Ice Arena.

I told myself the entire walk over that this was strictly an academic exchange. I told myself that three times, while stubbornly ignoring the fact that I had changed my sweater twice and put on cherry lip balm before leaving the dorm.

The arena was freezing, but the bleachers were surprisingly packed with students. The moment Julian stepped onto the ice wearing a simple gray hoodie and black track pants, every phone in the facility tilted in his direction. Two sophomore girls near the glass squealed, while freshmen whispered excitedly by the boards.

Julian Andrews was campus royalty. Even off-duty, people stopped what they were doing just to watch him breathe.

He spotted me by the barrier and pushed off into an aggressive, powerful forward hockey stride.

Big mistake.

His forward lean drove the jagged front toe pick of the rented figure skate violently into the ice. His feet flew out from under him, and two hundred pounds of varsity captain crashed with a deafening thud, sliding ten feet across the white sheet on his back.

The arena erupted into hysterical laughter. Landon Hayes was leaning on his stick, howling, while Beckham McKee snapped photos on his phone with glee.

Julian propped himself on one elbow, looking through the glass right at me with an embarrassed, devastatingly handsome grin. "Told you. These blades are an absolute menace."

I laced up a pair of stiff, clunky rental skates, stepped onto the ice, and pushed off with careful, basic strides. I deliberately kept my balance flat and unremarkable, moving just like any other college kid on a public rink so I wouldn't draw a single eye.

"Need a hand, 'data expert'?" I asked, stopping beside him and holding out my palm.

Julian looked up. His grin softened into something quiet and intense, his pale blue eyes holding a heat that made my breath catch. He reached out, his rough, warm palm completely engulfing mine.

His touch sent a jolt of static straight up my arm, making my heart trip over its rhythm. I tightened my core, pulling him up. His immense weight tilted toward me, his broad chest brushing against my shoulder as he found his balance.

"Rule one," I instructed, forcing my voice to stay clinical despite my burning cheeks. "Stop leaning forward like you're charging a defender. Stand tall. Keep your weight centered over the blade, or the teeth will throw you every single time."

"That's it?" Julian looked down at his skates, his warm breath stirring the hair near my ear. "It can't be that simple."

"It is. Your brain is just driving an oversized hockey tank."

Julian let out a low, surprised laugh, the deep vibration rumbling right against my ribs.

"Julian! What on earth are you doing?"

A sugary, sharp voice sliced through the cold air.

Brooke Sterling glided up like a polished queen bee, flanked by three girls in matching designer athletic sets. She skated right up to Julian, familiarly linking her arm through his as if planting a flag on property she owned.

"You run this arena on Friday nights! Why are you wobbling around on cheap rental figure skates?"

Julian smoothly extracted his arm from hers, taking half a step toward me. "Cross-training. This is my coach, Sage."

Brooke's gaze dragged down from my messy hair to my oversized sweater and scuffed rental boots—measuring my bare face and total lack of mascara against her own flawless, airbrushed glam. Her red lips curled into a toxic, pitying smirk.

"Coach?" Brooke laughed softly, her cheerleaders giggling right on cue. "Julian, you got the creek girl who digs in mud to coach you? Can she even stand on blades without breaking her teeth?"

A girl behind her snickered, "Maybe she can hold your water bottle while we skate."

Analia instantly stepped right up to the barrier in front of me, her red curls practically bristling with fury.

"Her name is Sage, you over-bleached mannequin," Analia snapped, her green eyes blazing. "And she's got more brain cells in her left pinky than your entire squad combined."

Sasha, Brooke's chief attack dog, rolled her eyes with a cruel smirk. "Cute hair, Bright. Did you dye it red to match your failing GPA?"

"Say that again and I'll dye the ice with your mascara—"

"Ana, don't. Leave it," I caught Analia's sleeve, firmly pulling her back before she could physically launch herself over the barrier.

Landon immediately skated over, sensing the blood in the water, spreading his arms like a ringmaster. "Hey! Since everyone's here, let's make it interesting! A girls' figure skating contest! Best skater wins a date with the captain!"

The arena blew up. The cheerleaders squealed, and people in the stands started chanting Brooke's name.

Brooke's smile turned razor-sharp as she looked at me. "Count me in. What about you, 'coach'? Scared to step up?"

"I'm not participating in a dating circus," I said, stepping back toward the boards. "That's not why I'm here."

Brooke's sneer widened with pure condescension. "That's what I thought. Good girl. Know your limits."

I clenched my fists inside my pockets, my jaw locking tight.

Julian leaned against the barrier, his pale blue eyes dark with an unyielding challenge. He looked directly at me, his voice dropping into a low, smoky murmur that sent a shiver down my spine.

"I'll accept the bet," Julian said, his gaze locked onto mine. "If Sage skates."