BOUND TO THE HOCKEY BEAST

The final buzzer tore through the suffocating air inside the St. Jude Hockey Arena.

The massive electronic scoreboard flashed in brilliant red: ST. JUDE: 4 – BLACKWOOD: 1. A lightning-fast strike in the dying seconds had cemented a dominant victory for the home team. Thousands of spectators rained a cascade of banners and roaring cheers down onto the ice rink. And standing right at the center of that roaring sea of people was none other than Kael Ashford.

From the shadows of the penalty box, Lillian Hart tightly clenched her ice-cold hands. The detached-lens camera hanging against her chest trembled slightly with each ragged breath. Lillian’s eyes were locked dead on the back bearing jersey number 13.

Kael braced both hands on his stick, leaning forward. His broad chest heaved violently. Vapor poured off his body in the freezing air of the rink like a blazing furnace. His ash-gray hair, disheveled and damp with sweat, fell forward to obscure half his face.

Abnormal.

Lillian narrowed her eyes through the camera lens. Beneath the bulky shoulder pads, the muscles on Kael’s neck and shoulders twitched uncontrollably. His gloved hand gripped the stick so tightly that the rigid synthetic material let out dry, splintering cracks. When a teammate rushed over to throw an arm around his shoulder in celebration, Kael abruptly jerked backward.

Through the viewfinder, Lillian saw Kael’s eyes flash a muddy, wild, and utterly dazed gray. He violently shoved his teammate away onto the ice as if brushing aside a pile of trash, then spun around and stumbled into the tunnel, leaving the bewildered cheers hanging in the air.

An icy shudder raced down Lillian’s spine. Right at that moment, the phone in her coat pocket gave a short buzz.

The screen’s light cast a pale glow across her face: a notification reminding her to purchase Toby’s anti-pulmonary necrosis medication, accompanied by the daunting sum of $1,200 due by noon tomorrow.

Lillian’s nose burned. The cramped apartment back home must be thick with the smell of steam-inhalation medicine. Toby would be lying there right now, his thin chest laboriously rising and falling beside the daily rental oxygen tank. Her bank account had hit absolute zero this morning.

She snapped back to her senses and looked at the camera. In her shock just moments ago, she had completely forgotten to press the shutter! That missed shot probably wouldn’t even fetch a few dozen dollars from the campus gossip rags. But Kael’s grotesque display just now... that wasn’t merely the surliness of a star athlete. That tension, that feral gaze—it was the sign of a much darker, hidden undercurrent.

And that was the kind of exclusive sports magazines were willing to pay thousands for.

Lillian’s heart hammered against her ribs like it wanted to break free. The recklessness of a desperate person completely overrode her fear. Clutching her camera tightly beneath her leather jacket, she slipped swiftly through the crowd flooding toward the exit, quietly circling around to the back corridor of the arena.

The winter night in the St. Jude suburbs was swallowed by a heavy, driving snowstorm. The biting cold stabbed deep into her flesh through layers of thin clothing.

Lillian hid behind a stone wall covered in dried ivy, blinking repeatedly to fight off the exhaustion and the cold. Kael’s sleek black sports car was still parked askew in the private lot. The hazy streetlamp cast a long shadow of his towering frame as he emerged from the rear exit.

He hadn’t changed yet. The disheveled number 13 jersey was still on his back. Kael walked unsteadily, one hand clutching his head while the other hammered a heavy blow against the brick wall of the arena, sending mortar dust showering down. A ragged, guttural growl—a sound rising from the depths of a dark stairwell—echoed through the empty night.

He didn't get into his car.

Kael turned sharply down the steep path leading straight into the dense pine forest surrounding the back of the academy campus—a restricted zone marked with ominous danger signs.

What on earth was he doing out there at this hour?

Reason screamed at Lillian to turn back, but the image of Toby’s hollow chest heaving beside the oxygen tank at home dragged her feet forward. She pulled her woolen scarf up to cover half her face, stepping lightly over the spongy layer of snow, maintaining a fifty-meter distance behind the dark figure sprinting like a mad beast.

The deeper they plunged into the pine forest, the dimmer the streetlamps grew until they vanished entirely. Nothing remained but the howling wind through the branches and the dripping sound of melting snow on stone roofs. The air here smelled strange—not just pine resin and damp earth, but a suffocating, bitter scent like burning cedarwood mingled with the heavy, metallic tang of blood.

CRACK!

A loud snap echoed from the clearing ahead.

Lillian instantly held her breath, dropping low behind the trunk of an ancient pine. Trembling as she raised her camera, she gently turned the focus ring, adjusting the lens through the gloom.

Through the viewfinder, Lillian froze in place. Her chest seized, and every drop of blood in her body seemed to stop flowing.

The man kneeling in the clearing under the pale moonlight was no longer the proud hockey captain she had watched on the ice rink.

Kael Ashford knelt in the snow. The broad back beneath the number 13 jersey trembled slightly with each violent breath. Directly before him lay the carcass of a large forest deer, its fresh blood staining the pristine white snow a vivid crimson.

St. Jude’s "King of the Ice" had his face buried in the flesh, tearing at the deer’s throat like a starving predator. The dry, crushing sound of bone and flesh echoed through the silent night.

CLICK.

The muffled, barely suppressed click of the shutter went off. Even though Lillian had carefully switched her camera to silent mode beforehand, her index finger instinctively twitched on the shutter release in uncontrollable shock.

The sound was so faint it seemed to dissolve into the howling wind. Yet Kael snapped his head up instantly. His nostrils flared. His muddy, feral gray eyes instantly transformed into blazing, molten gold, locking directly onto the pine tree where Lillian was hiding.

Lunging forward to charge at her, Kael’s body suddenly seized. His broad shoulders jerked violently. His fingers plunged deep into the deer carcass, sending snow spraying into the air, and his entire torso doubled over as if fighting off a horrifying spasm.

That thousand-dollar window of paralysis—just enough for Lillian to spin around and bolt blindly.

"STOP!"

Kael’s hoarse, gravelly roar shook the entire forest, sending snow clinging to the branches cascading down like a white squall. He sprang to his feet. His towering frame blotted out the last remnants of moonlight, casting a giant shadow over the snow.

Survival instinct screamed in Lillian’s head: Run, now!

She clutched the camera against her chest, batted away obstructing branches, and burst out toward the avenue's asphalt road.

Lillian didn't dare look back, not even for a fraction of a second. Her legs churned frantically, the soles of her boots crushing the thick, freezing snow. Dry branches lashed raw across her face, snapping beneath her feet. The wind screamed past her ears like blades; her lungs burned from the lack of air, and every ragged gasp puffed out in billowing clouds of white vapor.

Behind her, the sound of pursuing footsteps completely defied human velocity. It bore down like a snowstorm, crushing deadwood and fallen leaves. The distance closed at a terrifying speed.

The suffocating smell of fresh blood mixed with a searing wave of heat washed directly over the back of Lillian’s neck.

RIP!

The sound of fabric tearing right beside her ear rang out. The moonlight cast the shadow of a hand with long, tapered fingers tipped in beast-like claws sweeping through the air, grazing the shoulder of her jacket by mere centimeters.

The proximity of death made every hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

A desperate, adrenaline-fueled surge propelled Lillian out from the final line of trees, hurling her straight onto the asphalt of the avenue.

SCREEECH—!

High-beam headlights from a night-running truck swept across the road. The automated traffic lights at the intersection suddenly flashed green, washing the scene in blinding white light.

Kael halted abruptly at the boundary between the foliage and the avenue. The wave of light stabbed straight into his pupils, drawing a roar of pure agony from his throat. His arm instantly flew up to shield his eyes, and his towering frame instinctively retreated deep into the shadows of the tree canopy.

Kael’s teeth ground together under the excruciating pressure. The fingers poised to grab Lillian’s shoulder tightened into fists, his claws digging so deep into his palms that fresh blood welled up, dripping onto the snow.

From the safety of the tree line, he watched the slender silhouette of the girl dart past the median, cross the wide expanse of road, and vanish into the alley opposite.

His golden eyes blinked a few times before shifting back to a muddy, ash-gray. The sharp claws slowly retracted, slipping back beneath his skin.

CLACK.

The tip of Kael’s boot struck a small object buried in the snow near the base of a tree—right where the girl had stumbled before launching herself onto the avenue.

He bent down and picked it up.

A rigid plastic student ID card, its red lanyard snapped during her frantic escape.

Under the dim streetlamp filtering through the branches, the photo clearly showed a delicate face, skin pale from the cold, and eyes holding an unusual tenacity. Beside the photo were bold, printed letters:

ST. JUDE ACADEMY

DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH

STUDENT: LILLIAN HART

Kael swept his thumb across the printed name on the card, brushing away the thin layer of snow clinging to the plastic surface. His gaze lingered for a long time on the face in the photo. Her suffocating scent—a blend of freezing snow, fear, and a faint lingering trace of medicinal herbs—still clung to the cold plastic.

The corners of Kael’s mouth slowly curved upward in a faint, humorless smile.

He casually slipped the ID card into his pocket, turned, and stepped back into the dark depths of the forest.

Lillian Hart.

The prey had escaped tonight. But her scent... he had memorized it.