Chapter 2

The heavy door of the lecture hall thudded shut behind me, the sound carrying a sense of satisfaction that hummed through my veins. Jasmine’s laughter chimed in beside me, her body pressed against mine as if drawn by some unspoken gravitational pull. Her perfume—light, floral, and expensive—clung to my senses like a familiar blanket. I tightened my arm around her waist, relishing the attention from the guys who offered their congratulations on last night’s game-winning goal.

“Did you see the way he deked around Thompson?” Liam’s voice cut through the chatter, his eyes gleaming with a shared sense of dark pride. Only he knew the full extent of what lived beneath the surface of my control.

“Like he was a fucking cone on the ice,” I smirked, soaking in the glory of the retelling. “Thompson’s decent, but he’s predictable. And predictable gets you nowhere in hockey—or in life.” My grip instinctively tightened around Jasmine. She leaned into me, perfectly at ease, not knowing that I was barely paying attention to her at all.

As the post-lecture buzz began to die down, my gaze wandered, idly scanning the thinning crowd. And then I saw her.

Kira.

Something inside me snapped. She wasn’t supposed to smile like that—not with that light in her eyes, not with that sense of calm softening the lines of her face. The tension, the fear that usually haunted her expression was gone, replaced by something I had never allowed.

That smile—it felt like a slap across the face. It was genuine, deep, as if some secret joy had cracked open the prison I had built around her. My chest tightened, an all-consuming fury rising from the dark corners of my mind, threatening to break through the veneer of control I wore like armor. How could she smile like that? I had gone to great lengths to ensure she had nothing to smile about. Kira was supposed to exist in the shadow of my will—yet here she was, defying everything I had meticulously orchestrated.

My jaw clenched, and I barely registered Jasmine’s hand on my arm. Her voice was nothing but a faint hum in the background, meaningless.

“Owen? What’s wrong?” she asked, her concern shallow, oblivious to the storm brewing inside me.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Kira. She was packing up her things, that stupid smile still playing on her lips as if she had freed herself from the chains I had so carefully wrapped around her.

Then, I saw it—a crumpled piece of paper lying just beyond her reach, lost among the shuffle of students. My eyes narrowed. Could it be just some homework assignment, or was it something more?

Without a word, I shrugged off Jasmine’s grip and moved. “I forgot something,” I muttered, barely aware of the words as they left my mouth. I pushed through the crowd, my mind racing, my heart pounding with a toxic mix of anger and possessiveness.

I reached the desk just as another student bent down to grab the paper. With a swift, instinctive motion, I snatched it up, my fingers brushing the rough edges of the paper like it was something precious. Something mine.

In a quiet corner, away from the noise and chatter, I unfolded the note. The moment I saw Kira’s shaky handwriting, something shifted inside me. My vision blurred with rage as the words carved themselves into my brain.

Dear Owen…

Every word stoked the fire inside me, each line driving me deeper into the abyss of my obsession.

We were never together, but it fucking breaks my heart to know you don’t love me back…

I’ve been planning it for a while now, but I was never strong enough…

She was planning to leave me. To escape me. Not through running—but through death. She thought she could just fucking slip away like that? End it all without my permission? No.

No.

Kira was mine. She had always been mine, even if she didn’t fully understand it yet. She couldn’t just walk away from me—not when I had so much more to teach her, to show her. I had broken her down piece by piece, and she thought she could simply vanish from my world? From me?

I would not allow her to rob me of that satisfaction. She couldn’t die unless I willed it. And she wasn’t going to escape. Not now. Not ever.

Jasmine’s voice broke through the storm raging inside me, pulling me back for just a second. “Owen, we’re heading to the café. Are you coming?”

I barely looked up. “Go ahead without me,” I said, keeping my voice steady, cool. “I’ll catch up later.”

As she and the others left, I turned back to the letter, crumpling it in my fist as I felt the paper protest under the pressure. Kira’s last thoughts—her final words—were of me. Even now, at her breaking point, she still couldn’t let me go. She was trying to, but deep down, she knew she couldn’t escape. Not really.

It was intoxicating.

If Kira thought she could abandon me so easily, she was in for a rude awakening. She didn’t understand yet. But she would. I would make sure of it. She would live, not because she wanted to, but because I willed it. In her survival, she would find new depths of suffering—pain she could never have imagined. And in that suffering, she would see the truth: she belonged to me.

I stepped out into the crisp evening air, the sun dipping below the horizon, painting the sky with hues of crimson and gold. The real game had only just begun, and I was more than ready to play.

The sky transformed into a canvas of crimson as the sunset spread its vibrant hues, casting an aura of passion and fury over the clouds as Kira led me through the maze of university buildings. My strides were long, purposeful, a predator stalking its prey with the precision of a well-practiced dance. She walked with her head down, the golden light playing across her platinum hair, turning it into a halo of twisted innocence. She didn’t always have platinum hair, she had dark hair up to the day after I clipped her wings. When she showed up to class the next day, the platinum blond was all I could think about. I could still taste her fear, a sweet and cloying perfume that I found myself addicted to.

My life had been a series of calculated moves, both on the ice and in the game of human chess I played with Kira. I was always two steps ahead, anticipating her reactions with a hunter’s intuition. Hockey had taught me patience, the art of waiting for the perfect moment to strike, and now, as I watched her enter the secluded arboretum, I knew the time had come.

Her footsteps were soft whispers against the cobblestone path, a rhythm I found myself in sync with. The trees stood like silent sentinels, their branches heavy with the weight of secrets and the promise of the night. Kira’s pace quickened, a doe sensing the nearness of the wolf. But there was nowhere for her to run, no escape from the web I had woven.

As she turned a corner, I closed the distance between us, my boots silent against the ground as I balanced my weight on my heels. I reached her just as she realized she was not alone, her dark eyes widening with a mixture of recognition and dread. In that moment, she was more beautiful than ever, the delicate pulse at the base of her throat beating out a frantic rhythm that echoed the pounding of my own heart.

“Kira,” I said, my voice low and smooth, a contrast to the chaos brewing within me.

She opened her mouth to scream, but I was faster. My arm snaked around her, pulling her against me. She struggled, a futile attempt at resistance that only served to inflame my desire. I could feel the warmth of her body, the erratic rise and fall of her chest as panic set in.

There was a certain art to rendering someone unconscious, a skill I had honed to perfection. My thumb found the pulse point beneath her ear, pressing gently but insistently until her struggles ceased. Her eyelids, once wide with terror, now fluttered in a helpless rhythm, a prelude to the darkness that enveloped her, pulling her into its depths.

I caught her before she hit the ground, scooping her up and slinging her over my shoulder with the gentleness of a lion carrying its cub. Her hair cascaded down my back, a waterfall of silk that I had every intention of tangling my fingers in once again.

“You’re mine, Kira,” I murmured, nuzzling my face into her side. “And I’m not done with you yet.”

Her breaths were shallow, I could feel each delicate puff against my back. I had never been one for tenderness, but with Kira, even violence felt like a perverse form of worship. She was my sin and my salvation, the only one who could match the darkness within me.

I would make her understand that her life was intertwined with mine, that she was bound to me. She would wake up to a world where I was both her captor and her savior, her nightmare and her deepest, most tragic desire.

And as I carried her away from the dying light of day, I knew that this was only the beginning. The real game had just started, and I was ready to play.