Silver Preston was supposed to be America’s next figure skating sweetheart—until a brutal injury shattered her Olympic dreams and left her stranded at Yale, miles away from the ice that defined her. All she wants is to stay invisible, to escape the suffocating grip of her former coach-mother, and to outrun the whispers that she’s finished.

But Yale hockey isn’t quiet, and neither is Eli Hayes—the team’s captain, campus golden boy, and infuriatingly unreadable. To Silver, he’s arrogant, cold, and everything she swore she’d avoid. To Eli, she’s reckless, stubborn, and a distraction he can’t afford. Their worlds were never meant to collide—except the rink has a way of pulling broken people back onto the ice.

When gossip turns cruel and secrets from the past threaten to destroy her for good, Silver is forced to decide whether she’ll keep running or fight for the life—and the love—she thought she lost. And as Eli battles his own demons under the unforgiving glare of NHL scouts, their fragile connection becomes the one thing that could save them both…or break them completely.

Full of sharp banter, late-night study sessions, stolen glances at the rink, and the electric push-pull of enemies who might be more, this is a story of ambition, redemption, and the thin line between pride and passion.

I didn't need a knight. I got one anyway.


Silver's pulse thudded against her eardrums with the intensity of arena crowds during championship competitions, but this wasn't the good kind of adrenaline that came from athletic performance. This was the sick, dizzy rush of being trapped between impossible expectations while someone she'd started to care about witnessed her most humiliating family dynamics playing out in a public hallway.


Leona's words still rang through the Gothic corridor with the precision of surgical instruments: Do you want to throw that away? The question hung in the air like smoke from an expensive cigarette, toxic and impossible to clear from her lungs. Silver had no reply that wouldn't either confirm her mother's accusations about wasted potential or admit to vulnerabilities she wasn't ready to acknowledge—only the trembling knot in her chest that seemed to grow tighter with each passing second.


Chapter 86 - Eli Defense