Hearts on Ice
Lukas Reiner built his life based off a promise 9 years ago with Viktor Volkov... the only person who actually saw him and knew him for what he actually was. They dreamed of the same future, the same ice, the same victory together. Until Viktor disappeared without a word, leaving Lukas behind with nothing but silence, rain... and feelings he never got to confess.
Now, Lukas is at the top of college... Captain, prodigy and untouchable on ice until Viktor comes back.
Colder and older, acting like the past never existed.
Their reunion explodes into violence, but being forced to work together drags them into something far more dangerous than hate.
The tension turns into stolen moments and those moments turn into a habit but before either of them can stop it, the line between resentment and desire begins to blur.
Lukas never let go of the past.
Viktor never planned to face it.
But on the ice, there's nowhere left to run.
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Chapter 2
The silence didn't sit for long before it shattered. Lukas moved first, not thinking or anything. His body just reacted before his mind could catch up, skates cutting sharply against the ice as he pushed forward.
His eyes held an expression none had seen. A few of the players turned, confused, but by the time it clicked-
He was already standing before him.
Viktor didn't have time to react... he just stepped forward, lifting his hand to do a proper introduction, his expression calm and polite.
"Hi...I'm Viktor Vol-"
BAM!
The punch landed before he could finish. It was clean and strong. Viktor's eyes widened in horror as his nose leaked blood and his body lost balance, falling against the ice.
For a split second, no one moved, like everyone had forgotten how to react.
Then it hit everyone at once.
"What the hell?!"
"Lukas!! Are you crazy?!"
"Hey-HEY!"
Lukas couldn't care less about any of it because all he could focus on was him... in the flesh, back... after all these years just... smiling there like nothing happened.
Lukas took another step forward. He wasn't done with him, not even close.
"You think you can just-"
He didn't reach him before hands grabbed him, strong grips pulling him back.
"Reiner, stop!"
"Are you trying to get suspended?!"
"Let go of me!" Lukas fought, his voice low but sharp enough to cut through the noise. They didn't listen. It took more effort than it should have, more strength than they expected, because Lukas didn't only resist, he fought it... his eyes still locked on Viktor like if he let go of him at that moment, he would disappear again.
Viktor lifted himself up and wiped the corner of his mouth. Seeing blood, his fingers shook as his eyes quivered in horror. For the first time since stepping onto the ice, his expression changed. He was not calm or polite anymore.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he snapped, his voice soaked with anger.
And that did it. Lukas moved again, sharper this time, more reckless. It didn't matter that people were holding him back... he still tried and still pushed forward like something in him refused to let this go of what he said.
Then-
"REINER!"
The coach's voice cut through everything.
Loud and firm. It wasn't just a call... it was a command and Lukas stopped not because he wanted to, but because despite everything, he respected authority.
The tension didn't seem to ease... If anything, it shifted because now, Viktor had gone still too. He wasn't looking at the others anymore. He was looking directly at Lukas, properly this time.
The name lingered in the air, and something about it felt... familiar?
"Reiner...," he mumbled, quieter now, like he was testing it and a memory flashed in his head. A small boy kneeling, wearing a green shirt "Hi I'm Lukas Reiner" and a smile plastered on his white bruised face.
Lukas heard him repeat it. Of course he did and for a brief second, something flickered across his face... not anger, Well, not completely at least but before Viktor could read it, it disappeared just as quickly as it came.
He pulled himself free from the others, stepping back like he needed space, like he needed to put distance between them before something else slips and he says something he can't take back.
The rink stayed quiet.
The coach exhaled sharply, already very irritated.
"What the hell was that supposed to be?" he asked, looking straight at Lukas.
Lukas didn't answer or even glance at him. His attention had already shifted away like Viktor wasn't even there anymore.
The coach clenched his fists in anger and released almost immediately. "We'll deal with that later. For now-" he gestured toward Viktor, "you'll be training under Reiner."
And that got a reaction immediately.
"No," Lukas said, turning back, his voice firm.
At the same time, Viktor spoke too, just as sharp.
"Not happening."
The coach didn't even blink.
"It's not up for discussion."
Lukas let out a short, humorless laugh, running a hand through his hair as he looked away briefly before facing him again.
"With all due respect, coach, I'm not training him."
"You're the captain," the coach replied. "You will."
"I said I won't!" His voice slightly higher.
"And I said it's final!"
The conversation ended there not because Lukas agreed, but because he knew it wouldn't change anything. Still, the look of hate he sent Viktor was enough. Viktor maintained his gaze for a moment, unreadable, before letting out a quiet scoff. He tilted his head slightly, then spat to the side, dismissive.
He turned and walked off like none of this meant anything to him.
The rest of the day felt off. Lukas sat through his classes like he always did, pen moving across paper, posture straight and attention forward but nothing really stayed. The words blurred together in his head, voices faded into the background, and no matter how much he tried to focus, his mind kept pulling him back. To that moment... to him.
He tightened his grip on his pen slightly, eyes watery as he forced himself to keep writing.
'Why now?'
'Why show up now, after everything?'
'After disappearing like that?'
He exhaled slowly, leaning back just slightly as the lecture continued around him.
It didn't make sense... none of this did but by the time classes ended, Lukas didn't go straight back to class. He needed air, space... anything. He needed to be anywhere else just not there so he sprinted his way up to the balcony overlooking the entire campus, the quiet up there was a sharp contrast to the noise in his head.
The evening air was cooler, brushing lightly against his skin as he stepped forward, resting his arms against the railing.
For a moment, he just stood there... thinking or trying to.
His thoughts kept circling the same thing over and over again. The name, the face, the voice, how did he not notice him before? Was he new? A transfer? How long had he been around? And why didn't he-
Lukas screamed into the evening sky, his voice rough and deep. He made up his mind, he wasn't not asking... he wasn't doing that.
Lukas pushed himself off the railing, turning to leave when he heard it.
"Lukas."
He froze. The way his name sounded, It wasn't like how the coach said it or anyone else... only the person who he loved dearly many years ago called him like that.
Slowly, he turned and Viktor stood a few steps away, hands in his pockets, watching him. Not angry and not exactly calm either... just looking and for the first time since the rink, Lukas didn't know what to do.
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9.1
Alysia lay on the freezing operating table, moments away from donating her kidney to her brother's fiancée.
But as the anesthesia set in, a violent shock tore through her brain, awakening agonizing memories of a thousand brutal deaths across a thousand past lifetimes.
She suddenly realized her family's true plan. Her brother and his fiancée weren't just taking her organ; they were secretly plotting to declare her mentally unfit post-surgery to steal her entire trust fund.
When Alysia abruptly stopped the procedure and exposed the fiancée's kidney failure as the result of severe drug abuse, her family's reaction was chilling.
Her father didn't care about the truth or the law. He ordered his bodyguards to lock Alysia up until she agreed to the surgery, while her brother threatened to freeze her assets and seize her late mother's penthouse.
"You have no heart, Alysia. You don't deserve the Kent name," her aunt spat in disgust.
For lifetimes, she had kept her head down, taking the blame and sacrificing everything for a family that viewed her as nothing more than a disposable blood bag and a financial pawn.
The resignation that had clouded her eyes for so long vanished, replaced by the absolute, zero-degree cold of a glacier.
Ripping the IV from her hand and leaving her family in stunned silence, Alysia walked straight out of the hospital.
She had exactly forty-six hours to find a husband to secure her inheritance, and she knew exactly which ruthless billionaire CEO to target to help her burn the Kent family to the ground.
9.7
I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."
7.3
I took a pet-sitting gig at a luxury apartment, thinking my life was perfect. I was pregnant and engaged to Damien, a successful attorney who had spent seven years proving his unwavering loyalty.
But the moment I stepped inside, I recognized his cologne. Then I saw the photos. The apartment belonged to his mistress, Candace. She had deliberately hired me to flaunt their year-long affair and the massive diamond ring he had just bought her.
Candace even set a trap, calling the police to falsely accuse me of stealing that ring to completely destroy my reputation. But I turned the tables, using my knowledge of his habits to expose her perjury and their affair right in front of the detectives.
Furious that his flawless public image was ruined, Damien confronted me outside the precinct.
When I told him I was pregnant, instead of joy, his eyes filled with panic for his career.
"Shut up!" he roared.
He violently shoved me to the ground in front of a crowd of onlookers.
Blood pooled on the cold pavement. I lost our baby.
As I lay in the ICU, my heart turned to ash. He had spent seven years promising me a safe harbor, only to brutally murder our unborn child just to protect his own selfish ego.
I didn't shed a single tear. I used his overwhelming public guilt to make him sign over all his assets to me, then vanished without a trace.
A year later, I returned to New York not as the broken Addison, but as "Phoenix," the world's most powerful jewelry designer.
And I am here to personally put him in a prison cell.
8.4
Harlene was locked out of her own family's estate in a freezing blizzard, still trembling from a severe panic attack.
Her mother delivered a cold ultimatum through a security screen: attend her golden-child sister Estella's award gala, or lose her medical funds.
To make it worse, her ex-fiancé, Dennis, had chimed in to call her embarrassing and pathetic.
At the gala, Harlene was treated like a diseased outcast.
Dennis fiercely protected his new lover, Jailyn—the very woman who had stolen Harlene's designs.
But the ultimate betrayal came when Estella flaunted a silver-embroidered antique dress.
It was Harlene's grandmother's dress, her only pure memory of love, handed over to the enemy as a trophy.
When Harlene demanded answers, her own father slapped her across the face in front of the press, just to protect their pristine image.
They had stolen her career, her fiancé, and her inheritance, all while branding her the crazy, unstable daughter.
The sheer hypocrisy and cruelty finally severed the last thread of her sanity.
Why should she play the silent victim while they played the perfect family?
Instead of crying, Harlene smiled.
She drew a hidden dagger, slashed the antique dress to ribbons, and dragged Estella and Jailyn to the center stage.
Standing under the blinding spotlight with a bloody blade, she looked out at the terrified crowd.
"The Beaumont family is done hiding," she declared into the microphone. "Tonight, the curtain falls."
7.2
Three years ago, I used my family's tech empire to marry Damien Moretti, a ruthless mafia Underboss. I naively thought my devotion could melt his frozen heart.
But a year ago, he paraded his mistress at our family gala just because she had the face of his dead ex.
When my pathetic jealousy boiled over and I stabbed him with a letter opener, he didn't kill me.
Instead, he banished me to the freezing, decaying West Wing of his estate.
For a whole year, I was locked away like a ghost. He flaunted his mistress, orchestrated a hostile takeover of my family's company, and let his maids treat me like garbage.
When I knelt outside his door begging for a divorce, he just gripped my jaw and delivered a death sentence.
"The only way you leave this family is in a coffin."
The naive girl who begged for his love died in that cold room. I finally realized I was nothing but a profitable ledger entry to him.
When he finally opened my door again, expecting to see a broken prisoner, I slapped him across his bleeding face.
"The deal is done. I want a divorce."
I walked straight out into the freezing Chicago rain, secretly swallowed a bottle of emergency contraceptives to kill any chance of carrying his heir, and prepared to tear up his mafia rules myself.
9.4
When Chloe accidentally sliced her hand open, she immediately called her husband of three years for comfort.
Bentley claimed he was stuck in Chicago on a business trip. But when Chloe went to the hospital for stitches, she saw him in a VIP room, tenderly kissing the hand of a fragile woman who looked exactly like her.
Breaking into his locked study, Chloe found his hidden journal. She realized she was just a cheap substitute. He had only married her because she was a dead ringer for his fiancé, Blair, who had been in a coma. Now that Blair was awake, Bentley brought her to Chloe's private dress fitting.
"Give her the dress. You're being selfish," Bentley demanded coldly.
He forced Chloe to strip off her custom-made Met Gala gown to please Blair. He even secretly laced Chloe's daily tea with pills to ensure she never got pregnant.
For three years, Chloe had built her life around him, only to realize her entire marriage was a cruel joke. How could he hold her tightly in their bed, whisper another woman's name in his sleep, and expect her to just accept it?
When Bentley ripped up the divorce papers and threatened to destroy her architectural career, Chloe didn't shed a single tear.
She packed up her blueprints, secured a billion-dollar island project with a mysterious tycoon, and walked out the door.
This time, the substitute was resigning.