Bad Intentions (Hellions of Hade Harbor #1)

by Mila Kane

“What did you call me?” Now that he was closer, and I could actually see, I realized he was younger than I’d expected. His shadowy eyes glittered in the gloom. “A jerk,” I attempted. He shook his head. “That’s not it.” I folded my arms over my chest and angled my chin up in the best pretense of confidence I could muster. “I called you a parasitoid, so what?” “And what would a parasitoid be?” He took a step closer to me. All imaginings of bravery fled my head. I mirrored his movement in the opposite direction. “Look it up.” “I’d rather you told me.” This guy was infuriating.

“I don’t have to tell you anything. How about you apologize for knocking me on my ass and I’ll tell you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly and moved closer to me.

His satisfied grin made it clear he was aware of rattling me. “I think you’re going to tell me. Right. Fucking. Now.”

Yep, that’s right. I was Lillian Williams, and Coach Williams was practically a celebrity in our little Maine town. Ice hockey was big here, and my father had big dreams. As a teen player at Hade Harbor High, he’d been heading toward the NHL, already a state champion, but that had all changed when I’d come along. My mom had had a difficult pregnancy, and my dad had missed out on the offers he’d been given from colleges while looking after her. The timing hadn’t been right, they’d told me. Now, at HHH, since my father had taken over the team a few years ago, they’d been steadily improving.

Asher—her hot, ice hockey-playing older brother—was terrifying. I tried my best not to be in the room with him when he blew through. Eve was right to worry. He didn’t like his sister going to parties. He was overprotective as hell. Luckily for him, Eve had never been invited to many. Fear of Asher ran deep at Hade Harbor High.

Eves brother

I hung up and pulled Eve’s dress from the bag. A quick change later, and I stared, aghast, at my reflection. She’d given me a little black dress to wear, emphasis on the “little.” It had off-the-shoulder straps and a hem that sat higher on my long body than it would on my best friend’s. I seriously considered putting my dirty jeans back on instead. I never wore revealing clothes. It didn’t seem right that the off-limits Coach’s daughter, a complete bookworm and science nerd, should care what she wore. I’d learned the hard way that even if I made an effort, no one noticed. I washed my hands and balanced my contacts case on the edge of the sink, quickly swapping my glasses and tucking them away in my bag.

The Ice Gods were three of the best players for the Hade Harbor Hellions, the hockey team my father coached. Not only did they rule the team, but they ruled the school, too. They were beautiful and terrible. Callous, arrogant, and, at times, even cruel. No one wanted to get on their bad side. I seemed to have a pass, probably thanks to being the coach’s daughter. Eve also had a pass, since her brother was an Ice God.

“What’s wrong, Bug. You don’t want to be left alone with me?” His hands landed on my hips, and his fingers pressed in, sinking into my flesh. He was so tall, my head fit into the space underneath his chin. “I-I don’t know what to say.” Stating the obvious was about all my overheated brain could handle. “But you had so much to say before… what was it you called me again?” His voice dipped low, grim amusement coloring his tone. “I don’t remember.” He chuckled. “I think you do.” One of his hands slid around my belly, and my insides trembled. What was he up to? Nobody touched me like this, especially not a hockey player. The new guy was breaking all my father’s rules.

“Eyes up here, Bug.” Cayden’s voice was just as hot as the rest of him. “Don’t call me Bug,” I muttered instinctively, raising my eyes to take him in. “So, you’re Cayden West? Big-shot ace, the one who’s going to take us to Nationals?” Eve smiled up at him without seeming to realize anything weird had been going on. “So they say,” Cayden said shortly. “I saw Asher around. He just passed through.” He cast a look over his shoulder. Damn. This guy caught on quick. He’d already managed to get rid of Josh and Eve with little effort.

She turned on her heel and disappeared before I could stop her. I was hot on her heels. Eve disappeared down the hall and into a bathroom. I made it to the hall before a hard hand closed around my wrist. Cayden tugged me to a stop.

“What do you want?” The hallway was quiet, and no one else was waiting in line for the bathroom. We were alone. Heat crawled across my face as Cayden backed me into the wall and caged me against it. “I want to finish our conversation from earlier, before you so rudely ran off.” “Fine, whatever. I called you a parasitoid – it’s not that deep. A kind of insect that eventually kills the host it feeds off. It was a biology joke. It was lame. Let it go. Why are you so angry about nothing?” My voice rang in the air between us.

“When someone crosses me, I don’t get angry-I get even. I’m not the kind of guy who lets things go, you’d do well to remember that. Don’t get on my bad side. I’ll be your worst nightmare, Bug.” “Don’t call me Bug,” I ground out. My cheeks must be beet red, and I felt squirmy all over. I hated this. I hated the way he was staring at me, giving me no space to avoid his inspection. “Why not? It suits you… little, scurrying bug, so easy to crush.”

“Now, let’s get something straight, since it looks like we’re going to be classmates. Stay out of my way, unless you want to be crushed. I won’t hesitate. Don’t test me. You’ll regret it.” He moved his hand in an up-and-down motion, taking my head with him, a horrible parody of nodding. “Say you understand.” “Fuck you, asshole,” I managed, anger colliding with anxiety in my chest. “Be careful what you’re asking for, Bug.” Cold mocking was back in his eyes.

“Don’t forget what I said, and don’t ignore it either…” He dropped his grip.

He smirked coldly. “If you do–it’ll only be more fun for me.” “You’re insane,” I muttered, cupping my chin. The skin throbbed. He nodded. “You have no idea, and believe me, you don’t want to find out.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “I guess we should go. Our hour is up.” “You don’t mind?” She shook her head and grinned, linking her arm through mine.

She walked with her head down, holding an open textbook. She literally had her nose in a book. She was just as much of a fever dream as the rest of this picture-perfect place. Was there really anyone so angelic-looking? It seemed impossible.

good little girls like Lillian could destroy a guy like me. I knew my level, and Lillian Williams was far above it.

“Lily, have you met Cayden?” Coach Williams asked, approaching us both. I crouched to swipe her dropped book from the floor. Lily mirrored my movement and cracked her chin off my jaw. She fell back, sitting on the floor and holding her head. “Lil, you’ve got to pay attention to things around you,” Coach Williams said, a note of exasperation in his tone. Lil? “I was. I didn’t expect him to try to take my book.”

Ooh he doesn’t know that’s the coach’s daughter!!

“Here.” I grabbed the book and handed it to her. She took it like it was a snake that might bite her before standing. “Manners, Lillian,” Coach reminded her. What the fuck was their relationship?

“Thank you.” “You’re very welcome.” My amused tone only sent her color higher. “So, Cayden, this is my daughter, Lillian. Lily, Cayden is our new forward, or at least, I hope he is. He’s going to change everything this year for the Hellions.” Coach slapped my shoulder, giving me a grin. The man was a broken record, seriously, but I couldn’t afford to piss him off. He was giving me a chance to leave Midnight Falls and my past behind. I needed him. I looked back at Lily. The coach’s daughter? That shouldn’t make her more intriguing, but it did. She wasn’t just some nobody I could crush under my heel to make sure she was a good girl and didn’t get in my way. She had her own power. The ear of the coach, the most important man in my life right now.

“Nice to meet you, Lily. Call me Cade.” My hand wavered in the air between us. Lily stared down at it, clearly unwilling to touch me. Her father cleared his throat, and she stuck her hand out quickly, taking mine. Her skin was soft, and her hand was absurdly small and fragile feeling. I shook her hand, my thumb rubbing a circle around the back, and squeezed. Not enough for Coach to see, but enough to remind little Bug about our talk on Friday. Her eyes jumped to me as she tried to pull her hand from mine. Unluckily for her, her dad had turned away, speaking to another teacher who was passing by. I took the opportunity to yank Lily closer to me for a second. “What are you—” she started. “Play nice, or I won’t either,” I reminded her just as Coach turned back to us. I dropped Lily’s hand and pasted on a bland smile.

Pull your damn sweater up and stop letting people stare at your untouched skin.

“Lily’s a good girl. She’s special. If all of this is going to work, you need to understand how it is with her and the team.” Coach Williams’ voice was low. So, he’d made sure that his daughter was off-limits around here? That made sense. I had no experience with parents who gave a damn about you. It was an odd feeling.

“Got it, Coach. I’m here to play and get into HHU. That’s it.” Hade Harbor University had the best direct route into the NHL of any place around, and I needed to go there. I also needed a full ride. “Hell yeah.” Coach grinned and gripped my shoulder, his strong hand digging in surprisingly hard. “Let’s go and see how you like the ice in Hade Harbor.”

My heart shuddered. I hated lying to my mom, but I had no idea how to tell my well-meaning parents that they were suffocating me. I had no idea how to tell them that at seventeen years old, I’d never even been kissed. I wanted to date, I wanted to stay out late, and I wanted to obsess over some guy who asked me out. I wanted to be normal and not the test acer for once. My mom would never understand. She’d had me young and married my father when they’d both just gotten out of high school. She saw in me all the potential that she’d lost when she’d become a mom at nineteen. I didn’t have it in me to break her heart.

Yep, Cayden West would forget about the weird, rude girl who’d shouted at him in a parking lot, and I’d forget what it felt like to be noticed by someone new. Life would go back to normal soon enough.

“Why this year?” I wondered aloud. My father turned his eyes to me. “This year, with Beckett, Marcus, and Asher, we have a real chance. They need a killer center though, and that person is Cayden. You should have seen them skating together after school today. It’s like they were born to be a team.” “So, sounds like the Ice Gods have a new member,” I muttered. “They sure do. I’m getting Cayden on the team, no matter what. Otherwise—” He cut off and looked at me. I sat up straighter under his long stare. “Otherwise what?” My dad sat back, putting his napkin on the table and giving me a grin. “Otherwise, I might not be able to move to the coach position at HHU. They’re keeping it open for me, depending on what I can do with the team this year.” My dinner felt like a rock in my belly. My father was going to coach at HHU? Because of me?

“You mean a great opportunity to keep an eye on me?” My accusing question shot out before I could stop it. Never mind that I didn’t even plan on going to HHU, just the fact that my dad was planning on being there only made that invisible pressure that was already threatening to crush me push down even harder. “Lillian, it’s a big school. I won’t even see you, unless you come and visit your old man. I just thought it would be nice to know that we’re both on campus somewhere. I’m not there to cramp your style.” I sighed. “That’s what you always say, but being the coach’s daughter was supposed to end after high school.”

My dad sighed. “Lil, I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s a great opportunity. It’s the next step for me. More money, bigger games, more skill, strategy⁠—” “The chance at fame you never got as a player because of me, right?” Silence fell as the cruel words left

“I’m sorry. That was awful,” I muttered against his chest. “It’s okay, Lil. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s a big shock, I guess.” He rubbed a warm circle on my back. I nodded, and after a moment, leaned away. My mother was looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. “I’m just tired. It was a long day. I should go and get started on my homework.” “Okay, sweetheart. We’re here if you want to talk,” my mom said with a kind smile.

I’d cost them everything, and I was reminded of it every single day. It was the very reason I’d burrowed into schoolwork so hard and stressed over having a perfect attendance record and GPA. It was the reason I never got in trouble, or snuck out late, or hell, even kissed a boy. I was fated to pay penance to the two people who had given up everything for me, and I was the ungrateful brat who wanted to run away and be free on the other side of the country.

Her parents

I’d worked for my foster father since I’d turned fourteen and started to fill out. By the time I was sixteen, he’d moved me from peddling his poison to collecting payment from the miserable souls who owed him money. Uncle Jack was a two-bit criminal, thief, and dealer who’d made Midnight Falls his territory. There wasn’t much you could wring out of the people who lived here. The town was well below the poverty line and nearly everyone and their neighbor had a drug problem. But Uncle Jack was inventive. He always found lots of ways for the desperate to pay their debts-and it was my job to make sure they delivered.

It was ironic that Lillian Williams’ nickname was Bug. I tended to think of most people I interacted with as crawling insects—following the next hit blindly, unaware of the boot about to stomp them out of existence. To me, Lillian Williams seemed anything but that.

Jack chuckled, but the sound lacked amusement. “Is that right? Tired yourself out in Hade Harbor, did you? Wasting all day lounging about in the bougie town, playing with yourself for your new coach?” I froze with my hand on the fridge. He knew about Hade Harbor? I’d been so careful, and yet he already knew.

“Huh?” It was the best I could do right now. Jack laughed again. “So, we’re feigning ignorance? Okay, great. You tell me where you were all day then? Where were you when I needed you?” “What did you need me for?” “That fucker, Lewis, who owns the bar on Fifth, missed his payment, and he beat up the guy I sent for it.” “Well, that’s not my job--Lewis isn’t on my list. It’s not my fault your other guys can’t fight for shit.” Jack studied me and then threw his glass in a sudden burst of energy. It smashed into the cupboard right beside my head, showering me with splinters. I didn’t flinch.

“Don’t talk back to me, boy. You know who the boss is around here, you know who you belong to. I’ve got enough on you to put you away for years, never mind playing hockey for a living. Did you forget?” Jack pushed himself to his feet. He sauntered toward me, unintimidated by my superior height and muscle. Of course, he didn’t need to beat me to threaten me. He wasn’t lying; he had evidence of plenty of the illegal shit I did in his name. Starting from the night we’d met, he’d been keeping a record on me that would never die—not until he did.

“Look, I’ve put my time in and more than paid back anything I might owe you for the last ten years.” “Your debt to me can’t be measured in money, boy, and you know it. I saved your life. If I hadn’t taken you in when I did, where do you think you’d be now?”

He stepped closer, squaring up to me. “What do you think Coach Williams will think about your past? Or your reputation, for that matter? You weren’t just a fucked up kid, were you? You’re a fucked up man now, and people like you and me don’t change. He won’t want you around his team, or in his town… near his daughter… Bad things happen to good, innocent folks who take in bad eggs like you⁠—” He hadn't finished talking before my fragile patience snapped. I grabbed him, hauling his heavy, alcohol-bloated frame to my chest.

“You think you can take me, boy? Let’s go. Let’s see, once and for all.” Jack stepped back and pulled a knife from his other pocket. He hefted it as my gaze fixed on the blade. “I win, you stay and put thoughts of Hade Harbor and Coach Williams out of your head.” “And if I win?” Jack only laughed. “Not going to happen.” Then he lunged.

He doesn’t play by the rules, he wouldn’t care about your father’s threats. He would take what he wanted and never even give you a choice. I shivered, the thoughts curling through the edges of my mind like wisps of smoke, too unformed to grab on to. Regardless, just the memory of the dream had my body responding. It was official. I was playing a dangerous game, building up an endless supply of raging teenage hormones without any kind of outlet. One day, it might just boil over and I’d become the girl who went insane from unsatisfied lust.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I called. “Ask your father!” Her snapped reply made me even more curious about what was going on. Something out of the ordinary was happening. I approached the kitchen. My dad shrugged off his coat and wiped his feet on the mat, then turned to hold the door open for our unexpected guest. “Come on in, Cayden, make yourself at home,” my dad said.

Cayden didn’t have a jacket on. His thin, holey hoodie was soaked through on the shoulders, and his sneakers squeaked with water. He carried a black trash bag in one hand. His hood was up, his face shadowed. That dark oval turned toward me as I stood in the doorway, feeling like a kid in my oversized robe. “Lily, Cayden is going to be staying with us for a while,” Dad said and threw me a distracted smile, his gaze straying along the hall in the direction my mother had gone.

Cayden West was staying with us? I was rigid with tension as I watched my father walk down the hall, leaving me alone with the boy who’d done nothing but threaten me since we’d first met. “The towel, Bug.” Cayden’s deep voice jerked me from my horror.

“You probably have to take off your hoodie to get dry. If you want, I can put it in the dryer right now,” I told him.

Cayden’s T-shirt slid up his torso, revealing golden skin and the taut, tightly packed muscles on his abdomen. His long arms bulged with well-defined strength as he dropped them back down to his sides. But my lust quickly morphed into concern when I noticed mottled purple marks on his torso. Fresh bruises. I gasped, my hand unconsciously moving toward them. “Don’t.” His voice was like a whip. He grabbed my hand where it grazed his chest, yanking it into the air between us, gripping it tightly. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re the one touching me,” I muttered when he continued to hold my hand in a punishing grip. The hard line of his mouth softened a fraction, and his chest suddenly expanded like he’d been holding his breath. I realized that I had, too, at the same moment, and gulped down some much-needed oxygen. Cayden squeezed my fingers and made to let go, just as his nostrils flared. My hand was only inches from his face, and in a move that would forever haunt me, he brought my hand to his nose and inhaled. Heat flooded my cheeks. Holy crap. I rarely bothered touching myself much, seeing as it never went anywhere. This was just my luck. The one night I’d ventured down there, and the very guy I’d dreamed about appeared and sniffed my goddamn fingers.

“W-what are you doing?” I stammered out. I was pretty sure my face couldn’t get any hotter at this point. A curse of being a natural redhead.

“The question, Bug, is what have you been doing?” he mocked quietly. I snatched my hand from his and stepped back. “I haven’t been doing anything. I was sleeping. It’s three in the morning, in case you hadn’t realized.”