Guarding the Virgin

Chapter 15

Lyra’s POV

I felt the eyes on me before I saw anyone.

It started in the morning—a prickling sensation at the back of my neck while I was walking to class. I glanced over my shoulder and caught a figure near the science building. A man in a dark jacket who turned away too quickly when our eyes met.

I told myself it was nothing. Paranoia. The stress of hiding a pregnancy while navigating a minefield of secrets. My nerves were shot, my hormones were chaos, and I was seeing threats in every shadow.

But the feeling didn't go away.

After lunch, a black sedan crawled behind me as I walked from the coffee shop to the athletics building. I only noticed because it stopped when I stopped. Crawled when I walked slowly. Disappeared the moment I reached the rink entrance, slipping around a corner like it had never been there.

And then, leaving the library that evening, I saw him again. The same figure from this morning—dark jacket, average build, forgettable face. He was standing near the campus bookstore, pretending to browse magazines while watching me through the window.

This wasn't Ashton.

I knew his presence by now. The familiar weight of his attention, the way he blended into shadows, the particular feeling of safety that came with knowing he was nearby. This was someone else. Someone new. Someone who wanted me to know I was being watched.

I found Ashton after practice the next morning, pulling him aside near the equipment room where no one could overhear.

"Someone's watching me." I kept my voice low, controlled. "Not you. Someone else. Yesterday I saw the same guy twice—morning and evening. And there was a car following me between buildings."

His reaction was immediate and intense.

His jaw tightened. His eyes went cold—that dangerous, predatory cold I'd glimpsed the night he threatened Nate. I watched his hands curl into fists at his sides, knuckles going white.

"Describe him. The car. Everything."

I did. The dark jacket. The average build. The way he turned away too quickly. The black sedan with tinted windows that seemed to know my route before I did.

With each detail, his expression grew darker. More dangerous.

"You don't go anywhere alone," he said when I finished. "Not to class, not to practice, not to get coffee. Nowhere. Do you understand?"

"Ashton—"

"Do you understand?" The words came out sharp, almost harsh. Then he caught himself, took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. "Please, Lyra. This is serious."

I nodded, shaken not by his orders but by the fear I glimpsed beneath his anger. Whatever this threat was, it was real enough to scare a man who seemed afraid of nothing.

"Who are they?" I asked quietly.

"I don't know yet." His jaw worked. "But I'm going to find out."

The next day, Donovan requested another meeting.

His office felt different this time. The warmth from our previous conversation had been replaced by something heavier, more serious. The afternoon light filtering through the windows seemed dimmer somehow, casting long shadows across the championship photographs on his walls.

"Thank you for coming, Lyra." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Please, sit."

I sat, my guard up in a way it hadn't been before. Something about his tone put me on edge.

"I've been thinking about our last conversation," he began, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk. "About Coach Jennings. His sudden appearance at our program. The way he watches you."

My stomach tightened. "I told you, there's nothing—"

"I know what you told me." He held up a hand. "But I couldn't let it go. Something felt off. So I did some research."

He slid a folder across the desk toward me. Manila, unmarked, thick with papers.

"What is this?"

"Everything I could find on Ashton Jennings. I thought you should see it."

I opened the folder with trembling fingers. Inside were documents I didn't fully understand—employment records with suspicious gaps, references that led to disconnected phone numbers and defunct businesses, a sealed file from a previous position covered in ominous black redactions.

"There are holes in his history, Lyra. Years completely unaccounted for." Donovan's voice was grave. "And rumors from his last position—nothing proven, but concerning. Allegations that were quietly buried rather than investigated."

I flipped through the pages, my heart sinking with each one. Dates that didn't add up. Employers who seemed to have vanished. A pattern of appearing somewhere, working for a year or two, then disappearing without explanation.

"Have you ever wondered," Donovan continued, "why a man like him would take a college coaching position? Someone with his... skills? His intensity?" He shook his head slowly. "It doesn't add up. Men like that don't end up at small-town hockey programs by accident."

My stomach turned, and not just from the pregnancy.

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting anything." He spread his hands. "I'm just asking questions. Questions you should be asking too. Questions like: who is Ashton Jennings really? Where did he come from? And what does he actually want with you?"

I stared at the folder in my lap, pages blurring as my eyes burned with unshed tears. I wanted to defend him. Wanted to say that I knew Ashton, that beneath the cold exterior was a man who cared about me, who'd been honest with me in ways no one else had.

But how much did I really know? He'd told me he owed my father a debt. Told me there was a threat he couldn't explain. Told me to trust him without giving me anything concrete to trust.

"Ashton has been nothing but professional with me," I said finally, gathering the folder and standing on unsteady legs.

"Has he?" Donovan's eyebrow rose slightly. "That's not what the whispers suggest."

Heat flooded my cheeks. "The whispers are wrong."

"I hope so." He stood as well, his expression softening into something almost paternal. "I truly do, Lyra. I'm not trying to upset you. I just want you to be careful. A young woman in your position—alone, far from family, with no one looking out for her—you need to question everything. Trust no one completely."

"And I should trust you?" The words came out sharper than I intended.

Donovan smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You should trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, it probably is." He walked me to the door. "My door is always open. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Remember that."

I left his office with the folder tucked under my arm and doubt crawling through my chest like poison.

I trusted Ashton. I did.

But the gaps in his history. The sealed records. The way he'd appeared out of nowhere and inserted himself into my life with a convenient story about protecting me from unnamed threats.

What if Donovan was right? What if I'd been so desperate for connection, so starved for someone who seemed to care, that I'd missed the obvious signs?

The questions wouldn't stop coming. They multiplied in my head, breeding with my fears and my hormones and the secret growing inside me.

I had no idea who to believe anymore.

And somewhere out there, someone in a dark jacket was still watching.