The Lakeview Valkyries have been losing for so long that hope feels reckless.When Claire Hawthorne goes first overall, she knows exactly what she's being asked to carry. A broken franchise. Impossible expectations. A team desperate for someone steady enough to hold it together. Leadership has always come naturally to her, but this time, it comes with nowhere to hide.Then the Valkyries make a second pick no one sees coming.Rowan Vega is chaos sharpened into talent. Fierce, volatile, unapologetic. Claire's longtime rival. The last person she ever expected to share a locker room with, let alone a future. Their history is built on opposition, resentment, and the kind of competition that leaves scars.Forced together, the two women ignite something dangerous. On the ice, their chemistry threatens to change the fate of the franchise. Off it, tension blurs into desire, rivalry into connection, and control into vulnerability neither of them is prepared for. As the Valkyries claw their way from irrelevance to contention, every win raises the stakes, and every loss threatens to expose what they're risking by choosing each other.In a league that punishes weakness and devours distraction, Claire and Rowan must decide what matters more: protecting themselves, or trusting the one person who sees them clearly.Holding the Line is a story about pressure, power, and partnership. About what it costs to believe in something again. And about how love, like winning, is built not through domination, but through choosing the same direction and refusing to let go when everything tries to pull you apart.