Beneath the Ice : Claimed by My Three Hockey Alphas

chapter 2

Riley~

~Two years later~

I sat alone in the attic and I had pulled out my hidden sketchbook again, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Mother had told me to develop other interests and let painting be for a bit. My hands moved on their own, the pencil dragging across the page before I could stop it. I had noticed recently that there were times when I didn’t choose what to draw. It just came.

In this painting, mt entire family appeared on the paper. My father was on his knees and my mother standing rigid beside him, her face blank with shock. And me… kneeling in front of a raised platform where the Elder Council sat. Their faces were cold and filled with spite.

I stared at the drawing for a long time, heart beating too fast.

I didn’t understand it.

Why would I draw something so terrible? Why would my own hands create a picture of us being punished like that?

Fear crawled up my spine. I ripped the page out, crumpled it hard, and threw it into the small metal bin in the corner. Then I covered it with other scraps so I wouldn’t have to look at it again.

I told myself it was just a bad dream that had leaked onto the paper. Nothing more.

I was wrong.

***

The next evening, I was told to appear in front of the council hall with my parents right after school.

I stood beside my parents near the front, my hands clenched so tightly around the edge of my coat that my fingers ached. Every eye in the room seemed to turn toward us at the same time.

The weight of their stares pressed against my skin until I wanted to shrink into nothing. My heart was beating so hard I was sure everyone could hear it. I kept my head down, but I could still feel them looking.

Head Elder Alistair Crowe stood on the raised platform. To me he was still just “the Elder.”

“Elias Kensington has been found guilty of treason. Evidence has been presented proving his role in the death of our late Alpha. Effective immediately, he is stripped of rank, title, and protection.”

What was he talking about?! Father would never do something so vile!

“What is going–”

“Silence!” One of the council elders screamed at me and stayed quiet as I watched as my father was forced to kneel on the hard stone floor. The sound of his knees hitting the ground made my stomach turn and my mother’s face had gone completely white. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, rigid, as if any movement would make everything worse. I stood too close to them, fourteen years old and already wishing I could disappear into the floor.

In the front row of the youth warriors, I saw them.

Jax’s lip curled in open disgust. Theo’s smile was bright and cruel, like this was some kind of entertainment put on just for him. Kai’s expression did not change at all. That silence of his always scared me more than the others’ laughter.

When the meeting finally ended, I tried to follow my parents out as quickly as possible but the guards escorted them somewhere else and it was just me who left. My legs felt weak. I kept telling myself that if I just kept walking, if I didn’t look at anyone, maybe they would leave me alone.

I didn’t make it far.

In the parking lot, Elara Hayden, a class mate who was just as cruel as the trio, was already waiting with a group of girls.

“Fat traitor omega,” she said sweetly, as if she were greeting an old friend.

They surrounded me before I could run. Someone grabbed my hair from behind. Craft scissors flashed in the cold light. I felt the blades close near my neck and then the sudden lightness as chunks of my black hair fell to the ground.

Cold air hit the newly bare skin at the back of my neck. Acrylic paint was smeared across my cheeks and forehead, sticky and cold and smelling sharply of chemicals. Their laughter rang in my ears until it was all I could hear. I didn’t fight. I just stood there, shaking, tears burning behind my eyes while they called me every ugly name they could think of. Traitor. Fat. Disgusting. Unwanted.

When they finally got bored and left, I stayed frozen for a long time, paint drying on my face with my now short uneven hair brushing against my neck.

***

The next morning at school felt even worse.

My locker had been vandalized overnight. The word “TRAITOR” was written across the door in thick black marker, along with crude drawings of a bloated, ugly wolf. Teachers walked past without saying a word. Some of them even looked away when they saw me standing there. Their silence hurt almost as much as the words on the metal.

In gym class, Jax “accidentally” body-checked me so hard that I hit the floor and stayed there for several seconds, trying to remember how to breathe. Pain exploded along my side and the bruises were already forming. I could feel them darkening under my skin.

Theo spent the rest of the period organizing a loud “poll” about who would ever claim an omega built like me. He made sure everyone could hear the answers. No one. Never. Not in a million years. Each answer felt like another shove.

When I finally escaped to the bathroom, I found my sketchbook in the trash can. Someone had thrown it away like it was garbage. Kai was the one who handed it back to me later in the hallway. He didn’t say a single word. He just held it out, expression blank, and walked away the moment my fingers closed around it. One page was missing. I didn’t ask which one. I was too afraid of the answer.

Shame and something hotter burned in my chest until I couldn’t stand it anymore. My hands were shaking. My throat felt tight. I ran to the art room and locked the door behind me, pressing my back against it as if that could keep the entire school out.

Alone, I pulled out what little paint I had left and started working in a frenzy. My hands moved faster than my thoughts. I didn’t even choose the colors carefully. I just needed to get whatever was inside me out before it tore me apart. The frozen lake appeared first. It was dark water under cracked ice. Then the wolves. Four of them. A dark figure rising from the center. Blood spreading across the ice in thick red streaks.

The vision hit full force.

It was nothing like the small blackouts I had experienced before. This one swallowed me completely. The room disappeared as well as the smell of paint. All I could see was the lake cracking open, the four wolves surrounding something I couldn’t quite make out, and a dark figure rising higher and higher. Blood on the ice. So much blood.

I collapsed.

When I woke up, the entire wall in front of me was covered in a mural I had no memory of creating. One of the wolves had Jax’s scar across its face. Another had Theo’s golden eyes. The third was silver-haired and silent. The fourth was only a white blur, unfinished and strange, as if even my gift didn’t want to show me its face yet.

Fear flooded every part of me so strongly that I felt sick.

I grabbed rags and white paint and tried to scrub the wall clean before anyone could see. My hands moved desperately, scrubbing until the skin on my knuckles split and bled. Red mixed with the white paint until everything looked pink and ruined. The images still showed through faintly, no matter how many layers I threw over them.

I stared down at the blood on my fingers for a long time.

This was real.

Something inside me finally snapped.

I dropped the rag. My knees hit the floor. A broken sound tore out of my throat—half sob, half scream. Tears streamed down my face so fast I couldn’t see.

I pressed my bleeding hands against the cold floor and screamed until my voice cracked.

“I hate them! I hate all of them!”

The words kept coming, raw and ugly and too loud for the empty room.

“They took everything! My father… my home… my hair… my dignity… everything! I wish I could kill them. I wish they would all just die and leave me alone!”

I stayed there on the floor, shaking and crying until my throat burned and my head ached. The mural still watched me from under the white paint.

Eventually the screams turned into quiet, exhausted sobs. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing blood and tears together, and forced myself to stand.

I had painted my parents downfall and now, I was doing something even more deadly and that was where I decided, I would never paint another human or vision ever again.

Not if this was what it cost.

I was also going to make those bastards pay with their lives. Even if it was the last thing I did before I died!