BETRAYED BY HOCKEY STAR: LOVED BY ALPHA KING

Chapter 13: Soft lunch

DRAVEN'S POV

She’s shaking.

I see it in the way her fingers wrap around the seatbelt, in the way her shoulders pull inward like she’s trying to disappear into her own skin. What Kyle did didn’t just bruise her body. It bruised her spirit and that’s the part that makes my wolf want to tear the world apart.

Kyla’s face flashes behind my eyes and my jaw locks so tight I hear my teeth grind.

My wolf is still pacing, snarling, wanting blood, wanting to see her crawl, wanting to make her regret breathing near Elara.

I should have dragged Kyla outside by her hair.

I should have made it a lesson.

No one touches her.

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. Every breath feels like it’s dragging claws through my chest. I can still smell fear on Elara’s clothes. Not fear of me — fear of them. Of being seen. God, she always tries to make herself small. To disappear. Like she thinks she deserves that.

She doesn’t know how bright she is, how distracting, maddeningly, painfully beautiful she is.

Even now, hair messy, cheek swollen, lip trembling.

I could stare at her for hours.

Her eyes, dark, deep, always hiding more than she says.

Her mouth, the kind you don’t just kiss, you won't want to look away

Her skin, soft even when bruised.

Her body is delicate, but not weak. Never weak.

And the way she bites back words instead of letting them out… the quiet fire in that.

Fucking Perfect. Thinking about her makes all the blush rush to my groin and my heart beats faster. I could finish off just by the thought of her

And she has no idea.

My wolf growls again. I force him back, breathe through it.

I look at her.

She’s holding everything in like always. Like her pain is something she thinks she has to carry alone.

Not anymore.

….

I should rip her head off that b***h

The thought arrives before sound, a hot, animal flare that tastes like iron and wants nothing more than to tear the world down until Kyle is the only thing left to burn. It sits under my ribs like a second heart fast and dangerous, the wolf in me answers with a low, hungry rumble.

“Draven?,” she says, small and brittle, “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean—if I’d been more careful, I wouldn’t have—” Her voice fractures on the last word. The apology is all in the tilt of her chin and the way she keeps her eyes on the floor, like the rest of the world, is judging her.

“You did nothing wrong,” I say, my voice flat at first, then softer, because someone has to be the anchor and tonight it will be me. “You did nothing, alright.”

I pull my attention from the memory of Kyle’s smug face.

“You don’t understand what I want to do to her,” I tell her, voice low enough for only her to hear. “But whether I tear her apart with my hands or with everything I have, it ends the same. She won’t touch you again.” The wolf barks in agreement, a vibration that mismatches the cadence of my own heartbeat. I bring her in for a hug.

“Why does everyone hate me? I didn't do anything wrong and I am not even that attractive. I hate everything about me, why did the goddess have to bring me to this world if this is how I'll suffer.” she sniffs and cleans her tears on her sleeve. “I don't even know why she would give someone like me to you.”

Hearing all this from her breaks me, and maybe this is my chance to tell her how I feel.

“I love the way your hair catches the light, and ow it never stays the same color from one moment to the next. Your eyes, God, your eyes. They’re a map I want to learn by touch, the kind that keeps secrets when everyone else spits them out.”

The words spill, darker and more honest than I expected. “Your face, soft but not soft enough to be forgotten. Your skin is warm as milk. Your lips tempting as ever Your body makes me go crazy, you're every girl's dream person and that's why they are jealous. And how smart you are, your sarcasm is so refined, I could go on.

She lifts her head at that, a half-smile ghosting through a storm. Anger recedes out of my chest like tide water. My hands caressed her face.

“You’re more than anyone here deserves,” I continue, my voice thinned by held-back something that almost breaks. “You’re sharper than they think and kinder than you let yourself be. You shrink and hide and let them step over you like you’re nothing, but you’re… you’re everything I’d stared at in a room of a thousand people and still pick out from the dark. I would ruin anyone who thought they could make less of you.” You shine Elara and I want every bit of you to shine with me and thank the Goddess for giving you to me.

A laugh that’s half hysteria, half relief, slips out of her. “You always say things like that,” she murmurs. “Like it’s easy.”

“It isn’t.” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the movement ridiculous in its tenderness. “But I will make it so. I’ll spend every part of me on making sure no one ever dares to do this to you again.”

She tries to apologize again something small about being a trouble and I cut her off, because there’s no room for guilt in this bubble I’ve formed around her. “Stop,” I say, and the word is rough with feeling. “Never say you’re trouble if you’re standing in front of me.”

A single tear slides down her cheek, and no amount of instinct can do anything but break at the sight. I don’t let it fall further. It’s ridiculous and human and it makes everything too sharp for a man who’s supposed to be all teeth and shadows. I move the pads of my thumb over it until she looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time.

“Why are you being like this?” she asks, voice small and incredulous.

I took her to her room bridal style, sat her on the bed and went to her with her first aid kit. Because the truth has been sitting between us like a third body, warm and impossible to ignore. Because I have been holding back the whole time we’ve been close enough to feel each other’s breath. “Because,” I say—because the words are simpler than the storm in my head—“we never talked about the sparks. We never said it outright. But it’s there every time we touch .”

She sighs and looks away, giving us space. “Yeah mates”

“Exactly and we can't keep avoiding it.” I tell her as I start to clean her wounds. “Yes and there is no denying it.”

“What if it's a mistake?” She blurs out before thinking because her eyes shoot out as she said it. “ I'm sorry I–”

“It's fine, it's off for the goddess to make mistakes but if you say so.” She hisses as the wounds are being cleaned. “You have nothing to worry about,” I throw the cottons away and take the kit back to her bathroom then sit beside her. “-ill never force you with anything, until you reject me as your mate.”

She smiles softly, “Thank you.” She giggles leaving me confused, “I'm sorry, I wouldn't even know how to please you.” My eye brows arch and then it hits me. She's a virgin?

“Oh? I mean you could try? Let's see what you've got?

Her adorable laughter escapes her lips again, “yeah right, you just want me to touch you, you pervert.” She pushes my chest away playfully.

“I'll take anything.” This makes her laugh again, maybe tonight would be wonderful. Unfortunately not, the pain shot me like an arrow, I looked outside her open glass balcony, the moon was red. I slapped her hand off my chest.

“Elara RUN!!”