Craved By The Cursed Hockey Alpha

Chapter Five

ELARA

*

*

The agonizing screech of rusting metal tore me straight out of sleep.

I blinked rapidly, trying to force my eyes to focus on my surroundings, but everything was a blurry mess. My muscles weren't just aching; they felt like they’d been run over by a car, reversed over, and left to rot.

Then, the damp smell hit my nose, and reality crashed down on me in a brutal wave.

It wasn't a nightmare.

Every single terrifying thing that happened last night was 100% real.

Nate. Kirsten. And then... Ian.

“Get up, we don’t have time to waste!” a harsh voice growled from above.

I looked up to find the exact same guards from last night staring down at me. They were burly, terrifying, and clearly lacked a single ounce of human empathy.

Seeing the cell in the cold light of day was infinitely worse than the dark. The floor was slick, cold, and moist. In the far corner, a dark, rust-colored stain spread across the stone. I chose to violently convince myself it was just rust.

My entire body throbbed with a deep ache that made standing up feel like climbing Mount Everest.

My throat felt like it was on fire, and my nose was completely stuffed.

Nate.

Even just thinking his name hurt. Was he looking for me right now? Did he even know I was locked down here in the dark? Or had he woken up next to her this morning—with her perfect blonde hair on his pillow and her sweet mate-scent covering his skin?

“Move! What are you staring at? Don’t keep the council waiting, stupid!” one of the guards snarled.

Apparently, I wasn't moving at lightning speed. Before I could drag myself up, his massive hand clamped around my upper arm and brutally hauled me to my feet. The second guard grabbed my other arm, and together they practically dragged me down the damp corridor and up the stairs.

We entered the main packhouse hallways, heading straight toward the council room.

Every person we passed stopped dead in their tracks to stare. I could feel every single pair of eyes burning into me like a hot brand on my skin.

The council room doors were massive heavy oak. The guards didn't bother knocking; they just pushed them open and violently shoved me through the threshold.

I landed hard on my knees on the hard stone floor.

Directly in front of me sat twelve raised wooden seats arranged in a strict half-circle.

The Council of Elders.

Their eyes stared down at me with varying degrees of pity, contempt, and cold, detached judgment. They sat in their carved chairs like minor gods about to decide the fate of a mere mortal.

An icy wave of pure terror traveled through my spine. I was actually about to be judged like a literal traitor.

I scanned the room, searching for the one face that might make this nightmare bearable. When I finally found him, I inhaled so sharply my raw nostrils stung, the corners of my eyes instantly welling with fresh tears.

Nate was standing near the far wall, he was still wearing his clothes from last night—a dark green shirt and jeans—but his usually perfectly styled, sandy-brown hair was completely wild, and his posture was rigid.

Our eyes met across the crowded room. His eyes went wide with shock. Then dark. Then entirely furious.

“What the hell is this?” His voice sliced through the quiet chamber. “Who did this?!” he growled, spinning around to face my captor.

My bully. My literal tormentor.

Ian.

I didn’t even need to lift my head to know he was standing right above me. Ian’s presence was its own twisted weather system—a sudden, violent drop in temperature that made the very air feel icy and unbreathable. He stood at the highest spot in the council room, occupying the former Alpha’s place.

Our eyes locked, and the sheer hatred burning between us sizzled through the air. It was so thick I could practically taste the metallic edge of it.

He watched a furious Nate with an unbothered look. No—worse than unbothered. He looked smug. Pleased with himself.

“What does it look like, Calloway? A traitor,” Ian said dryly.

“She’s not a traitor!” Nate snarled, taking a predatory step forward. “How could you do this? You put a collar on her neck like she’s a f*****g animal?”

“She crossed the patrol line with a packed bag,” Ian replied calmly. “That’s desertion. Desertion is treason under pack law. I simply applied protocol. Should there be favoritism among traitors?”

“Protocol?” Nate said scornfully, “You’ve been looking for an excuse to destroy her for years, and now you’re cowardly hiding behind protocol? That’s really low of you, Ian. Even for you!”

Ian’s jaw ticked. The bored mask of indifference slipped just enough to show a dangerous flash of alpha anger underneath.

“Careful, Calloway. You’re speaking to your Alpha.”

Nate scoffed, his eyes flashing. “I’m speaking to the guy who dragged my—” He cut himself off mid-sentence.

The word he’d almost uttered hung in the tense silence like thick smoke.

My girlfriend.

But he didn’t have the right to claim me anymore, and we both knew it.

“—who dragged a defenseless girl through the pack in chains,” Nate corrected bitterly. “That’s not justice, Ian. You’re just being cruel.”

Ian stepped forward. Just one single step. But the pure, dominant energy in the room thickened instantly, his Alpha aura actively suppressing the air, making it physically harder to draw a breath. The elders exchanged nervous, fleeting looks. Even the room itself seemed to hold its breath.

“Cruelty,” The word rolled over his tongue like it was a foreign concept. “That’s interesting, coming from the boy who rejected his fated mate last night and nearly killed her wolf in the process. How is Kirsten doing, by the way? Still bleeding in the clinic? Tsk. How sad, I thought y’all were close?” His eyes burned with accusation.

The color slightly drained from Nate’s face too.

Kirsten.

I hadn’t even spared her condition a single thought while locking myself in my own grief.

“You’re the future Beta, Calloway. Start acting like it,” Ian commanded coldly. “This is an organized council, and we make decisions based on our pack rules. Your interruption is not welcome. Go sit down so we can begin.”

“Begin what? This doesn’t deserve a trial,” Nate countered, refusing to back down.

“Well, that’s why we have a council to make decisions don’t we?”

Ian’s gaze gleamed with a chilling amusement, completely setting Nate up to challenge the council’s power.

“Enough of this. We shall begin.”

The voice boomed from the far end of the half-circle, laced with authority.

Varon. The Beta. Nate’s father.

He stood up from his seat, and the suffocating tension in the room seemed to lift just a fraction. He was a harsher, older version of Nate, with stark silver hair dusting his temples.

I’d met him plenty of times before, and he had never once supported our relationship. He’d always made it clear his son could do infinitely better than dating a useless, wolfless girl with a potential of giving him deformed grandpups. Yes, he’d said those words to me in the same sentence.

“Sit down, Nathaniel,” Varon commanded.

“Dad, you can’t be serious—look at her! Look at what he did to her—”

“I said. Sit. Down.”

Nate’s jaw clenched, he threw me one final, agonized look filled with silent apologies before stiffly returning to his position.

“You should listen to your father more often,” Ian called out smugly. “You could learn a thing or two from him.”

His sharp gaze cut back to me, his smirk widening as if to tell me I was done for.

When he looked at me, he didn't see a person. He saw the daughter of the woman who had failed his father. And when I looked at him, I saw the monster who had made my orphanhood an absolute living hell, turning my mother’s disappearance into my personal crime.

“Elara Lockwood,” one of the elders began, unrolling a heavy scroll. “You stand accused of attempting to desert the SilverCrest Pack without authorization. Under pack law, desertion is classified as an act of treason. The standard punishment for treason is immediate confinement in the dungeon for a minimum of three years.”