My Hockey Alpha



Chapter 0806

Nina

The warm summer breeze caressed my face, gently tousling loose strands of hair, but I felt utterly numb to its soft touch. My gaze remained fixated on the freshly upturned earth in front of me, the simple granite headstone bearing my father's name and legacy in stark, uncompromising letters.

Here lies Aldric, the third of his name. Alpha King. Beloved to all.

The words seemed to mock me, like a hollow tribute to a man who meant so much-not just to me, but to my mother, my brother, Enzo, the entire realm. Almost two centuries of watching over the werewolf realm, and now it was gone. Now the Alpha King was buried beside my sister and my mother. And together the three of them laid silently.

I had failed him. Failed to protect him when our family needed me most, when his life was in peril. Perhaps if I had been swifter to action, none of this would have happened. Perhaps...

The endless stream of what-ifs echoed mercilessly in my mind, a relentless torrent of hatred and bitterness. Even now, although she had impaled herself on the rocks, I swore I could hear Mila's voice in my mind. Her laughter. Jeering, taunting, utterly mad.

My fingernails dug savagely into my palms until I could feel warm, wet blood seep through the skin. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the angry emptiness clawing its way through my chest, leaving every breath feeling like shards of ice piercing my lungs.

"Nina."

The sound of my mother's voice sounded far away at first, drowned out by the roaring static filling my ears. It wasn't until the gentle weight of a reassuring hand came to rest on my shoulder that I managed to drag my gaze upward from my father's grave.

My adoptive mother's eyes, reddened from her own tears, studied me with a heartbreaking combination of compassion and shared misery. In that moment, I was struck by just how old she looked-how deeply the years had etched themselves into the delicate lines framing her mouth and eyes.

Before I could fully process her presence, the dam inside me suddenly burst. A ragged sob tore free from my constricted throat as I crumpled forward, burying my face in the soft cloth of her shirt. Her slender arms instantly folded around me, holding me upright as I shuddered with the force of my gasping cries.noveldrama

"It's all my fault," I choked out between ragged breaths, clutching at the fabric of her shirt as if it were the only thing tethering me to this world. "If I had been stronger, fought harder, none of this would have happened"

"Nina, don't say that," she murmured, her voice thick with her own tears as her fingers stroked through my tousled hair. "None of this was your fault. You were a victim, too."

I swallowed at her words. "It was my idea to go charging in there. And I failed, I let her fly away, I let things get out of control. I caused an entire village to burn, I caused people to die, and my dad..."

My voice trailed off after that. No words would come, the only sound that of the sobs wracking my shoulders.

We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, holding each other as we cried. My mother cried silently, but I could feel her shoulders shake; she had lost her love. Again. We had both lost a man who had been in our lives for far too short of a time.

My sobs eventually subsided into quiet hiccups, but the emptiness in my chest remained. I felt as if I had been hollowed out-like someone had reached into my chest and scooped my heart out into their palm. They had buried it there, with my family.

Finally, after what felt like hours, I drew a shuddering breath and pulled back just enough to meet my mother's haunted gaze. A lifetime's worth of unvoiced dread and responsibility hung unspoken between us in that loaded silence.

"How can I do this?" The words slipped out before I could rein them in, and I swallowed, licking my lips. "Take over his our kingdom when I barely know the laws, the history, any of it? I'm just... I'm not ready. I wasn't

meant for this."