The Four Lycan Kings Wants Me

[Siena's POV] “You’ll last a week.” The words hit harder than the wind slicing through the trees behind me. “If that....” Another voice, low and dismissive, as the boys walked past—team jackets zipped, voices sharp with certainty. I didn’t respond. Just clenched my jaw and adjusted the strap of my duffel bag. The gates of Hawthorne Athletic Academy burst up from the ground like memorials to greatness and strength. Crisp black iron, engraved with the silhouette of a silver hawk in flight, talons spread as if paused in mid-attack. They did not groan as they swung open—just glided smoothly apart, silently. Too spotless. Too slick. Like everything else here. I stood just outside them with my weathered duffel slung over one shoulder and an overstuffed backpack dragging down the other. The moment hit me like a punch to the ribs—dizzying and too big to swallow. This place didn’t look like any school I’d ever seen. It wasn’t just the size or the money poured into every brick and blade of grass. It was something in the air. Like the whole place was waiting for you to mess up. The hedges were trimmed to an excess. The dorms—three stories of shiny red brick—were more college structure than anything teenagers needed. And the fields? Infinites of green pitches lined with flawless white chalk lines. Everything about this place shouted cold order. I readjusted my bag strap as a couple of boys went by in coordinating team jackets, not even giving me a glance. Seniors, likely, and their faces were like something chipped out of stone. Intent. Blank. I spotted the Hawthorne emblem on the sleeve of one of their jackets: the hawk, wings outspread, plummeting hard. They didn't have to give me a look to realize that I was not among them. It was in my clothes—practical, sure, but obviously from a public school sports store. In my cleats—broken and worn out from too many dirty games on community fields. And in my face. That combination of tension and grit that only comes from a life filled with people telling you can't. Can't play. Can't survive. Can't win. And yet here I was. The only girl ever accepted into Hawthorne's all-male rugby division. On scholarship. The sole female even permitted to attempt. As I passed through the entrance onto the grounds, the memories began rolling behind my eyes like those old motion picture reels. Tryouts had been savagery. I'd been crashed into the ground more times than I cared to remember. Intentionally neglected during passing drills. Shoulder-checked with more force than the rules technically permitted. And yet, I rose again and again. Until even the judges had to quit pretending I wasn't there. Coach Warner—grizzled ex-pro, permanent frown—had taken me aside at the end of the third day. Stared me up and down like I was some sort of freak experiment. Then he growled and said, "You've got teeth. You bite back. You might not make it a season, but hell—you earned your spot." That was three months ago. And now I found myself strolling through a campus where students had been training since they took their first steps. Children who had personal trainers and nutritionists. Where Olympic hopes weren't a dream—they were a given. A bunch of students ran by me toward the aquatics building, their bodies honed, their skin glistening with sweat, their movements in perfect harmony like a well-crafted machine made to win. I looked down at the orientation slip that was crumpled in my palm: Rugby Division Field – 1600 hours. Mandatory Arrival. No exceptions. I hadn't even started to unpack. Didn't matter. They didn't care. The rugby field lay on the far corner of campus, walled in on three sides by high bleachers and ivy walls. But it wasn't a field. It was a stage. Looming lights towered above like searchlights. Tournament banners from around the world snapped in the wind like cloth trophies. The air hummed with history—the spirits of long-forgotten games. I could hear the echoes of the crowd just about, feel the impact of bodies crashing into each other, smell the sweat and blood still present in the dirt. My cleats cracked over the gravel trail as I approached. And then I saw them. A group of players already in the middle of a drill. Their strides swift, aggressive. Pass. Drive. Tackle. Reset. The snapping of flesh upon turf echoed across the field like distant thunder. And then, as if they'd heard some unheard signal, the drill slowed. Players turned one at a time to watch. A single figure broke from the formation and started jogging toward me. Then another. And two more. They didn’t run—they walked, like lions coming down from a hill to check out whatever had wandered into their territory. The Four Captains. I recognized who they were before they came to a stop a few feet away from me, an ordered line as if they'd practiced it. Every one of them a name that'd been whispered prior to my stepping foot onto this campus. Legends—at Hawthorne and elsewhere. Seniors, full scholarship acceptances to Ivy League schools. Already on Olympic prospectors' radar. Jace Arliss__the strategist. He had a reputation for dissecting game film in his sleep, and he was already analyzing me like a broken piece of equipment. His ice-blue eyes never flinched. Killian Arliss__the cold tactician. As solid as a freight train, arms that seemed carved from steel. Not a word spoken, no need to. He just stared at me with the kind of quiet patient intensity predators have when they are about to make their kill. Ronan Arliss__the enforcer. The smirking menace. Always shifting. Always smiling. Always prepared with some crack-brained remark. He c****d his head at me now, as if I were something peculiar and mildly amusing. A bug in his neat little game. And then Luca Arliss__the charmer. My heart hiccuped. Tall. Sturdy. Hazardous. Luca's hair had become darker—storm-gray in the sun—but I recognized him the moment I saw him. His face was altered, rugged, but not significantly enough to clear the memory. Rugby camp in summer. He'd been thirteen, and I was ten. I recalled how he moved, as if gravity warped around him. I recalled the smile he flashed me when he noticed I was staring. As if he knew then I wouldn't forget him. I hadn’t. And now he was here. Standing five feet from me, eyes like cut steel, mouth twisted in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You lost?” he asked, voice low and lazy—but it carried venom like it was laced into every syllable. I didn’t answer. I’d already decided—whatever they threw at me, they weren’t getting the satisfaction. Ronan stepped forward, and the other three parted for him like a scene choreographed to an intimate waltz. The air went still. The sounds of practice dulled behind the weight of his presence. His eyes pulled over me, slow and keen. Not as if he was appraising me—no. This was an inspection. Like I was an alien body on his territory. Something that wasn't supposed to be there. Then he leaned in, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my ear. "You're in the wrong place, princess," he whispered. "This field devours girls like you." His words slid under my skin like ice water. Designed to slice. And for one brief moment, they nearly did. I slowly turned my head and faced him. My voice was steady, "then it's going to choke," I said. "Because I'm not moving."