The Four Lycan Kings Wants Me

Chapter 4: Hawthorne Rugby Captain, 1997

[Siena's POV]

The sun had barely started to scorch the morning fog when I spotted Luca by the stables, rolling up his sleeves and ready for the field. He was not having a good night's sleep, either. Neither was I.

I approached him directly, jaw clenched, my voice shaking already before the words left my lips.

"You were in my room last night."

He froze mid-action, head revolving slowly, as if he was determining how to respond. Not shocked but… calculating.

"No," he said flatly, the single word hanging between us. "I wasn't."

"Don't lie to me." I took a step closer, hands clenched. "You entered my room. You watched me. You opened that damn door—how?"

A muscle bunched in his jaw. He didn't blink.

"I didn't."

"Then who?" I asked. "Someone came in, Luca. Someone stood there while I slept and let me know they could. That I couldn't stop them."

He looked at me at last, and something flashed behind his eyes—something guarded, controlled. Too controlled.

"That's what this place is," he told me. "You understood that when you came. We don't pretend we're something else."

"So you're not saying it was one of you."

"I'm telling you it wasn't me."

I laughed, but it sounded terrible, hard.

"Is this some sick rite of passage? Some means of breaking me down so I'm easier to control?"

He advanced, his voice low now, menacing.

"You think I'd need to frighten you to control you?" He drew closer. "If I wanted you broken, you'd be aware of it."

I shoved him—harder than I should've been able to. He didn’t budge.

"Don't threaten me."

"Then don't accuse me."

We stood there silently for a moment. The field behind him whirled with motion as the other boys started to assemble, not knowing—or not caring—that the space between us had grown cold.

He spun around without waiting for me to reply, leaving me alone in the dirt, enraged, frightened as I'd been in years.

I hadn't asked questions that day. I was only attempting to remain standing—get through each practice, evade each blow that came a fraction too late to be legal, pretend the bruises spreading in hidden areas no one could witness were nothing.

But Hawthorne did not allow you to remain hidden for long. Not if you possessed something they desired. Not if you had a secret worth dying for.

The sky had deepened to the color of bruised ash by the time practice broke up, and while the others spilled into the showers with their usual grunts, shoulder-bumps, and boyish, mindless chaos, I lingered near the east wing—where the halls grew quieter, and the plaques on the walls hadn’t been updated past the year 2000.

I hadn't intended to stray in—only to breathe. To be somewhere they weren't.

The corridor was chillier here. Not in temperature, but in mood—like even the air recalled what had transpired between these walls. The luminescent light overhead pulsed dimly and cast twisted, oblong shadows on cracked tile. The exhibit cases along the walls were dusty, abandoned, and dark—yellow-edged photographs of old teams, rusty trophies detailing years won before I was born, hand-scrawled lineups decades ago framed under smudged glass.

The other wings of the academy displayed their legacy proudly: backlit LED showcases, gleaming championship cups, heroic action shots of current captains frozen in victory. But this? This was a graveyard.

And when my eyes landed on the corner case tucked behind an unused fire door, my steps slowed.

Within the bent glass, nearly concealed beneath an unfurled, moth-eaten Hawthorne pennant, was a brass cup—its bottom tarnished. The plaque was little and worn, but the words still inscribed their truth with accuracy.

I stooped close, my heart racing, and spoke the name aloud under my breath like an incantation that I couldn't quite grasp:

"James Vale. Hawthorne Rugby Captain. 1997."

My father.

My lips dried out. For an instant, I simply gazed at the inscription, the words swimming and refocusing as though air around me had become thicker.

He'd never said a word about this— that he had stood on the same soil. He'd told me stories, yes, but none of them had ever sounded like this.

He'd told me about the pain, the injuries, the broken ankle that had ended his scholarship. But he never told me about pride. Never about leadership. Never about glory.

I traced my fingers slowly along the rim of the glass, following the lines of the cup. He'd been their captain.

And yet, his name was erased from all official walls. All updated records. All public archives.

As if he had never lived.

I backed away, my breath stuck in my throat. Why would he hide this from me? Why had the school covered up his reputation like a scandal they couldn't erase?

"Looking for ghosts?"

The voice cut through the stillness like a blade, low, sharp and unmistakable.

I turned, my heart hurling into my throat.

Ronan stood in the hallway, looming and quiet as a specter, his arms folded over his chest, sweat still drenched on his collarbone beneath the open collar of his practice jersey. His face was impassive, but his eyes flashed with something that did not feel like curiosity.

I stiffened my shoulders, concealing the shudder in my muscles.

"How long have you been there?"

"Long enough," he replied with a blunt air, edging closer slowly. "Long enough to realize that you're not just passing through to stretch your legs."

I looked back at the plaque wing. Too late. He'd noticed it.

Ronan's eyes tracked mine, then snapped back to my face with something sinister rolling at the edges of his mouth.

"James Vale," he said, as though the name was bitter in his mouth. "Didn't think you'd find that."

"You knew?" I asked, my voice softer than I intended. "You knew who I was?"

Ronan snorted a laugh that wasn't even close to being funny.

"Everyone knew. Coaches. Board. Captains. The moment your name reached the scholarship list, we knew exactly who you were. And more importantly—who you came from."

My gut curled.

"Then why act like you didn't?"

He advanced another step, close enough now that I had to lift my chin in order to maintain his eyes.

"Because some bloodlines accrue interest," he told me. "And some accrue debt."

There was a silence—short but jagged, like shards of glass beneath the feet.

"Think your little secret makes you some kind of special?" Ronan went on, his voice falling lower. "Think that name entitles you to be here? Let me tell you something, Ms. Vale. Your father was our captain—yes. A legend. A star. But he broke the code. He bailed when the pressure was real. When things got dirty, he didn't lead—he fled."

"You don't know what happened," I whispered, hardly louder than that.

He stepped in until my spine met the wall. Not hard—but deliberate.

One hand came up beside my head, palm pressed flat to the brick, caging me in. The other hung loose at his side, fingers slowly flexing and releasing.

"Oh, but I do," he whispered. "I know it all. I know about the midseason walkout. The game forfeited. I know how your dad broke the captains' agreement. Left his team—left this school. You think it just cost him his record?"

He leaned in close, so close that I could smell the warmth of his skin.

"It cost him everything. And now you're here, strutting around in his shadow, assuming we'd be blind to it. Assuming we'd forget."

"I'm not him," I replied in a firm voice.

Ronan's eyes met mine, and something flashed in them.

"No," he whispered. "But his transgressions reside within you. And we'll ensure that you pay for each and every one."