The following Tuesday, the sky over the Saint Jude's athletic grounds was the color of a fresh bruise—a heavy, swelling purple that promised a freezing Canadian downpour. The air was so sharp it felt like inhaling needles, and the mud of the rugby pitch had turned into a thick, soul-sucking sludge.
This was Liam's kingdom. And today, the king was in a foul mood.
Noah stood on the sidelines, looking like a lost swan in a wolf's den. He was wearing the academy's heavy rugby kit, the oversized jersey swamping his slight frame, and the stiff, mud-caked shorts scratching at his pale thighs. He looked fragile. He looked out of place. He looked exactly like the kind of distraction Liam had spent the last forty-eight hours trying to scrub from his brain.
"Move it, Valentine!" Liam's voice boomed across the field, cutting through the sounds of heavy breathing and the rhythmic thwack of boots hitting the ball.
Liam was in the center of the fray, a titan of grime and aggression. His face was smeared with dirt, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat despite the near-freezing temperature. He looked primal—entirely removed from the polished Student Council President who wore silk ties and spoke of school policy.
"The drill is simple," Liam barked, jogging toward the sidelines where Noah stood shivering. Liam didn't stop until he was looming over the smaller boy, the heat radiating off his massive frame in visible plumes of steam. He didn't look at Noah's face; he looked at the ground, his jaw set like granite. "You're the Scrum-half today. Your job is to get the ball out of the ruck. If you're too slow, you get buried. Understand?"
Noah swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. "Liam, I've never even—"
"It's 'Captain' on the pitch," Liam snapped, his eyes finally flicking up. They were cold, devoid of the burning intensity from the dance studio. It was as if that moment of vulnerability had been surgically removed. "And I don't care what you've never done. You wanted the scholarship? This is the price. Get in the line."
The drill began, and it was a massacre.
The rugby team was a pack of giants, and Noah was a target. Every time the whistle blew, the "Scrum-half" had to dive into the chaos to retrieve the ball. For thirty minutes, Noah was shoved, stepped on, and tackled into the freezing mud. Each time he went down, his breath left him in a ragged gasp. Each time he climbed back up, his hands shaking and his face splattered with filth, he looked for Liam.
He looked for a sign of pity. A hint of the man who had pinned him against the barre with a trembling hand.
He found nothing.
Liam moved past him like Noah was a stranger—a piece of equipment to be used and discarded. When Noah fumbled a pass, Liam didn't encourage him; he roared at him.
"Again! You're dancing, Valentine! This isn't a stage! Plant your feet or get off my field!"
The intensity reached its breaking point during the final "Live Contact" drill. The wind had picked up, bringing a horizontal sleet that blurred the world into grey. Noah was exhausted, his muscles screaming in a way that ballet had never prepared him for.
Liam took the ball. He was a force of nature, breaking through two defenders with a roar, his eyes fixed on the try-line. Noah, desperate to prove he wasn't the "weakling" Liam claimed he was, threw himself into Liam's path.
It was a suicide mission.
The collision was sickening. Liam didn't slow down; he couldn't. He hit Noah like a freight train hitting a sapling. Noah went airborne for a terrifying second before slamming into the mud, his head snapping back.
The whistle blew. Silence fell over the pitch, save for the whistling wind.
Liam stood over him, his chest heaving, his face an unreadable mask of mud and sweat. For a heartbeat—just one—Liam's hand twitched. His fingers curled, as if t he image he fought so hard to protect was about to fail, as if he was about to drop to his knees and scream Noah's name.
But then, the President returned.
Liam straightened his back. He didn't reach down. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't even check if Noah was breathing.
"Get up," Liam said, his voice a flat, dead monotone.
Noah struggled, his vision swimming. He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of grit, and pushed himself onto his elbows. He looked up at Liam, his eyes shimmering with tears he refused to let fall. "You... you almost killed me."
"Then stay down," Liam replied, his heart feeling like a block of ice in his chest. "If you can't handle the contact, leave. The scholarship isn't for people who break."
"I'm not breaking," Noah hissed, forcing himself to his feet. He was swaying, his shoulder clearly bruised, his beautiful, ethereal grace replaced by a ragged, desperate grit. "Is that what you want, Liam? To see me break so you don't have to feel guilty about hating me?"
Liam stepped closer, so close that the mud on his jersey transferred to Noah's chest. He looked down at Noah with a gaze so cold it was almost hypnotic.
"You think I feel guilty?" Liam leaned in, his voice a lethal whisper that only Noah could hear. "I don't feel anything for you, Valentine. Not in the studio, and certainly not here. You're just a box I have to check for a scholarship. Now, get back in the locker room. You're useless to the team in this state."
Liam turned his back on him. He didn't look back as Noah stood alone in the rain, a small, mud-covered figure against the vast, grey sky.
Liam marched toward the field house, his steps heavy and rhythmic. His teammates patted his back, cheering for the "big hit," and he nodded, playing the part of the Alpha, the Leader, the Iron Captain.
But as soon as he stepped into the privacy of the showers, away from the eyes of the school, Liam collapsed against the tiled wall.
He didn't turn on the water. He just stood there in the dark, his breath coming in jagged, broken hitches. He looked at his hands—the hands that hadn't reached out to help Noah. They were shaking so violently he had to clench them into fists until his nails drew blood.
I didn't break, he told himself, the lie tasting like ash. I stayed the President. I stayed the Captain. I'm safe.
But the image of Noah in the mud—broken, beautiful, and looking at him with such raw betrayal—was burned into the back of his eyelids. Liam Thorne was the king of the school, the king of the pitch, and the master of his own identity.
And yet, as the rain hammered on the roof above, he had never felt more like a coward.