Todos os capítulos de THE FOUR HOCKEY KINGS' FORBIDDEN MATE: Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

~ Kaia ~"Blackwood."The name hung in the room like something combustible, and for a second none of us moved."That's not possible," Ryker said, but his voice had lost its certainty. "Father doesn't know Kai. He's never met a freshman hockey player in his life.""He's not talking about hockey." Van's eyes hadn't left me. "He said it before he collapsed. Elias told him what he found in the archive, and Father went white, and then he said your name, and then he just—" He dragged a hand through his hair, chest still heaving. "He went down like something hit him."My legs felt unsteady beneath me. "Your father knows my last name?""Apparently more than we do," Ryker said grimly. "Where is he now?""Medical wing. Elias is with him. He sent me to find you." Van finally looked away from me, back to his brother, something urgent passing between them. "Ryker, he's asking for her. Specifically. He keeps saying bring the girl."The word landed in the room and detonated.*Her.*I felt the blood

~ Isolde ~My father's calls had gotten more frequent since the transfer student's name started attaching itself to rumors I couldn't yet trace back to a source. Twice a day now instead of once a week, always the same clipped urgency underneath his voice."Tell me you have something," he said, the moment I answered."I have suspicions.""Suspicions don't secure a throne, Isolde.""I'm aware." I sat at my vanity, phone on speaker, watching my own face in the mirror stay perfectly composed even as my stomach twisted. "Something happened last night. Ryker went to the medical wing in the middle of the night. So did Van, and Elias. I have a friend on the healing staff — the king collapsed. He's stable, but he was asking for someone by name.""Whose name?""Blackwood."Silence stretched long enough that I checked whether the call had dropped."Father?""Say that again.""The king asked for Kai Blackwood. Specifically. By what my source described as a title, not a name — something like *Nath

~ Ryker ~I called my brothers to the Royal House at dawn, before classes, before anyone else was awake to overhear what needed to be said.Van arrived first, still in yesterday's clothes, clearly hadn't slept. Luca came down a few minutes later, uncharacteristically quiet, and Elias last, notebook already in hand like he'd anticipated this conversation before I'd even sent the message."This needs to be said plainly," I started, once we were all seated around the dining table, coffee untouched in front of each of us. "Someone cast a suppression binding on this family. On the four of us specifically. Elias found the precedent, Father confirmed the likely source, and I think we need to sit with what that actually means instead of continuing to treat it like an abstract theory.""Meaning what, exactly," Van said, voice tight."Meaning someone decided, years ago, that our ability to recognize a mate bond was inconvenient to their plans, and took it from us without our knowledge or consen

~ Kaia ~The formal notice went up on the academy boards two days later — gold lettering on cream paper, the kind reserved for royal business, impossible to miss even from across the courtyard.*A formal announcement will be made this Friday evening regarding the future union of House Pierce and House Dacre.*I stood in front of it with a crowd of students murmuring around me, feeling my stomach drop through the floor."He didn't even wait for the ink to dry on his own panic," Elena said over the phone that night, disgusted. "Moving that fast means he's terrified, Kaia. Terrified men make sloppy mistakes.""Or dangerous ones.""Also possible." A pause. "Are you going to be there? Friday?""I don't know yet.""Kaia.""I said I don't know."She sighed, the particular sound she made when she'd decided to let something go for now rather than push. "Just be careful. Whatever happens Friday, I have a feeling it's not going to stay small."---Ryker found me at practice the next morning, pul

~ Kaia ~I stood near the back of the ballroom with my father beside me, both of us dressed as unremarkably as possible, watching Elias's voice carry across a room gone completely silent."Payment records," Elias read, holding the document high enough for the nearest rows to see, "dated nineteen years and four months ago, authorizing ritual suppression services against four minor children of House Pierce. Signed, sealed, and personally authorized by Lord Veylan Dacre."The murmur that swept through the crowd this time carried an edge sharper than curiosity. I watched heads turn toward Dacre, watched his face cycle rapidly through disbelief, calculation, and finally something colder settling underneath both."This is preposterous," Dacre said, voice carrying with practiced authority even as his hand found Isolde's arm, gripping too tightly. "Forged documents. A desperate attempt to distract from whatever scandal the Pierce family is currently trying to bury.""The seal is authentic," K