The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

The next two hours are…an education in boy world. I sit perched up on my bunk, staring around in awe. This room has more than a hundred boys in it right now, and we’ll all be sleeping in here together through candidacy. When that’s done, if we make it, we’ll move up to the castle to more private dorms.

But seriously? Until then? I’m kind of…thrilled.

The atmosphere here – it’s totally different than anything I’ve ever experienced. There’s a great deal of shouting and laughter, and two fist fights have already broken out, along with quite a few arm-wrestling matches.

Girls? We’d all be simpering and sizing each other up. Guys? They just clasp hands and smack each other on the back, instant friends.

But then a boy walks by in his underwear – which I’m not complaining about in itself – but my eyes go wide with shock when he just blatantly, casually dips a hand into his boxers and scratches his balls –

“So, what do you think, cousin,” Jesse says, making me jump as he pops up at my side, standing on Rafe’s bunk and using the leverage to hook his arms over the edge of mine, grinning at me. “Regretting your choices yet?”

“Boys are…” I whisper, still looking around with awe, “a completely different species.”

“I think our prim little Princess likes it,” Jesse says with a laugh, observing my fascination.

I laugh too and lift a finger to my lips. “Don’t tell Rafe,” I whisper, knowing my brother – like my dad – is crazy over-protective.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Jesse whispers back, giving me a wink. “Just…try to look more boyish, all right? You’re sitting up there like a pretty little barn owl, staring around with those big eyes.”

I gasp a little, realizing that he’s probably right. I hunch my back a little, unfolding my legs so that I’m not so prim. “Is this better?” I murmur, pitching my voice lower and laughing because I feel ridiculous.

“Just scratch your ass a little more around people,” Jesse suggests with a grin, “let people see you burp.”

I glare at him. “Absolutely not.”

then holds out his arm to

I ask, tapping at his closed fingers, thinking he has some

I lean towards him and, lightening quick, Jesse wipes his wrist across both sides of my neck and then across my own wrists.

for?” I

“Sometimes you smell like a girl. This will disguise it a little, make it not so

I just smell like you?”

replies. “No

talk to a light-haired boy who has just come to introduce himself to Rafe. I didn’t even think about smelling like a girl – what

think it through, to strategize, but soon the room is so filled with young men that I can’t really think about anything else besides watching them, studying how they move so I can move like that and start to blend in. I can’t even really keep track of which one is which as they

so incredibly disconcerting when I find my head snapping

smelled…the most amazing scent that has ever crossed my nose –

itself shocking – she’s usually so calm

find it – you have to

aloud as I sit up stark straight, suddenly a little freaked out. But then I lift my nose and almost moan aloud when I smell it again – that incredible, amazing scent – the

of my goals, all of my dreams – just wipes them away in the

word, her feet dancing. Go! Get up! Go and find him

because I know it now – know it for certain

frantic,

limp, falling back against my pillows. I have to press my eyes shut against the leather and whiskey scent of him –

to my horror, something else snaps within me, shaking me to the core, so much so that

there – and this one too –

urging me to run in two different directions

directions, trying to

to my temples