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.”

and then holds out his arm to me,

he has some little present

quick, Jesse wipes his wrist across both sides

I ask,

marking,” he replies in a whisper. “Sometimes you smell like a girl. This will disguise it a little, make it not

just smell like you?” I ask,

he replies. “No one

and then I lean back in my bunk as Jesse jumps down and goes to 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 –

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 all move around the room,

when I find my head snapping to the left, my

swear, I just smelled…the most amazing scent that has ever crossed my

– she’s usually so calm that I sometimes forget she’s there

find it – you have

little freaked out. But then I lift my nose and almost moan aloud when I smell it again – that incredible, amazing scent – the sharp bite of citrus, bergamot and wet pavement baking under the summer sun,

of my goals, all of my dreams – just wipes

the word, her feet dancing. Go! Get up!

pressing myself back against my pillows because I know it now – know it for certain in my heart and

I look around, frantic,

falling back against my pillows. I have to press my eyes shut against the leather and

the core, so much so that

the other one is still there – and this one too

bonds now calling to me, urging me to run in

gravity reorients itself in two directions, trying to point both north and south at the same time, my internal compass spinning

my hands to my temples and give