The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 100

It takes me a long time to fall asleep, overwhelmed as I am by my new bond, the closeness of my mate, the secrets that we’ve passed between us that still ring through my mind. But as the minutes pass I feel my eyelids getting heavier and heavier, encouraged by the steady movement of Jackson’s hand over my hair.

When I do finally fall asleep, my head pillowed against Jackso sleep of one who feels both weary and completely safe.

chest, it’s the deep, true

I sleep so deeply that when my eyelids flutter open in the morning, I have…no idea where I am. Even though I am…completely comfortable.

I frown, not understanding, and curl into the warmth of what I assume is my mattress, though it’s a little…firmer than I remember? I’m not sure.

There’s a light chuckle, though, that makes me look up, and my frown deepens as I stare into Jackson’s face before I realize that…

“Oh!” I murmur, sitting up a little. He smiles at me, his hand pressing into my back, encouraging me to lean my head back down against his chest.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, “take a second to wake up. There’s time.”

I lay my head back down against him, blushing a little as I realize that what I assumed was my mattress is just his body that I’m curled up in his lap, kind of sprawled over his torso, my face tucked against his pectoral –

God, is he really that big, that I can basically use his body as a bed?

Or am I just that small?

I peer up at him again, more awake now, taking a deep breath and raising a hand to rub at

my eye.

Slowly, a smile overtakes his mouth.

“What?” I mutter, shaking my head a little to clear it, a smile pulling at my lips as well

Emergency calls only (m¿

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because…..well, because he’s just staring at me. And it’s kind of nice.

“You’re just so pretty, he whispers, his voice a little awed as he traces his knuckles down the soft skin of my cheek.

I can’t help it then I burst into a brilliant smile.

Because my mate thinks I’m pretty.

up and winding my arms around Jackson’s neck, pulling him close and pressing probably a dozen kisses to his check and neck. “Morning,” I murmur, after the fourth or

face up to his, bringing his mouth to mine and kissing me like he’s been waiting for hours to do it, like he can’t

I kiss

–

more contained, now, in the light of the morning than we were last night. There was something freeing about the darkness about knowing that as long as it persisted,

that there’s light by which we can

both aware that it’s

as I run a hand. through his messy hair, tucking it back behind his ear,

and I can tell that he’s pleased. “Little rose–colored wolf, by any

know that?” I ask, my

murmurs, his finger curling in a tendril of my hair, “a couple times.

I tilt

my

and then burst into a smile as the truth hits me. All

calls only

Chapter 100

with another

a dream,

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no time to tend to that right now. “The only problem is,” I say, looking around the forest, “that my wolf is very obviously a girl wolf, and anyone who sees and smells me will figure it out.”

says, starting to stand up and ridiculously bringing me with him, setting me on my feet only when he’s fully standing. “We’ll only shift if we run out

lip, looking up at him. “I mean, are we going to be too

to climb it in the night would have been…well, the best of Warrior Track.

up at him and crossing my arms, “what you’re saying is….if I hadn’t been. weighting you

but scooping me up in his arms instead and turning met in a slow circle as he presses one last kiss to my mouth. “You can slow me down

and we begin to assess our plan and our few possessions. We

this?” I ask quietly. “If we’re going to rush, and climb…”

–

he says, shrugging and making a snap decision as he likewise tosses his backpack into the brush. “We need to move fast now any extra weight is a detriment. Besides,” he bends over, scooping my discarded hat out of the dust where we left it last night and holding it out to me, “I’m your weapon now.”

calls only

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unable to keep the smile from my lips as I wind the majority of my hair onto my head and plop the hat over top of it. Because

“Where on earth did my mate go? Now there’s only her boyish twin, Ari Clark, marksman and chemical

from

murmurs behind me, “melter of very tiny pieces of glass…such raw

ahead of me, which is barely a path and more of a

the cliff face, a little forest stretches out in front of us, beyond which I know is the bridge surrounded by cadets. I wonder, passively, whether those guarding it have crossed already? Or they’re still biding their time, hoping to take out more of their “enemies” before they shift and make their run for the mountain?

to go check,” Jackson says, looking forward through the woods. “You wait

turning towards