The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 102

Time moves strangely after that, at once standing completely still in my agony and. somehow, passing so fast that I barely understand it when the sun reaches its zenith, and then passes beyond it, and then starts to sink towards the horizon.

How how have hours past?

God, how have I survived them?

Though it all, Jackson and my pain have kept a steady pace. I do my best to curl myself against him, to make myself small and inconsequential, to not be a bother to this man who is running miles and miles across the countryside with me balanced in his arms.

The pain is….god, it drives me a little insane, I think, gnawing at my stomach and my leg. I can feel the blood dripping from me, at once agonizing and, somehow, a balm against the raw flesh of my wounds. I think I pass out…a lot, but regular infusions of Jackson’s magic keeps bringing me back, filling me with energy, making my eyes flutter open.

Always, always he’s glancing down into my face, checking to make sure that I’m okay

But, I mean, we’re both aware that I’m not okay.

But, somehow, I am alive.

And, somehow, he…keeps running.

—

I’m vaguely aware, as the hours pass, that this part of the Examination was meant to be done in wolf form that he should have shifted by now and crossed this field at his top speed as his gigantic wolf. But even in his human body, carrying me? Frankly, Jackson’s faster than most cadet’s wolves. Only a few of them pass us, sending us side–long glances and not bothering to interrupt, knowing that Jackson would end them if they did.

Jackson’s breath only starts to flag when I feel his pace change. I lift my head, curious despite my haze of pain, wondering desperately if we’re at the end

If there will be a healer, here-

Tergency calls only P

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Surely there has to be surely the Academy has medical staff waiting, knowing as they do that this is a violent Examination in which they’ve encouraged us to main each other, to get to the end.

I scowl a little, my mind wandering strangely as I make a mental note to have a deep conversation with my father and my uncle about this particular aspect of Academy life.

Because, quite frankly, I’m not sure I agree with these methods.

But will I ever live to see them again, to have that conversation?

don’t have any tears, though all my liquids are probably depleted, after all, from all the blood dropping from

me closer against his

cracked sound of

glancing

his fault – I

want to sleep, curl up somewhere soft and comfortable.

says, shaking me a little, making me look back up at him, his voice cracking. in a way that breaks my heart. “Don’t give up

–

to focus, forcing my head to nod. But it’s all it’s all really hard,

it,” he growls, his arms tightening around me. “I did not drag you for miles. across that field for you to give up now,

at me. But something about it brings me back to myself, a little bit more. “Okay,” I whisper, nodding my head seriously now. “I won’t

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his magic. I feel the difference instantly, the boost, but all it does is allow me to focus more on his grimace. “I need to to change positions, Ari,“ he murmurs. “I’m going to need both of my

I ask, confused.

okay?” He stares into my face and I nod,

I instantly regret that promise when he lifts me, bodily, and slings me over his shoulder. The moan that rips from me instantly turns into a yell, if not a guttural scream. Jackson murmurs over and over again that he’s sorry, but then he moves forward, even as I cry ceaselessly into

Instead, that faces inward, bumping awkwardly against Jackson’s head and sometimes his cheek as he begins to climb. Most of the time he keeps one arm wrapped. tightly around the back of

Jackson moves, somehow miraculously balancing me the whole time. The only times I come to are when Jackson passes more magic, his palm pressed against my back or my side. These come more and more frequently as he feels me fade, as he feels me start to drift away from

the world is increasingly black, and at first I think it’s because…. because I’m

up a steady string of words, most of them curses and narration of what he’s doing, every step he’s taking, how close we are to the end. But some of them, blissfully, are the sweetest things

about me, about what I’d look like. His surprise that I’m a blonde. How much he

hang

I determine to stay as long as I can even as I

my own.

–

calls only be

Chapter 109

– he deserves a break in life, doesn’t

15.4#

laugh, a line, at the irony of that thought that Jackson needs a break, even when I’m the one dying over his shoulder, being hauled up a mountain. But Jackson laughs too, hearing or feeling

dragging in the

groan, and then feel him stumble, and then suddenly stand and pause on his

it, Ari,” he murmurs, panting. He passes me more magic and my eyes flutter, confused. I