The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 0288

–

“It wasn’t…hard,” dad says, leaning back in his chair and thinking about it. “But it was different. It wasn’t like yours I met your mother long after I met Lydia, and we had enough trouble figuring out that your mom was a wolf before we ever figured out that she was my mate. I think that had I met them at the same time…” he hesitates and then

grimaces at me. “I think it would have been…insane. Mostly because they would have torn each other to pieces.”

“Yeah,” I say, grimacing too as I lean back in my chair. “We had…a bit of that.”

“No!” dad says, grinning at me and leaning forward, clearly wanting to hear more. I smile at my dad, because as much as he pretends he’s so serious, he loves gossip as much as the rest of us. And so I launch into the story, telling him about the night that Jacks and Luca found out about each other, and how they shifted, and how Jesse and Rafe had to intercede, and how Ben knocked me out of the way and probably saved me from some serious harm.

“Wow,” dad says when it’s all done, looking a little pale as he runs a hand through his hair. ” You were…lucky, Ariel. That could have been way worse. And I like this Ben character even

more than I did before.”

“Yes, Ben’s a gem, “I say, smiling. “But Jesse and Rafe have been amazing,” I continue, keeping my voice soft. “They really helped me to negotiate the whole thing, and calm Luca and Jack

down, and helped me advocate for myself when emotions were running high. very lucky to have them.”

very long breakfast in which he asks for more details about my bonds with Luca and Jackson – nothing intimate, just the basics of how

Of how she had been engaged to Uncle Roger, and the torture of discovering that she was his mate when he reached his majority, and how she made it worse for years by insisting that he keep it a

I say, kind of shocked. “She sounds…not nice.”

“And it wouldn’t have bothered her, at all, that people didn’t think she was nice. She cared much

1/2

She was a whirlwind of a woman get caught up in, not at all concerned with the destruction she left in

very easy to

my dad, wondering how someone like that could be his mate. Because mom…mom is the opposite of all of that. And dad and she match so well.

((

for her. And Grandpa Henry was…a different man too. He was still mourning the loss of mom and his political position.” Dad sighs, shaking his head. “It almost killed Roger and my relationship – we only got back on track after Cora and your mom came on the scene. They changed our entire world for the

better.”

little, liking that part of the story. “So, how did you change?” I ask quietly, really wanting to know. “How did you becoming…someone who

dark time, realizing that Lydia wasn’t the right match for me. Rejecting her – it almost killed me, Ariel. And I mean that quite literally – almost killed me in a physical way. The claim that a fated

pain…allowed me to become the man who

to recover.

your