The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 0731

I'm honestly not aware of much as we fly to...wherever the hell we're going. I mostly just concentrate on my mom's warm presence at my side, and the soft murmuring things she says to me, even if I don't know what they mean. Still, something about them dulls the

gnawing ache in my heart.

An ache which seems to get bigger and bigger as the moments pass, like a cliff, or a quarry, with unsteady edges - my whole world threatening to just tilt in and smash to pieces at the bottom.

But my mom holds me together. I feel her healing magic sweep through me as she strokes my hair, feel her healing all the little cuts and bruises from the battlefield, the tiny scrapes and bumps. I only lift my head to stop her once, when the magic brushes against the cuts on my palms.

The ones Gibson left with that slash of his knife in the moments before he opened Tony's throat.

"No, please," I croak, shaking my head. "I need them - they're all I have left -"

"Oh sugar," mom whispers, stroking my cheek. "We all have to heal sometime."

I nod, knowing she's right. "Can you - can you not heal it smooth? Can you leave scars?"

"Yes, baby," she whispers. "We'll leave you the scars so your hands can always bear witness to what Tony gave for you. Okay? I promise."

slipping

she whispers. I tuck my face back against her shoulder and sob as I feel

all she heals the mark on my neck, and as much as I know she tries to smooth it

mark. Luca's mark, which claimed me as his minutes

because...it's a door closed. I'll never not bear it. Every time I look in the mirror and see it I'll remember that moment,

and Daphne murmur their support too, and I do

ache - it's bone deep. Perhaps deeper, to beyond whatever is

fast once the

paid

at him curiously kind of confused, but he just smiles gently at me and carries me away to our room. There I'm bundled away into a bed in a dark room.

very calmly for a long, long time. Mom gives me a sip of the birth control potion, murmuring something about.

drooping.

at her. "You drugged me," I murmur, my lips barely moving as the sleeping medicine she must have worked into the ice cream

over my hair. "You can thank

can even think about whether or not

up, the room is sunny, and Daphne is propped up next to me in a very lush robe, her hair lovely and shining as it falls around her shoulders. She flicks through the TV channels and