The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 0823 Pippa and Elias argue quietly for a few moments at the center of the room as I quietly work my jaw back and forth, attempting to ease the pain as I go over my options in my mind. I pick up on about half of their words - Pippa's insistence that I absolutely cannot go to anything tonight since my confinement is started, Elias's counter that if I don't go, Gabriel will see it as subterfuge and find a way to punish me for it.

I only really snap back to the moment when Elias murmurs his farewells and storms from the room, pulling the door shut hard behind him.

I look up to see Pippa standing with her hands on her cheeks, looking anxiously at the door after her Alpha.

"Is he okay?" I ask, dropping my hands to my lap. "Are...are you?"

Pippa quietly turns to me, her eyes moving slowly over me. "He's fine, he's just...worried." Her voice is soft, motherly, used to taking care. It doesn't pass me that she ignores my question regarding her own welfare as she moves to my side. "Are you all right, darling?"

she crawls onto the bed next to me. "I'm

a little as she squeezes my hand looks at me with those pretty brown eyes. "I was never one to keep things caged. But Ariel - it's important to me that you know that whatever you've heard about Atalaxia and the way women live here...it's never okay for an Alpha to hit his

pain in my face and

that's

my jaw, and she grimaces - which lets me know that a bruise is probably

"I didn't get the chance. Though trust

and then, to my surprise, asks me if I'm up for another bath. When I ask her what on earth for just got out of the last one - she laughs and tells me that I rather ruined that by getting all covered in dirt from the Land of Darkness. "Plus," she adds with a

is supath is

who happens to smell you to leave you alone. Because your month has...begun. So," she sighs. "We have to find a way to get you...un-lavendered, if Gabriel is going to insist on