The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 0867 "Mids," Jesse sighs, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head at Midnight, exhausted and frustrated. He peeks over the top of the separating screen that Juniper gave them, well aware that the tent full of ambassadors and Atalaxian royals is listening to their heated conversation and casually pretending that they're not.

"I don't want to go," Midnight growls, curled in a ball at his feet, her face tucked tight against her knees and her hands sunk deep in her hair. "You can't make me!"

"I can't make you," Jesse agrees through his teeth, crouching down next to her. "But if we stay here, we're all going to get killed."

"We won't get killed," she hisses, whipping her face up to glare at him. "I will negotiate with Darkness when he breaks out of that stupid egg! I will assure him that we are still his humble servants! He'll just kill all of them!" She jerks her head towards everyone else in the tent.

One of the eavesdropping ambassadors groans in fear. Another hisses at him to shut up.

"Oh, Midnight," Jesse sighs, falling back on his ass and reaching out to stroke Midnight's back. This conversation has been going on for...far too long. And every moment that passes gets a lot closer to that reality - to Darkness getting free, and coming here, and destroying them all.

Except, unlike Midnight, Jesse has no intention of declaring his fealty to evil or watching his countrymen die.

"What are you really scared of, Mids?" he asks, continuing to softly stroke her back. "What's stopping you from letting me take you home and give you a wonderful life?"

She just shakes her head and tucks her face back against her knees, as she's been doing this entire time.

"I mean, everyone's going to be really nice to you," Jesse says softly. "I'm sure they can't wait to meet you. You're going to have a fantastic life in Moon Valley."

"They'll make me be a whore," she moans.

Jesse can't help laughing, just a little. "M ight, I promise, no one will make you be a whore."

silent and Jesse lets her have

is softer than before, and laced with

asks, his shoulders straightening

Midnight moans, devastated at

second, confused, and then bursts into

lifts her head and nods vehemently. But when she realizes that Jesse is laughing, she smacks at him, hard, with her tiny

"It's not funny!"

very funny," Jesse says, scooting closer to Midnight and tugging her close. "But why would you think she

away," Midnight murmurs, leaning against him. "And now he's

horrible, Mids. He punched Ariel and...probably did all sorts

her face up to Jesse's, her eyes wide and sad and shining. "If you think

you're

speaking his honest truth. "I think that whatever that darkness does to people you've somehow

resist it for years.

little mouth begins to tremble and

to admit, though," he adds, soft. "It breaks my heart to see your little wolf sunk in the Darkness like that. I want to see

wolf howls in his soul, standing at the edge and peering over at Midnight's long-suffering wolf, sunk

who I am without the Darkness," she says quietly. "I...I don't

be

her cheeks. "What if darkness is too much of who

completely without an answer for that concern. Because Midnight is right. Gabriel - his whole personality shifted when the darkness left