Ch. 756..760: The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 756-760
Chapter 0756
"Hi! Hi cuties!" Mom's voice rings out the moment the five of us troop into the room. The Captain enters too, going to stand out of sight in the corner. "It's so good to see you, I - oh!"
I frown when I see her go a bit still on the video screen, seated there next to Cora with dad and Roger standing behind them, bending down so that their faces are in the frame.
"What's wrong, mom?" I ask.
"It's not what's wrong with me, it's what's wrong with those two." She narrows her eyes and looks interestedly between Rafe and Jesse, who come to stand behind me. "What's wrong, boys?"
Neither Rafe nor Jesse say a word, each looking away. Cora grimaces, worried.
"There's no time for this," dad sighs, shaking his head and likewise peering at us from the screen as
Jackson goes to one knee at my side and Ben leans down on my other. "We have to -"
"Why are you all dressed up?" I ask, tilting my head, frowning at them. Every single one of them are in state dress, dad and Roger with black sashes across their chest. But why would they -
My mouth falls open as I realize what it must be.
"Funeral got moved to today, sweetie," mom says, leaning forward to peer at me. "We're sorry - we knew you'd want to attend, but your father wanted you at school."
"And we're leaving for the front immediately after," dad snaps, nodding seriously to all of us. "And we want the five of you there."
My eyes go wide as I glance up at Rafe and Jesse, who look at each other for the first time. Whatever's going on between them, they're clearly putting it aside for the sake of the war.
"What's going on, dad?" Rafe says.
"Atalaxia is moving against us, hard," Roger answers, his arms tense across his chest. "With what looks like everything they've got. We didn't expect an assault like this so soon but...if we don't meet them on the field they're going to bowl us right over. We even risk..." he sighs, pressing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "This is
classified, so please don't share, but we risk having our borders breached for the first time. And if that happens
it will be...disastrous."
I go very pale and very still. "We'll get on the helicopter," I say, nodding seriously. "Right now." Because I
can turn it - I can do that - I'm very powerful, they can put me at the center of the force and -
The way my father looks at me
through the screen makes me pause, and then I reach for
Jackson's hand, wanting him close, needing it. He's there, instantly, grasping my hand right back. My parents eyes see it - I know they do and a little smile comes to my mom's lips.
But dad speaks what we're all thinking. "Can you do it, Ariel?" he asks quietly. "Without Luca there - what are your powers like?"
"I - I don't know," I whisper, shaking my head, my gaze shifting to Cora, who looks stern and
contemplative.
"I think we have to go too, Roger," Cora murmurs, keeping her eyes on me. "Ella and I will need to experiment with Ariel to see what she's capable of. But even without the wind, the flames and the shadow combined should be formidable."
Dad sighs, scraping his hand down the length of his face, but then he nods. "All right. Kids, are you agreed?"
"Yes sir," Rafe says, answering for the rest of us, who just nod. "We understand. We'll be on the battlefield as soon as you need us."
"Good," dad says on a sigh. "We're going to go. We'll see you soon. We..." he hesitates now, and I see a muscle flicker in his cheek. "We love you very much."
"We love you too, dad," I say, leaning forward, eager for him to know and understand it. "All of you. You can count on us."
"You probably have an hour to pack," he says, nodding once. "Helicopter on the roof." Then he leans forward, flicking off the screen.
The five of us exhale, looking around
at each other as the Captain comes
forward from the corner of the
room. "Are you ready for this?" he asks, tense. "This isn't a trial or. place filler, like the last battle was supposed to be. If you five don't have your heads on right, I'm not sending you to get killed. So if they're not, you tell me now."
Chapter 0757
My four Alphas turn to me as I steadily hold the Captain's gaze. "We're ready," I say, soft and sure, and my wolf howls proud in my heart. Because even if there's still pain, and even if I am still finding my feet amongst all this grief, my nation needs me now.
And god damn it, but I'm going to show up.
The Captain nods once and sends us on our way.
Jackson keeps his eyes on Ariel the entire walk back to the room. Ben splits off at his floor, going to quickly pack a bag, but Ariel and Jesse walk close together, murmuring about possibilities for the magic now that Luca's gone, discussing honestly if they need to switch things around - if he should be sending out his shadows with the flames tracing through them, rather than the reverse, which they've been doing so far.
But Jackson barely hears it, because he knows whatever they decision they come to is fine with him. Whatever power Ariel needs on the battlefield he'll give it, and more - no matter what the configuration. No, what matters to him now is keeping her safe.
We have to destroy them all, his wolf says, wary, his lips peeling back to bare his fangs. All of Atalaxia - anyone who would hurt her - they must be ended, immediately-
Jackson sighs and puts a hand over his wolf's ruff to calm him. It's not that he thinks the wolf is precisely wrong...his wolf has been...trouble over the past few days. Going into over-drive, ready to attack anything at the slightest sign of trouble. It's been difficult, keeping him in check.
Rafe wordlessly strides ahead down the hallway to their room, pushing open the door and moving in. Jesse and Ariel follow, Jackson bringing up the rear, thinking over what these past days have been like - how incredibly, incredibly had it had been to play it cool when Ariel took that bandage off her neck this morning and showed him Luca's mark.
Because even if he had managed, somehow, miraculously, to hide his wolf's howling devastation and convince Ariel that it really had been fine -
The truth was that it really did feel like a knife to his heart, an absolute devastation.
We did the right thing, his wolf snarls, looking up at Jacks, pausing in his plans for world destruction. She needed to hear it was okay. That it will be okay.
Jackson nods, agreeing - because
none of that was a lie. Jackson – he loves Ariel to the absolute ends of himself, and things will be fine. It's just...he exaggerated, just slightly, for her sake, just how fine he feets about Luca's mark on her body.
The real truth? When he saw the mark, he instantly regretted not killing that boy. Fought hard against the urge to leap up, and run to the capital, and tear him to pieces. He should have done it when he had the
chance. Only stupid pity had held back his hand for that pathetic
wretch of a man, that horrible
excuse for a mate.
And yet here Jackson is, planning to kill all of Atalaxia and every threat to Ariel, when he can't even take out the one person who actually posed a threat to her safety? Who marked her and left her bare for the vultures to take?
God, can he even protect her at all?
What good has he been in any of this? Ariel, she's suffered so much in the past week and at every turn Jacks has failed her - just completely failed to be there when she needed him. When Tony died, he hadn't been there. When Luca snatched her away from Daphne's room and took her to his own? Again, gone.
Jackson hangs his head, wondering how the hell he's going to manage this, how he -
"Whatever," Jesse snaps, slamming his dresser drawer shut. Jackson's head snaps up, distracted from
his terrible thoughts. He glances down at Ariel pressed close to his side and frowns, watching Jesse stride for the door.
"What's happening?" Jackson murmurs. "Why's he...mad?" Ariel grimaces as she looks up at him. "Jesse!" Rafe snaps, striding after him. "You're being a fucking fool! We have work to do -"
"I'm going to see Daphne," Jesse bites out, shoving Rafe hard away from him. "You try to stop me and I'll break your damn arm."
Jackson's eyes go wide. What - what the hell? These two never fight - and what the hell does Daphne have to do with it?
Chapter 0758
"Jess!" Rafe barks out as Jesse leaves, flipping Rafe the middle finger as he goes.
Then Rafe, growling, storms back to his own sleeping area and begins furiously pulling his dresser drawers open, not seeming to get much done but needing the distraction of having something rather violent to do.
"What...what is happening?" Jackson murmurs, tearing his eyes away from the Prince and looking down at Ariel, worried.
"Oh, puppy," she sighs, beaming up at him and squeezing his hand. "Come help me pack, I'll explain everything."
"Pack?" he says, grinning down at her, unable to help it. Then he snarls and snatches her up into his arms. "Pack!? I have nothing to pack - you're my only luggage, tiny - I'll zip you up in a bag right now -" She shouts with laughter that goes right to Jackson's heart, makes everything actually feel okay, makes war and devastation and death and the thought of losing her feel very, very far away. Jackson laughs too, falling with her onto the bed as she quickly begins to explain a very baffling story about Jesse and Daphne somehow being in love.
But even as his mouth falls open in surprise, Jackson only half listens. Because his heart and his soul are elsewhere, on other thoughts.
We have to mark her, his wolf growls, pacing back and forth in his soul as Jackson's eyes fall to her neck, to that spot he's been thinking of for months, even if it's covered now with black fabric. We should do it now.
Patience, Jacks murmurs, running a comforting hand over his wolf's raised hackles. She has to be ready. It has to be right. She can't have two bad experiences being marked - I'm not going to ruin this just because we're impatient.
No time for patient, his wolf growls, shaking out his fur, anxious. Now. We have to do it now, before it's again too late.
Jackson just grits his teeth, forcing himself back to the moment, ignoring his wolf and concentrating on his girl.
Who is, after all, the center of the entire world.
Ariel grins up at him. "You've been lost in your thoughts, haven't you, pup?" She runs a soft hand through his hair and Jackson smiles, leaning into it.
"All thoughts of you," he murmurs, utterly truthful.
She beams. "Good thoughts?"
"Every single one." He dips his head and presses a soft kiss to those perfect lips.
Jesse leans back against Daphne's pillows in her tiny bed and shuts his eyes, the weight of her against
his chest a balm to his entire soul. Mittens purrs softly, a little ball of fur happily curled up on the upper ridge of the headboard.
"So," Daphne sighs, her voice weary. "Rafe...knows."
"Rafe knows," Jesse confirms, dour. "I fucked up. Badly."
"We should have told him," she murmurs, closing her own eyes and nuzzling closer, tugging his neat Cadet shirt out of his pants and slipping her hand beneath so that her palm rests flat against his stomach. She exhales softly, relishing the touch.
"It wouldn't have been any better," he
murmurs, shaking his head. "Any way that Rafe found out, no matter how, he was going to be pissed as hell about it. Bro code and everything - in his head, you're
off limits to me because he had you first."
"Jesse that's ridiculous Alpha bullshit," Daphne sighs, lifting her head and resting her chin against his chest to peer up at him. "I'm not an object that's given permission for or forbidden - I'm a whole person with my own emotions -"
"I know, Daph," he says, opening his eyes and looking down at her, running his hand over her lovely, soft hair. "Don't let it bother you, love. It will all blow past." He steels himself, because even if his wolf is still raging a bit at all the things Rafe said, he doesn't want Daphne to be mad about it. No, his cousin is his business to handle, not hers to stress about.
"Do you think he'll get used to it?" she whispers, anxious.
Jesse sighs and moves, pulling Daphne close to him and turning onto his side so that they're face to face. He loops one arm around her back with which to hold her tight and the other, a bit unable to help it, slips low, his hand gently cupping her ass.
She grins and shakes her head at him, thinking that he can't even help it when they're having a serious chat, but not minding - not really. Not at all. He just shrugs like why wouldn't he, while he still has the chance.
"He'll have to get used to it, won't he?" Jesse murmurs, pressing a kiss to her cheek and then her nose and then her mouth. "Once we're married - even before that - he's going to see us together and have to deal with it. I'm sorry I haven't gotten the ring yet - it's been so crazy, but the minute we get back to the city —"
"Jess," she whispers, hesitant, making him go still.
"What is it?" he asks, peering at her.
"Are you - are you serious about that?"
He blinks at her, then frowns. "Did you think I wasn't?"
Chapter 0759
"No, I think you are, I just..." she shrugs, looking down, smoothing and hand down over the fabric covering his chest. "I just love you a lot and you keep talking about marriage and rings - but that's all very...human, you know? And I'm a wolf."
He smiles a little, honestly relieved.
"Do you want my mark?"
She looks back up at him through her lashes, blushing, because - well, it's ridiculous, right? They've been dating for like a couple of weeks at best - how can she want it like this, this fast, when there's no bond - But she's sure - absolutely sure even if her wolf is not, and her wolf is coming around to the idea, honestly, that maybe it's just his half human heritage, that the bond will come and they can go and ask the Goddess what's up when this has all settled down.
Because everything is else is so real, and so vivid. In her heart she knows it's him, knows it has to be. How...how could it be anyone else?
"Yes, Jess," she whispers, smiling a little, laughing. "Yes, I want it - but -"
He snarls, laughing too, rolling her over in the bed, reaching for her shirt buttons. "Cool, let's do it now -" "Jesse!" She bursts out laughing.
"I'm serious, I've got like fifteen minutes, and it's just a little bite - I can do that in four seconds -"
She laughs harder now, knowing that he's not completely serious, even if...well, if she agreed to it right now that it might happen. Both of them - she knows he feels precisely the same - they're both just...a little swept away by each other. But Daphne just shakes her head, taking his handsome face between her palms, the aftershock of laughter running through her.
"No, Jess," she says with a happy sigh. "You know I want it to be right. And you do too. Not on a sewing break in the few minutes before I send you away to war, of all things."
"But it's settled," he says, looking at her quite seriously, all the love in his heart clear on his face. "We'll make some time in the upcoming weeks to go away, be alone. And we'll do it both ways. A mark and a ring."
"A mark and a ring," she says, smiling a little, absolutely perfectly happy. And then she leans in, pressing her mouth to his, closing her eyes and kissing him with everything she's got. They lose themselves to each other for a long few moments, burying their grief, their worries about family, their anxieties about war in their mutual happiness which right now feels strong enough to sweep through the entire world and make everything right.
Which is why neither of them notice as the room slowly fills with smoke.
Smoke, or shadow, that seeps in like a rage, pulsing and growing and flickering with a horrible blue light. And at the center of it all a very small form made of darkness itself, her breath heaving in her chest. Mittens gives a horrible little mew of fear just a moment before the darkness moves.
"Mine," the darkness snarls, storming forward, reaching out a claw-tipped hand to grab at Daphne's shoulder and haul her back, pulling her away from Jesse.
Daphne gasps and then screams at the form before her, a tiny female form with dark pits for eyes, a hole from her mouth from which horror and shadows fall with every breath, every word. "He. Is. Mine."
The darkness slashes its claws once across Daphne's face, leaving three long streaks of blood. She screams as Jesse roars leaping for the girl at the center of the darkness, grabbing her neck in his hand.
But the girl made of darkness just smiles at him, stepping into his rage and fear and anger like an
embrace, even has he tightens the hand around her neck.
"Mine," she says again, smiling up at him like he's perfect as Daphne screams in horror and fear and pain. "You're mine. Not hers. Mine!"
And then she wraps her arms around him, and vanishes away, taking smoke and boy with her. Silence.
It echoes in the room alongside Daphne's panting breath.
Quite suddenly the room is precisely how it was not thirty seconds before, calm and quiet.
Except Daphne's face stings with pain. And she trembles, looking around frantically for Jesse, raising a shaking hand to her cheek. Her fingertips come away red with blood but she can't even think about it because Jesse -
He's not here -
He's gone - completely gone - without a trace -
Shaking now, Daphne runs her eyes again around the room because he - he can't just be gone - he has to be here.
But somehow, impossible as it is, she's wrong.
Daphne is alone in the room now. Alone with a little cat made of shadow, who stares at her with wide, shocked round eyes.
Mittens and Daphne stare at each other for a horrified moment before Daphne snatches the tiny cat from the headboard and dashes for the door, hauling it open and shouting frantically for Rafe and Ari and Jackson and Ben as she sprints through the halls of the Castle.
Chapter 0760
Jackson and Rafe stand up straight, their Alpha hearing picking up Daphne's sobbing shouts before I do. But the moment I hear her I go very still, my eyes going wide as they snap for the door. Rafe's already moving towards it, yanking it open just as Daphne reaches it, stumbling into the room with one hand raised, Mittens clutched to her chest with the other.
"Daphne!" Rafe gasps, staring at her, shocked. Jackson and I are already moving too, and somehow I get to her first, gasping in fear, reaching for her bleeding cheek.
"Daphne, what happened?" I whisper, wrapping one arm around Daphne's waist and pulling her against me as Jacks moves to look up and down the hall, already growling protectively, and looking out for whatever threat was chasing here. "Rafe, get the first-aid kit -"
"Where's Jesse?" Rafe growls. And I gasp, realizing his point - that something must truly be wrong- because Jesse would never, ever leave her like this - would never let her go running through the halls unless-
"She - she took him -" Daphne gasps out as Jackson steps back into the room and slams the door shut. Daphne's head spins to look at us all at once. I loosen my arms and she takes a step back, her whole body trembling as she cries. "The girl - the darkness - she took him -"
"Took Jesse?" I whisper, horrified and confused.
"Where?" Rafe snarls.
But Daphne just frantically shakes her head, clutching Mittens with both hands now. "I don't know! She appeared out of nowhere in all this shadow and smoke and then she kept saying 'mine!' and then she took him - and then they disappeared - and -"
Daphne's words fail her and she just stands, staring between us all, trembling.
Jackson and Rafe burst into action as I again step forward and wrap my friend in my arms, cradling her against me, doing everything I can to assure her that it's okay - that everything's all right - even though it absolutely, definitively is not.
Jacks strides across the room for the first-aid kit as Rafe turns on his heel and moves for his dresser, where the cell phone he used all week to keep tabs on me is still sitting. Instantly he makes the hall to our parents, explaining everything he can in as few words as he can.
That Jesse was taken - we don't know by whom - we don't know where -
Then his eyes go wide and he locks them with mine as Jackson comes close, reaching for Daphne with
some gauze in his hand, wanting to clean the three long cuts across her cheek.
"What do you mean?" Rafe says, low and slow. "That Jesse was taken...too?"
My breath stops in my chest as I stare at my brother and watch horror sweep through his expression,
watch his fingers sink deep in his hair as he listens to whatever our father is saying.
"Juniper," he whispers.
Jackson's hand falls and the three of us freeze, staring over at Rafe at the mention of my sister's name. "Juniper...is also gone? Vanished?"
My stomach goes cold as I stare at my brother, who stares back at me, as one question echoes between
us.
What the fuck is happening to our family?
Things move incredibly fast after that, so much so that I can barely keep my head. Jackson and Rafe demonstrate their coolness in a time of extreme confusion and panic much more than Daphne and. Even Ben responds with cool action when we tell him and he joins us in the room.
Kel
Jackson keeps me close to his side the entire time, a hand on me at least at every turn as we get my father's order to come to the camp as planned, to bring Daphne. And while I would usually find it annoying to have someone shepherding me along like that, I'm so incredibly grateful that Jacks is constantly there, tensed and ready, his eyes wary. Because I keep getting worried that I, too, am going to be snatched out of thin air like both Jesse and Juniper did -
On the same day -
The same day that Atalaxia is moving against us with extreme force - But why?
Even as the helicopter lifts off and moves through the air, and Daphne sniffs next to me with Mittens clutched in her arms, and Rafe and Ben tatk quietly on the other side, and Jackson sits stoic with his hand on my knee...