Ch. 821..825: The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 821-825

Chapter 0821

Mark stays close at Rafe's heels as he storms through the palace. Rafe glances back over his shoulder with a frown.

"You can go, Mark," Rafe snaps, annoyed. "You've got your stupid protection necklace. No one's going to snatch you away."

"I can't go, Rafe," Mark snaps back, surprising Rafe by how much his brother's voice matches his own these days, in timbre as well as snappiness. "Mom says you have to babysit me, so here I am. Waiting to be sat."

Rafe turns and gives Mark a little shove on his shoulder. "Would you take this seriously for one minute!?" "I am taking this seriously!" Mark snarls, casting one hand out to the side. "Do you think this is easy for me, being forced to tail along with you even though I'm useless? Do you think I'm not worried about Jesse and June and Ariel!?"

Rafe growls, because he knows his brother is. "Yeah, well, you could make fewer jokes. Or you could try harder to learn how to do something -"

"I'm not good at this stuff, Rafe," Mark growls, hanging his head a little. "Not like the rest of you are." Rafe closes his mouth at that, looking at the shame on his little brother's face. Because it's true - Mark has always had more trouble with self-discipline than he and Ari and Juniper have. Mark is...easily distracted and doesn't respond to the pleasures of hard work and achievement like the rest of them do. Rafe's wolf bites him, hard, on the inside. You need to be kinder.

Rafe sighs and nods, knowing that he's right. It's just...god, he's so angry these days.

But...taking it out on Mark is not okay.

"I'm sorry," Rafe says, rueful, stepping closer to Mark. "I'm being a jerk. It's...good to have you here." "You're lying," Mark murmurs, scuffing his foot against the floor. "You don't like me. You don't want me around. Only Ariel does."

"I like you, Mark," Rafe says on a sigh, utterly truthful. He does like Mark he just...god, he hasn't made a lot of space in his life for his little brother, has he? "Come on, walk with me, not behind. Mom sent both of us on this task, not just me."

Mark lifts his head a little, a smile pulling at one corner of his lips. And then he nods, the two brothers starting off down the hall until they push through a door into a wide room full of computers and papers and mail.

And at the center of it all stands Luca Grant, who looks up at them, his face very exhausted and serious.

"Hey, Luca!" Mark calls, striding

forward with his hand out to clasp the boxer's, Rafe scowls a little, thinking that Mark's a bit of a traitor for accepting Luca back into his heart as easily as Ella did. Rafe and Dominic are...not there yet.

"Hi," Luca says, smiling warmly at Mark and shaking his hand before turning to Rafe, his face becoming more serious. "Um, hey. Rafe."

"Grant," Rafe says, tucking his hands behind his back and speaking quite formally. "Mom sent us to check in on things here, to see if any information has come forward."

"Um, not that I've seen," Luca says, running his hand through his hair and looking around at the chaos of the mail room, where people are rushing to answer phones and check emails and sort

thal

great deal of mail. They set up a tip line for any information and a

great deal has been coming through, not much of it useful. "It's...a lot, but we're managing to get through it."

Rafe had been surprised when his father had accepted Luca's offer to help. Rafe had been snarling at Grant the moment Ella brought him into the room, ready to rip his head off. Despite Ella's calm assurance that Luca wanted to help, Rafe just couldn't get the mental image of Ariel bleeding and crying in Ben's arms on Luca's bedroom floor out of his mind.

But Dominic, even if he'd been equally enraged, had accepted the offer of help. "We need every competent man at his moment," Dominic had snarled at Rafe's protest, baring his teeth at his son, letting him know that the issue was decided.

But to Rafe's relief, Luca had been banished away from the family to this job. An important job, but certainly one where Rafe didn't have to interact with him much.

Until, of course, his mother kept finding pale excuses to send Rafe down here, eager for the two to find common ground.

"Can I help with anything?" Mark asks, moving around Luca's desk and beginning to sort through some of the messages.

"Some personal things came through for your mom and dad," Luca says, friendly, handing Mark some folded pieces of paper and envelopes. "You could take these up."

"You did security sweeps on those?" Rafe snaps, lifting his chin at the mail. "Ensured it was all safe?" Slowly, Luca turns his eyes to his former friend. "You know I did, Rafe."

Rafe bares his teeth a bit. "Yeah, well, I'm not sure I really trust your word when you say you're committed to keeping the royal family safe."

Luca drops his head, ashamed, knowing that there's nothing he can say to make it better. That Rafe is right - no matter his reasons for it, he did leave Ariel alone and vulnerable.

Mark looks anxiously between the two, torn. Because even if he is of course on his family's side...his heart goes out to Luca, who looks so forlorn, and is trying so hard to make amends.

 

Chapter 0822

"All right," Rafe snaps, nodding to Mark. "Anything else, Luca?"

"Um, just this missive," Luca says, reaching for a pink scrap of paper on the desk. "From that Hank guy - letting your mom know that he's coming in via helicopter tomorrow with a report on The Community - that place Jackson is from. He says he's hoping he'll be able to have an audience with her, but he

understands if she's busy."

Rafe rolls his eyes a little and takes the piece of paper. "I can't believe Hanks asking for that at a time like this," he murmurs, tucking it into his pocket. "But mom will make space for him. She always does."

He turns away, waving to Mark to come with.

"Rafe!" Luca calls out behind him as the Sinclair boys move towards the door.

Rafe sighs, but turns.

"Please," Luca says, holding out a pleading hand. "Can we talk? I'm - I'm so sorry, man -"

"You know, things might have been different," Rafe interrupts, harsh. "If you'd been there on that

battlefield? If you'd been holding her hand, like Jackson was?" Rafe shakes his head, anger welling in him.

Luca takes a deep breath, dropping his eyes and leaning hard against the desk in front o fhim.

"We can talk when she comes back, alive and safe," Rafe snaps, turning away. "Until then, I don't have a god damn thing to say to you."

He strides from the room.

Mark hesitates for a second, looking between Luca and the door, worried and torn. Because...even though Rafe is right, Mark's wolf scratches at the dirt of his soul, urging him to realize that somehow Rafe is being unfair. That Luca could have helped - but his presence on the battlefield...

Would it truly have prevented Ariel from being taken?

But whatever the answer is - if there even is one - Mark turns to follow Rafe, knowing that even if he is being unfair, Rafe is still his brother. And his allegiances, always, are with his family.

"See you soon, Luca," Mark calls to the boxer as he goes, feeling sorry for him.

"Yeah, you too, Mark," Luca murmurs. After a second of standing very still he sighs, getting back to work. Gabriel shifts us back into the hallway outside my door, which is bustling with people. Gasps echo around us as Gabriel angrily shoves open my bedroom door, striding into the room and slamming it shut behind him.

Two more gasps sound as Gabriel strides across the room and tosses me hard on the bed.

"Oh, Ariel," Pippa moans, dashing immediately for me.

But Gabriel steps in front of her, blocking her hard with his arm. "You will leave my Luna where she is, Pippa," Gabriel snarls. "Especially considering that it was you who let her out."

"Don't you dare touch Pippa," Elias snarls, stepping forward and grabbing Gabriel's arm, hauling him away. "That is my fucking Luna, who is carrying my child."

I snarl at Gabriel, sitting up on the bed and pushing myself back so that my back is against the cushions and the headboard. "Leave Pippa out of this," I snap. "She didn't do anything. I tricked her so I could escape."

Elias steps close to Pippa, wrapping her up in his arms, looking anxiously between Gabriel and I.

"You think I am a fool, Ariel,” Gabriel snarls, stepping closer to me and leaning over the bed to glare into my eyes. "You thought that you could go flitting around the castle as much as you wanted, and that as long as caught you running around the exterior fence in the Dark Lands that I'd think you were trying to escape. I know you went for the

ambassadors. I know you spoke

with one of them, or else you'd never have gotten to that part of your plan."

Inwardly, I curse my grandmother for giving me a mate who's not only completely evil but smart enough to

see through my plans. God, couldn't she at least have been cool and given me a dummy?

"You have embarrassed me for the last time," Gabriel growls, leaning closer and raising his hand, the threat to strike me real. I lean away, genuinely afraid, my hand going to my jaw. Because if he hits it again – I don't think it would stay intact -

"Gabriel!" Elias barks out, horrified.

d

Gabriel stays his hand, but doesn't take his eyes from me. “I have important things in the works tonight. And you will fall in line, Princess, and be the utter picture of what an Atalaxian Luna is meant to be when I bring you out in public this evening."

I stare up at him, hate in every line of my face.

"And if you don't," Gabriel says, quite soft. "I will not only beat you until your entire body is black and blue

- but I will kill each and every one of those Moon Valley ambassadors in front of your eyes. One by one. Is that clear?"

He snarls once more before he turns and stalks from the room, leaving me panting with fear.

"Oh, Ariel," Pippa whispers, climbing onto the bed and scooting close to me. "Oh, darling, are you okay?" But I can barely pay attention to her ministrations as I shift my eyes to Elias.

He looks at me, terrified, a silent question on his face.

I just nod, slight enough that Pippa doesn't notice my confirmation.

That Ben is here with the Ambassadors. And because of my actions today, his life is on the line.

 

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?"

"I'm fine," I say, taking her hand as she crawls onto the bed next to me. "I'm so sorry, Pippa, if I got you in trouble."

"Oh, they were fools to make me your jailer anyway," she says, smiling 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 Luna. That is...that is not all right."

My eyes fill a bit with tears - both at the pain in my face and the fact that this is what this sweet girl is worrying about right now.

"I'm glad that's true," I whisper.

She shakes her head, her eyes moving to my jaw, and she grimaces - which lets me know that a bruise is probably forming. "I hope you hit him back."

A little laugh bursts from me. "I didn't get the chance. Though trust me, if I could have, I would've."

Pippa gives me a smile 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 sigh, "the confinement bath is all

lavender, which is supath is all

to be a message to anyone 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 you being in public tonight."

“Oh goodness,” I sigh, pulling myself out of bed and following her to the bathroom. "If you say so, Pip."

She gives me a small smile that lets me know her worries aren't totally gone and gets to work again filling. the bath and moving to the wall of scented soaps and oils, picking out something that will sufficiently cover the lavender scent. She also pulls a bell rope on the wall, which I know orders up a tray of tea when pulled.

I just stand by the tub, letting her work, thinking that Atalaxians spend a great deal of time in the bath. My mind drifts, then, to the big tub in our Alpha Academy bathroom. And the rain shower next to it. And to being in that rain shower, with Jackson, his skin flush against mine...

"Ariel?"

I jump a little and then blush as I see Pippa peering at me curiously, the bathtub completely full.

Chapter 0824

"Sorry," I murmur, untying my robe and letting it slip from my shoulders. "I got...distracted." Pippa turns slightly to give me some privacy I don't need - Moon Valley wolves don't tend to be shy about nakeness, even if Atalaxian ones do - as I slip into the bath.

When I slip under the water, opaque with bath salts and oils and bubbles and soap, Pippa turns back to me and sits on a stool at my side, handing me shampoos and conditioners and more soaps as I go through the process of bathing, keeping me company as much as she's helping me.

"Did you know," Pippa says, her voice a bit distracted and dreamy as she leans against the side of my tub, "what Gabriel meant, when he said he wants you to be the perfect picture of an Atalaxian Luna tonight?"

I shrug a little, looking at her with interest as I rinse shampoo from my hair. "I mean, I think I know. But... I'm not sure I do. Not really."

"I'm not sure he knows either," she says, turning to look at me, her face more serious than I've seen it before. "I'm not sure any of them do.

I stop moving my hands, letting them fall into the water. "What do you mean?"

"We spent a lot of time on a country estate when we were children," Pippa says, looking away again, surprising me with this turn in the story. "It belonged to my uncle - my mother's favorite brother. He never took a Luna." She shrugs. "Some don't. Perhaps there aren't enough perfect Luna's for all the Alphas who are left wanting."

She smiles a little and then scoots her stool back, taking a little cup off of the back of the tub and filling it. I tilt my head back as she pours the water over me, beginning to rinse the rest of the shampoo out of my hair like I'm a child.

"But we had a very idyllic childhood

there," she continues. "We spent a great deal of time wandering through the meadows, and making up stories in the mountains, and building forts up in trees or beneath them. There was a great deal of freedom to that life which think we all lost when we came back to the Castle for the winters. And when we started living here forever."

I listen carefully, still confused, as Pippa puts the cup back onto the edge of the tub and takes up the

conditioner, quietly beginning to massage it into my hair.

"My uncle, he never came with us to

the Castle," Pippa says quietly. "I think he would have missed the freedom too much. He had a very special friend there, you see - his gamekeeper. He raised my uncle's hounds, and tended his horses. He was a very nice man - always with a ready smile. I haven't seen him in years. Duck in, darling, and run your hands through your hair, please. It's

—

faster that way."

I glance at Pippa, wordless, and then does as she says, ducking under the water. As I float beneath the water, running my fingers through my hair, I wonder if...

...god, is Pippa telling me the story I think she's telling me? Or...

Breathless for want of information and, indeed, air, I resurface. She's waiting for me, a towel in hand, and

she gives me a gentle smile as she offers it to me so that I can pat my face dry.

"You see," Pippa says, quiet soft and

fond, "Gabriel doesn't understand

that that's the true role of an

Atalaxian Luna - seeing more than - they think we see, and keeping men's secrets to ourselves. Tucking them away to deep that they don't even know that we know. Elias - as good to me as he is...he doesn't know either. What it is Atalaxian

Lunas hold for our men. What we

know."

 

Chapter 0825

I turn to her suddenly, shocked. Because...

"Yes, Ariel," Pippa says quietly, taking the towel back from me. "I know. I've known...for a very long time. I notice everything about my Alpha's life, and the way he loves me, and the way he...looks at others. And I noticed when he came home from his trip to Moon Valley at Midwinter that...everything had changed." I continue to just stare at her, not really knowing what to say, my face slack.

"Don't pity me, darling," she says quietly, reaching out to stroke my cheek. "I have a better Alpha than most. He keeps my secrets too."

"You have secrets?" I whisper.

She nods a little. "Gabriel and Elias taught me to read when we were children, which they ardently were not supposed to do. And... Elias gave me this baby," she says, looking down at her belly and putting her hands on either side of it. "Even though we've never lain together."

I stare at her in shock. "Is it...that's his baby though, right?"

She looks up at me with a wide grin. "Yes, Ariel, I'm not a complete harlot. We were just...creative," she says, laughing and looking away with embarrassment. "With the transfer of the seed." She blushes a deep red. "Though, I hope that if you're in training to be a perfect Atalaxian Luna that you will...help me by keep that secret as well. As well as the others, which I know you hold."

I shake my head in wonder at my friend. Because who knew that she had so many secret hopes and dreams beneath that calm and sweet demeanor? Especially those that her own culture would see as acts of sin and blasphemous betrayal, desires worthy of death.

"Pippa," I say quietly, reaching to cover her hand with my own. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because I want you to know my secrets, Ariel, she says quietly, turning her head back to me. "So

Alpha's

that you'll tell me who

mate is, if you know. And so that...when I ask you when you're planning to escape from all of this, you'll trust me enough to tell me the truth. And so that you'll take me with

you when you go. And this little

baby. And Elias as well."

I stare at Pippa, shocked at the depths she's revealed. Because, I mean, I never thought her truly stupid -

just incredibly innocent - but...

Damn, did she have me fooled.

"Well shoot, Pippa," I murmur,

smiling at her a little as I shake my head and squeeze her hand. "With the ability to maintain a life-long poker face and keep secrets like that we'll have a role for you in Espionage unit at Alpha Academy whenever you want it."

She stares at me in shock for a moment before we both burst into laughter.

"Oh dear," Pippa murmurs, shaking her head and pressing a hand to her cheek. "Oh, don't think I could do that. With all those Alphas? And al from Moon Valley where

Belf

they where they kiss girls before they're married?" She shakes her

head like it's all kind of terrifying and wonderful.

I grin and lean back in the tub. "You know they do a lot more than kiss the girls."

Pippa's eyes dart to my neck and then back to my face as she bites her lip, hesitating. But then she

breaks, leaning forward with an eager smile on her lips. "What's it like?" she whispers, breathless. "Is it great?"