The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Time moves strangely after that, at once standing completely still in my agony and. somehow, passing so fast that I barely understand it when the sun reaches its zenith, and then passes beyond it, and then starts to sink towards the horizon.

How how have hours past?

God, how have I survived them?

Though it all, Jackson and my pain have kept a steady pace. I do my best to curl myself against him, to make myself small and inconsequential, to not be a bother to this man who is running miles and miles across the countryside with me balanced in his arms.

The pain is….god, it drives me a little insane, I think, gnawing at my stomach and my leg. I can feel the blood dripping from me, at once agonizing and, somehow, a balm against the raw flesh of my wounds. I think I pass out…a lot, but regular infusions of Jackson’s magic keeps bringing me back, filling me with energy, making my eyes flutter open.

Always, always he’s glancing down into my face, checking to make sure that I’m okay

But, I mean, we’re both aware that I’m not okay.

But, somehow, I am alive.

And, somehow, he…keeps running.

—

I’m vaguely aware, as the hours pass, that this part of the Examination was meant to be done in wolf form that he should have shifted by now and crossed this field at his top speed as his gigantic wolf. But even in his human body, carrying me? Frankly, Jackson’s faster than most cadet’s wolves. Only a few of them pass us, sending us side–long glances and not bothering to interrupt, knowing that Jackson would end them if they did.

Jackson’s breath only starts to flag when I feel his pace change. I lift my head, curious despite my haze of pain, wondering desperately if we’re at the end

If there will be a healer, here-

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Surely there has to be surely the Academy has medical staff waiting, knowing as they do that this is a violent Examination in which they’ve encouraged us to main each other, to get to the end.

I scowl a little, my mind wandering strangely as I make a mental note to have a deep conversation with my father and my uncle about this particular aspect of Academy life.

Because, quite frankly, I’m not sure I agree with these methods.

But will I ever live to see them again, to have that conversation?

Suddenly terrified, I sob, my hand clenching in Jackson’s shirt as I turn my face into him. I don’t have any tears, though all my liquids are probably depleted, after all, from all the blood dropping from me…

“It’s all right,” Jackson murmurs, pulling me closer against his chest. “We’re almost there.”

I pause, looking up at him, a little baffled. “Really?” I whisper, and I’m startled by the cracked sound of my own voice, the way my eyes struggle to focus on his beautiful face.

“Well,” he grimaces, glancing upwards. “Well, no.”

I groan, putting my head back against his chest. Not that it’s his fault – I just…god, I want it to end. All of it, the pain, the movement –

I just want to sleep, curl up somewhere soft and comfortable.

“Come on,” he says, shaking me a little, making me look back up at him, his voice cracking. in a way that breaks my heart. “Don’t give up on me now, Ari!”

–

I lift my head, forcing my eyes to focus, forcing my head to nod. But it’s all it’s all really hard, maybe too much. “Jacks,” I moan, shaking my head.

“Don’t you do it,” he growls, his arms tightening around me. “I did not drag you for miles. across that field for you to give up now, Ari –”

I laugh – a sad, croaked sound, half baffled and half tickled that he’s mad at me. But something about it brings me back to myself, a little bit more. “Okay,” I whisper, nodding my head seriously now. “I won’t give up.”

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“Good,” he mutters, a little mad, again pressing his hand to my back and giving me more of his power, his energy, his magic. I feel the difference instantly, the boost, but all it does is allow me to focus more on his grimace. “I need to to change positions, Ari,“ he murmurs. “I’m going to need both of my hands.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“Just don’t hate me, okay?” He stares into my face and I nod, promising it.

But I instantly regret that promise when he lifts me, bodily, and slings me over his shoulder. The moan that rips from me instantly turns into a yell, if not a guttural scream. Jackson murmurs over and over again that he’s sorry, but then he moves forward, even as I cry ceaselessly into his back.

My body is twisted over his shoulder, somehow, so that the weight of me isn’t on the wound. Instead, that faces inward, bumping awkwardly against Jackson’s head and sometimes his cheek as he begins to climb. Most of the time he keeps one arm wrapped. tightly around the back of my thighs, and my legs go blissfully numb, meaning I can’t feel the arrow in my thigh anymore.

Frankly, most of the time I can’t feel anything, because I start to pass out as Jackson moves, somehow miraculously balancing me the whole time. The only times I come to are when Jackson passes more magic, his palm pressed against my back or my side. These come more and more frequently as he feels me fade, as he feels me start to drift away from him.

When my eyes do open, the world is increasingly black, and at first I think it’s because…. because I’m dying. But then I realize that it’s just nighttime.

Jackson starts to talk to me then, keeping up a steady string of words, most of them curses and narration of what he’s doing, every step he’s taking, how close we are to the end. But some of them,

blissfully, are the sweetest things I’ve ever heard.

I just catch snatches of Jackson’s words, really of him telling me of how long he thought about me, about what I’d look like. His surprise that I’m a blonde. How much he wants to tell me, and parts of the world he wants to show me.

If I had tears, they’d drip down my face, but I don’t. So instead I just hang limply over my mate’s shoulder, mourning the loss of this incredible bond when I jus

got hold of it, even. as I determine to stay as long as I can even as I will myself to live, even for his sake, if not

my own.

–

Emergency calls only be

Because Jackson – he deserves a break in life, doesn’t he?

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And I laugh, a line, at the irony of that thought that Jackson needs a break, even when I’m the one dying over his shoulder, being hauled up a mountain. But Jackson laughs too, hearing or feeling my sentiments, and then he passes me more magic, and I clench my fist, determined to live.

1 focus on my breathing, when I’m awake focus on dragging in the next breath as Jackson pulls me higher, and higher. Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Until, suddenly, I hear him groan, and then feel him stumble, and then suddenly stand and pause on his two feet.

“We did it, Ari,” he murmurs, panting. He passes me more magic and my eyes flutter, confused. I turn my head, tying to comprehend the weird upside–down world.

“What?” I murmur, still hanging, my fingers now as numb as my legs. Somewhere below. my cap fell off, and my hair is streaming down around me. There are people all over, cadets. and professors that I recognize and…other stuff? I try to peer through the curtain of my hair, try to understand but…

Well. It’s kind of useless, so I just sigh and give up. “Okay,” I mutter, giving a little shrug. “Put me down, Jacks.”

But he doesn’t listen to me, instead striding forward, shouting at the top of his lungs that we need a fucking medic, right the fuck now.

Suddenly I jump a little, going rigid, because-

Was…was that my name?

There’s a rush of noise and then a smell hits my nose a familiar scent I’ve smelled, I think, every day of my life, and I immediately start crying as I hear my name again, and this time I recognize the voice.

“Rafe,” I moan, reaching for him, even though I can’t see.

“She needs a medic!” Jackson snaps, turning sharply away from my brother.

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“I’m right here!” There’s another familiar scent and I start to cry in earnest this time, trying to push away from Jackson, desperate to get to it to that familiar scent of lilies, and rose, and fresh water, and rain.

–

Jackson snarls, stepping back, even as I try to turn to push myself up.

“I’m a healer,” the woman’s voice says, gentle and stern. “Please, please – I can help, okay!?”

“Let her go. Jacks,” Rafe says, his voice even and persuasive. “Please – you’ve done everything you can, just…give her to me.”

Jackson hesitates for a second before I feel myself moving, and I groan in agony as my mate tips me off his shoulder, and catches me in his arms and then….then passes me to my brother.

“Hey, trouble.” Rafe murmurs, smirking down at me – I think for my sake, because I can see the worry in every line of his face, even if he’s pretending he doesn’t feel it.

“What!?” the woman breathes, and then she steps forward, reaching for me as she gasps, and I turn my face to look up into what could be a mirror image. A thrill of deep love passes through me even despite the pain.

“Hey, mom,” I murmur, trying to smile, reaching for her with a bloody hand

But before I can brush her cheek, as I so desperately want to…I pass out.