The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 109

“At home,” he says, folding his arms over his chest, “I trained a little in drone strike technology. I would be…interested to continue those studies.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” the Captain replies, his eyebrows raised, “provided you prove adequate with this,” he nods now towards the weapons behind him.

The cadet nods and the Captain moves on, going through each of the weapons and explaining what it is, how it’s going to be used. And then he hands each of us a bow, explaining that we’ll be moving from oldest to newest technologies, hoping to master each over the course of the next few months and, in doing so, revealing where our particular aptitudes lay.

I’m grinning with excitement by the time that the Captain hands me my bow, offering a quiver of arrows that I sling over my shoulder.

“Do any of you have experience with archery?” The Captain asks.

“I do!” I quip, cheerful, but I grimace a little when I realize that I’m the only one who spoke. The other two glare at me a little, perhaps resenting my leg-up. The marksmanship test we took as candidates, after all, only measured our expertise with guns.

“Um,” I say, retracting my excitement just a bit. “Just…some target practice at summer camp,” I lie. Because I have that, but also a few years of private tutoring. Jesse and Rafe got hand-to-hand combat lessons which dad decided were too rough for me, so mom? She hired a world-class archer to teach me this more “delicate” sport.

The Captain smirks at me, clearly seeing through my lie, but he gestures towards the range of targets at the far end of the room. Humans, I know, would struggle to make out the details that far down the room, but our wolf eyesight has no trouble making out the bullseye at the center of each.

The three of us line up at the red line painted across the floor, paying close attention to the Captain as he gives us all a brief introduction to the bow and basic instructions on how to fire it. I listen closely even if I don’t need it, wanting to soak up every bit of instruction available to me.

Because I am quite determined to do well in this course, and I suspect that it – like our Chemistry exam – has cuts at the end of term. Cuts which I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid.

We start shooting as the Captain stands aside as watches us from behind. My muscles sigh happily as I step into the familiar stance and draw the bow. The string pulls back easily on the unfamiliar compound weapon – I trained on recurve, which requires more strength. But I take aim and let my first arrow fly, following it up with three more as I get used to the feel of the weapon.

All four of my shots hit the target, though none of them come close to the bullseye. I’m frowning, disappointed, until I glance over at the other targets and see that…none of the other two made any of their shots.

“Retrieve,” the Captain orders, calm, and I sling my bow over my shoulder before starting the long trek to the target, even though there are more arrows already in my quiver. Still, it’s nice to have a clean target – as well as an opportunity to talk to my fellow cadets.

“I’m Ari,” I whisper as the three of us walk side-by-side.

“I’m jealous,” the small dark-haired cadet says, shooting me a little glare, though I can tell by the way that his lips curl up that there’s not an ounce of malice behind his words. “Tell the truth – did you grow up doing this?”