The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 115

“Ready,” I say, holding out my hand to Jackson. When he doesn’t take it, I turn to him, surprised – because…I mean, Alvez said we had to have body contact to do this…

Jackson lifts his eyes from my hand to meet my gaze. “I mean,” he says, soft enough to not be overheard, “what if the…thing happens.”

I blush, suddenly, to hear him address the connection between us. Because even though I know we’re both aware of it, this is the first time either of us has acknowledged it.

I stare at him for a second and then shrug. “Maybe it will help,” I whisper back, dropping my hand to the blanket between us but still keeping it palm up. “I mean, isn’t that what Alvez was saying? That magic calls to magic? Maybe that…thing…is just our magic trying to talk to each other.”

Jackson keeps his eyes on mine, though his narrow a bit. Then he glances, just for half a second at everyone else in the room. “But why,” he says, frustration on the edge of his voice, “does your magic call to mine? Or vice versa? Or…whatever…”

And guilt floods me then, because I know the answer to that question.

And I’m deliberately keeping it from him.

My wolf howls inside me, begging me to just tell him, to let him smell my scent, to let him in on it.

But I just…I just can’t. There’s still way too much at stake.

“I don’t know, Jackson,” I whisper, and the frustration with which he sighs lets me know that he’s well aware that I’m lying. He doesn’t know what, but he knows I’m keeping something from him. He turns his eyes away from me, focusing on the marble.

“Fine, whatever,” he murmurs. “Let’s just…do this.”

“Jackson,” I say again, pleading in my voice. But before I can say more, Jackson just reaches out his hand and grabs mine, our palms pressing flat together, his fingers folding around mine in a way that just…hums, filling me with warm vibrations.

I have to catch my breath that the swell of warmth that floods my body as the magic again pulses between us, as it always does when my hands touch him. My eyes instantly dart to the room as Rafe and Jesse look up – not towards me, towards us, but past them – as if whatever force Jackson and I created brushed by them like a ghost, dragging its fingers across their skin.

Jackson’s hand tightens and I look up at him to see that his face is tense. He shakes his head at me, confused and angry about it. But I just sigh, and tighten my fingers too, and turn my attention back to the marble.

“Come on,” I say, feeling guilty and overwhelmed, still buzzing with the warmth of him flooding through me. “Let’s try to…float this damn marble.”

“Whatever you say,” he replies, his shoulders slumping as he rests his chin in his other palm, likewise staring at the little ball of glass.

Half an hour passes.

Nothing happens.

I still feel the heat passing between us, just in the same way that it did when I held Tony’s hand in class. There is something about our magic that calls to each other, I can definitely feel it, but as for manifesting anything? For making anything happen at all?

Zip.

“Are you trying?” I whisper, spinning my head to him.

“Trying to what?” he replies, his voice equally soft, glaring at me a little.

“To lift it!”

“Well how the hell am I supposed to do that!” he says, frowning at me, lifting his face from his hand.

“I don’t know!” I reply in a rush, exasperated. “I’m trying!”

“Trying to do what?”

“To lift the marble into the air!”

“With like, your mind?” he asks, shaking his head at me. “Clark, that’s a waste of time.”

I stare at my mate, shocked. Is he finally showing his true colors to me? Is this the side of him that Luca sees?

Was I just so blinded by his handsome face that I didn’t see it before?