The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 57

“Can we just…slow down, Jesse?” I say, looking up at my cousin, whose face falls when he realizes his mistake. “I mean –“

“No, I totally get it,” he says, reaching out a hand for my shoulder again, “I’m so sorry, Ari – that was very uncool of me, you just met the guy –“

“And he doesn’t even know that I’m…” I hesitate now, and then gesture at myself from top to bottom – at everything Luca doesn’t know I am: his mate, a girl, a princess, the daughter of a seriously powerful Alpha who is not going to react well to meeting anyone who has a romantic claim on his little girl, no matter how cute their dimples are.

“Wait, what?” Jesse breathes, his face lightening suddenly at the drama of it. Jesse, much more than Rafe, loves a little gossip. “He doesn’t know he’s your mate?”

“He doesn’t know anything, Jesse,” I say, raising my eyebrow at him and crossing my arms. “He doesn’t even know I’m a girl.”

Jesse’s mouth drops open and then he bursts into laughter, running a hand through his hair and turning around to stare out into the sky, putting the pieces together.

“Wait,” he says, turning to look at me again, “but I thought you were using the dream state with him!”

“Well, that was an accident,” I mutter, looing down as I scuff the toe of my boot in the dirt.

“An accident!?”

“Well, I didn’t know I invited him to the dream state, Jesse,” I say, looking up and rolling my eyes. “Until it was too late! And then my wolf wouldn’t let me out!”

Jesse stares at me for a long moment before cracking up again. And his laughter is so infectious that he gets me going as well, so much so that for about a minute or two we’re both just cackling on the top of a hill outside the barracks of the most elite military academy in the nation the night before we find out whether or not we’ll be admitted.

And, honestly…

It’s kind of the stress reliever I need. I laugh with my cousin until my stomach aches with it, his arm wrapped loosely around my shoulders in a brotherly hug.

“Okay okay,” Jesse says, catching his breath and sitting down on top of the hill, tugging on my arm so that I sit down across from him, our knees almost touching. “You’ve got to tell me everything – right from the start. I need all of the details, little cousin.”

And so…I do. I tell him everything, only leaving out the details about Jackson – because honestly, it’s such a relief to talk to Jesse about Luca that I don’t really want to spoil it by adding that information in. And Jesse – he’s thrilled for me to have Luca as my mate. For a moment, I just want to concentrate on that.

So I tell him about Luca finding me in the hot spring, and then him asking me hard questions about where his mate is, and how that struck up a friendship. Then I move on to describe the way that Luca and I are drawn to each other. Jesse smiles when I tell him about how well we connected during the survival test, but he can’t contain his laughter when I tell him about Luca admitting his attraction to me in the dream state when I again appeared as a boy.

“Oh man,” Jesse says, “you’re probably giving him a serious crisis about his sexuality, Ari. And I shouldn’t laugh, but…damn, that’s funny. I did not expect that.”

“I know,” I say, laughing too, wrapping my arms around my knees. “I feel really bad –“

“But you can’t tell him,” Jesse says, still smiling, cocking his head to the side. “I mean, right? You’ve got to keep this a secret.”

“Jesse,” I sigh, sighing a little. “I mean, I’m certainly not going to tell him like, tomorrow, when we’re both still candidates – but I can’t keep this under wraps forever. I mean, I feel like even if Luca is confused and struggling with this, he’s not going to let it drop. Even if I don’t tell him, he’s going to figure it out.”

Jesse’s shoulders slump a little at this.

“What,” I say, considering my cousin closely. “Why is that bad?”

“Because,” Jesse says, with a little shrug. “I just…I know Grant’s reputation, Ari. And as much as I think that he’s going to respect you when he finds out that you’re his mate, I did kind of like the idea that you two were getting to know each other as friends first. Luca – he’s an Alpha. When he finds out you’re his mate, you’re going to be like…his mate.”

I sit up straight at that, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”