Their Hidden Princess Chapter 80

The next morning, everyone was abuzz during Basics. As I stepped out of the locker room and into the gym, I learned why. Immediately, all eyes were on me. People looked at me with a range of emotions: anger, disgusting, some – even – an unbashed hatred.

“Um, Zora,” came Loren’s small voice from my left. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“Nothing that I haven’t already told you,” I mumbled back, surveying my surroundings. One extreme tall Alpha even scoffed at me. Murmurs swirled around me, just out of reaching of my human hearing.

Luckily, or unluckily, for me, I was a wolf as well.

I tuned into the frequency in my brain that allowed me to hear much quieter sounds. As soon as they reached my ears, I regretted it.

“Did you hear she was seen leaving the gym with Maximus Wolfham after hours last night?”

“Ugh, what could he possibly want with someone as pathetic as her?”

I flinched as it hit me. Sure, I knew the school already thought I was awful. Hearing someone say it was a lot worse. I tuned back to the voices.

“—Princess Amara. She looks terrible. Hear it was all Smith’s fault.”

“That’s horrible to attack the heir to the throne like that! She must not have royalty in her human world. No clue how to respect them.”

I flinched again. Amara looked terrible? I hadn’t seen her since our training session, thankfully. The last I saw, she was lucid and mobile in Valentin’s arms. Clearly, I hadn’t hurt her that much.

“This isn’t the first time she’s been violent. Seems to be a habit of hers to beat the shit out of other Alphas. You remember what she did to Kairos before shifting class?”

The voices were beginning to drive me mad. The last one was the only one that held any merrit. I’d roughed Kairos up a bit but Amara? She’d been the one to start it. I looked out into the sea of students and immediately spotted her.

Her arm was in a sling, hand wrapped in a thick bandage. Despite that, she was still in the tiniest little training set. She was sitting on the side of the gym with what looked like crutches.

She had to be kidding.

I immediately turned on my heel and marched over to her. “Amara,” I gritted through my teeth.

The two girls standing next to the Princess jumped as they saw me storming their way. They immediately lept behind Amara, cowering like I was the fucking big bad wolf. I rolled my eyes and set them back on Amara.

“What happened?”

“What happened?!” she shrieked. “You know exactly what happened you heathen!”

“Recount it for the class,” I said with a fake smile. “So everyone’s filled in.”

Amara looked out at the rest of the people standing around us in Basics. Her face morphed into the delicate Princess she was trying to get them all to believe she was.

“It was awful,” she near cried. “Headmaster Lunerly was training us. Zora was throwing punches far harder than what was normal for sparring. Lunerly tried to get her to stop but she was ravenous! It must’ve been because of her resent me towards me for being her boss, you know?”

The crowd murmured in agreement. I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out. I watched Amara scan the crowd as if she was looking for someone. Then she turned back to me with a faux fear in her eyes. She shook her head.

“I don’t know who taught you those moves,” she whimpered. “But they were maniacal. Truly unhinged.”

One of the girls behind Amara, who I recognized as one of the assholes who’d chased me on my first day of classes, shot up straight. Her blonde hair bobbed with her as she ducked down to lean into Amara’s ear.

“I heard she’s been training with Maximus Wolfham after hours,” she pretended to whisper.

“That must be where she learned how to snap my wrist,” Amara said back, gesturing to the wrap around her lower arm. Despite “breaking her wrist” she still had those ridiculous long nails. Even looking at them I could feel them shredding my thigh. I gritted my teeth and made eye contact with Amara.

“I just don’t know why you hate me,” Amara sniffled. “I was a good boss. I – I treated you fair and for you to attack me—”

“That is bullshit and you know it!” I finally burst out. The crowd surrounding me gasped. More whispers started up. I ignored all of them as I continued to hold Amara’s gaze.

“That you attacked me?” She said, soft and meek. She gestured to her arm again. “I have proof.”

“I only retaliated once you took your claws out,” I snapped. “You were aiming to kill and I fought back to keep myself alive.”

“If that’s what happened,” The blonde girl sneered from behind me. “Why do you look completely fine and Amara’s in tatters?”

“Thorne was there,” I said quickly. “Thorne Blythwitch. He’ll back me up.”

As if on cue, Thorne emerged from the crowd and pinned me with his gaze. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, Thorny!” Amara mewed. She threw her head back dramatically. “You won’t believe what Zora Smith is saying. She said I asked for this and that she didn’t attack first, I did.”

She looked up and caught Thorne’s eye. Her snake-like gold eyes narrowed at him, mouth still set in a pout. I knew exactly what she was saying to him with her eyes. Don’t go against me.

“Isn’t that so awful?” Amara cried.

Thorne looked back and forth between Amara and I. While Amara demanded he obey, my eyes were more of a plea. A “don’t do this to me” kind of look. Thorne looked back at Amara and sighed. His eyes fluttered closed.

“It was awful,” he said, gently. The crowd gasped again like we were in a fucking tellanovella. “I’ve never seen a spar get so violent.”

“See!?” Amara cried to the crowd. She jabbed a long nail at me. “She’s insane. She should be kicked out if anything. I’ll be letting my mother know immediately.”

I raised an eyebrow as if to challenge that. Her mother was my mother and she and I both knew that Victoria wasn’t going to do shit. I was the backup plan for Amara’s terrible public reputation and she wouldn’t be risking mine to back up Amara’a nonsense.

“What’s going on here?” A voice barked. I shuddered immediately as I recognized it.

The crowd parted like the red sea as Kairos stormed over to where they’d circled around Amara and I. He glanced between us, lip curled up in a scowl.

“Oh Kairos,” she cried, flailing like a damsel in distress. “You must’ve heard how she attacked me. Now she’s trying to do it again!”

Kairos’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he looked back and forth between Amara and I. He huffed a breath out of his nose then glanced back down at where Amara was dramatically hanging on the blonde girl.

“I don’t really give a fuck,” he snapped. He addressed the crowd. “Coach saw you all loitering from his office and is pissed warmups haven’t been started. So get a fucking move on before I have to ask again.”

In a flourish, the crowd dissipated, running off towards the track for the laps we were supposed to be running. Kairos glanced back at Amara.

“As you’re clearly injured just stay here,” he then turned to glare down at me. “You. Come with me.”

I shrunk in on myself as Kairos led me off to the side of the gym. Loren gave me a pat on the shoulder before running off to join the rest of the class. I snuck one final glance at Amara. From her chair, she wiggled her fingers at me, a wicked smirk on her face. I ground my teeth together then faced back to where Kairos had stopped. His arms were crossed over his barrel of a chest and he was looking at me with a voracious sharpness.

“The fuck were you thinking, hurting the heir to the Throne?” he hissed.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I snapped back. “She fucking attacked me and I had to fight back.”

Kairos narrowed his eyes at me. “The way to get through this school is certainly not to attack the one fucking person you shouldn’t attack.”

“Get through this school?” I snorted. “Weren’t you trying to get me to leave a few months ago?”

Kairos slammed his mouth into a thin line. His eyes still bore into me was the intensity of a thousand suns. I took a step forward, jutting my chin up to glare back at him.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” I taunted. “Don’t tell me you give a shit about me now, Kairos.”

His face fell flat for a second and I caught why people found him attractive. When his face wasn’t all scrunched up in anger, he was goodlooking. But just as the thought went through my head, his sneer reappeared and he walked past me.

“Just don’t make it harder for yourself,” he snapped, leaving me confused and alone in the corner of the gym.