Their Hidden Princess Chapter 84

Zora

Basics the morning after my week of nightmares was, surprisingly, uneventful. Maybe it was that it was a Monday. Maybe it was that the temperatures on campus had finally dipped low enough that the first snow ghosted over the campus in a thin white blanket. Maybe it was just that I was no longer interesting.

Regardless, people seemed to not give a shit about me as I walked into Basics with Loren. Training that morning with Thorne, Maximus and Valentin had been surprisingly uneventful as well. Aside from a few growls from Maximus when Thorne wrapped himself too close to me or a snap from Valentin as Maximus splayed me to the ground, it went well. I’d recounted my experience to Loren on the way to Basics.

“What’s it like to have three Alphas fighting over you?” she sighed dreamily.

“Exhausting,” I deadpanned. “Tell me about your Alpha.”

Apparently, Loren and her mystery girl had a run in last night in the library. She wanted to tell me when she got back, but I’d been slumped over my books when she got in. Our time between my training and Basics was the first we’d had to talk about it.

Loren had just told me about how she was approaching the girl when we walked into Basics. I flinched as I waited for everyone to glare at me but was met with only blank half-stares. I furrowed my eyebrow and looked at Loren, who was doing the same.

We exchanged a wordless glance at each other before marching into the locker room and changing for Basics. Something seemed…off. But neither of us could pin point what. It didn’t help that all of Basics went as smooth as molasses. No snide remarks, no bitchy comments. No scoffs.

“Do you think some magically put a spell on this place to make people forget the last month?” Loren whispered to me as we walked back into the locker room after Basics.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shake of my head. “It wouldn’t surprise me if someone randomly slipped them some magik memory potion.”

Loren snorted. “Those don’t exist.”

I gave her a look that said “Really?” She shrugged sheepishly then looked down at her watch. “Shoot,” she cursed. “I have to go to the library. I promised one of the girls in my math class I’d tutor her. I was supposed to start five minutes ago.”

“Go,” I said with a half laugh. Loren gave me a weak, apologetic smile before darting off into the locker room. I couldn’t help but chuckle as she ran off.

I, unlike Loren, had no responsibilities until the afternoon. I thought that a shower and a good ole PB&J was exactly what I needed at that moment. I shrugged off my training gear and left them on the bench by the showers as the steam engulfed me.

It seemed no one else had elected to shower in the locker rooms after class that day. I was the only one in the room and I took my sweet-ass time. I lathered my hair and body with all the soaps in there for communal use. When I finally turned off the shower, I smelled like roses and sunshine.

I walked over to where the towels were and found the shelf completely empty. I guessed that’s why no one else had showered. I poked my head out into the locker room, tentatively and looked towards the other shelf that usually held towels. Sure enough, there was one sitting there, fluffed and ready for me.

Unfortunately, that meant I had to mad dash across the locker room in only the skin I was born in. I did another sweep of the locker room. Everyone had pretty much left save for a few loners changing in the various corners of the locker room. I looked back at the towel and made a conscious decision.

My wet, bare feet slapped against the tile as I darted across the room. Water was still cascading off me as I went. I was about to grab the towel when it was snatched off the shelf by a well-manicured hand. I turned to scowl at the person attached to it when a flash blinded me.

“What the fuck?” I hissed.

“Smile big, Smith!”

There was another flash, blinding me again.

I held my hand over my eyes to try and shield myself as my other hand went to grab for the towel. I heard a horrid cackle and froze. I knew that laugh. It was the blonde girl who chased me down the first day of classes.

My eyes slowly adjusted, and I saw her standing in front of me. She was holding a phone up, flash bearing down on my wet, cold skin. I gasped and immediately dropped my hand to cover my bare body. More cackles erupted.

“Come on, Smith!” someone else chanted. “Don’t you want to show the boys what their missing? Or are you saving yourself for Maximus?”

She said Max’s name like I used to say the name of famous celebrities. I had no time to snap back at them as the flashes sped up, I darted around the side of a locker as the laughter continued.

“I think we got it,” the blonde girl said. “Get ready for your big break, wolfless.”

I’ll show them wolfless, Mona growled in the back of my mind.

Not now! I snapped back.

I turned over my shoulder to see the towel had conviently been placed back on the shelf I originally saw it on. The laughter from the girls had faded as all three of them walked out of the locker room. Their heels clicked on the tile below them. As soon as I heard the door slam shut, I made a mad dash for the towel and wrapped it around me.

I scurried back over to where I’d put my training clothes and found them shredded. The girls must’ve clawed them when I walked away. I held up the tatters of fabric and groaned. I only had two sets of training clothes. I chucked them in the trash before going back to my locker and sliding back on the clothes I’d walked to class in. My hair hadn’t been dried properly, and I could feel my curls frizzing up behind me. I huffed and pulled it into a tight braid.

When I left the locker room, I was half assuming the girls to be standing outside, circling me in their wolf form like they’d done that first day of classes. I was relieved when they weren’t and put some speed into my gait as I darted off to the cafeteria.

I expected to enter to the same kind of treatment that I had received that morning in Basics: indifference. However, something had seemed to have happened while I was showering. The male Alphas were looking at me like I was edible. The female Alphas were looking at me with a vile disgust.

“You know,” One male Alpha called to me. “If you wore a tighter outift, those tits would look a whole lot nicer.”

“Fuck you,” I hissed.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The Alpha threw back. “Fucking whore.”

I glared at him but he seemed unaffected. The smug smirk was still on his face. What the fuck was he talking about with my tits? I gasped as realization slammed into me at full force. The flashes. They were pictures.

The blonde girl and her lackies were taking pictures of me. Naked.

Unfortunately, entering the main hall of the cafeteria confirmed my suspicions. All of the tables were covered in paper. There was a black and white photo on the papers. As soon as I saw it, my stomach dropped to my ass. I slowly walked over and picked one up and there it was.

Me, only moments before, standing there like a deer in headlights, full frontal exposed.

I looked up, feeling all of the heat hit my cheeks. Tears threatened to start swelling in the corners of my eyes. The fuck was wrong with those girls?

I found all three of them sitting across the hall. Their eyes were pinned on me, giggling into their hands like they hadn’t just completely exposed me like that. My eyes followed there, down to the end of the table. I figured out their motive as soon as I locked eyes with the man at the end.

Fucking, Kairos.