Their Hidden Princess Chapter 95

Zora

Present

I sat staring at Valentin for a moment when he finished. I sniffled slightly, unaware I was crying. My hand came up to wipe my tears from my cheeks.

“Wow,” was all I could think so say.

“Yeah,” Valentin murmured. He shifted slightly where he was sitting. He seemed to have become more disheveled as he told the story. His hair was a mess by the end, tie completely off and discarded. I could tell he didn’t want to recount it. But I was grateful he did.

“So, my aunt,” I said, gently. “She was…?”

“Gone, yes,” Valentin replied. “She’d been drained by Renatus.”

I hummed. “And my father?”

“I don’t know,” Valentin said. “One day after the war, your mother had come to me. She told me that she was with child. I asked her with whom and she told me it was during a celebration. She couldn’t even tell me the wolf’s name.”

So I was a child of a one night stand. Made sense in my long line of trauma. I gnawed at my lip. Valentin sighed deeply, through his nose. His eyes flutter shut.

“She told me it was her,” Valentin whispered. “That Zahara’s soul had come back in the form of Victoria’s child. I refused to acknowledge it for a while. While we may live among ancient magiks, something like reincarnation was beyond my realm to belief.”

He opened his eyes and turned to face me. His deep gold gaze pierced into me and warmed me from my heart outwards. My lips parted slightly, and I watched his eyes dart down to them.

“Then, I met you,” he continued. “And you are so much like your mother. Fierce and tenacious. But you are also Zahara in the deepest of your beings. She wanted to help, always wanted to help others. That goodness, I feel it deep within you.”

“You do?” I squeaked.

Valentin nodded. “Whatever part of her that I thought was gone, now sits inside you, Zora,” he reached out tentatively and grabbed my hand. He snorted, humorlessly. “It makes sense that I feel the way I do when I’m around you. You’re every bit of my first mated that I loved.”

My heart stilled in my chest. I ached with the desire to throw myself at him and ravage him on the floor of the gym. It certainly wouldn’t be my first time. Instead, I slowly pulled my hand away from his and back into my lap. He jerked his head towards me with a frown.

“What?”

“Then why won’t you be with me?” I said. I almost cringed at how terribly needy I sounded.

“I just told you why,” Valentin said, sharp enough to cut me deep but not with enough emotion that he seemed uncontrolled. “I loved Zahara. What did that get me other than losing her? I won’t bring myself to love you. I must protect you. From this world and myself.”

I stood up abruptly. I glared down at him. “That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“It’s not,” Valentin said, emotionless once again. “Look at what your mother did. She sent you to live without our people for eighteen whole years. There is nothing we won’t do to keep you safe.”

“But what about my happiness?” I threw back. “Did either of you ever consider that?”

Valentin ducked his head to his chest. His hands were squeezed into tight fists on top of one another. His eyes slammed shut again and he spoke as if he were in pain.

“How can you be happy if you are dead?”

At that point, I’d had enough. I turned on my heel and marched into the locker room. Valentin didn’t bother to come after me. He knew I would’ve run away from him anyways. When I got to my locker, I slammed my fist into it in frustration.

I dented the thing beyond repair and the huffed when I realized I couldn’t get my coat. I slammed my fist into it one more time and wrangled my long winter jacket out of it. I shrugged it on and immediately left the locker room.

I pushed out into the center quad of the campus as white flurries descended from the sky. It was my first snow at Alpha Academy. I looked up and watched as the snowflakes drifted down from the midnight blue sky and into my face. They kissed my eyelashes before melting into my burning hot skin.

I sucked in a deep breath then blew it out slowly. The campus was peacefully quiet. Nothing about it seemed like the place that had made me miserable over the past few months. In fact, the buildings seemed to hold me like a hug, surrounding me and warming me. It was like a reminder that I was home. This was my home.

No one was going to take it from me again.

I padded out across the center park of campus. When I got to the middle, amongst several bare, skinny trees, I looked up. The snow was coming more rapidly now, though not enough to make me want to leave it. Each flake felt like it was cooling the burning growing inside me. I let me eyes close once again as I smelled the deep mahogany of the trees surrounding me.

“Smith,”

I pried one eye open to see who’d call me. Immediately my stomach dropped. Kairos was standing ten feet away from me. His hands were in the pockets of his carpenter’s jacket. His facial hair was growing out, leaving him with a light five a clock shadow. His eyes didn’t hold any of the malice they usually did. He looked soft. Yet, I was still on edge.

“What?” I said plainly.

Kairos said nothing, taking a step forward before looking up into the sky at the snow. “I haven’t seen much of this,” he mused. “Moonraiser Keep is much farther south. We tend to just get rain.”

His hand came out to gently catch a snowflake. It immediately melted in his palm. He smirked. “S’kinda nice.”

I blinked at him. There was no way in fucking hell he was trying to make small talk with me. I licked the front of my lips then locked eyes with him.

“What do you want, Kairos?”

He seemed to flinch as I said his name. Then, immediately, his features were soft again. He quirked his head to the side. “Can we talk?”

“We don’t do talking,” I snapped. “We fight. And last I checked, the next one wasn’t until the new semester. So, buh-bye.”

I went to walk past him and to go back to my dorm when his arm shot out and grabbed my forearm. I immediately shook him off me and glared at him. But his eyes were still that soft brilliant yellow.

“We don’t have to,” He said, barely above a whisper. “Fight that is.”

I blinked at him again. This was a new fun tactic. I raised an eyebrow. “What are you calling it off?”

“I can,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. None of this sat right with me. All semester he’d been a total dick. Now he was giving up the fight for the name of peace? Because of some pretty snow? Yeah, hell-the-fuck-no.

“Don’t be a wuss, Moonraiser,” I threw at him. Then I turned around and started to walk towards my dorm. “I’ll see you next semester.”

I kept walking and didn’t turn around until I got to my dorm building. When I looked back across campus, I could see a single person standing where I was in the park. His head was tipped back, eyes watching as the snowflakes spiraled down to stick to the ground.