The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy



"Yeah," Luca snarls, coughing and glaring up at Jacks, his words wheezing out under the pressure of Jackson's weight pressed tight against his chest. "I marked her - but she's your fucking mate, you asshole. Yours! She fucking picked you, Jacks! So go and get your fucking girl and leave me the hell out of it!"

Jackson stills, staring at him, uncomprehending.

Luca laughs, letting his head loll to the side, giving up the fight as blood trickles out of his mouth and his nose. "She fucking picked you, Jacks," he says, going limp beneath Jackson's knee - finally, finally giving into it. "I marked her, and she still fucking picked you."noveldrama

"What are you talking about?" Jackson whispers, still baffled.

He lifts his knee, slightly, easing up. But it's not mercy that makes him do it - just sheer confusion.

“When I gave her my mark,” Luca snaps, still not looking up. "She shoved me away. Told me she didn't want it." He turns his head to glare at Jackson, hate and desperate, jealous rage in every inch of his expression. "She wants you. Though I couldn't tell you why. She's always had shit taste -"

Jackson punches him, hard, across the other cheek.

Luca groans, coughing, his head snapping to the side, his eyes pressing shut with agony.

Jackson instantly feels guilty, further letting up the pressure on Luca's chest and shifting to kneel at his side, still staring down at him.

"Will you just...go?" Luca murmurs, his cheek pressed to the grass and the dirt, his eyes closed. "You fucking won, all right? She wants you."

To Jackson's horror, Luca begins to cry, tears slipping from his eyes.

"She...she only wants you."

Jacks stares down at Grant, his enemy, the man he came here to kill. The man who marked the woman he loves. But he just looks so pathetic now... “I rejected her, so you should have smooth fucking sailing –“

"You WHAT!?" Jackson shouts, horrified. Luca gasps, still crying but turning his head back up to Jackson in surprise. When he doesn't say anything Jackson grabs Luca by the shirt, hauling him up so that their faces are inches apart. "You did what to Ariel?"

"I rejected her!" Luca shouts, agonized and angry and horrified and viciously pleased to have hurt her in return. "You can have her! I don't even want that bitch if she can't -"

Jackson roars again and shoves Luca back to the ground, rising to his feet and giving Luca a sharp kick in the ribs. And then another for good measure.

"You fucking fool," Jackson seethes, staring down at Grant, who just sobs in the dirt. "The Goddess laid the best thing in the world at your feet, and you're fucking stupid enough to reject it, calling her a bitch and lying toyourself, telling yourself you were ever good enough for her

But Luca doesn't respond. He just curls in on himself and sobs.

"You're a fucking fool." Jackson sneers at this pathetic excuse for a man and turns away, stalking back toward the woods. A moment later his walk turns into a run. And then he shifts, sprinting in his wolf form as fast as he can back towards the Castle.

Because he didn't know. He honestly didn't know.

If he'd have known, he'd never have left her.

Ariel, rejected. And him not there to hold her.

Fool, fool. He, too, was a fool.

The breath burns his lungs, but Jackson pushes himself faster, desperate to be at her side.

The helicopter lands not on the roof, where it usually does, but on the grass immediately outside the Castle's front door. There's no time to wait.

The blades continue to whirl as Cora steps out of the small body of the chopper, but she immediately scowls and throws up a little forcefield of air around her so that she can hear and doesn't get blown away.

"Ella!" she snarls, turning back to the dark interior of the helicopter. "This is crazy! I –“

"Just do it, Cora!"

"But it's just so stupid! We can just go upstairs!"

"Hello!?" A shocked voice calls as a woman comes stumbling out of the door of the castle. Cora spins, her eyes sweeping over the person and realizing that they're not a Cadet but a member of staff. "Can - can'l help you? You can't have this helicopter here it's dangerous!"

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Cora glances back at Ella, scowling, but when Ella shoots out a foot and gives her a little kick Cora steps forward, grumbling, towards the shocked staff member and snaps her hands to her hips. "I am Duchess Cora Šinclair!" she intones, far more formally than seems necessary. "And I...demand that my nephew, Cadet Andrew Clark -"