The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 55
I shrug a little, letting him see through my summer camp lic. He just laughs,
shaking his head as we draw close to our targets.
“Bullshit, if you ask me,” the tall blonde says, sighing as he gathers his arrows off
the floor and I pull mine from the target's body. “We're forced to embarrass
ourselves on the first day just because we haven't trained in an antiquated form
of weaponry? I mean honestly, who even uses archery anymore on the
battlefield?”
“I don't know,” I say, popping my arrows into my quiver as we turn around and
start back. “I see the logic in being able to handle all weapons.”
The blonde shrugs, conceding the point but clearly expressing that he’s still not
happy with it. “'m David, by the way,” he murmurs.
“And I'm Hai,” the other says, nodding to both of us.
I smile at them, but we're all lost in our thoughts about how to improve as we
make our way back to the line.
“Again,” says the Captain, nodding. We all get into our stances and raise arrows
to bowstrings, ready to fire.
The Captain has us going for hours, until my arms ache from drawing my bow. As
we fire round after round, he works with each of us, giving more basic pointers to
the other two and working with me to refine my shot. By the end, I hit the bullseye
with consistency, and I can’t keep the smile from my face.
At the end of our four-hour class, the Captain tells us to return our bows, his face
blank. We do as he says as he gives us instructions for how and when to
practice, letting us know that this gym will be available to us twenty—four hours a
day and suggesting that we make use of it. My smile deepens at the prospect — I
like marksmanship, always have. The idea of having this be my homework, when
I get sick of Chemistry?
God, does that sound like a relief.
As we finish hanging our bows the Captain tells us we're dismissed and we troop
for the
Chapter 55
[e)
door, me going last as I stack my arrows neatly in the quiver, probably being
more picky than I need to be.
As I turn towards the door, I'm surprised to hear the Captain's voice call to me
lightly.
“I've got quite literal money on you this year, Clark,” he says, leaning against the
wall and giving me a little smirk. “Don’t make me regret it. I don't like to lose.”
“Really?” I ask, turning to him with wide eyes.
“Surprised?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.
“By the fact that you've bet on me, or by the fact that the professors actively
gamble on the success of their students?” The words fall from my lips before I
have time to consider them, but to my relief the Captain just laughs, pleased.
“Not with the other professors,” he says quietly. “With some old friends who have
a stake in the Academy itself. Though I do admit,” he says, cocking his head a
little, “I was surprised when your Uncle Roger didn’t take the opportunity to bet
on his own nephew. Didn't comment at all when he saw your name on the list of
Marksman cadets.”
I do my very best to keep all emotion off my face as the Captain studies me, and
I wonder again how much he knows.
The result is that I awkwardly stand stock still in front of him, saying nothing for
far too long. The Captain just grins, shaking his head and laughing as he lifts his
chin towards the door. “Get out of here, Cadet. Good work today — keep it up.
Don’t embarrass me.”
I nod, eager, and head out.
Because even if the Captain knows my secret, or is starting to suspect? He’s
clearly not pushing me to reveal anything.
I hurry out of the classroom and down the hall. I have an empty afternoon next,
so that I can study for our Chemistry class tomorrow, and I'm on strict orders to
head directly back to the rooms with no pit stops. Rafe, predictably, flipped out
about the idea that I'd be walking through the castle by myself, but even Jesse
had taken my side and told him he was going a bit overboard with the protective
stuff.
I'm a cadet, after all. If I can’t even survive walking from the classroom to the
dorm, what chance do I have on the battlefield?
I consider that, a little, as I head for the brass elevator at the end of the hall,
climbing in and pressing the button for the dormitory floor. Because today, in
Marksmanship, I considered for the first time — perhaps naively that we really are
being trained for combat.
I don’t know why I hadn't really thought about it before — perhaps I'm just naive
but...I don’t know. Something about running obstacle courses and getting class
schedules and learning the chemical makeup of poisons had made it seem...
theoretical. Part of a game, and a class, rather than preparation for the real
world.
But today, shooting real weapons?
I don't know — something about it made me really realize that...I'm being trained
as a weapon myself. And that I'm going to be asked to kill people.
Especially if I become a sniper, as the school clearly hopes I will be. Am I
prepared for this? For the reality of looking down a scope at a human being, and
pulling the trigger?
A shiver runs through me as I consider it, and honestly I don’t know what the
answer is to that question. I gnaw on my lower lip, troubled by it, as I cross the
hall and head up the winding stairs to our top floor, still completely distracted as I
work the key in our door and push into our room.
The only thing that breaks me out of my reverie is the...silence.
I look up and around the room suddenly, and realize that actually for the first time
in weeks I am...completely alone. Like completely alone not just in absence of
my brother and my cousin, but by myself.
And a grin takes my face, even despite my troubled thoughts.
I push the door shut and lean back against it, heaving a long sigh. Ill talk to Rafe
later, I decide, about my bigger questions of what it means to be part of a military
organization at
war.
Because right now, for a few minutes? I am going to just be alone.
+5
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I immediately indulge, whipping my
hat from my head and then stripping
my shirt off, dropping it onto the floor
before working at the clasp of my
pants, stepping out of them as I walk
towards the couch in my stupid boys
underwear and the chest—flattening
sports bra Daphne made me, my
hands already unbraiding my hair so
that I can run my fingers luxuriously
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I sigh, collapsing onto the couch, my
mind flashing — just a second hands
felt in my hair, however briefly they
touched it. But then I scowl at myself,

, ’
and sigh, — to the way that Luca's
and will my mind to turn elsewhere,
desperate to think of something else.
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Because Luca — he’s being so weird. I mean, at least he didn’t blow my secret at
breakfast, but what the hell is he doing, pretending it never happened?
I mean, is it possible? That he...actually forgets? We forget dreams all the time,
but the dream state...it’s different, right? I, for one, remember everything.
But it was my dream — Alphas, they're just the guest stars. Could he really have
forgotten...
I groan, and shake my head, realizing that I'll never know.
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. Pv
But that tonight, it's my turn to corner
him and make demands of my own. I
absolutely need to know what he
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knows, and what he’s got planned if,
indeed, he has figured out the secret

) 5
that I'm a girl. The content is on
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chapter there!
And not just a girl — the nation’s Princess, and his mate.