The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Chapter 98
Jackson works hard for a smile when he sees my reaction to my story, though he
kind of fails at it. “I take it,” he murmurs, “that you have parents? And you like
them?”
“Well, yeah, Jacks!” I reply, staring wide—eyed into his face. “They're kind of
great!”
Jackson laughs a little, tightening his arms around me. “Well, if you don’t know
that parents are a thing, you don’t really notice them missing, do you?”
1 tilt my head, considering this, as Jackson goes on with his story, telling me
about being a little boy growing up in a Community and sleeping in what was
essentially a bunkhouse full of little boys just like him. The youngest babies, he
knew, were raised in a nursery, and every year a new batch of boys was brought
to the bunk house when they were very young.
And from that young age, they were trained to fight.
“Just every morning,” Jackson murmurs, his face distant as he remembers, “we'd
troop out of the bunkhouse and get to work running, learning to fight, sparring
with each other.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t so bad. As we got older, the guys who
weren't as good at it they stopped. coming to practice and I'd see them out in the
fields and stuff, or training for a new job. But, I mean, I was...good at it. So. I just
kept going.”
“You could see them?” I ask, trying to picture this world. “But not...talk to them?”
“The bunk house was for men and boys in warrior training,” Jackson explains,
turning his face back to me. “If you were sorted out of that, you...moved to
another bunk house, I guess. I could see our little community- the main part of it,
with the council house, and the mess hall. And the women’s barracks, too.”
My eyebrows raise at this but I press my lips together, wanting him to tell the
story any way he wants to. He notices, though, and smiles.
“Yeah, the women lived all together too. And we could see them, from where we
lived on top of the hill.”
“But weren't you curious?” I breathe, fascinated.
“Of course we were,” he laughs, smiling at me. “Especially as we grew older and
noticed them more. In a different way. But you have to understand it was
forbidden. We were taught our roles very, very well, and we were never, ever
supposed to talk to anyone in town, especially the women.”
I shake my
head, baffled by it, and especially by the fact that these kinds of attitudes towards
gendered difference and communal living exist within my own nation. It sounds,
like anything, more Atalaxian than native to Moon Valley.
But, honestly, who the hell am I to judge? Just because Jackson grew up
differently than me...does that honestly make it worse?
“Were you happy there, Jackson?” I ask, my voice worried. Because while I
desperately want him to have been... just don’t see how a little boy could be,
growing up in a world with that much restriction.
He takes a long moment before he answers. “No,” he whispers, shaking his
shaggy head, and I raise my hands to his face, stroking his cheeks with my
thumbs and murmuring soft nothings. “But you have to understand...I didn’t know
anything else. I didn’t even know I was unhappy for...for a long time. I thought
that was just...life. I thought everyone lived like that, and that everything was
hard, and...a little sad.”
“Did you have any friends?”
“Of course I had friends,” he replies, smiling at me. “They still live there Cristof
and Zachary. I spent pretty much every day of my life with them until I left. They
were...well, they were the best part.”
“Why did you leave?” I ask, fascinated. Honestly, I could listen to Jackson talk for
days about this world and he probably has enough information to fill those days.
“Because I was assigned to,” he answers instantly, perfectly honest. “I was
sent... um...” he hesitates now, glancing away, and I can see that he’s suddenly
measuring his loyalty to the Community against his new loyalty to me, his mate.
I wait, trying to be patient, letting him decide what to tell.
“I was....sent to learn things,” he murmurs, hanging his head a little. “New
fighting techniques, new technologies. And then, when I've decided that I learned
enough, I'm
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supposed to....desert. To go back and teach the Community what I learned.”
I tense in his arms, my hands again taking fistfuls of his shirt, suddenly terrified
by the idea that he’s going to leave and go back to that...that place.
But Jackson just laughs and shakes his head. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs, leaning
forward and pressing a kiss to first one of my cheeks, and then the other. “I
already decided that I'm not going back.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised, even as the tension lessens in my shocked muscles. “Why
not?”
“Because,” he murmurs, “I learned....enough, in the few months that I lived in
Capital, to understand that what they're doing is...well, I mean, it’s a cult, right?
They control people, give them no choice in their lives. They...take their children
away.”
He sighs, shaking his head, and I press myself closer against him, wanting to fix
itall — heal it all, instantly.
“I mean, I don’t know...anything about having a family,” he murmurs, raising his
eyes to mine. “But I do know that if I had found you, somehow, when I lived
there? They...they wouldn't have let me keep you wouldn’t even have let me see
you. And there’s something wrong about that, Ari wrong about all of it. It's not
right I can’t go back. I can never go
back.”
My eyes fill with tears as I study his face, as I see that his own heart is broken
with the realization. And I'm overwhelmed, suddenly, with the strength it must
have taken to come to that decision
To decide to leave, forever, the world in which you were raised? Everyone you've
ever loved, no matter how badly they've treated you?
God, my mate, he’s...he’s so much stronger than me. So much stronger than I'll
ever be.
“You can have a home here now, Jacks,” I say, speaking fast and earnest,
pressing a desperate hand to his cheek. “We'll be really nice to you everyone
will! And you can have my mom
she'll take care of you, she loves being a mom -”
Jackson just laughs, his eyes crinkling as he turns his head to the side and
presses a kiss to my palm. “You're my home now, mate,” he murmurs, the words
simple and true.
And [ can't help it. I sit up, and wind my arms around his neck, and hold my mate
tight to me as he wraps his arms around my back, pressing me to his chest like
he'll never let me go.
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« : ) »
Damn right I'm your home,” I growl,
possessive, ready to rip into anyone
f
who'd try to say otherwise. He
laughs, I think pleased by the ferocity
of his little mate. I pull away then.
looking into his eyes, willing him to
: : he .
see it and believe it. “You stay with
” :
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« , ”
Nowhere else I'd rather be,” he
replies, the corners of his mouth
turning up as he raises a hand,
stroking it down the length of my
hair, letting his fingers get tangled in
the rose—gold lengths of it. The
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, =
And I can't help it, then. Even though
f :
we're supposed to be talking, even
7
though there's so much more I want
to know, I kiss Jackson, wanting him
to feel the promise in my words as
5 ) 5
well as hear it. Because he’s mine
’ “ °
now, and I'm not letting him go, not
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And as my mate kisses me back, I feel it happen — feel our perfect silver bond
snap into place between us.
I can feel it, in my soul, shining just as pretty and bright as my other bond, that
points.... oddly in the other direction.
Towards Luca, wherever he is, out there in the night.
While I'm wrapped up here, in Jackson's arms.