The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

Jesse stares at his little mate for a moment and then huffs out a laugh, shaking his head and taking her hand. "All right, Mids. Do your work."

Everyone else again shuffles around and holds hands or otherwise makes contact with their neighbor so they can all travel together, quietly waiting, expectant.

Jesse watches closely as Midnight exhales a long breath, looking around at the Land of Darkness as if she's saying goodbye to it. Jesse squeezes her hand and she looks up at him.

"You promise?" she whispers, a great deal of trepidation in her voice.

He gives her a soft smile in return, leaning close to press a kiss to her hair, knowing that she's asking if he means it - everything he promised her. That his family will be kind, that Ariel won't take her magic away unless Midnight asks, that she will have a wonderful life.

“I promise, Mids,” he says, nearly a whisper. "Every word."

Midnight exhales slowly and the entire crowd of twenty-four instantly disappears, nothing but their footprints left behind.

The Land of Darkness returns to its eternal state. Quiet, and dark, and peaceful beneath the sky lit by three moons.

I rest my cheek against the expanse of Jackson's back, feeling mildly miserable physically, even if my wolf sings for joy in my soul. The ATV rumbles as Jackson drives it through the darkness of the Atalaxian night. My body moves and shifts along with it, jolting this way and that as we go, Jackson's backpack shifting distractingly on my back as well. But even if I am not in the most comfortable sleeping position, I doze.

I slip in and out of sleep, my body exhausted from whipping from the extreme of a new mark to the rejection of a mate. All the while my left arm throbs, pain radiating from my wrist. Not for the first time in the past week I wish for my mother. God, having a magical healer in the family sure didn't inculcate a very strong sense of pain tolerance in me, did it?

I lift my head slightly when the ATV begins to slow, blinking back to the present.

Jackson has been all business from the moment he started striding out of those cages in the Land of Darkness, me in his arms. There wasn't a great deal of small talk or conversation as he carried me across that wasteland and far enough outside the cages that when he shifted us back to our world we couldn't be seen from the Castle. Instead, Jackson concentrated singularly on finding his little campsite again, getting that packed up in under two minutes and then driving us hastily away.

"How are you?" he murmurs, bringing the ATV to a stop and then turning to me from his spot ahead of me, his long legs straddled on either side of the machine.

I give him a tentative smile. "I'm stiff and tired. But otherwise I'm great!"noveldrama

"Great," he grumbles, shaking his head a little and huffing a doubtful laugh. "Ariel, you're always gorgeous, but for heaven's sake you look like you're going to fall off this thing."

"I do not," I murmur, frowning at him and sitting up a little. I immediately betray my over-confident assertion by tilting slightly to the side and losing my balance - just a bit.

Jacks laughs and flashes out a hand, catching me by the arm and setting me up right.

"Why'd we stop?" I ask as Jackson

cups my cheek in his palm and passes me a little energy. "You stop

that," I snarl, smacking his hand

away You're running low, Jackson

-

even if you pretend you're not.

You'll be a skeleton by the time we

get home."

"I've been lower than this," he murmurs, giving me a smug little smirk and

swinging his leg over the seat before standing straight. "And we're camping here for the night."

"What!?" I squeak, looking around at

the seemingly random field, all tall green grass situated next to a pretty little stream. "Why!? Can't we go home Can't we just...call my mom and make her send a

helicopter!?"

Jackson laughs and shakes his head, taking a cell phone from its place in a little saddle bag on the side of the ATV. "Lost charge days ago."

"And you didn't bring a charger!?"

"Where would I plug it in?" Jacks asks, leaning down a bit to grin at me.

I scowl up at him, sighing a little with

disappointment because....well, I really did want to get home to see all my family. And to just rest. "What's the point of a being a Princess if you can't call a helicopter up at will?" I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest with a pout.

"Poor baby," Jackson coos, a bit dry.

I laugh, looking up at my gorgeous mate, framed as he is against the star-lit sky above...

And I consider that...well. There are worse things than camping alone with your mate in the middle of nowhere, aren't there?