The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy

The hallway outside Julian's suite smells like expensive cologne and lies.

I stand outside his door with a rolled-up rehearsal schedule in my hand, my knuckles raised to knock, and I tell myself I'm doing the right thing. An extra run-through of the vows. One more walk down the aisle so I stop tripping on my own dress. Tomorrow morning I marry Prince Julian Hargrove of Gangidor, and I want everything to be perfect.

My wolf stirs somewhere behind my ribs. A low, restless sound, like she doesn't like the smell of this hallway either.

'Relax,' I tell her. 'It's just nerves.'

I lower my knuckles. The door is already cracked open,a thin wedge of amber lamplight bleeding across the marble floor. Voices drift through the gap. Julian's voice, smooth and measured. And another one, deeper, colder.

King Alistair.

I should knock. I should announce myself. That's what a princess does.

Instead, I press my back against the doorframe and I listen.

",she's nervous, Father. Give her time. The bonding ceremony isn't until,"

"Time." King Alistair says the word like it's something he's already chewed and swallowed. "Julian. You have been dancing around this girl for six months and she is still exactly where she started. In her father's pocket."

"Celeste isn't,"

"Get her pregnant."

The rehearsal schedule crumples in my fist.

"The moment she carries your heir, she belongs to us," Alistair continues, his voice never rising, never wavering. "Her loyalty won't matter. Her father's little war council won't matter. You'll have a leash on the Vance bloodline that no treaty can dissolve. She knows her place. She just needs a reminder."

Silence.

Then Julian says, quietly, "She's not stupid, Father."

"I didn't say she was. Stupid women are useless. Docile women are valuable." A soft sound,ice shifting in a glass. "You're marrying her tomorrow. The rest is simple biology."

My legs don't move. My brain is screaming at them to move, to run, to get out of this hallway, but I'm standing here like something died inside me and nobody told my body yet.

'Get out.' My wolf's voice is sharp, urgent. 'Celeste. Move.'

I still don't move.

Because Julian laughs. It's a short sound, almost embarrassed, and then he says: "She's a princess. She's not exactly going to,"

"She will break." Alistair's voice drops to something that isn't anger. It's worse than anger. It's patience. "Every female does, eventually. You simply need to apply the right pressure. She has been coddled her entire life. She has never been afraid of anything. That's the gap." He pauses. "Fill it."

"You mean,"

"I mean she is an animal, Julian. A well-dressed, well-spoken animal with a crown on her head. And every animal submits to the stronger predator. That is the natural order of things." His voice is almost gentle now, the way you'd explain something obvious to a child. "Conquer her. Force her, if you have to. She'll stop fighting once she understands what she is."

A long beat of silence.

Then: "Alright."

That one word.

Alright.

That's all it takes. No argument. No hesitation. Just Julian Hargrove in his pressed tuxedo, swirling his drink, deciding that tomorrow he will break me.

I turn and I walk. Then I run.

The wedding hall is a blaze of white flowers and candlelight at the end of this corridor, and I am running away from it.

My heels hit marble. Too loud. I don't care. I'm rounding a corner, pressing myself into an alcove between two enormous portraits of dead kings, and I clap both hands over my mouth because the sound trying to climb out of my throat is not one I can let anyone hear right now.

My wolf is howling.

Not in excitement. In rage.

'He agreed,' she snarls. 'He agreed, Celeste.'

I know. I know. I know.

My eyes are burning. The tears come before I can stop them, hot and fast, and I hate them. I hate that I'm crying over a man who just told his father alright. I should be furious. I am furious. But underneath the fury is something that feels like grief, which makes no sense because I never loved Julian.

But I believed in something. I believed that this marriage would be,I don't know. Reasonable. Bearable. A transaction between two packs, sealed with rings and vows and the understanding that we were adults in a political arrangement. I was prepared for that. I had made my peace with that.

I was not prepared for this.

'Tell your father.' My wolf pushes against me, impatient, bristling. 'Tell King Magnus. He will,'

He will tear that prince apart with his bare hands. He will call his generals. And then two packs will go to war, and people will die,warriors will die, and it will all be because I stood in a hallway and heard the truth.

My father cannot know.

My mother cannot know.

I press the back of my hand against my mouth and I breathe through my nose and I think, 'There has to be another way.'

And then I start running again. But this time, I know exactly where I'm going.

Liam answers the door in sweatpants and a look that says he was five minutes from sleep.

The moment he sees my face, he is awake.

"Celeste." He grabs my arm and pulls me inside. "What happened,"

I don't wait for him to finish. It all comes out at once,every word, every sentence, Julian's casual laugh, Alistair's patient instructions. Liam's hand tightens on my arm until I can feel each finger individually. Behind him, Nolan is already sitting up from the couch, game controller forgotten on the cushion beside him, watching me with the kind of stillness that means his brain is already running calculations.

By the time I finish, Liam has let go of my arm.

He is very quietly picking up his room key from the table.

"Liam,"

"I'm going to kill him." His voice is so level it's terrifying. "I'm going to go down that hallway and I'm going to,"

"Liam." Nolan is on his feet, one hand on my brother's chest. "Think."

"I am thinking."

"You're thinking with your wolf." Nolan doesn't budge. "If you walk down that hallway, two packs go to war. That's not protecting Celeste. That's making it worse."

The muscle in Liam's jaw jumps. He looks at me.

I look back at him, still shaking.

He sets the key down.

"She needs to disappear," Nolan says, moving past Liam to pace the length of the room, and there's something electric in his voice now,the tone he gets when he's figured something out and can't quite contain it. "Not for a few days. Long enough that the marriage is off, the optics are impossible, and Alistair can't spin it without looking worse than he already does."

"Nolan,"

"We leave tomorrow morning." He turns to face us. "Both of us. You and me, Liam. Alpha Academy."

Liam stares at him. "We've been planning that for months."

"Right." Nolan's smile is slow and slightly unhinged. "And now we're taking your little brother with us."

The room goes quiet.

I look at Nolan. "I don't have a little brother."

"You do now." He tilts his head at me. "How do you feel about short hair?"

My wolf makes a sound I've never heard from her before. It isn't a howl or a growl or a warning.

It's a laugh.

And somewhere under the terror and the shaking and the ruins of everything I thought my future was, I feel it too,something small and reckless and alive, sparking up in the dark.

"Tell me everything," I say.