Their Hidden Princess (Zora) novel Chapter 229

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Chapter 229

“Can I stay here tonight?” Zora said, softly. She half smiled at him. “Valentin just sent word. We’re leaving early tomorrow. I don’t want to wake Loren in trying to leave.”

“Yeah,” Max stepped back to let her in. “‘Course.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

She walked past him and he let the door close gingerly behind her. She dropped her bags on the floor next to his unpacked one and threw her blanket on his bed. Then, she turned around with a smirk on her lips and a raised eyebrow.

She toed his empty bag. “Lots of packing done, huh?”

“Yeah,” Maximus half laughed. He rubbed the back of his head. “I was thinking. Didn’t get much done.”

Zora’s smirk fell. “About…today?”

“Yeah,” Max nodded. “And the days before today. About you, really. And us.”

“I told you I had secrets,” Zora whispered.

“Hell of a secret, yeah?” Maximus snorted. He lifted his gaze from the floor and met Zora’s eyes. Her hazel irises held the hurt of his words. He immediately deflated. That was not his intention.

He crossed his room and sat down on his bed. He gently patted the space next to him. Zora slowly followed and sat down next to him. She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders before curling into his side. He lifted his arm to rest on her back. He rubbed slow circles against the quilt as Zora breathed into his side.

“Are you mad?” she finally whispered.

“I don’t know how to describe what I feel,” he said back, equally as gentle. “I wish you’d told me. But I know why you didn’t. Yet, I’m still mad that you wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Zora sighed. “Once the vampires started showing up, Valentin and my mother made me keep it a secret. They figured someone would be on to us. Before then, my mother was dying for me to tell everyone.”

Maximus snorted. “I’m sure she wanted to show you off,”

“I was wolfless,” Zora sat up to look him in the eyes. “And knew nothing and had no idea what I was doing. I don’t know what about me there was to ‘show off.“”

The mention of wolfless made Wilhelm’s words lurch to the forefront of Maximus’s mind. He frowned. Zora sat

up taller.

“Hey,” she reached up to cut his face in her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I just—” Maximus huffed. “I wonder if, once all’s said and done, you’ll forget me. When you’re all powerful with a High Alpha King Consort and another one, you’ll forget who was there for you first. It’s petty and stupid but I can’t help but feel like everything we built will get thrown away.‘

“Max,” Zora said, slowly. “You were the first person to stand up for me. The first person to see something worth

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Chapter 229

(*) +25 Bonus

it in me. You were the first thing that made me feel like I belong here.”

She sighed deeply before shaking her head. “I can’t pull the foundation out from under me and expect the house to still be standing, can 1?”

“But Valentin and Kairos”

“Are good supports,” Zora cut him off. She stroked her thumb over his cheek bone with another shake of her head. “But aren’t you.”

Maximus stared at her for a moment. She was stunning, all hazel eyes and red hair that was curled up into ringlets, slightly damp from her shower. The freckles splattering across her nose were like constellations in the night sky. She scanned his face, looking for something.

“You’re not something I’d survive without,” she said quietly. “So, you don’t get thrown away.”

That was all Maximus needed. He wrapped his arms around Zora’s middle and yanked her close to him. He buried his face in the red mass of curls around her face and breathed in. She smelled like honey and bergamot and home.

She smelled like his.

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