The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 729

“Yeah,” Luca snarls, coughing and glaring up at Jacks, his words wheezing out under the pressure of Jackson’s weight pressed tight against his chest. “I marked her – but she’s your fucking mate, you asshole. Yours! She fucking picked you, Jacks! So go and get your fucking girl and leave me the hell out of it!”

Jackson stills, staring at him, uncomprehending.

Luca laughs, letting his head loll to the side, giving up the fight as blood trickles out of his mouth and his nose. “She fucking picked you, Jacks,” he says, going limp beneath Jackson’s knee – finally, finally giving into it. “I marked her, and she still fucking picked you.”

“What are you talking about?” Jackson whispers, still baffled.

He lifts his knee, slightly, easing up. But it’s not mercy that makes him do it – just sheer confusion.

“When I gave her my mark,” Luca snaps, still not looking up. “She shoved me away. Told me she didn’t want it.” He turns his head to glare at Jackson, hate and desperate, jealous rage in every inch of his expression. “She wants you. Though I couldn’t tell you why. She’s always had shit taste –“

Jackson punches him, hard, across the other cheek.

Luca groans, coughing, his head snapping to the side, his eyes pressing shut with agony.

Jackson instantly feels guilty, further letting up the pressure on Luca’s chest and shifting to kneel at his side, still staring down at him.

“Will you just…go?” Luca murmurs, his cheek pressed to the grass and the dirt, his eyes closed. “You fucking won, all right? She wants you.”

To Jackson’s horror, Luca begins to cry, tears slipping from his eyes.

“She…she only wants you.”

Jacks stares down at Grant, his enemy, the man he came here to kill. The man who marked the woman he loves. But he just looks so pathetic now…

“I rejected her, so you should have smooth fucking sailing –“

“You WHAT!?” Jackson shouts, horrified. Luca gasps, still crying but turning his head back up to Jackson in surprise. When he doesn’t say anything Jackson grabs Luca by the shirt, hauling him up so that their faces are inches apart. “You did what to Ariel?”

“I rejected her!” Luca shouts, agonized and angry and horrified and viciously pleased to have hurt her in return. “You can have her! I don’t even want that bitch if she can’t –“