The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 760

Jackson and Rafe stand up straight, their Alpha hearing picking up Daphne’s sobbing shouts before I do. But the moment I hear her I go very still, my eyes going wide as they snap for the door. Rafe’s already moving towards it, yanking it open just as Daphne reaches it, stumbling into the room with one hand raised, Mittens clutched to her chest with the other.

“Daphne!” Rafe gasps, staring at her, shocked. Jackson and I are already moving too, and somehow I get to her first, gasping in fear, reaching for her bleeding cheek.

“Daphne, what happened?” I whisper, wrapping one arm around Daphne’s waist and pulling her against me as Jacks moves to look up and down the hall, already growling protectively, and looking out for whatever threat was chasing here. “Rafe, get the first-aid kit –“

“Where’s Jesse?” Rafe growls. And I gasp, realizing his point - that something must truly be wrong – because Jesse would never, ever leave her like this – would never let her go running through the halls unless –

“She – she took him –“ Daphne gasps out as Jackson steps back into the room and slams the door shut. Daphne’s head spins to look at us all at once. I loosen my arms and she takes a step back, her whole body trembling as she cries. “The girl – the darkness – she took him –“

“Took Jesse?” I whisper, horrified and confused.

“Where?” Rafe snarls.

But Daphne just frantically shakes her head, clutching Mittens with both hands now. “I don’t know! She appeared out of nowhere in all this shadow and smoke and then she kept saying ‘mine!’ and then she took him – and then they disappeared – and –“

Daphne’s words fail her and she just stands, staring between us all, trembling.

Jackson and Rafe burst into action as I again step forward and wrap my friend in my arms, cradling her against me, doing everything I can to assure her that it’s okay – that everything’s all right – even though it absolutely, definitively is not.

Jacks strides across the room for the first-aid kit as Rafe turns on his heel and moves for his dresser, where the cell phone he used all week to keep tabs on me is still sitting. Instantly he makes the hall to our parents, explaining everything he can in as few words as he can.

That Jesse was taken – we don’t know by whom – we don’t know where –

Then his eyes go wide and he locks them with mine as Jackson comes close, reaching for Daphne with some gauze in his hand, wanting to clean the three long cuts across her cheek.