The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 786

“Princess,” Elias says with a sad little sigh. “I’m sure there are a great many questions that you –“

But a clatter interrupts Elias’s words and he jumps a little as the little carafe of cream goes soaring to the ground.

“Oh, Ellie,” Pippa says, giving him a half-hearted little glare along with a laugh. “You’re impossible.” She drops a kiss to his cheek even as she goes to her knees with a napkin, quickly wiping up the spilled cream.

“Pip, please let me,” Elias murmurs, starting out of his chair.

But she just waves a hand at him, murmuring that he should entertain their guest, and continues her work.

“She’s right,” Elias says with a sigh, returning his eyes to me, his face serious. “I really am impossible. I’d be a complete disaster without Pippa to keep me in order.”

I nod cheerfully even as I watch his face, kind of…baffled. Because these two – it actually is impossible, right? If he’s mated to Ben then he’s…he’s gay, or at least queer or bisexual, yes? Which I know, here, is illegal at best and more accurately a death sentence. But his relationship with Pippa…it just seems so…real.

“Pips, love, would you mind?” Elias says, turning to her as she stands up with the empty carafe and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Poor Ariel didn’t even get a drop of cream before I destroyed everything. Would you go and get some more?”

Pippa starts to say a quick yes but then hesitates, looking at me. I intuit her thoughts – that she doesn’t want to leave me alone with a man who is a stranger, either because of tradition or law or even merely because it would make me uncomfortable.

“It’s okay, Pippa,” I say, nodding to her and giving her a happy smile as I nod to her Alpha. “You’ve got one of the nice ones, haven’t you? I don’t mind at all.”

Her face bursts into a wide and happy grin. “Well, I suppose it’s okay,” she says, folding the tiny carafe into her hands. “You’ll be family within the week, after all. I won’t be five minutes on this!”

She waves happily over her shoulder as she scurries for the door. Elias waves goodbye to her, even for a short trip, and then turns to me with a sigh.

“Pippa,” he says, shaking his head, meeting my eyes as Pippa closes the door behind her. I watch carefully, observing that there is a great deal of sadness in his expression that wasn’t there before. “She really is the best of us.”