The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 823

Pippa and Elias argue quietly for a few moments at the center of the room as I quietly work my jaw back and forth, attempting to ease the pain as I go over my options in my mind. I pick up on about half of their words – Pippa’s insistence that I absolutely cannot go to anything tonight since my confinement is started, Elias’s counter that if I don’t go, Gabriel will see it as subterfuge and find a way to punish me for it.

I only really snap back to the moment when Elias murmurs his farewells and storms from the room, pulling the door shut hard behind him.

I look up to see Pippa standing with her hands on her cheeks, looking anxiously at the door after her Alpha.

“Is he okay?” I ask, dropping my hands to my lap. “Are…are you?”

Pippa quietly turns to me, her eyes moving slowly over me. “He’s fine, he’s just…worried.” Her voice is soft, motherly, used to taking care. It doesn’t pass me that she ignores my question regarding her own welfare as she moves to my side. “Are you all right, darling?”

“I’m fine,” I say, taking her hand as she crawls onto the bed next to me. “I’m so sorry, Pippa, if I got you in trouble.”

“Oh, they were fools to make me your jailer anyway,” she says, smiling a little as she squeezes my hand looks at me with those pretty brown eyes. “I was never one to keep things caged. But Ariel – it’s important to me that you know that whatever you’ve heard about Atalaxia and the way women live here…it’s never okay for an Alpha to hit his Luna. That is…that is not all right.”

My eyes fill a bit with tears – both at the pain in my face and the fact that this is what this sweet girl is worrying about right now.