The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy
Chapter 0241

My lip starts to tremble as I listen, tears again stinging my eyes, but Jesse leans forward.

"Rafe," he murmurs, glancing between us. "Slow down a little, man. I mean, if we're aware of what they're feeling, then she's aware of it double - she can feel it all down their bonds. And that, on top of her own feelings?" He shakes his head, holding Rafe's gaze, willing him to listen.

Rafe takes a deep breath and sighs, pushing his cake around on his plate, clearly thinking it through. In the end, though, he looks up at me. "Can you seriously feel everything they feel?"

"Not everything," I murmur, my voice tight as I look down at my plate. "Not unless the emotion is really intense, or they send it to me deliberately. And not... across great distances. Only when they're nearby, or in the room. Like I can't feel them now."

"Weird," he murmurs, quietly eating his cake as he puts his thoughts together for a second. Jesse does the same.

After a long moment, Rafe breaks the silence.

"I just wish, Ariel," he murmurs, truly hurt, "that you'd trusted me enough to let me know. I'd have told you, after all."

My nose starts to sting at the true sadness and hurt in his voice, and then my throat gets tight. I blink fast, not wanting to cry, because I know that they have every right to be mad at me, but...

Well, the tears start to fall down my cheeks anyway.

"Aw, come on Ari, don't do that," Jesse murmurs, leaning forward and putting a warm hand on my knee. "We can't yell at you if you're crying, and we're not anywhere near finished."

"I know," I murmur, brushing frustratedly at my cheeks with the side of one hand. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry -"

"No, I'm sorry," my brother murmurs, setting his plate on the coffee table and getting to his knees as he reaches for me, wrapping his arms around my body and pulling me into his lap. "I'm sorry, sis. I'm fucking livid with you but - god, fuck, I'm sorry you bore this alone. I'm sorry - I wish you'd have let me be there for you."

I cry harder, letting myself be overwhelmed by my grief and confusion, knowing he'll see me through it. Knowing he's strong enough for that.

"Oh, let her go, Rafe," Jesse murmurs, scootching closer and reaching out to put his his own plate on the coffee table, laying himself down on the couch so that all of our heads are very close together, so that we can talk and hear each other in barely more than a whisper, if we so choose. "We can't get all the gossip if she's crying like that."

"The gossip?" I ask, wiping my away all my tears, kind of appalled.

"Oh, all the gossip," Jesse murmurs, yawning and turning his head to grin at me. "Jackson's fine, by the way, thanks to yours truly. Going to show up here to breakfast tomorrow, newly determined to try for your hand. In exchange for your genuine gratitude, my love...I will accept the whole damn story. Right now."

"Same," Rafe says, giving me a solemn nod. "Luca's pissed as hell, and while...well, while he's not precisely prepared to grovel for you...he'll be here in the morning. So, madam trouble? The floor is yours." And so, with a sigh, I unfold myself from Rafe's arms and sit on the floor next to him, beginning to tell them the whole story.

"Well," Rafe says, about an hour later, his eyebrows raised. "Actually, in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't know any of this. I would much rather have broken up one wolf fight after finals than have had to worry about this the whole term."

"Such empathy in my big brother," I say, lowering my eyelids into a half-hearted glare and reaching out my fingertips to give him a shove.

Rafe grins at me, chuckling a little, as Jesse lays on the couch next to us, staring at the ceiling, his head cushioned on a pillow.

"Honestly, Ari," my cousin says, his voice more thoughtful than it usually is, "laid out like that I'm not sure you could have done it very differently. The only place you really seem to have fucked up was when you didn't plan this evening - you just let both of them show up here, expecting dinner. It was a powder keg, ready to explode, but the rest of it?" My eyes are wide as I watch him shrug, desperate to know what he'll say next.

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