The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 409

“I love it,” I reply, breathy. But then I frown, looking up at him. “You never answered my question, though. Why did you bring me to this?”

He smiles down. “Because I intuited you’d love it, little pyromaniac princess.”

I burst into laugher, sitting up straight.

“What,” he says, grinning at me, “you always tend the fires at school, and insist on building one, even when it’s stifling hot in that room –“

“I so do not!”

“You do,” he insists, raising a critical eyebrow at me, and I scowl before leaning back against him and tacitly admitting it. But…well, a fire is nice! And I like it when the bricks on the fireplace stay hot all night and warm my little nook.

“But beyond feeding your rather worrying preoccupation with flame,” Luca says, a little dry, making me laugh, “I brought you here because…I’ve been trying, for twenty-four hours, at least, to…go back to my roots. To remember things that make me feel…real. And not like a fraud.”

I ignore the parts about him being a fraud because I know he doesn’t want to have that fight right now – me insisting that he’s not, and him having to dig further into his current state of self-loathing to insist that he is. So, I focus on the other thing that he said.

“So, this,” I say, raising my chin at the bonfire, at the small community gathered around it – simply enjoying being together, and having a few drinks, and laughing and singing in the firelight. “This makes you feel real?”

“It does,” he says on a tiny sigh. “We used to come here every year – to this fire. Mom…we lived alone, in a little apartment, before we went to live with Gran. After…after dad left. And we didn’t have a lot – mom says we survived on crumbs and pride, and we laugh about it now but…the reality wasn’t too funny.”