The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy novel Chapter 805

But suddenly Gabriel appears in the middle of my room and strides immediately for me. “You are not to go there,” he snarls. “Sleeping there!? In the Darkness!? What were you thinking!?”

I cringe away from him again even as my wolf snarls.

“Gabriel,” Elias says, his voice warning. “Reel it in.”

To my shock, Gabriel does as Elias says, stopping before he reaches the side of the bed and comes within arm’s distance of me. Still, he turns his furious face back to mine. “Did you like the pretty cage I built for you, pet?” he growls, leaning forward to stare into my eyes. “So that even if you try to escape me by going to the Land of Darkness, I’ve still got you trapped.”

I realize it all with sudden clarity that rather takes my breath away. That all of those cages in the Land of Darkness – they’re for me. Just in case I try to run away using that world – because, somehow, I’m better at it than him. Better at shifting there, better at navigating it, because he only dedicated himself to Darkness five years ago.

But me? I’ve had this gift since I was born.

I fight, hard, to keep a smile from curling on my lips. But the desire to keep my pleasure hidden is aided by the realization that…it must have taken ages for them to build all of those cages in the other world – the miles and miles of steel fence to keep me trapped.

Which means that they’ve been planning to trap me for…a long, long time.

I look up into my mate’s seething face and suddenly make a decision that I…do not want to be in his presence any longer.

And so I shift again, as easily as breathing, my eyes catching a sly smile on Elias’s face as he watches me go.

Suddenly I’m back in my bedding in that dark world, looking up at the moons that still hang in the sky, letting that smile come fully to my lips.

Because Gabriel can follow me here, but I can just shift back. And every time he chases me from one world to the other, his talisman – whatever that is – will weaken. Which means his only real choice is to eventually leave me the hell alone.

I sigh, slightly mollified by this tiny victory, and curl up in my stolen duvet, looking up at the sky, my wolf huffing with sadness as she curls up in my soul.

Because it really is just a tiny victory in a very horrible situation. Honestly, the idea that sitting alone in a cage in a wasteland world is my best refuge…

My wolf gives a little howl and I press my eyes shut, knowing that this is going to be along road. Wondering, honestly, how I’m going to survive here. Because my mating ceremony is in a week! And I can’t spend the entirety of that time curled up in this cage.