Their Hidden Princess Novel

---- Chapter 35 My eyeball twitched in it's socket. What the fuck? "Um, is this a joke?" | managed to get out. Maximus immediately. frowned at me. "Why would I joke about this?" Okay. Noted. Mateball is not a joke. | shrugged, trying to be as casual as possible about it. "| thought you hated me," | said." This being another way to mess with me wouldn't surprise me." Maximus grabbed my forearm and held my wrist in front of my face. It was limp in the air cast. He ground his teeth together. "| think you've been messed with enough," he sneered then dropped my arm.

| let it fall limply to my side. | blinked at him again. Unfortunately, | think he's serious, My inner voice said. He can't be, | shot back. | mean he's had it out for me since | got here. Now, all of a sudden, he want to take me as a date to prom? Fuck that. My inner voice shrunk back in my mind and I figured | won that ---- argument. | turned my attention back to Maximus, who's brows were furrowed. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something but | cut him off "No," | said, short and sweet. "No?" Maximus raised an eyebrow. "No," | repeated.

| crossed my arms over my chest and raised my own eyebrow. "You've been nothing but an utter dick since I've arrived on campus. You cannot think that asking me to some stupid dance is going to make me fall at your feet." "It's not a dance," Maximus gritted from between his teeth. "It's Mateball. It's highly important-" "Important to you," | cut him off. "What's most important to me is surviving." | turned on my heel and left Maximus in the alley. With one more glance over my shoulder, | added to the knife I'd left in his chest.

"Something | don't think I'll be able to do if | go with you to Mateball," | whispered. "Everyone already has it out for me. Going with you would add another target for people to attack me at." | left the alley and stormed off to Basics. When | arrived, Coach had a special spot for me to watch the sparring. He sat me in front of the mat where Loren was energetically trying to fight a ---- third year and failing. She gave me a concerned look when | finally walked in, her eyes darting from me to where Maximus was trailing behind me. "Later," | mouthed to her. She nodded in reply.

| sat and tried to learn as much as | could from the people around me. It wasn't until halfway through class that | looked across the gym and spotted Kairos. He looked like shit. Both of his eyes had deep bruises around them. He had a gash on his jaw, no doubt from me, that looked like it had to be stitched back together. His movements were sloppy and lazy. His opponent almost got the upper hand until Kairos slammed him into the mat. He stood up wincing and looked at me across the gym. His deep gold eyes glared at me from beyond his bruised eye sockets. | held his gaze until he looked away.

Part of me was proud of myself, | clearly managed to do some sort of damage to the fearless warrior that was Kairos Moonraiser. Despite that | was wolfless, | was not completely lost. Class ended and Loren immediately dragged me to the cafeteria. We grabbed lunch and then walked out to eat it on the campus lawn. We sat down and started unwrapping the lunches we'd gotten to go. "So what did Maximus do for you?" Loren asked, as casually as ---- she possibly could. | could sense from her twitching she was dying to know. "Well, apparently my wolf hearing kicked in," | sighed.

"It was like everyone in the world was in my ears. So he helped me with that."