Their Hidden Princess Novel

---- Chapter 66 | was shocked at the strength of his grasp and pull. | gasped and put my hands out to steady myself. Unfortunately for Maximus and I, my hands landed on his chest. His hand came down to steady me at my hip. The two of us were embraced in some sort of coupley way. | looked up at Maximus's eyes. He was peering down at me as well and our gazes locked. | couldn't help but stare deeply into his irises. Honey gold and flecked with little bits of brown. My hand was on his pec which was, of course, impressive. His hand flexed on my hip. Then, the beating started again.

Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub... The sound made me fly backwards with a second gasp. My hand went to my chest to try and steady the slamming in my chest. Maximus looked like he'd frozen. He shook his head slightly then cleared his throat. "Classes are going to start in a few hours," he croaked. He cleared his throat again. "We better get back to the dorms." | nodded slightly and started my way out of the forest. Maximus followed behind at a distance. We walked silently most of the way to the dorm building.

Then, | finally remembered how I'd woken up ---- "Oh," | stopped at the door to our building. Maximus stopped as well and looked at me. "How did you know | was out there? In the forest?" "| didn't," Max said. It sounded slightly forced. "Well, not explicitly. Something made me wake up this morning. | couldn't fall back asleep so | went out on a walk. | wound up walking directly towards the forest and that's when | found you." | stared at him for a second. My heart was fluttering a bit at the thought. The weird mate bond stuff we'd been feeling, had it brought him to me?

Had my wolf, despite the fact she was on my shit list, sent him to me? | keep thinking through that as | opened the door to our dorm building. Maximus said nothing else and kept following me up the stairs. When we reached my door, he kept walking to his room. "See you in Basics?" he asked. | nodded. Max nodded back. His jaw twitched slightly before he kept talking. "They're going to start partnering us up today," he said. "For sparring training. I'll ask Coach to put us together if you'd like." "| would," | said back. | smiled gently at him and was returned the same.

Max gave me one final friendly nod before going into his own room. ---- | pushed the door to mine open. Loren was still fast asleep in her bed, one arm hanging out in the space between our beds. | chuckled under my breath then slowly snuck up on her. | poked her hand, and she jolted in her bed. "Rise and shine," | said as she slowly woke up. "Basics is in two hours and I'm craving a banana." Loren groaned and stretched in her bed. "What time'd you get back?" | froze. "Late," | stuck with. She didn't need to worry about me coming home that morning after sleeping in the cold. Loren hummed.

"What'd Valentin want?" "Nothing," | said quickly. "Just the usual." "Okay, cool," Loren grumbled. "Ugh, a banana does sound good." I chuckled along with her but meanwhile my head was reeling. | felt terrible keeping another secret from Loren. But really, | didn't want to worry her with my nonsense. A wolf freak out was definitely nonsense. Loren hopped out of bed and patted me on the back. "Come on, love," she said. "Let's get us some bananas."