My mate at summer camp

ASHLEY’S POV “Summer Royal Academy” The sign read. I walked down the path of the sign until I was staring at a big black gate. It had hefty pillars built on the sides and even though it read ‘academy’ at the gate, it could pass for a prison. “Miss, are you lost?” A very hefty man walked up to me from the gate and questioned. I gulped in a wholesome amount of saliva, terrified by the mere size of the man, before attempting to respond to his question. “I am the princess of…”“You can't be here miss,” The man seemed very uninterested in my introduction. I was at first astonished by how disinterested he was in my introduction. I took another look at myself and I could see how he was confused. My dress and hair was covered in twigs from sleeping under a tree. I couldn't help but chortle. “Sir, I can see where the confusion is coming from. I know it doesn't look like it, but I am a royal,” I tried to explain, but the man seemed even more disinterested, he shoved me away with his hands.

ASHLEY'S POV“Ashle…Asher. My name is Prince Asher Smichtt of Crystal pack,” I held my breath, hoping that he wasn't going to read any meaning to my slip up. I fought the urge to look away from him, so I didn’t come off any more suspicious than I already did. “Alright Asher,” he said, throwing his shirt on the bed and heading for the bathroom. “As long as you stay out of my way, we should be fine.” He closed the bathroom door. I anticipated that this was going to be hard, but then it just got even harder than I would have anticipated. I took a deep breath and fell freely on the bed. “What in the world…” I immediately jumped out of bed, after the sweaty smell of his shirt hit me. I was extremely frustrated, tears welled in my eyes. I had never had to live in these conditions my whole life. I never shared a room and my room was always kept, I couldn't not imagine why anyone would carelessly put their things everywhere. A hundred deep breaths did not calm me down. I got out of bed an

ASHLEY'S POV “Thank you,” I said hurriedly, realizing how awkward everything now was, “I meant to say thank you. Where I come from, marriage is the height of appreciation and it just slipped.” I babbled an explanation. I saw the weird look in Vance's eyes, even he wasn't convinced, so I went ahead of him and dashed out of the bathroom, before he had the time to come up with a reply. “Oh, I'm going to fail hard,” I whispered to myself. At this point, I didn't need a soothsayer to tell me that my journey was driving down the path of very bad. “What's going on here?” I asked, as I approached a large gathering of the princes. It was very difficult to see above their shoulders, as they were all way taller than I. Luckily, I took advantage of my body size and squeezed between them to the front of the crowd. “There he is,” one of the princes announced. It wasn't until after his announcement that the crowd had circled around me. “What is going on here?” I tried to sound bold, clenching m

ASHLEY'S POV “Ready?” Vance walked back into the room after a few minutes. My heart had been racing fast. Our lips were almost touching and I had no idea how I was going to explain that to him, considering he knew me as Asher. At first, I was relieved the guard interrupted, but now I was just worried. “We have to train. We don't want to lose the whole day,” ‘Was he just going to act like nothing happened? Was it wise for me to bring it up? If I did bring it up, what was I going to do? Tell him the truth?’ My thoughts were unending, but I decided to play along, until I was sure of my course of action. I picked up a jacket and walked out of the room, with Vance following behind me. “The first thing to remember here is; it's all for the board.” He said, “the ranking is the most important thing and you're not at a very good place, but the most of our journey is ahead of us, we can fix it.” I checked his speech for inconsistencies or signs of worry, but there was none at all. It was lik

ASHLEY'S POV I stormed out of the room with so much tears in my eyes that I was trying to hide from him. Of course, I shook hands on friendship with Xavier. If I spent any more time with Vance, there was no way I wouldn't reveal who I was and there was no telling how that was going to go down. Xavier had really been nice and not as terrible as I first knew, but I wasn't spending all my time with him because I couldn't get enough of him. I was spending all my time with him because it was better than spending all my time with Vance. Around Xavier, I had my guard and acted up, but with Vance, I got too comfortable and forgot I'm a totally different person. I knew Vance was hurt, but I had to think about myself first. “Let’s go,” Xavier held my hand and pulled me away from the hall, where I was meeting him. “Where are we going?” I probed, with very little resistance. “You need to see something cool,” Xavier was very unrelenting. If I hadn't learnt anything in the past week, at least