Page 30 of Her Fated Alpha Prince
He tilted his head. “Do you?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
“You were dreaming of fire,” he said. “Of vines. The jungle speaks to you. That means something.”
Ariana looked at her hands. “It feels like something is trying to get out.”
“No,” Varos said. “It’s trying to get back in.”
Ariana stared at him, a dozen questions jostling for space in her mind, none of them making it to her lips. Elder Varos looked so calm, like this revelation was nothing more than a weather report. But her hands were trembling.
“You said this is a memory,” she said finally. “Whose?”
He gestured to the pool. “Yours. This place belonged to your mother’s line. They used it to see, to listen, to remember.”
“My mother was human.”
His lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Your mother lived in the human world. That doesn’t make her one of them.”
The words hit like a blow. She tried to deny it, but the dream, the flowers, the way the forest reacted to her—it all pushed back.
“I’m not ready for this,” she whispered.
“No one ever is.” Varos crouched near the water, dipping his fingers into the pool. The surface rippled, and for a second, Ariana thought she saw a face—hers, but not hers. Older. Wilder. “But you’re not alone.”
She folded her arms tightly, bracing against the chill settling in her spine. “What happens now?”
“You learn. You listen. And above all—you survive. Because the ones watching you aren’t interested in teaching. They’re interested in controlling.”
Ariana’s mouth went dry. “Seryna?”
“She suspects what you are. But she doesn’t know everything. Yet.”
Ariana dropped to a crouch beside him. “Then help me. Teach me how to hide it.”
Varos looked at her, expression unreadable. “I will. But not here. Not yet. This place is no longer safe.”
Her fingers brushed the edge of the pool, and the water leapt—not a splash, not a wave. It arced upward like it recognized her. Varos didn’t flinch, but his eyes narrowed.
“I don’t think you understand just how loud your magic is becoming,” he murmured. “Even the forest can hear it.”
Ariana stood. “So, what do I do? Suppress it? Pretend it’s not happening?”
“You master it. Before someone else does.”
A bird cried sharply overhead, and Ariana flinched. When she looked up, the branches were shifting—leaves curling, closing, like the trees were trying to shield the clearing. It wasn’t comforting.
It was a warning.
“We need to go,” Varos said. “Now.”
Ariana followed him back through the winding path, her breath shallow, her heart thudding hard against her ribs. The shimmer on the vines was gone. The silence of the jungle had changed—less reverent now, more watchful. Like it, too, knew what she’d seen. What she’d remembered.
They emerged into the open garden behind the estate, and the moment her feet hit stone, the sounds of the world returned. Birds. Wind. Distant voices. But none of it could touch the strange clarity coiling inside her.
Kael was right. She was dangerous.
But maybe not in the way he thought.
