Page 36 of Her Fated Alpha Prince
She turned sharply—and froze.
Seryna stood at the edge of the path, dressed in silver-gray robes that caught the light like fish scales. Her expression was mild. Too mild.
“You’re up early,” Seryna said. “And talking to plants.”
Ariana straightened. “They started it.”
Seryna’s lips twitched. “Of course, they did.”
Seryna stepped closer, her movements smooth as silk and just as unreadable. She studied Ariana the way one might study a puzzle with a missing piece—curious, not unkind, but not entirely safe, either.
“You look pale,” she said softly. “Dreams again?”
Ariana hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. But… not nightmares. More like—” She faltered. How did you describe the feeling of being cracked open and filled with someone else’s fire?
“Prophecy?” Seryna offered, tone neutral.
Ariana’s stomach twisted. “Is that what this is?”
Seryna didn’t answer right away. She walked a slow circle around Ariana, trailing her fingers through the low-hanging branches of a silverleaf tree. “Prophecy isn’t always a matter of reading the future. Sometimes, it’s about remembering the past. What you are. Where you come from.”
“Iknowwhere I come from,” Ariana said, sharper than she meant to.
Seryna paused. “Do you?” she asked, her voice almost kind.
The question settled in Ariana’s chest like a weight. Did she? New York felt further away than it ever had. Her apartment. Her job. Her over-priced gym and boxed salads. It all seemed like another girl’s life. She didn’t miss it at all/
“You’re changing,” Seryna said. “The question is—into what?”
Ariana didn’t respond. Because she didn’t know. Because saying it out loud might make it real. Instead, she looked at the garden, at the strange flowers bowing toward her like she was their queen or their prey.
“Why me?” she asked. “Why not someone who actually knows what the hell they’re doing?”
Seryna gave her a long look. “Because the land chose you. The Well chose you. And something about Kael’s blood did too.”
Ariana blinked. “Kael?”
“You drank from the moonwell after he did. His essence would still have been in the water. The bond formed then, whether you realized it or not.”
Ariana felt her breath catch. “Bond?”
“Oh, yes,” Seryna said, walking past her. “Why do you think he’s been so restless? He feels it too. Maybe more than you do.”
Heat flared up Ariana’s neck, but she ignored it. “This… this wasn’t part of the deal. I didn’t ask for any of it.”
Seryna looked back over her shoulder. “No. But you survived the moonwell. You didn’t just survive—you thrived. That means something. To the council. To the old magic. And to him.”
“Him,” Ariana muttered, half a curse.
Seryna’s smile was unreadable. “Kael doesn’t like surprises. You, unfortunately for him, are a very big one.”
Before Ariana could respond, a bell rang faintly through the trees—high, melodic, urgent.
Seryna stilled. “That’s the outer ward bell. Something’s wrong.”
The bell’s echo rippled through the garden, stirring the leaves into restless whispers. Ariana’s heart quickened—not from fear, but from a raw, electric anticipation she couldn’t shake.
Seryna’s gaze sharpened. “The outer ward bell doesn’t ring for nothing. Trouble has found its way here.”
