SWORN TO THE ALPHA KING

[35.1] SURPRISE ME

•~•

[SILVER RAYNE WILLIAMS ]

I've been frozen in time for hours now, the sun lowering in the sky whilst I was seated, back against the oak tree in a state of utter confusion.

I dared to look at the Royal tent just once after the Prince had left. He was back to his routine as if nothing had occurred. Detachment seemed to be his specialty.

There was no proof that he had been here hours ago and that he had just confirmed that he somehow believed I was his Sworned mate, and somehow didn't care.

I opened my palm, starting at the blood from the cut on my index finger that had dried against the light cloth wrapped tightly around it. My fingers were shaking.

He knew everything.

Somehow he was able to figure out about Dad's V, about the vile I took on the night of my twelfth birthday, a vile Vella was supposed to take when she came home. He figured it out so easily as if it was never my closest guarded secret to begin with.

The thought alone made me feel insignificant.

This on its own had me develop a newfound fear of the prince. He was not someone to be underestimated. He had done his experiments and came up with his hypothesis that turned out to be factual.

I blinked forward staring at the luscious fields before me. He didn't even care that my taking the vial was dangerous. That someone out there could disguise all Sworn and hide them from their Fang mates. From the High Born.

He didn't care that If I truly was his sworn, someone had taken that from him.

I'm not supposed to feel. That's what he said. Why? Why isn't he supposed to feel? Because he's king?

I was confused at how lightly he took this. I was certain had the king found out about this he would have certainly been quick to have my head- but heavens!

My head dropped into my lap, my breaths shaky and I quickly started counting down from ten to ease my panic attack.

I couldn't- I couldn't be Sworn to the prince!

The Vial was always just supposed to be a surety, that just in the small sliver of opportunity that I could be sworn, there would be nothing to detect that.

It was a shot in the dark, a one-in-a-gazillion chance.

Even Dad has said he wasn't a hundred percent sure it worked, as he had no active sworn to test it on.

There were less than 25 sworn in an entire nation of over 200 million people.  I was not supposed to make it to that discrete number. Worse yet, to be the one sworn fated to the Prince himself.

No- something had to be wrong.

The more powerful the sworn, the more powerful the prince, right? Vella was sworn to Hunter, a Veridian, hence why she was hunted so quickly by the damned.  On the very day, she turned Twelve.

I went a full twenty-four hours before I took the vial. No Damned showed up for me

Thank heaven for that too.

No- something was wrong.

"Something has to be," I whispered to myself.

Perhaps I was getting too far ahead of myself. Okay, so if his assumptions are true then It didn't matter what I was or what I could have been.

So what if I was supposed to be a Sworn? The prince was right. The Vile took care of that as it should.

He was not attracted to my scent- he did not consider me as a mate-