The Alpha's Daydream ✔️

Chapter 42

I catch some of her words, and strain to hear more.

"I know what you wanted, but this was unforeseen, you have to agree. She wasn't meant— I know, I'm trying."

My throat goes dry from not breathing and holding my body so still as I stand just outside the double doors that are ajar.

"I'm dealing with it, just give me more time.... You're right, it is the next sign. I couldn't forget."

Peering around the corner, I watch as Luna Seneca paces back and forth on the dark grey carpet of her parlor, a settee against one wall and a desk running perpendicular. The decorative touches are vintage, or perhaps just ancient, and monochrome. The path she treads on the floor is well-worn, her movements graceful and practiced.

She rubs her forehead while staring down, her brows knitted together and her voice coming out harsh as her steps become agitated. Whoever she is conversing with is beyond my line of sight.

"It will be as you ask, my Prince. I will not fail you."
She stops and lifts her head, her eyes falling closed as she raises her hands and inhales deeply.

As she exhales, her eyes open and meet mine.

My heart stutters to a stop.

Glowing with red crimson flecks, her eyes are obsidian black. And they're staring right into me, digging my soul around in my chest without words, without motion. I don't even recognise my own body as it moves forward, my hand pushing the door open as my feet carry me in.

Seneca continues to stare at me, her head tilting to one side, black hair tumbling in waves over one shoulder. Her black dress falls gracefully to the floor, a silken cape draping her pale shoulders with elegance and class.

"Dear Ariella, are you always so inquisitive?" her lips curve up in a smug expression. She knows I've been listening, watching her.

I can't speak. I wouldn't be able to even if I had something to say. The very breath is stolen from my lungs as I have stepped in the room and stand in Seneca's consuming presence. She consumes my thoughts, jumbling them into a pool of logic so twisted I can't even straighten my fists that have curled in on themselves. I tell myself it is a defensive posture, my cowered shoulders and locked knees.

But I know it is out of fear.

Chills run down my spine, but the temperature isn't cold. Now that I think about it, it isn't warm either. The atmosphere is...I can't feel it. I don't feel anything. No temperature, no water vapour, no air pressure. It is as if the vale of reality has been sucked dry, leaving a vacuum. I shudder, and wrap my arms around myself.

There is a void, where if I take one wrong step, I might fall into its greedy oblivion. My body feels light and soft. I am weightless. Unravelling. It feels as if I am one breath away from disintegrating into a zillion particles. With nothing tethering me to this world, I don't know what would become of me.

Is this the Interealm? Is this the emptiness between the planes of reality where nothing real exists? But how can I sense it? How can I feel it and breathe it when normally it is beyond mortal awareness? What has dragged the Interealm so close to the surface of my reality that I can almost taste its emptiness?

"Who were you just speaking to?" I push the question past my lips, my tongue finally obeying the screaming in my mind.

One of her perfectly shaped eyebrows rises. "My master. My Prince. You've probably heard stories of him."

Her answer does nothing to make things clearer in my mind, besides making me wonder if perhaps she really has gone insane. Perhaps she is suffering from another migraine. She finally looks somewhere other than me as her slender fingers flutter across her forehead, rubbing at the lines caused by the grimace on her face.