Chapter 508 – Falling for the Alpha as a Surrogate Novel

Filed To Story: Falling for the Alpha as a Surrogate Novel

“Oh, you idiot,” I sigh, laughing and stopping for a second, wrapping my hand around the lapel of his suit jacket and pulling him to me. “Can’t you just for once say something nice?”

“What do you want to hear, Cora?” he asks, smirking down at me and taking my face between his hands. “That it was the happiest moment of my life to that point? That I’d been waiting to kiss you for months, and that afterwards I had to actively stop myself from grabbing you and kissing you every time you walked into a room?”

My smile grows. “Something like that,” I murmur, and I tug on his coat just a little, pulling him down for our second kiss in this forest – which is just as good as the first.

“I love you so much, Cora,” he sighs when he pulls away, his eyelids heavy as he stares down into my face.

“I love you too, Roger,” I say, smiling up at him, passing every ounce of love I feel down our bond so he knows I mean it. Because we tease – but god, do I love this man.

Roger leans in for another kiss, but a silver light flares at the edge of my vision.

“Oh,” I say, my eyebrows going up as I adjust the baby in my arms and turn towards the light. “I think mom is getting impatient.”

“Well then,” Roger says, his arm still around my shoulder, “let’s not keep the Goddess waiting.”

So together, my mate and I carry our little goddaughter forward to the edge of the pool that forms through the trees. I smile to see that this one is different surrounded by rocks this time, a tiny waterfall splashing into it at the edge. Secretive and peaceful, like a hidden hot spring.

Roger nods to me and I step forward, holding unwrapping the baby and holding her out into the moonlight that floods into the grove from above. And then he and I say the sacred words, dedicating our sweet Ariel to her grandmother the Goddess, pledging to love and protect her all our lives.

The moonlight grows brighter as we speak, and I feel a warmth and contentment fill me that I know comes from my mother, who is truly pleased with her granddaughter.

When the words are done, our attention shifts, because – as it did before – the premonition starts to take shape in the air above the water. And as we watch, Roger and my eyes go wide.

Cora

The images of Ariel’s future come in quick flashes, and somehow I get the impression that the Goddess is eager to share these glimpses of her life.

The ones that come first are what I sort of expected, especially after seeing some images of Rafe’s childhood and hearing about the ones that Ella and Sinclair saw during Jesse’s baptism. But these ones focus on an angelic little girl with rose-gold hair who is just… ridiculously happy.

My ears fill almost instantly with tears to see her running and playing with the boys who are so clearly Rafe and Jesse. Ariel – she’s always at the center of their games, always laughing so heartily her eyes are barely open above her rosy cheeks. In one flash, Jesse’s climbed up onto the branch of a tree and is reaching a hand down for her as Rafe boosts her up from below. In another, Ariel is cuddled between her brother and her cousin, all wrapped up in a big blanket as the three sit around a campfire, their eyes wide and bright as they roast marshmallows and look with awe up at Roger, who is clearly in the midst of telling a scary story.

Roger laughs beside me at the sight and I press myself close to them as we get more insight into her life as she grows older, her teenager years as she becomes the Nation’s princess, as she grows into a beautiful, graceful young woman but still one full of pranks, running through the halls of the palace with her brother and Jesse chasing behind.

And then I gasp, a little, to see our little girl dressed as a bride –

My hand goes to my mouth- because she looks so young and so afraid –

My stomach drops when I see her what looks like a moment later, her back pressed to a door as she sobs in her wedding gown as two young men who are so clearly my son and my nephew jump to her side.

The images move faster than I can truly process them next, but my hand falls from my mouth, and my jaw drops in awe as I realize that

That she didn’t get married after all, but instead that she ran, that she’s…

She’s with Jesse and Rafe, as they attend some kind of military school dressed up in fatigues, her hair tucked up beneath a cap, looking for anything like…like a boy…

“Oh my god,” I mutter, and then I laugh because it just gets stranger after that-

Ariel, mixing potions in a chemistry class, her eyes going wide as one goes awry and explodes in front of her –

Ariel, an expert sniper, crouching on top of a tower and hitting the bullseye of a target that must be half a mile away

Ariel, curled up in a chair by the fire, sitting in the lap of a very handsome young man whose jaw could cut glass and whose adorable dimples are

And joy swells in me, because I know it instantly, that that boy – he’s her mate

But then I gasp again because the image changes – and Ariel is looking up at another young man powerfully built, scowling down at her in some hallway made of stone, but she shoves him, hard, and whips a finger up to point in his face, a defiant snarl on her lips, looking so much like her mother –

And even as a shocked little laugh spills from my mouth, anxiety twists in my stomach, because I know…

I know just as much as I did with the first boy, that this one – he’s her mate too.

I can’t help it then, I look down at my little baby niece, who burbles and looks up at the moon –

Two fated mates, just like her father…

And suddenly, what the Goddess said to me in my living room that day so many months ago…

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