Shadow Wolves: Princess Ariana (Book 10)

Ariana “Come on, Emily!” Emily and I were running late because she had to take a shower before class! We rushed past the classrooms and I caught sight of the seers sitting in their perfect order. First there was the mystic seer, then the aura seer, the general seer and lastly, the apprentice seer. I rolled my eyes thinking how incredibly silly our world really was. I lived in the homelands. A place originally founded by the witches, but it soon became a safe haven for creatures of all sorts. A place where creatures could be themselves and didn’t have to hide their gifts from the world. Yet … We still sat according to rank in our classrooms! I took my seat in the front of the class just as our teacher started the lesson, while Emily took her seat at the back. I was the princess of the werewolves and Emily was an omega, but that didn’t bother me much. She was my best friend. The one person I told all my secrets to. Not because her rank forced her to keep everything secret, but because she could tell me all her secrets. Which reminded me, I still had to find out who this secret lover was. She had been hiding it from me! It was the reason behind her late showers every morning and it was beginning to interfere with our education. “Princess Ariana?” Miss Johnson raised a brow as she stood in front of me with her arms crossed, which usually indicated she had asked a question and I had been daydreaming again! After class, Emily and I rushed to our next class, where Conner immediately pulled me into his arms as soon as we walked in. I giggled like a typical in-love school girl and kissed him on the cheek before taking our seats. “I hear the two of you are late again.” He looked amused and I rolled my eyes, pointing at Emily. “Because that one has a secret lover and has to take a shower each morning before class. Do you know that she hasn’t slept in our dorm room for over a week!” I burst out laughing as my friend’s cheeks turned bright red and the class was called to order, forcing me to focus. Conner was a Gamma from a pack who lived in the homelands. He was also my boyfriend, which afforded him the honor of joining me in the front of the classroom while Emily had to sit in the back again. It was a busy time for all of us. We were preparing for our finals and soon we would be graduating, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that. My mind was on Conner and the fact that I would soon be turning eighteen. Eighteen is a very important time for a young werewolf. It’s when you finally find your love match. Your destined mate. Most of us found them pretty soon, but some waited for years and I was praying to the moon goddess every day that Conner would be my destined mate. It was the only option that made any sense to me. My big brother was the future heir and future king, so his mate would be a high-ranked female. He hadn’t found her yet, even though he was five years older than me. So, that gave me the freedom to have a mate of lower rank that wouldn’t affect the strength of the pack in any way. I wanted Conner. From the first day I met him, I felt something. It had to have been the beginnings of the mate bond and, after being his girlfriend for almost five years, I was convinced it was. Conner had already turned eighteen a couple of months ago, but when he didn’t find his mate, I was sure it was because I still had to turn eighteen. After class, we sat outside in the sunlight and just relaxed before we had to return to our rooms to study. This was my favourite time of the day. Conner would rest his head on my lap while Emily rested her head on his stomach. We were a tight group. We loved each other. The three musketeers of the institute. I still remember the first day of school when both Emily and I felt lost. We were so young. So small. We had been left in this strange place without our families. Neither of us had any friends here from our packs, which was kind of how we started talking. I held my head up to the warm sunlight and breathed a deep sigh of contentment. Yes, my life was perfect. I had none of the responsibilities my brother had. Even if I was the great-great granddaughter of someone as important as the alpha queen, Megan Black. People look to me for certain things. Certain hopes for the future, but they weren’t nearly as great as what people expected of my brother. I had all the perks of being the second child. I saw my parents far too often for my liking, since the king and queen of the werewolves often had business in the homelands. My mother would bring me up to date on all the gossip from the pack, while my father would just raise a brow and then laugh. My life, however, was here. After finishing my studies at the institute, I planned on living there with Conner. I wanted to raise a family with him. I had it all planned out. All of it, but the fact that I had forgotten my textbook in Conner’s room this afternoon! I sighed and rolled my eyes, but a smile quickly formed as I rushed down to his floor. I could hear laughter coming from his room and a deep frown formed on my forehead before I shook my head and pushed my paranoid thoughts to the back of my mind. Conner wouldn’t cheat on me. He loved me. He was probably just helping a fellow student. As I opened his door, however, shock ran through my body!