Avoiding Alpha

by Aileen Erin

  After a while, my eyes were watering and my back was stiff. I stood and stretched, my joints popping as I leaned back. “Do you see anything in the books for a spell about either releasing or quieting a wolf?”

  “Shannon and I found a couple possible spells to try,” Adrian said.

  That was promising. “Chris?” I said.

  He was reading the blue book, his nose nearly pressed into the spine. He held up a finger.

  Okay. He needed more time. “Well, mine is about as useless as meta class.” I had to take metaphysics with the freshmen. The class tried, and, in my opinion, failed miserably to explain magic in scientific terms. “It’s got all these theories about how magic works, which is great, but no actual spells that could be helpful.” I sighed.

  “What does it say about breaking spells?” Shannon asked.

  I flipped through the pages to find a passage that I’d marked. “The meat of it boils down to this passage. ‘The abilities of one witch will determine the abilities of each work of magic.’ It has a bunch of junkola after that and then the next part is good. ‘The longevity of the work is determined by the strength of the will enforcing said work. The potency and sustainability of a work can be partly determined by the strength of the witch’s will. Most works of magic wear out in time, but when breaking a particular work, the abilities of the caster must be weighed against those of the breaker.’” I glanced up from the book. “So if I want to break the spell, then I have to have stronger willpower than Luciana. If I don’t, the whole thing could backfire.”

  Now it was time to share my crazy idea.

  “We basically need Meredith’s wolf to not fight her anymore, right? But we’re thinking like wolves—about freeing Meredith from the spell. If we can’t do that safely, then why not try to put her wolf back to sleep? We wouldn’t have to worry about anything backfiring then. Or who’s stronger than who.”

  “Might not be such a horrible idea,” Chris said. “I was reading about the dangers of breaking a spell, too, but this one says it differently. Basically, if you want to break the spell that she put on Meredith, then all you have to do is want it more. But it’s hard to quantify how badly someone wants something. It’s a huge risk. Do you think you want to break it more than Luciana wants to keep it?”

  I slammed my book closed. “How the hell should I know?”

  Chris rocked back in his chair. He ran his fingers through his blond wavy hair, making it fro-out a little. “Well, if you try to break it by will, and fail, then you could end up making her much worse. Not to mention that it could rub off on you, too. You could get sick in the process.”

  Great. I didn’t want to make Meredith’s curse any worse than it already was, but I had to do something. Breaking the curse was still the option I liked the most, but it might not be the safest.

  “How was the other book?” I asked Shannon and Adrian, stalling.

  “We found a couple contenders that could maybe break a spell.”

  Nice. I leaned toward them. “And?”

  “Aaaand I’m not sure where we’d find some of the components for some of these potions,” Adrian said as he tapped his pen on his notepad.

  “One of them even calls for the blood of the caster,” Shannon said.

  Luciana had to give me her blood? Yeah, that would never happen. “Not in a million years would she give us her blood.”

  We were quiet afterwards, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

  I would’ve felt better about trying a spell if I could talk to Donovan. He knew more about dealing with this than any of us. It would be nice to get his opinion before attempting anything, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Screw it. I wasn’t going to try anything that would be even more dangerous for Meredith. “As much as you all might not like it, I think we drop the idea of breaking the curse, and instead focus on finding one that will work alongside the curse to quiet her wolf.”

  Shannon’s face was red as she yelled a stream of curses at me. I sat there quietly, letting them vent their anger and frustration. When I had enough I stood up. “Stop.” The word had enough power to get them to instantly shut up.

  “Here’s the problem. Anything we try to counter the spell with has big repercussions. Meredith is extremely sick. We cannot make it worse for her or she’ll die. Something made her wolf fight against her curse. The two parts that make up Meredith are at war after three years of being totally fine. So, we put the wolf back to sleep and she should go back to being fine.” I sat back down. “Maybe one day we can find a way to break the curse for good,” I said softly. “But right now, none of us know enough to fix this. So, we do our best to keep Meredith alive.”

  “I agree.” Chris slid his chair back from the table. “It’s our best shot.”

  “No! I refuse to believe that. It’s because she’s one of them.” The disgust was clear in Shannon’s voice. “Look at her. She hasn’t even accepted her own wolf. Why would she help one of us?”

  I growled. My wolf surged faster than ever before. “This isn’t about getting Meredith’s wolf back. It’s about keeping her alive.” I slammed my hand on the table, and it groaned. Anger was not my friend right now, but I couldn’t rein it back. “You’re too close-minded to see what’s best for her.”

  “What’s best is making her whole.” Shannon spat the words at me as she leaned over the table. “Her wolf wants out, and we should be helping to free her. Once that happens, she’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t you get it? Trying to mess around with that curse could kill her!” Fur rippled along my arms. “Shit. Not now.”

  Shannon pointed at me and turned to Adrian. “Look at that. Her wolf is begging to be set free and she’s too scared to let it. It’s unnatural. And she’d have us imprison one of ours. I’ll not stand for it.”

  I turned my back to them as I tried to get myself under control. My stomach burned with the need to change. My knuckles popped.

  I will not change. I will not change. I will not change.

  I ignored their yelling. I knew I was right. It was the only way.

  Slowly, my wolf settled down. I breathed a sigh of relief. Today was not a good day to change.

  “As much as I hate to say it, Tess has a point,” Adrian said. “But maybe if we knew what happened to her, what the spell or curse was, then we’d know how to calm her wolf better.”

  I spun around. “Does anyone know what happened?”

  Shannon stayed quiet, while Chris and Adrian shook their heads.

  Interesting. I wondered what Shannon was hiding.

  “Well, we can’t let Dr. Gonzales wake her up,” I said. “The sedatives won’t work for long anyway.”

  Chris bounced a pencil on the table. The tap-tap-tap made me more on edge than I already was, if that was even possible. I ripped the pencil from his hand, snapped it in half, and threw it across the room. Wooden splinters rained down on the gray shag carpeting.

  Everyone in the room froze.

  “Holy shit. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.” I’d reached the point where I was acting without thinking. My control was seriously slipping and I hadn’t even noticed it. The wolf inside me was gaining the upper hand, and that couldn’t happen. I sat heavily in my chair.

  “It’s fine. I didn’t realize I was tapping my pencil.” Chris shrugged it off like it was no big deal. To them, maybe it wasn’t. To me, it was.

  “It was the sound, but God—I’ve never just done that. It was incredibly rude. I’m so sorry.” My wolf wasn’t conflicted about it. Something was annoying me and she stopped it.

  Oh no. I was starting to realize what my wolf wanted.

  “This might be a crazy idea…” Chris started, then shook his head.

  Focusing on Meredith meant I didn’t have to deal with the whole wolf thing. I waited for Chris to speak up, but he didn’t. “Spill it.”

  “I know you can get visions and stuff, but can you dig around in someone’s mind?”

  The thought
of doing that turned my stomach. Messing around in someone’s head seemed a shade darker than anything I ever wanted to do. It was worse than snooping around someone’s closet or medicine cabinet. Everyone had secrets and memories that they’d rather not talk about. What I saw, even when it was something little, was extremely personal, and I felt exactly what they felt. Saw what they saw. To dig around in multiple memories, hoping to run across the right one…that seemed far from kosher.

  How far would I go to save Meredith?

  Apparently pretty far, because I was seriously thinking about giving this plan a shot. “I’ve never tried. I spent my whole life trying to avoid getting visions, so forcing one from someone wasn’t even on my radar. But getting a specific vision of an event…I don’t know. I could try. You think it’d help?”

  “Yes,” Adrian said. “If you could figure out how she got cursed, then maybe we’d have a better shot at undoing it.”

  “I guess it’s worth a try.” I just hoped Meredith wouldn’t mind me messing around in her head.

  Chapter Seven

  I opened the conference room door and walked straight into Dastien. He grasped my shoulders as I stumbled back a step.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  He’d changed from the sweats into his usual jeans and T-shirt, but his eyes still held worry. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I felt you go a little…out of control.” He squeezed my shoulders once before letting go. “What’s going on?”

  I didn’t even know how to answer that question. I was feeling on edge. That said, I’d been feeling on edge since my run-in with Luciana. Being anxious wasn’t unusual for me, but today was over the top. I’d nearly shifted twice already, and it wasn’t even dinnertime. To say that I felt uneasy was an extreme understatement, and I didn’t like it at all. I used to be even-keeled. With my visions, I had to be able to roll with whatever was going on, but now I was a mess.

  “I’m thinking of doing something that I’m not exactly sure is a super fantastic idea,” I said, taking the easy road out rather than discussing my wolf for the one-millionth time.

  “We’re going to the infirmary to see if Tess can see what happened when Meredith was cursed,” Shannon said.

  Who knew she was such a little tattletale? Not that I wouldn’t tell Dastien, but it would’ve been nice to ask his opinion myself. I gave her a less-than-friendly look, but Shannon didn’t look the least bit sorry.

  “Are you sure that’s something you want to try?” Dastien asked.

  “No. But I don’t see a ton of alternatives.” I shrugged. “Unless you’ve managed to get a hold of Donovan?”

  “No. Not yet. But I left a message with his hotel in Cusco.” He ran his fingertips down my arm before taking my hand. Our bond strengthened. The first time I’d felt it, it was like a jolt of electricity. Now it was like a warming hum.

  Thinking about our bond made me remember something. “The pack has a bond, too. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Adrian said. “Of course.”

  “Can you feel other people in the pack?”

  “Sort of.” Shannon stepped a little too close to Dastien. “Depends on where you are in the pack hierarchy.”

  I tried to ignore my annoyance with her. “So why don’t you send a warning via the pack bond or something? You’re high enough up.” I asked Dastien.

  “I wish I could, but only the appointed Alpha of each pack can find members of their own pack—which I’m not. I’m only standing in for Michael while he’s away. Even if I were the official Alpha here, Donovan would be out of my league. Only another member of the Seven could find him.”

  Well, there went my genius idea. “That does make things more complicated.”

  “Can I have a moment with her? Alone?” Dastien asked our friends.

  “I’ll meet you in Meredith’s infirmary room,” I said.

  Once they were gone, Dastien closed the door. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” It was a total lie, but everything would hold until Meredith was better.

  “You’re saying one thing, but I can sense that you’re feeling another.”

  I let go of his hand. Sometimes I liked to keep my emotions to myself. Having someone know what was simmering under the surface was unsettling. But he got a pass this time. I didn’t have the time or energy to try and explain what privacy meant to me.

  I crossed my arms, trying to let my annoyance go. “I am okay to some degree, but it’s all relative, you know?”

  He pulled out two chairs, and faced them together. “Sit. Let’s get you calm again before you go try this thing with Meredith.”

  That was a fantastic idea. I couldn’t afford to lose control of my wolf. I’d nearly attacked Luciana this morning, and that wasn’t acceptable. Now I was an inch away from totally snapping on my friends.

  After the Tribunal, things would be easier. Or so I hoped. But until then, I needed to be on my A game all the time. Today it felt like I was on my C-minus game at best.

  He sat in the other chair. “So, I’ll ask it again. How are you doing?”

  “Not great. I’m totally on edge about everything. I’m wasting time talking to you and that’s kind of pissing me off—”

  “You’re not wasting time,” he said, interrupting me. He frowned. “I hope you know that this might not be fixable. You can’t control everything. You can’t save everyone.”

  I chewed on my lip. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Not at all. “I don’t want to save everyone. Just Meredith.”

  “I know, cherie. I know.” He leaned toward me and placed his hand on my knee. The scent that I’d come to know as his—forest and something a little spicy that was just him—comforted me. “Are you sure you want to do this? It wasn’t that long ago that you wanted to get rid of your visions entirely.”

  I slouched in the chair as I thought about the truth in his words. “I did, but this is different.”

  “Then why are you so conflicted about it?”

  It all came down to one thing. Privacy. It was something that I cherished, and as someone who got a lot of crap for intruding on other people’s memories, I knew how much others valued theirs. “It feels immoral. Like it’s ethically shitty of me to even consider doing it. But I don’t see any other way.”

  “She wouldn’t mind. If she were awake, she’d let you in. So, I don’t know why you’re beating yourself up.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that. Meredith liked her privacy more than most. And, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t just that. I didn’t like being sucked into other people’s memories. It wasn’t fun for me. I’d already lost touch with every aspect of reality that I held true. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

  “Will it make you feel better or worse if I go with you?”

  Would it make me look weak to need him to hold my hand? Probably. Did I care? Not really. Having him in the same room centered me. “That would actually be great. You don’t mind?”

  “Cherie.” I grinned at his look of exasperation. “What wouldn’t I do for you?”

  “I don’t know.” But I was starting to think that there really wasn’t much.

  He shook his head. “It’d be nice to have a little bit of an upper hand on something in this relationship.” The words were a little mumbled.

  I grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward me. “Thank you,” I said when our lips were almost touching.

  “For what?”

  “For being you.”

  The sight of his dimpled grin made my heart race. He went the final little bit, and our lips touched. I wanted to breathe him in. His heart pounded as I ran my hands under his shirt.

  He bit my lip. “You’re playing with something dangerous.”

  “Dangerous might not be so bad.”

  His eyes flashed golden for a split second. “Not yet. After the ceremony, then yes.” He took a breath. “Merde, Tess. You’re making it really hard.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  His whole
body shook as he laughed. “I walked into that one.”

  “Yup.” I stood, and straightened my shirt. “Let’s go see Meredith.”

  I pulled him out of the chair and grabbed my bag, tucking the books safely inside.

  ***

  The infirmary was on the third floor of the admin building. I knew it well. When I first arrived at St. Ailbe’s I’d stayed in one of the infirmary’s rooms, but I’d been pretty out of it. Waking up with some crazy memories of being in a cage had made me jump out of the window. It probably wasn’t my smartest move.

  Then I’d gotten bit by a nasty vamp and found myself back again. The infirmary was becoming my third home. One I never wanted, but that was life as a werewolf. At least that was my life as a werewolf.

  Meredith’s room was like any of the other rooms in the infirmary—tiny. One window let in a bit of light. A twin bed took up the center, and cabinets lined the wall to the left of the bed.

  A cushy brown leather chair took up the corner in the right side of the room. Shannon sniffled, crying softly as she slouched forward in it. Her face was pale, and her freckles stood out in stark contrast. Adrian sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. A look of resignation was visible in his eyes.

  Chris stood at the side of the bed, holding Meredith’s hand. He was the only one of us who hadn’t seen her yet. He met my gaze. “It’s worse than I thought.”

  She seemed peaceful as she lay there. Her features were relaxed while the drugs kept her in a deep, coma-like sleep, but her cheekbones stood out too much to mistake her for anything other than sick. Her skin had taken on a pale yellowish-green tint. Dark circles lined her eyes. It wasn’t just the way she looked physically, but the way she smelled. Slightly sour. Slightly chemically, possibly from metabolizing the drugs. An IV ran into her arm, keeping a steady stream going into her system.

  I stepped up to the bed. She’d been fine last night. Happy, glowing, and loving life. And now, she was at death’s door. What the hell happened?

  Heels clicked down the hallway toward us. As far as I knew there was only one person at St. Ailbe’s who wore stilettos.