Avoiding Alpha

by Aileen Erin

  It was too easy. “She doesn’t need to be healed. She needs the wolf to chill out so that she’s not fighting against the curse. And this spell doesn’t mix any kinds of magic.” Donovan hadn’t given me much, but I was going to trust what I did have. “That option’s out. Right?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.” He flipped to the fourth piece of yellow paper. “This one is the most complicated of the bunch.”

  “Dude. It says eye of newt,” Chris said.

  “Seriously?” I looked closer. “I didn’t know that was an actual thing.”

  “This one would be awesome, but it calls for the blood of the caster,” Adrian said.

  I ran my finger down the ingredients. Sure enough, there it was. Three drops needed. Short of going back onto the compound, holding Luciana down, and taking her blood, I didn’t see how I could possibly get that. “Yeah. We went over this one already. Not going to happen. Unless you’re saying that there’s a way around it.”

  Adrian shook his head. “No. But I want there to be. The potion uses the blood to break the hold the curse has on the afflicted.”

  I stood and paced the room as I tried to think of a way I could convince Luciana to give us some of her blood. I could bargain for it. She wanted something from me. I wanted something from her. There had to be a way for us to work it out. I pulled my hair down from its messy bun and ran my fingers through the tangles before putting it up again.

  I turned back to the guys. “Maybe I can make a deal with—”

  “No. Just no.” Chris turned to Dastien. “You can’t let her go back there. The vibe there wasn’t even close to cool.”

  “I tried to tell her not to go earlier, and she went anyway,” Dastien said. “But, for what it’s worth, cherie, you shouldn’t trust someone who would bargain with you over the life of someone else.”

  I chewed on my lip for a second as I thought. “You’re right.” I went back to the stool. “We’re desperate, but not that desperate. Not yet.” I leaned forward on the table. The cold metal was a shock to my warm skin. But the fact that I got zero visions because I wasn’t trying to have them was another shock. I had control. I had bruja powers and alpha ones. I could do this. “And the last one?”

  “It’s our best shot,” Adrian said.

  “Show me,” I said.

  He picked the book off the table, and flipped to the right page. With a deep breath, he placed it down in front of me. “This is the one that talks about calming the inner demon. It doesn’t have as many crazy, hard to get ingredients that the other one does—although there are a few in there that I have no idea what they are and some that I have no idea where we’d get them. Aside from that, it’s trickier. There are more steps. Everything has to be timed. And there are three different potions involved.” He paused. “Now that I’m thinking back on what you said, this is a combo of spell and potion. It could be what Donovan was talking about, but we have no real way of knowing.”

  I couldn’t risk pulling that much power again. He’d be here tomorrow afternoon. Maybe morning if he ran really fast, but Meredith didn’t have that long.

  I turned to Dastien. “Can we wait for Donovan?”

  “I’ve never seen anyone last without the wolf for so long. And I’ve never seen someone fade so fast. If Meredith makes it to midnight, I’ll be surprised.”

  In other words, no. Shit. My eyes burned and I rubbed them. I couldn’t cry. Not yet. We still had time. “Everything’s a risk.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Adrian said.

  What now? “And…”

  “It has to be done exactly at midnight under the moon.”

  God. That seemed too soon. “How much time does that give us to get everything ready?”

  Chris checked his cell phone. “It’s almost five. So we’d need to have everything prepped and good to go in six hours.”

  “Is that enough time?”

  “We’ll make it enough,” Adrian said.

  “Okay.” The pressure of what we were going to do weighed down on me. My chest constricted and I swallowed, trying to keep everything under control. “Let’s do this. Right now, it’s our best option. We’ll get started, and when Meredith’s brother gets here, we’ll give him the final call.”

  “How are you doing?” Dastien said as he looked down at me.

  “Fine.”

  “Your wolf. She’s restless. Any chance you’ll let her out?” He nudged me.

  Was he nuts? “Now? You want to talk about this now?”

  “Did you read the spell?”

  “Yes.”

  “It says the person performing it has to be at one with themself.”

  “Yeah, I saw that.”

  “You’re not at one with yourself, cherie.” He pulled me toward him. “Why are you still so afraid of it?”

  “I don’t fucking know!” I snapped at him and instantly felt bad about it. My temper was out of control today, but Dastien didn’t seem bothered by it.

  “You’re a beautiful chocolate brown wolf. I’d like to see that again sometime, but you’ve been putting it off for weeks.”

  When I was going through the transition from human to Were, I’d been a wolf. At one point, I kept going back and forth between forms so much that they were worried whether I’d survive. I didn’t remember, but apparently the only thing keeping me together had been Dastien staying by my side.

  I rocked from foot to foot. “It’s weird.”

  Adrian and Chris laughed, but Dastien shot them a look. They shut up immediately.

  “I’m going to do it. I really am…not today, though.” I gave him the best smile I could. “I’ve gotta take care of Meredith first.”

  He pressed his lips in a firm line before speaking. “You’re going to have to deal with this before the full moon. Three days, Tessa. It’ll give us the edge we need to fight during the Tribunal.”

  “I know.” I got it, but I couldn’t deal with it now.

  “It’ll be really fun. Going on a run. Feeling the wind against your face. You’re going to love it. Trust me.”

  I trusted him, but still, letting go of my humanity was harder than expected. Doing it a little bit at a time was easier. I’d gotten much more comfortable with the pack and being Dastien’s mate, and those powers were pretty cool. Being on four legs was what freaked me out.

  “Meredith first, then wolfy stuff.”

  “Promise?”

  I hated to promise if I wasn’t going to follow through. Still, I kind of had to with this one so I might as well give him my word. “I promise.”

  “Good.” He placed a quick peck against my lips. “Now, let’s raid the supply closet.”

  Chapter Ten

  The meta lab storage room was across the hall. It was tiny, three feet by six feet at most. The door bumped precariously into the shelves that lined every inch of wall as we opened it. Every item in the room was perfectly labeled with white tape in two-inch round glass jars and alphabetically organized. The space was perfectly used. I may have been slightly jealous of the skills it took to organize at this level.

  Dastien opened the door and then his cell phone rang. He pulled it from the back pocket of his jeans and glanced at the screen. “Excuse me for a sec.” He stepped into the classroom next-door.

  For a moment I wondered what the phone call could be about, but soon I forgot all about it. Taking one final look around the room, I turned to Adrian and Chris. “Let’s get what we need from here, and figure out what we don’t have. After that, I’ll call my mom and see if she might know where to get the rest.”

  Adrian handed me the book. “Sounds like a plan. If you read, we’ll pull.”

  “Cool.” I grabbed the book. The paper was yellow and the edges were worn, but the handwriting was still readable. In the margins, someone had written, “Shortcuts result in ineffective potions.” Great. So, no shortcuts. “Cinnamon.”

  Adrian searched, and handed the bottle to Chris.

  “Next,” Adrian sa
id.

  “Salt.”

  More muttering from the closet.

  “Next.”

  “Flour.” Wait a second. “Cinnamon? Salt? Flour? Really? What are we making? A pie?” This was supposed to be a potion, not a home economics project. “If the next thing on the list is pumpkin, I’m going to freak out.”

  Adrian laughed. “Cinnamon can be used as cleanser for the blood. Salt grounds any evil spirits. Flour—”

  “Did someone say we needed pumpkin?” Chris stepped out of the room with a can of pumpkin puree.

  “Jesus Christ. I think my cousins made a mistake and gave me the family cookbook.” I closed the little brown book. “They could at least call it something better than cinnamon. Like bark from the center ring of an ancient tree.” I wiped sweat from my forehead. My wolf was rising along with my nerves. “If we mix these things up, I’m pretty sure we’re gonna make some really bad cookies.”

  Adrian grinned. “These are just the ingredients. It’s what you do with them that makes them either cookies or a potion. Give it a chance to work.”

  The thought that we could be doing the wrong thing made my mouth dry. I was so out of my element, but I was trying to go along with it. Still, this whole thing seemed really far-fetched.

  I chewed on my lip, trying to find my calm but failing miserably. I hadn’t thought about what went into a potion. “How about we skip to the hard stuff? I’ll let you gather all this nonsense.”

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Might take longer to get all the other stuff together,” Adrian said. “Give me the book, and I’ll make a list.”

  Dastien swung open the classroom door. His wavy hair was disheveled, like he’d been messing with it while he was on the phone. A pulse of anxiety flowed through our bond, and for once, it wasn’t mine.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Tribunal stuff.”

  Yikes. Not something I wanted to deal with tonight, but I hated to see him upset. “Everything okay?”

  “We’ll see. What’s going on?” Dastien asked, changing the subject.

  I considered pushing him to find out what the phone call had been about, but decided against it. If he didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t force him. “Adrian’s making a list. You want to go with me to find this stuff?”

  “Sure, where’re we going?”

  “No idea.”

  My phone rang in my bag, Aphex Twin’s ‘Polynomial-C’ telling me that it was Axel. I ran back through the lab, and answered it. “Hey, bro.”

  “You rang?”

  “Yeah. Like forever ago.”

  “Sorry. I kind of had a night, so I slept in and then had classes.”

  I laughed. “No shit. I got the email.”

  “Jesus. I don’t remember emailing you. What’d it say?”

  “Hilarious stuff. You’ll never live this one down.” I grinned as I remembered his confession about a girl he was crushing on. “But hey, I might need your help.”

  “What’d you do now?”

  “Why does it have to be something that I did?” I said as I walked to the window of the lab.

  “Come on. I’m your brother.”

  I blew out a breath, fogging up the glass. “Well, it’s not me. It’s Meredith. I don’t know if I told you, but she’s been cursed by Luciana.”

  The sharp exhale on the other end of the line told me he knew all about Luciana.

  I walked back across the room. “Meredith was fine, but that changed this morning. I need help finding some ingredients. Any chance you’d know of a place to get things like—” Adrian handed me a piece of paper. I glanced down at it. “Hundred year old sainted ashes?” I looked up at Adrian and he shrugged. Right. A saint’s ashes to get rid of a demon. Made sense. But who in the hell kept ashes of a saint around the house?

  “I might know of a place, but I’d have to go with you.”

  Whoa. Seriously? I thought it might be a long shot at best, but he must’ve been keeping up with the coven more than I’d thought while he was at school in Austin. “That’s fine. It’d be good to see you. I missed you on Sunday.” The only time I really went off St. Ailbe’s grounds was for Sunday lunches at my parents’ house. Dastien always went with me, and some of the others, too, to make sure I didn’t lose control. But last Sunday, Axel hadn’t made it back from college.

  “Aww, sis. That’s so sweet.” His voice had a whining-tease to it.

  “Shut up. I hate you.” But we both knew that was a total lie.

  He laughed. “Meet me outside my dorm?”

  “Sure. I’ll leave now, but it’ll still take me a bit to get there.” We were a good hour-and-a-half away, and that was if there was no traffic at all.

  “Cool. Text me when you get here.”

  “Will do. Later.” I put my phone away. The guys were staring at me.

  “Really? You think he knows a place?” Adrian asked.

  I shrugged. “He said so.” He was my brother. I trusted him with my life. And Meredith’s. “You two get to working on this stuff, and Dastien and I will cover the rest. We cool?”

  “Yup. Go. We got this,” Chris said.

  I looked up at Dastien. “How about you? Is it okay if you leave campus all day?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I think it’s fine.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching? And keeping the animals under control?”

  He grinned. “Yes, to both. But they’ll be okay for a couple hours and I called one of my Cazador friends to fill in for my martial arts classes. It’s fine. Let’s go.” He started to walk out. “But I’m driving.”

  “What? No, I’ll drive.”

  “Not a chance.”

  I followed him into the hallway, waving at Chris and Adrian over my shoulder. “Later, guys.”

  ***

  Dastien ended up driving, but that was fine because that meant I got control of the radio. We chatted and listened to music the whole drive to Austin. Finding something to talk about with him was never hard. Neither was being quiet. It was comfortable. Even when I felt like I was going crazy, being around Dastien made me feel calm.

  He’d said it was because he was a strong alpha, and that centered my wolf. I wasn’t so sure that was it. I’d like to think that if neither of us were werewolves, if we were normal humans, that it would be just as easy. I’d feel just as comfortable.

  “What?” He asked as he pulled off the highway.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. What are you thinking? I want to know.”

  “You don’t have to know everything I think.”

  “No. But I can tell you’re happy, and if I did something that made you feel that way, I’d like to know so I can make you feel that way again.”

  I leaned against the window so that I could get a better view of him. “You didn’t have to do anything. You were you, and that’s more than enough.”

  “Cherie.” His voice was low and gravelly as he glanced at me. That voice did things to me.

  It wasn’t long before we reached UT’s campus. Axel’s dorm wasn’t far off the main drag. It was a massive two-building dorm. To me it looked a little dreary. All that brick with these teeny-tiny windows and closet-sized rooms with beds that pulled out from the walls, but Axel said he didn’t mind. He liked being with all the people.

  I texted him that we were parked on the street in front of his dorm, and he walked up a second later. No one would ever doubt that we were siblings. He wasn’t as short as me, but we had similar features—wavy dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, light skin. His nose was a little bigger than mine, but the same shape. And our eyes were exactly the same.

  “Hey, sis. Dastien,” he said as he jumped in.

  “How you feeling?”

  “Like shit, but it’s my own damned fault. Would be nice to have some of those werewolf healing abilities.”

  Dastien laughed as he pulled away from the curb. “Then you wouldn’t have been able t
o get drunk in the first place.”

  “No shit?”

  “Nope. Metabolism burns off the alcohol quicker than you can drink.”

  “Seriously?” Axel hummed as he thought. “What if you drank straight Everclear?”

  Dastien shook his head. “Still wouldn’t get you drunk.”

  These guys were ridiculous. “Not to interrupt, but where are we going?”

  “Right. We’re going north on I-35. You’re going to meet our Great-Aunt Rosa.”

  I twisted in my seat. “We have a Great-Aunt Rosa?”

  Axel’s eyes were wide. “I know, right? Who knew?”

  I faced front again. “Would’ve been nice if Mom hadn’t kept me so in the dark.” Being ignorant was seriously frustrating. “What’s Rosa’s deal? Why doesn’t she live with La Aquelarre?”

  “They had a falling out after abuela died. Luciana was the problem. That’s why Claudia and Raphael’s parents aren’t around much. They technically live there, but spend most of the time traveling to avoid Luciana.”

  “Why didn’t they move away?”

  “Because the twins didn’t want to. They were still learning and needed to be around the rest of the coven to do that. Now that they know more, they want to stick around to support whoever inherits the position from Lucicana.”

  I scoffed at that. “Sounds like shit parenting to me. Who abandons their kids to an evil witch? No wonder mom isn’t close with her sister anymore.”

  Axel directed us into a neighborhood of cute, brightly colored houses. We stopped in front of one with a beautiful garden in front. Wildflowers lined the walkway to the front door, giving it a laid back feel instead of a manicured look like its neighbors.

  As we stepped up to the front stoop, the door swung open. A short, round, white-haired woman stood in the doorway. Her skin was paper-thin and wrinkled, and her shoulders hunched over, making me feel tall—quite an accomplishment for someone who was barely over five feet. She was in a flower printed dress, and a pair of reading glasses with bright red frames hung from her neck on a beaded chain.

  “I wondered when you might come,” she said. Her voice was a little nasal and reedy, but pleasant.

  “Me?” I pointed to myself.