Avoiding Alpha

by Aileen Erin

  “Je sues désole, mon amour. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  I pressed a small kiss to his lips. “Babe. It was my fault. But I’m fine. We’re fine.”

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Right.” He closed his eyes, saying nothing, but he didn’t need to. I could feel his love burning through me as the last of his panic slipped away.

  “Let’s go back,” I said.

  “Probably a good idea. I might have run out in the middle of teaching the freshmen a new maneuver.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure the rumors will be flying.” Everyone on campus knew that the only person to freak out the ever-steady Dastien Laurent was his mate.

  Dastien set me down, and I hopped in the backseat. When I turned back to him, he was by the door, holding the T-shirt in his hand. I couldn’t help but stare at his naked torso and the way his muscles moved as he shoved his arms into the gray cotton. He paused mid-motion, arms raised above his head, and looked at me.

  I licked my lips and he grinned, dimples and all. Heat burned through my body. Both mine and his. It was too much. I was seconds away from jumping him.

  “If you guys force me to chauffeur you while you make-out, I’m going to lose it,” Chris said.

  Dastien yelled something in quick French at Chris before getting in the car.

  Chris laughed and said something back.

  “In English, boys.” Otherwise, I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying.

  “I said that in the interest of those around you, maybe you can tone it down a notch,” Chris said. “Or twenty.”

  My cheeks were on fire. “Shut up,” I said as I hit the back of his seat.

  Dastien slid across the seats and pulled me to him. “I’ll never be upset that you’re attracted to me. Don’t be embarrassed.”

  “Easy for you to say. Jerk,” I said. “Maybe don’t be so hot next time. What was with that look? That pause with the shirt over your head? Jesus. I’m pretty sure my heart forgot to beat for a second. Are you trying to kill me?”

  He laughed.

  I shook my head. Guys were nuts. “Let’s get out of here.”

  When Chris started driving, Dastien linked our hands together. “Did you feel our bond missing?”

  “Yeah. I did.” I winced. “But I brushed it aside as a side effect of being on their territory. Going through the gate onto their land wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing ever.”

  “You didn’t think about calling me?”

  “I’m sorry. The bond’s there when I need it and otherwise, it feels a little snoopy to be checking on you all the time. Not to mention distracting. I’m having enough trouble in my classes as it is, thank you very much.”

  He smiled at me, but it wasn’t exactly genuine. Man, I sucked.

  “I was so focused on Meredith, I didn’t even think that it’d affect you. Or that you’d notice.” The look he gave me told me what he thought about that. “Sorry.”

  He squeezed my hand, letting me know it was forgiven, but I’d try not to mess that one up again.

  “They warded their lands. Covens typically tell the alpha of the pack closest to them where they are so that any run-ins can be avoided, but no pack members actually go there. We always meet on neutral ground,” Dastien said. “My best guess is that the ward either keeps people away from their compound or keeps intruders from escaping.”

  He looked at me, eyes flashing to gold for a second before going back to their normal amber. “It didn’t even occur to me that you would go after we talked. I thought you went to class, and I felt you start to get agitated and the distance between us—that you were physically far away. I knew you’d gone there, and the bond disappeared and…” He trailed off and echoes of his terror rang strong through our bond. “I thought—”

  I squeezed his hand, cutting him off. “I really am sorry. I honestly thought you wouldn’t notice it, and moved on with what I was there to do. I wasn’t planning on staying long.” I paused as a thought hit me. “How much attention do you pay to our bond?”

  Holy shit. My mate was blushing. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him blush.

  “Please tell me you’re not going all creeper on me and looking in twenty-four-seven.”

  “Creeper? Really? You’re my mate.”

  I widened my eyes. “What would you call it?”

  “Keeping watch. You do have a tendency to get yourself into crazy situations.”

  “I don’t do anything—”

  Chris started laughing, but turned it into a cough when I hit the back of his seat.

  “Barging in on the coven’s compound first thing in the morning qualifies as a crazy situation.”

  He might have a point. I guessed that I did stick my nose in a few places it didn’t belong. In my defense, if I hadn’t stuck my nose in, bad things would’ve gone down in the pack. But before I met Dastien, I totally stayed out of trouble. “My life was totally normal until I met you, buddy.”

  “Says the girl who had visions whenever she touched anything. Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second.”

  I smacked his arm. “Not funny.”

  Chris chuckled from the front seat. Great. I was getting laughed at by both guys in my own car.

  “Come on. It was a little funny,” Dastien said.

  I tried to keep from laughing, but ended up grinning anyway. I leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  “Did you call me ‘buddy’?” He murmured as he brushed a kiss on my head.

  “I may have, but that’s beside the point,” I muttered mostly to myself.

  Chris cleared his throat. “How’s Meredith?”

  Any laughter I felt died.

  “The same,” Dastien said. “She’s knocked out, and we’ll try to keep her that way for as long as possible. Did you learn anything?”

  “Oh, they’ll break the curse. But only if I let them put the same curse on me and move there indefinitely.”

  Dastien growled.

  Whoops. I probably shouldn’t have said that aloud, even if it was bothering me. I would’ve been fine if they wanted me to stay and learn their ways maybe once a week, but foregoing the pack and letting her curse me—no way.

  I could almost see the steam coming from Dastien’s ears as rage boiled along our bond.

  Still, if I was going to have an equal relationship with Dastien, then keeping things from him—especially something like this—wasn’t the best call. If the situation were reversed, I’d want to know. “Claudia gave me some books, but unless I submit, and I won’t—”

  “Damned right,” Chris said.

  “And I won’t,” I said again, talking over Chris’ mutterings. “They can’t—or won’t—do anything else to help Meredith.” I started to climb across the seats to get back in the front passenger side, but Dastien stopped me.

  “We’re still moving.” His deep voice rumbled with worry.

  “So? I’m a werewolf and pretty much unbreakable, even if Chris wrecks.” I brushed a kiss on his forehead, and stepped over him, into the front seat. Just because he worried, didn’t mean I’d let him coddle me.

  “Don’t wreck,” Dastien said to Chris.

  “Thanks for the advice, dude. I’ll do my best.”

  I snorted.

  “Seatbelt,” Dastien said as soon as I sat.

  Seriously? The guy needed to calm down. I was fine. I would stay fine. It was Meredith we had to worry about. I reached to the floorboard and pulled the three books out of my bag.

  The first one was two inches thick with a navy blue cover and embossed silver letters on the front that spelled out McCondry’s Basics of Magic, Spells & Curses. The second book was small, about the size of a pocket guide. The cover was a dark brown and very worn-in, but it didn’t have a title. I opened the little book and a page fell out.

  This book could seriously use a rebinding.

  I placed the page back in and read the handwritten, tiny print. Different people
had scrawled all over the page, crossing things out, making replacements, and underlining words. I wondered who, and how many witches, had owned the book before me, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I had it. From what I could tell, these were actual potions. The boil-things-in-a-pot kind.

  The last book was the newest. The hardcover had a glossy finish. A Practical Guide to Witchcraft was printed above the image of a girl standing with an odd-looking chemistry set. The spine cracked with newness when I opened it. I quickly flipped through the pages since I didn’t have to turn them as gingerly as I did the others. It looked like my metaphysics text, complete with exercises after every chapter, but from a bruja perspective instead of a werewolf one.

  Weird. Were there even enough witches to warrant such a book? “How many witches are there?”

  “A lot. Nearly a hundred times the current amount of wolves,” Chris said.

  “What? Seriously?” I twisted to look at Dastien.

  He nodded. “Almost every culture has some sort of witchcraft in it. To some it’s so watered down that it’s more like a normal religion and not all of them have powers. But there’s a pretty solid number of covens that do. Besides the coven here, the strongest ones are in Peru and Mexico. And the one in India is pretty good, too.”

  “And the Egyptian one,” Chris said. “That one’s badass. But yours is really well known.”

  And they were thinking about taking on the pack. Being that grossly outnumbered didn’t sit well with me. I’d have to see what I could do about mending things between the pack and the coven before the situation with Luciana got out of control.

  I flipped through some more pages. If I was a betting girl, which I wasn’t, I’d bet this was the one that Luciana and the others didn’t want me to have.

  “Anything good?” Chris asked.

  “It’s too soon to tell. I’ll need help going through everything, but maybe. If there’s a way to fix to what’s going on with Meredith, we’ll find it in here.”

  “Can I see that one?” Dastien asked. I handed the newest book to him, and went back to the one with no title. Something about it called to me.

  Unfortunately, every word was gobbledygook.

  Rise to the west, and the soul to the east…Light the candles clockwise to find the one you seek.

  I understood the words and maybe the sentiment behind them, but I didn’t quite get what they were accomplishing.

  By the time Chris pulled into the St. Ailbe’s parking lot, I knew more about spells, but none of it was exactly helpful. Hopefully one of the other books would be marginally less confusing.

  I slipped the books into my bag and hopped down from the car. Chris tossed me the keys, and I caught them. A few weeks ago, this would’ve been a shocker—my coordination used to be less than fantastic—but being a Were was good for some things. Dastien walked so close beside me that our arms brushed. If it’d been anyone else, I’d tell them to take a step to the side, but with Dastien, it was comforting.

  When we got to the edge of the parking lot, Adrian, Shannon, and Dr. Gonzales were waiting. Adrian and Shannon were the other two people—besides Dastien, Meredith, and Chris—that I hung out with.

  I was really glad to see Adrian. Since he had more experience with the magic stuff, my first mission was going to be pulling him from class, but since he was here, we could dig right in.

  Dr. Gonzales stepped forward first.

  Oh no… My heart stuttered. “Is Meredith—”

  “No change.”

  I shoved my shaking hands in my pockets. “That’s good.” I guessed.

  “We were more concerned with you. When Dastien ran off and we realized you were missing, we thought you might be coming back injured.” Dr. Gonzales patted her black messenger bag. “But you look fine.”

  “We had a little scare, but she’s okay.” Dastien put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. “I might not ever be fine again, but Tessa’s snarky as ever.”

  “Shut up.” I elbowed him.

  Shannon’s eyes were red, making her green eyes bright. She tucked a piece of her curly red hair behind her ear. “Did you get Meredith sorted?” Her singsongy Irish accent rang clear. Shannon still had a thing for Dastien and it’d been tense between us. This was the first time she’d directly spoken to me in a week.

  “Maybe. It was worth the trip.” I paused. “I tried to talk them into breaking the curse, but Luciana won’t unless I let her curse me and move in with the coven.”

  Shannon narrowed her eyes. She’d probably like it if I accepted Luciana’s terms.

  “That’s never going to happen.” I left no room for argument. “Anyway…I got some books from my cousins. They said the books might be helpful, so I’m hoping that’s code for definitely helpful. If all of you wouldn’t mind looking through them with me, that would be awesome.”

  “I have to go back to teaching, and you need to eat,” Dastien said.

  “I’ll eat later.”

  “Tessa.”

  I sighed. I wanted to keep working on this, but needed to stay level-headed, which made eating a priority. “Okay. I’ll go by the common room and grab some sandwiches, and then we can meet in the admin building in a few?”

  The others nodded and Dastien agreed. With that figured out, I made my way across campus. I wanted to run to the common area, but made myself walk. It was a fast walk, but I was keeping it together.

  I was banking on these books, because Plan B was not an option.

  But if the magic doesn’t work…

  I silenced my inner doubt. It would work. I’d spend every second I had to make sure Meredith was okay.

  That was the only option.

  Chapter Six

  After grabbing food, I reconvened with Shannon, Adrian, and Chris on the first floor of the administration building. Shannon led the way to a conference room. Most of the space was taken up by a long rectangular table surrounded by chairs. A buffet table in the back held a stack of yellow legal pads, a cup of pens and highlighters, and a case of water bottles. Maybe this was where they held the pack meetings? For some reason, I’d pictured them taking place in the woods around a campfire, like where we voted whether or not to keep Imogene in the pack, but maybe they were usually more conventional than that.

  We spread out around half the table. I sat on one side with Adrian and Shannon across from me. Chris took a seat at the head. I took the three books out of my bag and placed them on the tabletop. “This is what we’ve got to work with.”

  Chris reached behind him and grabbed a legal pad for each of us, then put the cup with pens and highlighters in the center of the table.

  Adrian snatched up the nameless brown book. “I can’t believe they actually gave you this one.” His dark brown eyes were wide with wonder as he looked through it.

  With all the scribbling, I knew the book was different, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. “What’s the deal? Why is it all handwritten?”

  “It’s a Book of Shadows.”

  Whoa. I’d heard of those. Only because I watched Charmed. It was a guilty pleasure.

  On the show, the Book of Shadows was a family’s spell book handed down from generation to generation. “I didn’t know people had those in real life.”

  He carefully closed the book and ran his hand over the cover. “Yep. Every family has different spells, different ways of doing things. At least that’s what I was always told. It gets passed on to the oldest child from each generation.”

  That didn’t make sense. “Newsflash. I’m not the oldest in my family. Axel is. And I’m pretty sure Claudia and Raphael are older than me, too.”

  Adrian shrugged. “I guess I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not the oldest, but the most powerful?”

  I moved uncomfortably in my seat. If that were true, then Claudia had taken a huge risk by giving me the book. No wonder Raphael had been against it.

  Adrian opened the book again and Shannon scooted closer to him to read. />
  I started with Chapter One of mine. It had great information on the basics of witchcraft, explaining how magic was a test of one’s will and faith. But none of that specifically helped Meredith. When I had a few days, I’d start at the beginning, but for now, I flipped to the back of the book.

  The index had an entry for “breaking curses.” That sounded much more applicable.

  I started reading it and things got interesting. For all intents and purposes, the book implied that messing with anyone else’s curses was a bad idea. Apparently it caused ‘adverse effects,’ which included illness, wasting diseases, and painful death.

  That sounded like a bunch of not cool.

  I scribbled down “NEVER try breaking a curse” on my notepad. Not that I needed the note to remind me, but it was good to keep in mind if I ever got desperate.

  The chapter went into some gruesome details—pictures included—of people who had tried and failed to break a curse. At the end was a note.

  Although it is inadvisable to break another’s curse or spell, counteracting it can be achieved. If the caster’s will and faith be stronger than those of the original caster, then the effects of the curse or spell may be lessened or even overridden.

  The relief I felt was tangible. Now, all I needed to do was find a spell to counteract the curse on Meredith.

  I flipped back to the index and searched for anything that sounded helpful. The way I figured, there were two real options. Breaking the curse wasn’t one of them. We either needed to put Meredith’s wolf back to sleep or we needed a spell strong enough to override the original curse, which would release her wolf. Everyone else at the table was all about finding the latter, but getting Meredith’s wolf to chill seemed like the safest option. Then this new spell wouldn’t have to be stronger than Luciana’s spell or even override it. It just had to work alongside it.

  I lost all track of time. The scratch of my highlighter against the glossy finish of the crisp textbook pages and the scraping sound of pens against paper filled the room. Occasionally Adrian and Shannon whispered to each other about possible spells, but I tuned them out. I was determined to find answers.