Alpha Divided (Alpha Girl Book 3) (17 page)

For Teresa. Don’t forget to use what you have to find the answers.

I shut the book and held it against my chest.

Holy shit. That was my
abuela
in the vision. I’d never even seen a photo of her that young, but now I knew why she’d seemed so familiar. Sometimes I was a little too dense for my own good.

Grams had been a really strong precog. She could see what was going to come, which was why she’d made a good coven leader. Luciana had some precognition, but all she could see were really vague things that might come to pass.

Rosa was right. Grams must’ve known what was going to happen to me. So, why would she ever name me as the leader? She had to have a back-up plan. I leaned against the countertop with the book. This was too good of a find.

I turned the page delicately.
I know you’re in a tough place now, but there isn’t anything to lessen the burden you must bear. I followed the roads of time and saw that if I told you what to do or gave you any hints in your life, it wouldn’t end well. You needed to be raised away from the coven. It’s why I had your mother keep you in California.

I paused. Whatever she’d seen, my life would’ve been a lot easier if Grams could’ve at least taught me about the coven. I wanted to shake her.

I wish I could tell you what’s going to pass, but if I do, everything will be destroyed. So, I’ll tell you that even at your darkest hour, when you’re stripped bare, I will be with you. Don’t ever lose faith.

The thing that will set you free is just above your head. Don’t be afraid to break through.

When the time comes, and you’ll know when it’s here, listen to your mate, trust in the one you doubt, and push the one who denies it.

I wish I could say more, but I can’t. My hands are tied. What I’m placing on you is a tremendous burden, and it breaks my heart to know that I can do nothing to stop what will soon happen.

Do your best to learn the coven’s ways and accept the ability you’ve always feared. Follow your gut. It won’t lie to you.

Know that there are hard times ahead, but stay strong. The worst days only make the best ones that much sweeter. This too shall pass. And happy days will be ahead.

I flipped the pages but the rest of it was blank. That was it. Something horrible was going to happen to me and all I got to help were a few extremely vague words of wisdom? Was that it?

How was this supposed to help me?

“What does it say?” Claudia said.

I shook my head. “It’s from Grams. She left me a note.”

“Can I read it?”

I chewed my lip for a second. “If I say no, will you be upset?”

“A little.”

I could handle a little. “No. It’s really personal.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She turned around and started looking in the closet again.

Maybe I should’ve just shown her, but I really didn’t want to. It felt really private, and I hoarded my privacy as much as possible these days.

Daniel cleared his throat. “So, what now?”

The only thing from Grams’ message I could really do was work on learning the coven’s ways. “So what do normal people start learning first when they join the coven?”

“Depends on their abilities. We start from there and then grow out,” Claudia said.

“So why haven’t we been working with my visions?”

“Because that’s not what my mother wanted,” Daniel said.

“So basically we should’ve been working on my sight the whole time, but your mother doesn’t want me doing that.” Luciana never failed to piss me off. I hadn’t even seen her and I wanted to rip her throat out.

He nodded once.

“Good to know.”

“It’s not that I—”

“I get it. Your mom’s the one in charge. No worries.” But it was good to know that he had a particular agenda. Or, more accurately, his mother did, and he was working for her.

We shared an awkward moment where we just stared at each other.

He cleared his throat. “The thing is,” he said slowly, “only someone with sight can teach you about it.”

“Then why isn’t your mother teaching me?”

“I don’t know.”

That meant that she really didn’t want me to rule the coven. I was here for some other reason. But what was she up to?

“All I can do is tell you what I know and hope it makes sense to you,” Daniel said.

“Right. Well, good thing I’m a really fast learner.”

“I’m not seeing anything,” Claudia popped out from the closet. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. It would’ve been too easy to find a book to explain everything to me. I’ll just wing it like always.”

She smiled, and I hoped maybe she was over me not showing her what Grams had written. Claudia started to leave, but stopped. “I forgot to tell you that I have a couple of people coming over for dinner tonight. I thought it might be fun for you to get to know some more of us. I hope that’s all right.”

“Sure.” I wasn’t feeling like meeting a bunch of people, but Tia Rosa had said I needed to, so I’d do my best.

Plus, I was still holding out hope for someone to show up and be the answer to my prayers—a leader for the coven.

“So, what now?” I asked Daniel.

He held up the book of knots. “I brought another box of glasses.”

I laughed as I shook my head. “You’re a glutton for punishment.” I rubbed my hands together. “One box of glass powder, coming right up!”

As Daniel set everything out, I wondered how I was going to figure out expanding my visions. If Rosa was right and she could help me, then maybe it was worth facing Luciana to get permission to leave the compound.

I thought about it for a second, and I imagined how many ways that confrontation could go wrong.

I’d wait until I really, really needed to go see Tia Rosa before approaching Luciana.

Until then, I’d just go with my gut. That was what Grams had said to do, anyway.
And when has that ever gone wrong for me…

Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan after all.

Chapter Thirteen

After turning the entire box of glasses into dust, I hid in my room to read for a little while. I was a total failure, but we’d had a good laugh about it.

The doorbell had sounded twice and voices echoed from downstairs. It was time for me to go meet people, but all I wanted to do was stay in my room.

I reminded myself that I had to branch out, and if I stayed inside my cousins’ place for the rest of my time here, I probably would go insane. Even if I tended to be a homebody, I still got out, took walks, went to the bookstore…went to school.

Nothing could ever be as bad as school in Los Angeles.

I pulled on my big girl panties and went downstairs.

Three people had joined Raphael, Claudia, and Daniel. I was nearly shocked to see Raphael. He was almost never at home. He worked long hours with a friend from school. They had a web design company, which seemed odd. Spells and witchy stuff felt like the antithesis of technology, but apparently that was a stereotype that had been proven wrong.

“Teresa, this is Cosette. She’s been visiting from the Colorado coven for the past few months.” Cosette’s curly, dark-blonde hair ran down her back in soft ringlets. Her eyes were dark brown, and a little large for her face, but the rest of her features were small.

“Oh. Hi.” I never shook hands, so introductions could be a little awkward, but Cosette didn’t offer.

Instead, she gave a regal nod. “I’ve been begging Claudia to introduce us.”

I focused on not making a face. Why did she want to meet me? “Oh.”

“I hear that you and I have a few similarities.” Cosette twirled a curl around her finger, and I couldn’t imagine anything we possibly shared. “We both have some form of second sight and are torn in two directions.”

Torn in two directions? “You’re a Were?” She didn’t look like any born Were I’d ever met, and I knew I was the only one who’d been bitten in ages.

She grinned, and I would’ve sworn she glowed a little. “No! Fey.”

I must’ve heard her wrong. “I’m sorry. Did you say fey?”

“Yeah. Only we’re not anything like Tinkerbell.”

“Right. Of course.” I thought my eyes might pop out of my head. I knew there were other supernatural beings out there. I’d found that out on my first day at St. Ailbe’s, but I hadn’t actually run into anything other than vampires. I’d put it out of my head a little.

“I wanted to say hello. There aren’t many of us who understand what it’s like balancing two supernatural worlds.”

“True.” And I really didn’t know what else to say to her about it.

Someone tapped my shoulder and I turned. “I’m Shane. Live two doors down.”

Shane had his dark hair buzzed short, and a big colorful tattoo ran up his arm. I wanted to stare at it, but didn’t want to be rude. He was also tall and ripped to the point that he would’ve fit in perfectly at St. Ailbe’s. Boy must work out hard for that body.

I realized I was staring after all, and awkwardly shoved my hands in my pockets.
Way to check out the neighbor. Real slick.
“Cool,” I said, trying to go for nonchalance but once again, failing.

“And this is Elsa.” Claudia motioned to the girl in curled up on the couch. She looked like a child with a pair of large, green glasses. “She doesn’t talk much.”

Raphael walked to the front door and muttered something so softly, that I wondered if he was merely mouthing the words rather than saying them. Then he ran a finger along the painted wood, and I knew exactly what he was doing.

When the ends of the knot met, the pressure in the house suddenly increased, making my ears pop.

“What spell was that?”

“No one can listen in now,” Raphael said. “Most of
La Aquelarre
is meeting in the schoolhouse today, so we should be fine either way, but always better safe than sorry.”

Maybe I should’ve been annoyed that I wasn’t told about the meeting, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. “Why aren’t any of you there?”

“Because we know talking to you is more important that hearing whatever Luciana has to say,” Shane said.

Oh, no. This couldn’t be what I thought it was. “I thought you said that the coven was split?”

“It is,” Raphael said.

“This isn’t in half. There are like forty—”

“Sixty-two,” Shane said. “We don’t all live here on the compound, but if everyone is called in…”

Shit. There were more members than I’d thought. “Fine, sixty-two, and what, five others plus another half-witch visitor? That’s not split. That’s not enough.”

“It’ll have to be enough,” Claudia said. “We need to make this work. If we don’t, the coven is going to go fully dark and a lot of lives could be lost.”

I sat down in one of the wingback chairs and closed my eyes. My pulse was pounding in my ears, and the wolf was rising. Something brushed against my hand, and I opened my eyes.

“Eat it,” Raphael said.

I glanced down to see the PowerBar. My cousins were starting to get used to my eating habits. I gnawed my way through the tough, tasteless bar as I thought. With every new thing I learned here, defeating Luciana seemed more and more helpless. The deck was stacked and I didn’t—couldn’t—see a way around it. It would’ve been better for these people if they left the coven and joined the pack. They could defect and stay on St. Ailbe’s land.

Were there consequences to leaving? The only way to find out would be to ask. “Can you leave the coven? You could stay at St. Ailbe’s. There’s enough room. And you’d be safe until we figured out what to do next.”

“No. That’s impossible,” Claudia said.

“Why?”

“We all take a blood oath to formally join the coven.” Shane crossed his arms, staring down at me while I gnawed on my snack. “Once you’re in, it’s hard to leave. Especially for people like us whose families have been members for generations. The blood oath grows exponentially in strength with each generation.”

“And you all took this oath?” I waved the bar around the room at them. “Even though you disagreed with Luciana?”

Claudia nodded. “With the exception of Cosette. Where else were we supposed to go?”

“I don’t know, anywhere. The world is a big place.” Was it better to live here than to venture out into the unknown? I didn’t think so, but then I couldn’t make their choices for them.

Although, I did have to figure out a way to save them. The urge to beat my head against the wall was strong, but I could only do this one step at a time.

With introductions finished, we sat down to dinner. Claudia had cooked two pans of lasagna—one for me, and one for everyone else to share. I shoveled salad and garlic bread onto my plate and let the conversation flow around me as I ate.

“Other supernaturals won’t stand for Luciana’s behavior. The witches might have numbers, but if all of us in opposition join with the pack, it’ll be an even match,” Cosette said.

“And just which side would you be on?” Shane asked.

“I’m on the side that isn’t dealing in dark magic. This might not be my coven, but there’s a reason I’m in Texas instead of Colorado.”

Elsa cleared her throat and everyone looked to her—I had yet to hear her say a word. “The fight is coming, no matter what we do. I think trying to break up
La Aquelarre
is also a waste of time. We should break our covenant, as it’s already cracking. Then, when the rest stand up, we’ll be on the side of the victors.”

“That’s assuming that we’ll be the victors,” I said.

“If we’re not, then a dark time is ahead for the world.”

Right. Like I needed one more person to tell me this was all
really fucking serious
. I got it.

“So, why isn’t anyone listening in on the meeting?”

“Sam is. But the talk will be more of the same. Witches are the most powerful blah-blah-blah. Wolves are evil monsters, blah-blah-blah. Let’s takeover the humans and rule the world.” Cosette shrugged. “It’s Luciana’s usual Pinky and the Brain routine.”

I chewed through a last hunk of garlic bread and set down my fork. The bread and PowerBar would have to do for now. “Save the rest for me?”

“Where are you going?” Claudia said.

“It might be rote of all of you, but I’ve never heard Luciana’s rant. It’s as good of a place to start as any.”