Avoiding Alpha (Alpha Girl) (11 page)

“Did he say anything helpful?” Adrian asked softly. Bless him.

Dastien massaged my temples, and some of the pain dissipated.

“Not really.” Talking made me nauseated, so I tried to keep it limited. “He’s far, but on his way now. He said I’d have to merge witchcraft with something else. I was pulled out before he could say. Any ideas?” I tried to sit up, but started to fall.

“Whoa.” Dastien caught me before I could hit the ground. “I got you.” He pulled me onto his lap. He scooted so he was leaning against the cabinets. I leaned against him listening to his steady heartbeat.

“What’s wrong with me?”

Dastien brushed my hair back from my face, and pressed a kiss to my head. “When I said you were drained, I meant it. It’s going to take a little bit before you get your strength back.”

This wasn’t good news. “I don’t have time to spare.”

“You should eat something,” Adrian said. “It’ll help.”

Dastien stood in one swift motion with me cradled in his arms. “It’s dinner time anyway,” he said. “Let’s go. We should all eat.”

He started to walk out the door, but I stopped him. “Wait. I want to say bye to Meredith.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Dastien said to them.

The others left as Dastien stepped up to Meredith’s bed, my body still cradled in his arms.

I reached out with a shaky hand, brushing back a piece of sweaty hear from her face. Her color was worse, if that were possible. Her hand felt like skin and bones in mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull from you, too. I only wanted to help you, but I’m making it
worse.” I sighed. “I talked to Donovan though. He’s on his way back. We’ll figure something out. Just hang on.” I looked up at Dastien. “If I took power from her, can I give it back?”

“The only reason you could pull the power is because you’re stronger than her. But giving it back…that’s trickier.”

“But I pulled from you and you’re stronger than me. Aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure who’s stronger, but I’m your mate. We can send it back and forth without any cost.”

“I must be really out of it, because that made a little bit of sense.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Don’t you dare give me your power.”

“What do you think I’m doing right now?”

“Stop it.” I didn’t want him hurting like I was.

“Relax. I’m giving you a little at a time. We’ll eat, and you’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.” He stepped into the hallway and pushed open the door to the outside with his back.

Sunlight hit my face, and my head didn’t throb. I relaxed against his shoulder. “I’m feeling better already.”

“Good.”

“Thanks for taking care of me.”

“It’s my pleasure,
cherie
,” he said as he started across the courtyard.

It was a different experience, trusting him as much as I did. At times it really felt like we were halves of each other. Like he was an extension of me, but also his own person. I didn’t have to worry about how I acted or what I did or said. He wouldn’t judge me, and he didn’t mind helping me when I got in over my head.

Who would’ve thought that the guy I flirted with in a bookstore would one day feel like an essential part of my life?

I remembered that conversation, talking about favorite songs. It reminded me of something. “Hey, babe.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really looking forward to going dancing with you.”

He rubbed his chin on the top of my head. “What made you think of that?”

“Do you remember that day in the bookstore?”

“It wasn’t that long ago,
cherie
, but you could ask me again in fifty years and I’ll still say yes. I’ll never forget the first conversation I had with my mate.”

Heat spread through my body. “That was a good day.”

“It was.” He paused. “You’re feeling awfully sentimental right now.” It was a statement not a question.

“Yeah. Seeing what happened between Meredith and Donovan got to me.”

“Ah.” He left it at that, not pressing me for any questions and I really appreciated it.

“She deserves to be as happy as I am.”

“She will be.”

I hoped so. “Donovan really loves her.”

“If they’re mates, then that’s definitely true.”

“Right.” I laughed. “At least he won’t have to bite her.”

He was quiet for a second. “I don’t think it’s been long enough for us to laugh about that.”

I tightened my hold on him. “Come on. It
is
kind of funny.”

He sighed. “If you say so…crazy girl.”

I pressed a kiss to his neck. “I say so.” As Dastien walked, I had a feeling I was going to regret being carried, but I couldn’t muster the energy to say something.

I’d never really liked going into school cafeterias. Throughout my life, they’d been a place where I was ridiculed. These days, they weren’t so bad. I’d found my place in the pack, and I had friends and a kick-ass mate. But as Dastien stepped into the crowded cafeteria, I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

Being carried was a horrible idea. “Put me down. Now.”

He tightened his arms around me, cradling me against his chest. “No.”

Everyone stopped and stared. Not just one or two or twenty people. Everyone. Every single person.

What was I supposed to do? Apologize for pulling all that power? Make a speech?

“Say something,” Dastien whispered into my ear.

God. This was so not what I wanted to do. “Will you put me down?”

“No.”

“Fine.” This wouldn’t be humiliating at all. I cleared my throat. “Hey, everyone. I’m sorry for taking without asking. Meredith’s really sick, and I was trying to hold a connection
to Donovan to find out how to break the curse. He’s in the Andes right now, and it took a little bit from each of you to talk to him. So, thank you.”

People shouted out questions.

“I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t yet. All of you helped me get closer to finding out how to help Meredith. So, thanks again. And I’m sorry.” I turned to Dastien. “Good enough?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him, but he looked around the room and then started walking to where Adrian, Chris and Shannon were sitting. As we wove through the tables, conversations picked up again.

Dastien set me in a chair. “I’ll be back with food.”

“Thanks.” Everyone else was already eating. Smells of fajitas and enchiladas made my stomach growl embarrassingly loud. Whoops. I put a hand over my stomach. “I guess I’m hungry.”

Chris shook his head, and his blond hair fell into his eyes. He slid a small plate with a pile of Mexican rice and refried beans smothered with cheese on it my way. “Start with that.” He handed me a fork.

I wasn’t about to turn the food away. I gave Chris a nod, and started eating.

Dastien hadn’t been gone long, but by the time he got back with my tray, I was nearly licking the plate.

“That was kind of intense,” Adrian said.

I looked around the table, and they were all staring at me. “What?”

Dastien took the plate from me and set a tray down. It was piled high with Mexican food. My favorite. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and never get sick of it. It was like the cafeteria gods had read my mind today.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life,” I said over my mountain of food.

“I can’t watch this. It’s so…disgusting.” Shannon stood. “I’ll be in Meredith’s room.”

“What’s her problem? I swear you guys regularly eat way more than this.”

“Yeah, but usually we take time to do things like breathe and chew,” Adrian said with a chuckle.

The extreme hunger that I felt sometimes took some getting used to. My stomach had somehow turned into an endless cavern when I became a werewolf. On a normal day, I ate maybe five times as much as I did as a normal human. Or more. Whatever I’d done to talk to Donovan had really worn me out, but the food was helping.

“Sorry, guys. I’ll try and slow down.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chris said as balanced his chair on its back legs. “I’m not upset. I’m kind of impressed. You’re tucking it away like a pro.”

Not even when I was recovering from being bitten by a vampire was I this drained or hungry. Although that was a different kind of drained. Or maybe it was the power that Dastien was feeding into me? He ate one-handed, and his free hand hadn’t left my back. The steady pulse of his alpha power warmed me from the inside like a balm on my tired muscles.

“Everything okay?” Dastien asked.

“As long as you don’t count grossing out our friends, then yeah, everything’s fine.” But I was feeling self-conscious about how much I was eating. “Merging witchcraft with what? Discuss options.” I waved my fork at them. “And ignore what’s going on over here.” I waved the fork at myself. I started eating again, but tried to remember to breathe between bites this time.

“We were talking about that before you got here,” Adrian said. “The only thing that we can come up with is combining types of witchcrafts. Assuming that, we have a few options.”

I wished they only had one option, but I’d take what I could get. “Tell me.”

“Basically there are incantations or spells, potions, and curses,” Adrian said. “Although curses are like a subset of spells and incantations, but with a negative connotation. Assuming we rule out the whole curse category—”

“Wait. Why are we ruling those out?” It seemed like a bad idea to rule anything out at this point, but what did I know? For once, I wished my parents had moved us to Texas sooner, but there was nothing I could do about that.

“Because curses are dark,” Dastien said. “They’re meant to hurt, and we aren’t going to do anything bad to one of our own.”

I chewed slowly as I thought. “Agreed. What’s the deal with the incantations and potions?”

“Well, sometimes they go hand-in-hand,” Adrian said. “Like what your cousins gave us to fight the vampires.”

They’d given us a bunch of little vials of herby-looking stuff. All I had to do was say the right phrase and chuck one at a vampire. As soon as the glass broke, the potion exploded. They were a pretty neat and had saved our butts. We wouldn’t have made it out alive without the magical assistance.

“Okay, and what happens when it’s just an incantation,” I said.

“Sometimes all a witch—” Chris stopped when Adrian cleared his throat. “Fine. Sometimes all a
bruja
needs to do is say something. Their magic plus their will makes the words true.”

“And potions are mixtures of magical ingredients that pack a punch,” Adrian said. “They can do any number of things—from make someone fall in love to transform a person from human to mouse—depending on what you mix in them.”

I took a break from eating. “So we need something like what I used in the cave. We should find something that mixes a potion and words to set the spell. And it should be one that makes her wolf hit the hay.”

There were some grumbles around the table.

“If you guys have a better idea that won’t kill her, then I’m all ears. But remember that we’re only suppressing her wolf to keep her alive until we come up with something better.”

“That seems really unnatural,” Dastien said.

“I know.” I took another bite.

“Are you sure you’re not trying this because of your own issues with changing?” Chris asked

I dropped my fork with a clatter. “No. I’m not.” At least I didn’t think I was.

We sat in silence for a bit, each of us eating and letting the cafeteria sounds fill the void.

After a bit, Adrian spoke up. “Can I see your
Book of Shadows
?”

Shit. I’d left my bag in Meredith’s room. “You didn’t happen to grab my bag, did you?”

Dastien shook his head. “Sorry. It’ll be fine there. No one’s going to mess with your stuff.”

Those books meant something to my cousins, and they meant something to me. Leaving them laying around felt wrong. “Okay,” I said, shaking it off. “I’ll grab them after.”

“I think there was something in your family’s
Book of Shadows
that could work,” Adrian said. “They weren’t specifically for werewolves but they talked about suppressing inner demons.”

Chris cussed up a storm.

“I know. I know,” Adrian said. “But to
La Alquelarre
, our inner wolf could count as a demon.” He paused to let that sink in. He had a point, and I was more than a little ashamed that I looked at my wolf as a kind of demon. It made me feel out of control, which was not a fun feeling. It made me angry and violent. Two things I’d never considered myself before.

“There are still a bunch of ingredients that we don’t have in storage. I’m not sure where we’d find them,” Adrian said.

“I could maybe ask my mom. Even if she didn’t really participate in
La Alquelarre
, my grandmother did. She might know where to find stuff.” I pushed the tray to the center of the table. “I think I’m done. I’m grossing myself out now.”

“Eating’s part of being a Were,” Dastien said. “Don’t feel bad about it. I ate way more than you did.”

I glanced over at his tray. He’d cleaned all of his plates. Three big dishes and two small ones.

“This tray was mine too.” He pointed to another tray full of empty plates.

“Holy shit, babe.” My cheeks heated. I didn’t want to make them feel bad or anything, and I liked food as much as the next person, but this was insane. “It’s weird, you know? Where does it go?”

“Quick digestion?” Chris said.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Let’s go get the books and figure out a game plan and then I’ll call my mom.”

Adrian nodded. “If we could get everything together by tonight, then we can do a midnight casting. It’s almost the full moon. Could give us an advantage.”

Sounded legit to me. “Cool. Let’s do this.”

When we got to the infirmary, Shannon and two girls that I didn’t know were in Meredith’s room. They were lost in discussion as they pawed their way through my books. One of them was pouring over the textbook, while Shannon had my family’s
Book of Shadows
and the other girl had the blue book.

So much for no one messing with my stuff. I shot Dastien a look before turning my anger on them. “You went through my bag and grabbed my personal property?” I practically growled.