Avoiding Alpha

I nodded. “Agreed.” The guys were with me, even if they didn’t want to be. “Dastien?”



“I agree. It would be good to find a way to get around this, but for now if you can help her in any way, then that would be good.”



“You’re not helping her,” Shannon yelled. “You’re making her worse. I’ll not be a part of it.” She slammed the door so hard the door splintered around the knob.



The room was quiet for a second.



“Well, that was super fun,” I said. I rolled my shoulders back, trying to ease the tension. “Am I doing the right thing?”



“I think so. Breaking the curse is dangerous. Calming the wolf has worked for years,” Dastien said. “Her parents and three of her brothers won’t get here until tomorrow, but her oldest brother is close. His flight should land in a few hours. We’ll talk it out with him when he gets here. They can try to calm her wolf, too, but I don’t think it’s going to work.” He made a face. “None of them are stronger than me.”



I glanced down at Meredith. I’d met her brother in the vision. Although the word ‘met’ might’ve been a stretch. “Yeah. I’d feel better if we got the okay from her family before we did anything to her.”



“We should still get the potion ready,” Adrian said. “If they agree, then we’ll be good to go. And if not…it’ll keep us busy while we wait.”



“Yeah. Let’s go,” Chris said as he gingerly opened the broken door.



We left the infirmary and walked to the next building over. Classes had all let out by now. Everyone else on campus was eating, studying, or working out.



The metaphysics lab was at the end of the hall. That way, if someone accidentally blew something up, not as many classrooms would be destroyed. When my lab partner told me that during my second week, I was shocked. What about the students in the classrooms? He told me in a you-gotta-be-kidding-me voice that we were werewolves. Healing wasn’t a problem.



Still, I hoped we didn’t blow anything up with our attempts at potion making. Healing fast didn’t mean we couldn’t feel pain.



Adrian opened the door and turned on the lights. The fluorescents flickered a few times before burning at full strength.



Heavy-duty metal tables took up the room, each one with two stools. It looked like a chemistry classroom from a normal school, complete with beakers and Bunsen burners on every table. The only difference was what actually went into the beakers.



“Can I see the book?” Adrian asked as he sat at one of the tables.



I opened up my bag and pulled the little brown book out. “Be careful with it,” I said as I handed it over.



“Of course.”



Dastien grabbed the stools from the table behind us. We sat as Adrian placed the book gently on the table. It still had little yellow pieces of paper sticking out from it marking pages.



“We have three options, but only one really viable spell. At least that’s my opinion.” He opened to the first one. “This is a basic healing spell.” He tapped the page and turned it so that I could read it. Little scribblings filled the margins. It called for dried sage, holy water, and an egg.



An egg? Brujas were weird.



I skimmed the description. It was a spell. There were steps to be performed and words to be said, but nothing that required any pre-mixing in the meta lab. As far as things went, this one seemed much easier than I’d thought it’d be. Anyone could do this.



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.”