Kiss Of The Alpha : A YA Paranormal Romance

Chapter 82: Chapter 82

Heather

Brent 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 Xander started driving, Brent 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 Serena, 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," Brent 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—"

Xander 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 Brent, 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."

Xander 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," Brent 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.

Xander cleared his throat. "How’s Serena?"

Any laughter I felt died.

"The same," Brent 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."

Brent 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 Brent’s ears as rage boiled along our bond.

Still, if I was going to have an equal relationship with Brent, 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," Xander said.

"And I won’t," I said again, talking over Xander’ mutterings. "They can’t—or won’t—do anything else to help Serena." I started to climb across the seats to get back in the front passenger side, but Brent stopped me.

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

"So? I’m a werewolf and pretty much unbreakable, even if Xander 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," Brent said to Xander.

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

I snorted.

"Seatbelt," Brent said as soon as I sat.

Seriously? The guy needed to calm down. I was fine. I would stay fine. It was Serena 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," Xander said.

"What? Seriously?" I twisted to look at Brent.

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," Xander 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.