Kiss Of The Alpha : A YA Paranormal Romance

Chapter 85: Chapter 85

Heather

I ignored their yelling. I knew I was right. It was the only way.

Slowly, my wolf settled down. I breathed a sigh of relief. Today was not a good day to change.

"As much as I hate to say it, Heather has a point," Adrian said. "But maybe if we knew what happened to her, what the spell or curse was, then we’d know how to calm her wolf better."

I spun around. "Does anyone know what happened?"

Leslie stayed quiet, while Xander and Adrian shook their heads.

Interesting. I wondered what Leslie was hiding.

"Well, we can’t let Dr. Gonzales wake her up," I said. "The sedatives won’t work for long anyway."

Xander bounced a pencil on the table. The tap-tap-tap made me more on edge than I already was, if that was even possible. I ripped the pencil from his hand, snapped it in half, and threw it across the room. Wooden splinters rained down on the gray shag carpeting.

Everyone in the room froze.

"Holy shit. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that." I’d reached the point where I was acting without thinking.

My control was seriously slipping and I hadn’t even noticed it. The wolf inside me was gaining the upper hand, and that couldn’t happen. I sat heavily in my chair.

"It’s fine. I didn’t realize I was tapping my pencil." Xander shrugged it off like it was no big deal. To them, maybe it wasn’t. To me, it was.

"It was the sound, but God—I’ve never just done that. It was incredibly rude. I’m so sorry." My wolf wasn’t conflicted about it. Something was annoying me and she stopped it.

Oh no. I was starting to realize what my wolf wanted.

"This might be a crazy idea..." Xander started, then shook his head.

Focusing on Serena meant I didn’t have to deal with the whole wolf thing. I waited for Xander to speak up, but he didn’t. "Spill it."

"I know you can get visions and stuff, but can you dig around in someone’s mind?"

The thought of doing that turned my stomach. Messing around in someone’s head seemed a shade darker than anything I ever wanted to do. It was worse than snooping around someone’s closet or medicine cabinet. Everyone had secrets and memories that they’d rather not talk about. What I saw, even when it was something little, was extremely personal, and I felt exactly what they felt. Saw what they saw. To dig around in multiple memories, hoping to run across the right one...that seemed far from kosher.

How far would I go to save Serena?

Apparently pretty far, because I was seriously thinking about giving this plan a shot. "I’ve never tried. I spent my whole life trying to avoid getting visions, so forcing one from someone wasn’t even on my radar. But getting a specific vision of an event...I don’t know. I could try. You think it’d help?"

"Yes," Adrian said. "If you could figure out how she got cursed, then maybe we’d have a better shot at undoing it."

"I guess it’s worth a try." I just hoped Serena wouldn’t mind me messing around in her head.

I opened the conference room door and walked straight into Brent. He grasped my shoulders as I stumbled back a step.

"What’s up?" I asked.

He’d changed from the sweats into his usual jeans and T-shirt, but his eyes still held worry. "I was going to ask you the same thing. I felt you go a little...out of control." He squeezed my shoulders once before letting go. "What’s going on?"

I didn’t even know how to answer that question. I was feeling on edge. That said, I’d been feeling on edge since my run-in with Luciana. Being anxious wasn’t unusual for me, but today was over the top. I’d nearly shifted twice already, and it wasn’t even dinnertime. To say that I felt uneasy was an extreme understatement, and I didn’t like it at all. I used to be even-keeled. With my visions, I had to be able to roll with whatever was going on, but now I was a mess.

"I’m thinking of doing something that I’m not exactly sure is a super fantastic idea," I said, taking the easy road out rather than discussing my wolf for the one-millionth time.

"We’re going to the infirmary to see if Heather can see what happened when Serena was cursed," Leslie said.

Who knew she was such a little tattletale? Not that I wouldn’t tell Brent, but it would’ve been nice to ask his opinion myself. I gave her a less-than-friendly look, but Leslie didn’t look the least bit sorry.

"Are you sure that’s something you want to try?" Brent asked.

"No. But I don’t see a ton of alternatives." I shrugged. "Unless you’ve managed to get a hold of Donovan?"

"No. Not yet. But I left a message with his hotel in Cusco." He ran his fingertips down my arm before taking my hand.

Our bond strengthened. The first time I’d felt it, it was like a jolt of electricity. Now it was like a warming hum.

Thinking about our bond made me remember something. "The pack has a bond, too. Right?"

"Yeah," Adrian said. "Of course."

"Can you feel other people in the pack?"

"Sort of." Leslie stepped a little too close to Brent. "Depends on where you are in the pack hierarchy."

I tried to ignore my annoyance with her. "So why don’t you send a warning via the pack bond or something? You’re high enough up." I asked Brent.

"I wish I could, but only the appointed Alpha of each pack can find members of their own pack—which I’m not. I’m only standing in for Presley while he’s away. Even if I were the official Alpha here, Donovan would be out of my league. Only another member of the Seven could find him."

Well, there went my genius idea. "That does make things more complicated."

"Can I have a moment with her? Alone?" Brent asked our friends.

"I’ll meet you in Serena’s infirmary room," I said.

Once they were gone, Brent closed the door. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." It was a total lie, but everything would hold until Serena was better.

"You’re saying one thing, but I can sense that you’re feeling another."

I let go of his hand. Sometimes I liked to keep my emotions to myself. Having someone know what was simmering under the surface was unsettling. But he got a pass this time. I didn’t have the time or energy to try and explain what privacy meant to me.

I crossed my arms, trying to let my annoyance go. "I am okay to some degree, but it’s all relative, you know?"

He pulled out two chairs, and faced them together. "Sit. Let’s get you calm again before you go try this thing with Serena."

That was a fantastic idea. I couldn’t afford to lose control of my wolf. I’d nearly attacked Luciana this morning, and that wasn’t acceptable. Now I was an inch away from totally snapping on my friends.

After the Tribunal, things would be easier. Or so I hoped. But until then, I needed to be on my A game all the time. Today it felt like I was on my C-minus game at best.

He sat in the other chair. "So, I’ll ask it again. How are you doing?"

"Not great. I’m totally on edge about everything. I’m wasting time talking to you and that’s kind of pissing me off—"

"You’re not wasting time," he said, interrupting me. He frowned. "I hope you know that this might not be fixable. You can’t control everything. You can’t save everyone."

I chewed on my lip. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Not at all. "I don’t want to save everyone. Just Serena."

"I know, cherie. I know." He leaned toward me and placed his hand on my knee. The scent that I’d come to know as his—forest and something a little spicy that was just him—comforted me. "Are you sure you want to do this? It wasn’t that long ago that you wanted to get rid of your visions entirely."

I slouched in the chair as I thought about the truth in his words. "I did, but this is different."

"Then why are you so conflicted about it?"

It all came down to one thing. Privacy. It was something cherished, and as someone who got a lot of crap for intruding on other people’s memories, I knew how much others valued theirs. "It feels immoral. Like it’s ethically shitty of me to even consider doing it. But I don’t see any other way."

"She wouldn’t mind. If she were awake, she’d let you in. So, I don’t know why you’re beating yourself up."

I wasn’t so sure of that. Serena liked her privacy more than most. And, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t just that.

I didn’t like being sucked into other people’s memories. It wasn’t fun for me. I’d already lost touch with every aspect of reality that I held true. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.