Kiss Of The Alpha : A YA Paranormal Romance

Chapter 173: Chapter 173

Heather

"We don’t know what Luciana’s done. Just..." He leaned down until he was eye-level with me. "Don’t go in yet." He turned to Dr. Gonzales, and waved her forward, but Cosette moved in front of her.

I should’ve moved down the hallway, but my body didn’t want to move at all.

As soon as Brent opened the door, I saw two of them. Yvonne lay collapsed on the table. She faced away from me, but there was only one reason she’d stay that still.

Elsa’s tiny body lay on the ground, her arms at an odd angle. Her skin was gray and wrinkled...

I’d seen enough. I couldn’t... I didn’t...

I turned to press my forehead against the cool wall.

They were dead. All of them.

All of them.

Fear rolled through me so fiercely that I could hardly breathe.

Oh shit. Claudia. Oh shit.

I needed my cell phone. She had to be okay.

Please, God. Let her be okay.

I raced back to my room and snatched my cell off the nightstand. My hands shook as I searched my contacts for Adrian’s number. I hit it and started pacing the room.

The phone rang. And rang. With each ring, my lungs grew tighter.

Until, it stopped ringing. "Heather?"

"The witches—"

"Raphael’s fine." Relief made my legs weak. I reached back, finding the edge of the bed, and collapsed as I tried to get control of my breathing. "Your cousin is a total badass. She came in with a bag of tricks—I have no idea how she got from Peru to Costa Rica in basically five minutes flat—but dude, she’s awesome."

I swallowed. "And Shane and Beth... Their oaths—"

"Broken. The three with me are all sworn to Claudia now, although I’m not sure she wanted any part of that."

A broken laugh slipped free. "Thank God."

I finally looked up at Brent, who’d followed me the whole way here. He sat next to me, wrapping me in his arms. "It’s going to be okay," he murmured.

I nodded as a tear slipped free. They were okay. It was going to be okay.

"What’s going on?" Adrian said. "I hear Brent. What happened?"

I told him in as few words as I could.

He cursed when I was finished. "How am I supposed to tell them..."

"Don’t. Just don’t. They’re going to come back to one big nightmare and a whole lot of heartbreak. Let them relax for a little bit and enjoy this victory. They deserve it." I let out a breath. "Get back here on the first flight you can get tomorrow. I’ll take care of breaking the news."

"So what do I tell them in the meantime?"

"Just say Luciana’s up to something, which is sort of true and expected."

He agreed, promising to send me flight details when he had them, and then hung up. Some of my anxiety melted,

but one giant question nagged at the back of my mind. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to put an end to the night’s craziness, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t follow the thought.

"What’s going on in that head of yours?" Brent asked, breaking the silence.

"I’m..." God, I was tired. I just wanted to curl up in my bed. I rubbed my fingers along my temples dreading where this would go once it was out of my mouth. "I’m just wondering how far she went with this spell."

I stood and started to pace. The problem was that I kept coming to the same conclusion. Unless I went to the coven’s compound, there was no way to know what Luciana had done, or how far she’d gone with the power drain.

I stopped pacing as a horrifying thought crossed my mind. "Do you think..." No. She couldn’t possibly be that awful.

She wouldn’t kill her entire coven? Would she?

But she could’ve. That was something she was totally capable of. Especially if it got her more power.

The answer had to be yes. To open her gateway to hell, Luciana was going to need a royal fuckload of power that she didn’t have. Since she’d lost access to both Claudia and me, she’d have to get that power somewhere else. Her coven was an easy target. They were there—linked to her by blood—practically begging to be drained.

I had to go check it out. "Don’t freak, but I don’t think there’s a way around it. We have to go to the compound."

"What? Why?" Brent half shouted.

"Because we need to know how far she went. If she drained her entire coven of magic, we’re going to have to a bigger fight on our hands than we thought." Just thinking that scared the crap out of me. We hadn’t been prepared before, and if she’d really just done what I feared, then we were screwed.

"Even if she did drain the coven, why risk going there? We’re not ready to fight her."

"So we sneak onto their land. If she didn’t drain anyone, then we get out fast. If she did..." I had a feeling Luciana wouldn’t stick around with the bodies. "I just need to know.

We need to know." I grabbed my cross-body purse, jammed in all my potion vials, and headed for the door.

"Fine." He stepped in front of me, his eyes glowing orbs of amber. "But the second we’re in danger, we run."

"Of course." We were definitely on the same page. "Let’s get the others."

We’d barely made it to the middle of campus before Mr. Langdon, Donovan, Serena, Xavier, and Dr. Gonzales strode toward us.

"We need to check out the compound," Mr. Langdon said. "See if anyone’s still alive out there."

"Totally agree." And I couldn’t be happier everyone was actually agreeing for once. "I’ve got some potions in case Luciana’s still there, but we need a full plan."

"I summoned a few quads of Cazadores for backup," Mr. Langdon said.

"What about campus? Shouldn’t they stay in case she tries to attack?"

"We’ve enough wolves to protect the campus," Donovan said. "If Luciana is still on the compound, she has power to burn. Nothing wrong with bringing backup."

"Okay. Probably a good idea." I thought for a second. "The main problem is the warding on the compound. We can deal with the repulsion part, but the spell also alerts the coven of intruders. If Luciana or any of the coven is still there we’re going to have to run fast."

"I can help with that." Cosette raised her hand and I almost did a double take.

I would’ve sworn she wasn’t standing there ten seconds ago, but if she was going to appear out of nowhere, she’d picked a good time to do it. "You can?"

"Yes. I’m sure I can still cross the wards without setting off the alarm." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Or I can get you across them easily enough. Either way, I’m going along for the ride."

I managed not to gape at her, but it was close. Cosette volunteering to help? Whatever her reasons were now, I wasn’t going to question them. "Okay. Cosette and I will deal with the wards. What next?"

"Once Heather and Cosette give the all clear, we’ll send a small group," Brent said. "We check the closest houses for signs of life. Everyone else stays out of sight unless there’s a call for help. If that happens, we get everyone out and run. We’ll keep our drivers ready for a fast getaway."

"Agreed. We’re just checking on the coven. None of us are ready to go against Luciana tonight." We weren’t even close to ready.

I strode to the closest SUV and got in the passenger side. Brent walked around to the driver’s side and motioned for one of the Cazadores to get in back. Xavier hopped in next to him. In minutes, everyone was packed in cars and heading out.

I tapped my fingers on the armrest as Brent drove through the gates. It was a thirty minute drive and there was no chance we were going to have a relaxing ride.

Because if Luciana was there, we were screwed. And if she wasn’t, and the worst was true...

Then we were already one step closer to the hell mouth in my vision.

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