Bloodbound [Werewolf]

Chapter Ten

"Oh, thank heavens you ladies are back safe," was the first thing we heard as we opened the door to the Den. It was from Conan, whose look of distress dissipated the moment we stepped inside. Everyone seemed to have been waiting anxiously as I noticed how Brye and Dahlia's shoulders sagged with relief when we re-entered.

"So, did you get the book?" Brye asked, sounding anxious despite his crooked grin.

"We got it, alright. Though I needed to go through hellish lengths," Christina grumbled. When the three gave us quizzical looks, she explained how I'd nearly gotten caught by Cienna and her officials. If it wasn't for Christina's quick thinking and charisma -- as she called it -- I surely would have been caught. When she mentioned the part about her exchange with Cienna, I noticed how the three of them tensed, but she waved them off. I decided I would have to ask what happened between Christina and Cienna, or else I would die of curiosity.

But before that, I needed to show them the book. I placed the leather-bound tome on the table before asking, "What is the next step now that we got this jarring book?"

"I think we should know what those words on the front mean first. I don't want to get cursed opening that thing," Christina answered, resting her hands on her hips.

Brye stepped forward, his brown eyes narrowing at the words on the cover. "What does it say? Ne.. Ne jamais... Liu.. Leu.. L'u-"

"Ne jamais l'utiliser," I spoke, giving Brye a bored look whilst he scratched the back of his neck.

"Meaning?" Conan looked at me. Before I could even answer, another voice chirped in; barely over a whisper.

"Never use it."

They blinked at Dahlia as she simultaneously looked back at me with anticipation.

"She's correct," I admitted, looking at her with subtle interest. "Comment saviez-vous?"

With her long ice-blonde hair, she hid the lower half of her face, her eyes cast to the floor. "Les livres et les français."

"Are we supposed to just guess whatever the both of you are discussing?" Christina asked, annoyed that she was being left out of the conversation. Brye looked to be holding back laughter.

"Seems like Tina wanted to join the ladies' chat," Conan playfully remarked as he too ended up being on the receiving end of her glares.

"Don't act like you guys aren't interested in whatever they were talking about," the dark-skinned girl huffed. They admitted to it without a fight, leading up to a small bicker as I sighed. Good Lord, they were a bunch of children.

"For your information, I asked Dahlia how she knew the language, and she replied saying she learned from native speakers." They turned to stare at me as I cast the green-eyed girl a look before she bowed her head down again. Out of all of them, she piqued my curiosity the most.

Brye chuckled. "Alright. Well, isn't it funny how the book literally tells us to 'never use it' but here we are trying to 'learn how to use it'. I think it's quite hilariou- Ow! What was that for?" He glared softly at Christina who had pinched his side.

"Why don't you use that energy into thinking what made this book forbidden so we might prevent its aftereffect rather than thinking idiotic thoughts?" she reprimanded while Dahlia patted his shoulder like she was trying to console him. In spite of this, I still felt no hostility between the three of them, unlike how Cienna and I were — putting on a front for people to perceive our family as a portrait-perfect happy one for as long as we could.

I immediately put the thoughts aside as we began exchanging opinions. There were a few theories; the first one being that the techniques inside the book were too powerful to learn and may cost one their life while trying to master them. That made sense to me since the royal Alpha lineage had been a vital part of Aigaryn for millenniums now and having whoever this author's descendants were — assuming they were from the royal bloodline — be killed attempting to practice these techniques would be risking their entire future generation. The second one was a leaning on the psychological risk of the practitioner — as per Dahlia's words through Brye as always — since the forbidden techniques might cause severe hallucination or permanent mind damage due to how intense they were and that's why the book was written, to prevent it from happening after the previous one went insane. The third one was flat-out stupid — it being forbidden because it was a hoax and written by a bored ancestor of the Alpha bloodline. We all scolded Brye for that theory, especially when the plan mainly involved the book.