"Alpha," Niall says, knocking on Harry's open office door before walking in. Harry was sitting at his desk, a pile of paper work on his desk that he was sorting through, records of the patrols from the past week. I sat off to the left, a book about vampires in my lap, because the boy whined if I even so much as stood up to leave the room.
"Yeah?"
"The coven got our message," he says, clasping his hands together repeatedly.
"Okay?" Harry says, becoming slightly animated. "What did they say?"
"They said they would send someone over, five minutes ago. Their representative is already here." My eyes widen slightly, and I subconsciously sit up straighter in my seat.
"Alright," Harry says. "Thank you, Niall. I will be right down to receive our guest." Niall nods and leaves the room, and Harry gets up out of his chair and starts to walk toward the door. Before he passes the threshold, he turns back to me, a confused look on his face.
"Are you coming?" he says. I shoot up out of my chair and nod quickly, walking toward him.
"Yeah, um, yeah," I says, flustered. He gives me a cheeky grin and places his hand on the small of my back as we make our way to the front.
The witch was not how I expected her to be. She was beautiful, dressed in a light green sundress. Her blonde hair was pulled into a wispy and elegant bun, and her equally green eyes locked with mine, a smirk on her lips.
"I'm Wisteria. You must be the Emma everyone is talking about," she says, holding her hand out to me. I take her hand in mine and nod.
"I suppose," I say, not really knowing how fast word travels.
"She's very beautiful," she tells Harry, and I couldn't help but blush. "It really would be a shame if you lost her." He growls.
"I don't care what you are insinuating, Wisteria." He spits out her name, like it has a foul taste in his mouth.
"So where are we headed?" she says to me, the ever-present smirk still on his face, as she ignores Harry.
"Um, well, the message was found out on the lawn," I say, walking with Harry outside to where the message was left. She spends sometime looking at the message, making movements with her hands.
"You are the girl, I assume?" she says, and I nod.
She starts to follow the same blood trail we found earlier, and comes to the same bend that we came to on our original search. There's a confused look on her face, and she keeps mumbling to herself the whole way through. She waves her hands as she walks, and sparks fly out of her fingers. Finally, we reach the creek, and she takes a moment before stopping and turning to us.
"So? What did you find?" Harry says.
"Harry, my dear," Wisteria says, placing a hand on his arm that I wanted to rip off. Wait, what? I was not seriously getting jealous, was I? Control yourself, Emma. "Patience is a virtue." She smirks at him then turns toward me.
"Based on the trail that the intruder left behind, you were definitely right when you suspected the person knew the area well. No one else would have known that there was a creek so far off their course otherwise. They were definitely trained, although you knew that much. The sense that I found was an odd mix of human and werewolf; does that make any sense?"
"That's impossible," Harry growls. Wisteria only holds up a hand up to his face, still facing me.
"And yet, that is the sense I picked up. So do me a favor, Harold, and have a little bit of faith in me."
"How does that happen? How can the sense be both human and werewolf?" I ask.
"Why, they would have to be a hybrid of course. I mean, when you two have pups, you don't expect them to be fully werewolves do you?" I blush and shake my head. I suppose I hadn't really thought about it in that way.
"If they were a hybrid, would that make a trip through the Asimi mountains and more possible?" She doesn't speak for a couple of minutes; her eyes glazed over, and her chin was caught between her thumb and forefinger.
"I suppose," she says. "Although, it would still be extremely difficult. They would be lucky still to get out of there with their wolf-side still alive."
"What if they had a witch on their side?" Harry pipes in. Wisteria shoots her eyes over to Harry, narrowing them for a second before she's back to facing me.
"That would make things," she trails off for a second, "easier."
"But would they be able to do it?" I ask. "Would they be able to survive the trip?"
"Yes," she says, "but only with the help of a very strong witch. They need to be in control of the soul of the wolf to be able to contain it from the silver. That is very difficult magic to learn and even more difficult to develop. It takes years of practice to master, and very few witches still know how to perform that kind of magic."
"So who does know?" I ask.
"Only three that I know of. The three Ancient Ones: Adrasta, Aelle, and Alala."
"Out of those three, is there any one in particular that would go through with this sort of plot?"
"Out of those three? Probably Alala. The sisters, well, they are all pretty ruthless; Adrasta likes to kidnap humans and keep them trapped in mazes, and Aelle likes to mess with humans weather. But Alala, she's the reason for most of the wars between humans. You name it, she was probably the one who got the ball rolling. You know Franz Ferdinand? She was the one who came up with the plot to kill him, starting World War I. If it's any one of them, it's probably Alala."
"So how do we find her?" I ask, but Wisteria only smiles dryly.
"Honey, if she doesn't want to be found, you could travel to hell and back, and you still wouldn't find a trace of her. And if she's working with a human-were hybrid, then chances are you're looking at only a small portion of a much larger plot."
"Then what do we do?" I ask.
"Best bet right now is to find Adrasta and Aelle and see if you can get them on your side. It's a long shot, but even they realize their sister can be a bit much. If you get them on your side, you'll be powerful enough to protect yourselves against her."
"Well, how do we find them?"
"I can put in my contacts and see what that finds me. I'll be in contact with you over the next couple of weeks, and I'll tell you what I find."
"Thank you, Wisteria, for all that you've done today," I say, shaking her hand again. We've reached the pack house once again.
"My pleasure," she smirks, placing her lips on the top of our clasped hands. Harry growls at her, but her smirk only widens.
"Toodles," she says, wiggling her fingers at Harry before she disappears in a flash of white light. The second she was gone, Harry pulled me into him, placing his lips on my neck.
"She was all over you," he growls as he practically attacks my neck. I felt pleasure for a few seconds until I started to feel pinpricks of pain. I pushed Harry away quickly, holding my neck protectively.
"What's the matter?" Harry says, eyes wide in fear.
"My neck," I cry, and I fall to the ground. Harry rushes over to me, angling my neck so that he can get a clearer view.
"Oh no," he mutters underneath his breath.
"What?" I manage to rasp out.
"I didn't think it would happen after this long," he says, and his emotions hit me like a ton of bricks: agony, hurt, disbelief.
"What's going on?" I try to growl, but it comes out like a whimper.
"Your body is rejecting your mark," he says, his voice cracking.
"What?" I say in disbelief before I cry out in pain as another wave of hurt hits me. I didn't think that was possible, that my body could reject the bite. Why would it now? Why not earlier? I thought I was just starting to actually accept him.
"I need to get you to the pack doctor okay?" he says. "Stay awake, please."
I nod, but it becomes too hard to keep my eyes open. The last words I hear are Harry muttering to himself.
"Please be alright, please be alright."
------------
sorry for not updating for two days!! I had major writers block, but I've gotten over it yay! expect quite a few updates over the next week as I am on break!
If you enjoyed this chapter, please vote and leave your thoughts in the comments:)
xx winter