The Curse Of The Alpha

14

Word Count: 1699

~Meara

I stare across at Hazel, feeling myself growing impatient.

She sits at her dining room table, flipping through an old book, waving dust out of her face with every page turn.

The death's currently plaguing the pack haven't come from nowhere, and it's no coincidence they have started with Sire's rising. This is the curse, and the only person I trust to figure out how to stop it is Hazel.

She seemed uncomfortable when Sire came in, shuffling back a few steps as he bent his head to enter.

I don't blame her...

"Do you have anything?" I ask, staring down at the book she also gave me to read. The words, strung together like some other language, swim in front of me. This is impossible to decipher.

She lets out a frustrated growl. "Nothing reliable."

Every now and again her gaze flickers up warily to Sire. He paces incessantly behind me, which seems to be unnerving my friend.

"We are running out of time," I exclaim. Day by day people are dying, and the guilt from knowing I unleashed this curse weighs heavily on my shoulders.

"We will be fine, we just need to be calm," Sire assures me.

I roll my eyes. "I doubt you even care about the people dying out there right now."

"Of course I care," he exclaims, sliding into the chair next to me. "A lot of these people came from past members of my Pack. The Pack I am trying to reunite."

I stare him down, my eyes narrowed. So he admits that he only cares because of their potential connection to his ancestral Pack, and not because they are people, with lives, who don't deserve this...maybe I'm reading into it too much, but I am suspicious.

"Reuniting your Pack will never happen," Hazel mutters under her breath, not raising her gaze.

"Why not?" Sire demands.

She sighs, finally deigning to look up at him. Her apprehension about his presence seems to have vanished as she stares him down fiercely.

"There has only been one Pack for centuries. I just don't see why people would want to move on from this one," she muses. I can't tell if she hates him already, or is just keen to jest with him.

Sire doesn't so much as blink. "Maybe I'll kill your Alpha, then."

"Sire. Don't," I warn.

I suppose I should be grateful he hasn't killed Alpha Carran already. He seems to be biding his time, which must be because of me.

"It's not like he doesn't have it coming," he notes.

He slides the book from in front of me to in front of him. This material is close to being from his time, so he is more likely to comprehend the material compared to me, who barely scraped through school.

"Can we just find a cure first? Otherwise there is going to be a Pack for you to take over," I remind him.

There's silence for a moment, filled only by the turning of pages.

"I know nothing about this curse," Sire notes irritably.

"It was obviously your rivals last way of ensuring that even if you were awoken, you wouldn't have anyone left to bring into your Pack," Hazel explains to him.

She seems to have found a page that is particularly interesting, pulling a pad of paper near to start scribbling on. I watch, fascinated, as she rights in an old dialectic that she claims is familiar only to witches.