In the middle of this fight with Luciana, I was instantly calm.
A smile spread across my face. Meredith’s wolf was locked up. Chained inside her. All I had to do was find the cage with my witchcraft, and help her break it and call her wolf forward by using alpha powers. And if I didn’t have enough alpha energy, I could pull it from the pack.
It all made sense now. I just hadn’t seen it before.
I’d been running from the wolf stuff since I became a wolf and it was high time I embraced it along with my bruja side.
Luciana was still rambling on, but nothing she said mattered anymore. I wasn’t listening.
“Goodbye, Luciana.” She stopped talking to stare at me. “Turns out, I don’t need your help. And you’ve just made an enemy for life.” I turned my back, trusting Daniel and Dastien to keep watch. “Let’s go.”
I grabbed the keys from Dastien and hopped in the car. I floored it through the gate. The burn on the way out barely registered.
“You’ve got a plan.”
I nodded. “Yes. Call the school. I need every wolf in the area in the courtyard by the time we get there. Everyone you can find. All the Cazadores. Everyone.”
“On it.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and started making calls.
This could work. Holy shit. This could be it.
Chapter Fourteen
Dastien’s phone worked overtime for nearly the whole car ride. We knew our time was limited. He checked in with Dr. Gonzales and she said Meredith was still alive, but had only an hour or two left.
I sped down the road, not caring about getting a ticket. There was no slowing down.
When Dastien was done with his calls, we were minutes away from campus.
“What’s the plan?”
I tapped my fingers along the steering wheel. “I’m going to need your help. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I have a theory.”
He turned to face me. “Tell me.”
I glanced at him for a second before turning back to the road. “You can make me change if you wanted to.”
“Yes. I could.”
“You could make just about anyone, right?”
“Yes.”
“Even if they didn’t want to.”
“Oui. Of course. Yes.” He paused. “I think I know where you’re going with this, but I already tried that with Meredith… Actually, I tried to calm her wolf. Waking it up would only hurt her worse.”
“See, that’s what I thought too. But Luciana talked about the curse like she trapped Meredith’s wolf in a cage, and all I had to do was release her. I think if I connect with Meredith again so that I can ‘see’ Meredith’s wolf, and then I use witchcraft and break the cage while I use alpha power to force the change, then the cage will crumble. The curse will break.” I was on to something. If Dastien agreed, this could really be it. “You weren’t enough on your own to affect her change, but if we got enough of us together, I think we could make it work.”
“I don’t know. It makes sense in theory, but do you think you can connect with her enough to see that?”
I hoped so. “I saw all kinds of stuff when I was with her. Memories after she first changed. With her brothers. Hanging out with her mom. I think I can get to her, and once I do, it’ll be about timing. It’ll take some doing, but I think we can.” I paused.
“This could work. It’s just… Shit,” he said as his phone rang. He switched to French, talking for a few minutes before hanging up.
I pulled into the big black gates at St. Ailbe’s. The lot was completely full. Cars were blocking others in and there was no hope of finding a place to park. I didn’t look for one. Instead, I drove up the path that led to school.
There were people milling around. As soon as they saw me, they stopped and stared.
Jeeze. Enough with the staring already.
Dastien nodded at them when we got out and they headed off without a word.
“Everyone’s in the courtyard. Go get Meredith and bring her.”
Dastien took off sprinting, and I ran the other direction. When I got to the end of the path, the trees cleared and I stopped.
Where had Dastien found all these people? There had to be six or seven hundred. Our school had barely three hundred. I swallowed. It seemed a little odd that the newbie wolf was going to use all of them, but I could do this. At least I thought I could.
My gaze darted from face to face as I started toward the crowd.
One by one, people started muttering and pointing my way. I was sure that with the way the St. Ailbe’s rumor mill worked, everyone here knew who I was. I wasn’t sure if that made me uncomfortable or more confident. Probably the former.