Free Avoiding Alpha (Alpha Girl) by Aileen Erin Page B

wolf?”
    “Shannon and I found a couple possible spells to try,” Adrian said.
    That was promising. “Chris?” I said.
    He was reading the blue book, his nose nearly pressed into the spine. He held up a finger.
    Okay. He needed more time. “Well, mine is about as useless as meta class.” I had to take metaphysics with the freshmen. The class tried, and, in my opinion, failed miserably to explain magic in scientific terms. “It’s got all these theories about how magic works, which is great, but no actual spells that could be helpful.” I sighed.
    “What does it say about breaking spells?” Shannon asked.
    I flipped through the pages to find a passage that I’d marked. “The meat of it boils down to this passage. ‘The abilities of one witch will determine the abilities of each work of magic.’ It has a bunch of junkola after that and then the next part is good. ‘The longevity of the work is determined by the strength of the will enforcing said work. The potency and sustainability of a work can be partly determined by the strength of the witch’s will. Most works of magic wear out in time, but when breaking a particular work, the abilities of the caster must be weighed against those of the breaker.’” I glanced up from the book. “So if I want to break the spell, then I have to have stronger willpower than Luciana. If I don’t, the whole thing could backfire.”
    Now it was time to share my crazy idea.
    “We basically need Meredith’s wolf to not fight her anymore, right? But we’re thinking like wolves—about freeing Meredith from the spell. If we can’t do that safely, then why not try to put her wolf back to sleep? We wouldn’t have to worry about anything backfiring then. Or who’s stronger than who.”
    “Might not be such a horrible idea,” Chris said. “I was reading about the dangers of breaking a spell, too, but this one says it differently. Basically, if you want to break the spell that she put on Meredith, then all you have to do is want it more. But it’s hard to quantify how badly someone wants something. It’s a huge risk. Do you think you want to break it more than Luciana wants to keep it?”
    I slammed my book closed. “How the hell should I know?”
    Chris rocked back in his chair. He ran his fingers through his blond wavy hair, making it fro-out a little. “Well, if you try to break it by will, and fail, then you could end up making her much worse. Not to mention that it could rub off on you, too. You could get sick in the process.”
    Great. I didn’t want to make Meredith’s curse any worse than it already was, but I had to do something. Breaking the curse was still the option I liked the most, but it might not be the safest.
    “How was the other book?” I asked Shannon and Adrian, stalling.
    “We found a couple contenders that could maybe break a spell.”
    Nice. I leaned toward them. “And?”
    “Aaaand I’m not sure where we’d find some of the components for some of these potions,” Adrian said as he tapped his pen on his notepad.
    “One of them even calls for the blood of the caster,” Shannon said.
    Luciana had to give me her blood? Yeah, that would never happen. “Not in a million years would she give us her blood.”
    We were quiet afterwards, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
    I would’ve felt better about trying a spell if I could talk to Donovan. He knew more about dealing with this than any of us. It would be nice to get his opinion before attempting anything, but that wasn’t going to happen.
    Screw it. I wasn’t going to try anything that would be even more dangerous for Meredith. “As much as you all might not like it, I think we drop the idea of breaking the curse, and instead focus on finding one that will work alongside the curse to quiet her wolf.”
    Shannon’s face was red as she yelled a stream of curses at me. I sat there quietly, letting them vent their anger and frustration. When I had enough I stood up. “Stop.” The word