“Helpme?” I repeated. “Or my whole pack?”
“Your whole pack,” he said. “I’ve used some of your blood in my location spells. The witch who cursed you was a very powerful magical being.”
“How do you know her?” I asked.
His lips twitched, then after a long beat of silence he said, “She was my sister.”
My jaw dropped. “Whoa.”
He inhaled sharply, glancing away but not before an angry flare showed in his eyes. “She was always an uncomfortable child. Unable to sit still, not wanting to stay here, in this realm, like the rest of us.”
I leaned back against the sofa. That was not what I’d been expecting. “So, what happened?”
He sighed and folded his hands in his lap. “About thirty years ago, maybe a little more, she left.”
“Why would she leave?” I asked, though I already guessed the answer from the brief opportunity I’d had to study the effect of this place on Monique. The realm was perfect, but in a fake way. It would be stifling to any soul that felt the need to fly free.
He shrugged, then flicked an invisible piece of lint off his sleeve. “I’ll never know. She turned twenty-one, and that was it. She left.”
A lump formed in my throat as my imagination filled in all the gaps. “So, she found my pack? Fell in love with my Alpha, and when he rejected her, she cursed our pack?”
It made sense in a crazy way. A woman scorned, and all that.
He nodded. “I would suggest something like that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.What did that mean?
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He lifted his gaze back to mine. Anger glinted in the depths of his eyes before he schooled his expression back into calm.
“My sister never came back to the realm. She went north, I believe, and was never heard from again. For all I know, she could be dead.”
I frowned at him. “Would her spell persist if she was dead?”
He pressed his lips together. “That is hard to say. It depends on what the spell was tethered to.”
I held tight to my temper, though it bubbled beneath the surface. “Explain. Please.”
“A spell, especially one as powerful as the one you have described that hovers over your pack, doesn’t sit alone. It will be rooted in something or someone. Most spells of this magnitude need to be tied to a person rather than an object. A powerful person. Someone like my sister. Or...”
“Or what?” I asked, then the answer hit me with the force of a fist to the face. “Or an Alpha wolf shifter?”
The high warlock nodded. “Yes, that’s possible. A woman scorned may well have tethered a spell to the one who scorned her.”
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of emotions. Was that the answer? That our Alpha carried the curse within him, and we would be cursed until the day he died?
That wasn’t acceptable.
Anger raged through me. When I opened my eyes, I could feel the strength of the emotion crippling my expression. “So, it’s a choice between the life of my Alpha, and everyone in our pack? There has to be another way.”
An Alpha would sacrifice himself for his people. I knew that because I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I didn’t want to lose our Alpha. I had to find another option.
The high warlock sighed. “I may be able to help. I need to do a little more research, but I will need more blood for my spells. I’m nearing completion.”
I stood up. “How much do you need?”
He unfolded himself, uncrossing his legs, then stood up. “Not a lot. But you would be my preference, rather than the Beta.”