Alpha Divided (Alpha Girl Book 3)

I was going to be sick.

I stumbled my way to the bathroom, barely making it in time before I started booting. My sides ached. Cold sweat ran down my skin.

Christ. I thought Weres didn’t get sick. What was wrong with me? Something wasn’t right.

I lifted my head from the toilet and I was suddenly back in the kitchen.

I’d had a vision. Of the future.

I dropped the fork and stepped back from the plate on the counter. “What the hell is in these tamales, Rosa?”

Rosa had that same observant look. “I may have put a little poison in them. Bad stuff. Enough to incapacitate a Were.”

“What! Why would you do that and then offer them to me?” Had she lost her mind?

“Really, tia. What if one of us ate one?” Claudia said.

“If you had asked for one, I would’ve given you one that wouldn’t make you sick.” She gave a raspy laugh. “I wouldn’t go to all that trouble only to throw them all away. Tamales are hard to make. But I had to show Teresa how her gift worked.”

She could’ve done that without making me live through the experience of puking up tamales. And I didn’t see how making me sick would spark a vision. “I didn’t do anything but try to eat a tamale. Isn’t there some way that I can trigger visions when I actually want them? I need to figure out what Luciana is planning and why Rupert Hoel is hanging around.”

“There’s no controlling what you have. You have to trust that it’s there to guide you when you need it.”

I’d never considered myself an atheist. Mom had dragged me to church often enough that I believed in God. But in that moment, when I had to really trust that some higher power would give me a vision when I needed it, I wasn’t sure I had enough faith. “So, I really can’t do anything to spur them on?”

“No. I wish I could help you, but they come when they come.” She shrugged, and put on the glasses that hung around her neck. “As for the tamales, estos son muy bueno.” She grabbed the smaller plate. “Pero estos…no.” She upended the pile into the trash.

“Man, what a waste,” Raphael said.

“I proved my point. It wasn’t a waste.” She walked into the living room and I followed her. “The visions will never be what you want—completely controllable—but we can get to a place where you sense a vision coming on. That hint of a premonition can tell you if you’re making a wrong choice.”

“You mean I need to trust my gut.” That’s what Grams had said in her note. I’d been hoping for more, but maybe that was as good as it got.

“Yeah,” Daniel said as he stepped into the living room. “That’s not what I was taught at all. Mom’s always said they were controllable.”

“And you think your mother would really tell you the truth?”

Daniel looked at the ground and I felt sad for him. He hadn’t chosen to be born to her. It must be awful.

“I wanted you to come here so that you’d know that the magic you’re trying to do is inside you,” Rosa said to me. “You don’t need all the trappings. Especially now that you’re wolf as well as witch.” She looked at the other three brujas. “For that matter, none of you need all the trappings, but that’s something that Luciana and I always disagreed on. It’s one of the many reasons why I left.”

Raphael leaned against the wall. “I thought you left because you lost your powers.”

Rosa murmured a quick prayer in Spanish. “No. That’s not true. Luciana tried to take my abilities. That’s when my sister, your abuela, left to go stay with Tessa’s mother.” She wheezed a breath that was so shaky it made my lungs ache in sympathy, and turned to me. “When you were born, Tessa, my sister named you heir, and then kept you safe. Apart. You had to be strong before you came back or Luciana would try the same with you.”

I knew most of that, except for the whole magic-stealing part. That sounded really bad. I didn’t even know it was possible. “How can she take power from someone else?”

“Not easily, mijita. Not very easily.” Rosa patted the cushion next to her, and I sat. “Now I have a question for you.”

It seemed only fair. “Sure.”

“What did you think when you saw Dastien for the first time?”

“Mine.” The word was out of my mouth before I could think about it too much. Sure, that was what I thought now, but was it really what I’d thought when I first saw him?

That day, I’d definitely had the feeling that my life was about to change. When I saw him, it wasn’t like he was a stranger. It was like I already knew him. And I didn’t want to be apart from him. I wanted him to be mine.

“You really thought that when you saw him?” Daniel asked.