THE WITCH AND HER ALPHA

Chapter 16

Raquelle sat on her bed in her room, all excited and happy. Her two best friends, Flora and Fauna had come to visit and although they already knew the basics of all the stuff that had happened to her, Raquelle had a good time saying it all again.

Her friends too were eager to hear her tales fresh from the mouth. Although they had known about their powers from the beginning since it had manifested at a young age, they didn't know a lot about Esmeralda.

Most witches that had encountered her and survived preferred to live their lives without mention of her. Esmeralda had become some sort of modern day Voldemort to them because they tried as much as possible to not mention her name.

“I still can't believe you've actually faced Esmeralda", Flora commented.

“And won", her sister added.

“I wouldn't exactly say I won. I mean I just got lucky. I had no idea I was a witch and I was only concerned with trying to protect Drake. If those powers hadn't shown up when they did, we'd both probably have ended up dead", Raquelle replied, turning down their praise.

She didn't want anyone to know so they wouldn't worry about her but she still thought about her encounter with Esmeralda a lot. The fact that she could have died so easily didn't leave her mind.

She also worried a lot about Esmeralda finding her. She would be foolish to think that Esmeralda had forgotten about her and she hoped that the spell her mother had taught her to cast around the house would be enough to protect her.

She wished her mom would teach her some combat spells as well so she'd be able to defend herself. So far, her mom had only taught her a few protective spells but Raquelle knew they'd never be enough.

She had constantly tried to get her mother to teach her more spells and help her grow her magic but her mother believed that growing the magic would attract Esmeralda as she only went after witches she felt were a threat to her.

In Raquelle's opinion, Esmeralda probably already saw her as a threat, she did after all, create a protective force field strong enough to blow Esmeralda away. Unless she suddenly developed memory loss, Esmeralda was definitely going to come after her sooner or later.

“Hello", Fauna said, snapping her fingers in front of Raquelle, “Earth to Raquelle. Come in Raquelle".

Raquelle blinked a couple of times and her vision focused.

“Where'd you go?" Flora asked, an amused smile on her face.

“What do you mean?" Raquelle asked, “I was right here".

“Your body was but your mind definitely wasn't", Fauna said, backing up her sister.

“I bet she was thinking of Drake", Flora said in a sing song voice.

At the mention of his name, Raquelle couldn't help but blush. She hadn't seen him all week and even though they talked on phone everyday, she missed him. She missed his laughter, she missed the special smile that he saved just for her, she missed his sarcasm, she missed looking into his eyes, she missed the feeling of his warm, strong yet soft hands laced with hers but most of all, she missed the feel of his lips on hers.

After their date, they hadn't seen each other again. Drake had some urgent pack business to attend to so he hadn't even been in school all week.

“I can't wait to meet him tomorrow", Flora added, “and what are the odds that you both have the same birthday. If that isn't a sign from the universe that you're meant to be together, I don't know what is".

Fauna smirked at her sister. “I don't know what you know about wolves but unlike other species, they have mates that unfortunately for Flora aren't determined by the date of their birth".

“Okay wow, kill joy much Fauna?" Flora replied, narrowing her eyes at her twin.

“Hey, I was just stating facts", Fauna answered, raising her arms in surrender.

“Yes Faun, we get it, you're a nerd who knows all the facts about everything", Flora teased.

Fauna simply responded by sticking out her tongue to her.

“You girls turned 18 last month and you still bicker like kids", Raquelle said, an amused smile on her face.

The three of them had practically grown up in the same crib so it was safe to say she was their third sister and she knew them in and out which was why it hurt to know they had kept such a huge secret from her. She didn't even think it was possible.

She blinked back those thoughts from her mind and went back to the conversation at hand.

“Anyway, I wasn't even thinking of Drake till you mentioned him", she said, smirking at the twins.

“Then what were you thinking about. You know we can totally find out if we wanted to right?" Flora said.

“By tickling it out of me like when we were kids", Raquelle asked, an excited giggle bubbling out of her lips.

“Well no, we have a more effective method", Flora replied, a knowing smirk on her face.

“The memory spell", the twins said in unison.

That automatically got Raquelle's attention.

“There's a memory spell?" she asked in awe. The twins nodded.

“How does it work?"

The twins shared a look.

“Why don't we show you?" they asked in unison.

Raquelle quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow at them. “Okay first off, it was, it is and it will always be creepy when you guys do that. Second, yes, show me", she said, sitting up straight.

The twins smiled and sat up straight, moving closer to her.

“Okay first you're going to close your eyes and just sorta empty your mind", Fauna said.

Raquelle did as she was told. A few seconds later, she felt two pairs of hands on her head then she heard them mutter a few words that she assumed was the spell.

And then Raquelle felt light headed. The next thing she knew, it was as if she was sharing her headspace with them.

She felt them probing her mind. Her first instinct was to push them out but she try as she might, she couldn't.

It lasted for a few minutes and then she felt herself regain her mind. She opened her eyes and turned to face the twins.

“How did it—" she started but got cut off when she was enveloped with a hug from the twins.

“Oh Raquelle, we're so sorry" they said in unison.

“I assume you're apologizing for how creepy you sound when you talk like that" Raquelle joked.

The twins released her and turned to face her.

“We saw a memory you had of us. We're sorry we kept our powers a secret from you", Flora said.

The smile on Raquelle's face faltered a bit at that.

“It's just, I never kept anything from you guys. You were my sisters. It really hurt me when I found out that you guys had been keeping the biggest secret from me".

“We didn't mean to", Fauna said with her sister nodding, “Trust me Raquelle, Flo and I wanted to tell you... so many times but we couldn't. Our moms forbade us. Your mom wanted to keep you away from magic and our mom respected her wishes. We were forced not to tell you and we're so sorry".

“Can you forgive us?" Flora asked. The twins had on matching pouty faces and Raquelle knew she couldn't stay mad at those faces no matter how hard she tried.

“Bring it in guys, I forgive you", Raquelle said, a smile on her face, as she opened up her arms for a hug.

The three of them embraced each other and they were fine.

“Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, we're going to address the other thing we saw in your head", Fauna said once they had pulled back.

Her sister nodded. “We saw that you've been worried about Esmeralda. And it's a complete validation. I don't blame your mom for acting the way she is about magic. I mean, she did lose her mother and her powers and she was lucky to escape with her life so yeah she's a little overly protective".

“But I don't think the best way to protect you is to hide you from all magic", Fauna said, “you're already exposed to Esmeralda, the best way you can protect yourself is by learning how to use and control your powers to your will".

“I'm glad you guys agree with me but my mom isn't exactly going to teach me magic, how am I going to learn how to use my powers?" Raquelle asked, her forehead scrunched together in thought.

The twins shared another look. “Well you happen to have two best friends who are strong witches in their own right and who have a decent command of their powers", Flora said, a smug smile on her face.

Raquelle face lit up in excitement. “Are you guys saying what I think you're saying?"

“If you think I'm saying we're going to teach you how to use your powers then you're right", Fauna said, a huge smile on her face.

As if a switch was flipped, all three girls erupted in squeals.

“This is so exciting!!!" Raquelle said, “You're going to be the coolest teachers ever".

“Oh you know it girl", Flora said.

“Okay first things first, you're going to show me how you cast that memory spell and tell me how it works", Raquelle said.

“Well the memory spell was one of the more harder spells for us to learn, that and the teleportation spell. And that's because we're twins. Although we both have our powers, we are stronger together and it took us a while to realize that. Some difficult spells only work for us when we combine our powers". Fauna explained.

“So for you, the spell shouldn't be too hard to learn. Keep in mind though, that the spell only lasts for a few minutes so you need to be sure what memory you're looking for when you're in a person's mind and depending on the length of the memory, you could be able to use the time to see multiple or just one", Flora added.

Raquelle nodded taking it all in.

They gave her tips on how to perform the spell and told her what to say. Flora offered herself up for practice.

Raquelle followed their instructions and put her hands on Flora's head while Fauna watched. Channelling her magic to her fingertips, she focused her energy on entering the recesses of Flora's mind.

She said the spell and immediately, she felt herself transported to another dimension and she could see what looked like picture frames except the pictures were moving. The frames were floating in what looked like an empty space. She realized at once that she was in Flora's realm of memories and the frames she was looking at were Flora's memories.

She was curious and wanted to enter everyone of them and they were a lot. She realized they arranged themselves from the latest memory to the earliest. Since she knew she would never be able to check out everything, she entered one of the latest memories.

It was the memory of when she had told them she had powers. She watched as it played in front of her like a movie.

Just as it had finished playing, she felt herself getting sucked out and back into the real world.

She opened her eyes and looked right into the proud eyes of Fauna. She gave her an applause.

“Well done and on your first try too", she said.

Flora opened her eyes and turned to smile at her.

“You did that spell perfectly. It took Faun and I quite a while before we were able to get the hang of it. You're practically a natural".

“Well I would never have been able to do it without you guys. So thank you".

“Group hug", Flora squealed pulling them into one.

“Now that we're done with your first magic lesson, let's go back to talking about boys. You and Drake are turning 18 tomorrow, this is really big", Flora said excitedly.

“Technically we're turning 18, the day after tomorrow. The party's just tomorrow", Raquelle said, a smirk on her face.

“Pfft, potato potahto", Flora said waving her off.

Their birthday that year fell on a Sunday but parents wouldn't allow their high school kids throw a party right before school in the morning so Joanne, Drake's cousin who was in charge of planning the party, decided to throw the party a day early.

“Okay yeah I'm also interested in you talking about Drake. Tell us how he reacted to finding out", Fauna said, “oh and we haven't even checked out what you're wearing tomorrow. It hasn't gotten the Flo stamp of approval".

“Oh I'm wearing the most beautiful dress. It's red and it has....."

Author's note: Hey guys. I hope you've all been well. I know a lot of people weren't happy when I stopped the book a while ago and I'm here to offer an explanation.

I was going through some stuff that made me super busy. I'm in my final year of the university and I had to juggle classes, my senior project, writing my thesis, my internship and writing this book. On top of that my editor didn't agree to sign the book so that discouraged me and made me decide to abandon it all together.

Your comments however, made me realize that it wasn't fair on you guys. You made me realize that even though my editor didn't think it was worth signing, you did and I'm glad that a lot of you are enjoying it.

As I'm still busy with my internship and my thesis, I won't be able to update as much as I'd like but I promise to update whenever I get the chance to.

Thank you all for sticking with this book despite, the infrequent updates. If you're enjoying it, please add it to your libraries and recommend to your friends. Maybe if I have enough follows on the book, I can convince my editor that it's worth signing.

Thanks once again for your nice comments as they go a long way in making this author smile. I couldn't ask for better readers. See you in the next chapter.

~Tonia