Chapter 38: Chapter 38

I was in a room and being pampered by Julie. She made me drink some sort of herbal tea that’s supposed to restore my energy and help me recover from the fatigue of using my magic.

According to her, my first time using my magic had been used tremendously, which resulted in my headache.

“What about Al? What happened to him?” I hand Julie the empty cup of tea that she made me drink. It’s disgusting, and I certainly have no desire to empty it. I had already consumed half of the contents in the cup.

Julie didn’t seem to mind when she took the cup from me. “He’s in another room. Sleeping.” Julie must have read my mind by looking at my face. “He’s going to be fine.”

“But I didn’t-”

“I don’t know why you continue to associate with those supernaturals, but they are not good. You can never trust them.” She says.

This time, I turn to Julie. I want to comfort her with a smile, but I can’t exactly do that at the moment. “Julie, can I ask you something?” I took her raised brow in question as a sign to proceed with my interrogation. “It’s just an observation, but why are you the only one who seems to hate supernaturals?”

I thought she’d hesitate or try to ignore my question, which is why I was surprised when she gave me one. “My parents were killed by them. Granted, the culprit was caught, but the only punishment that the Alpha gave him is by throwing him off of the pack.”

I’m stunned because I did not expect to hear this type of reasoning come from her. But come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Julie with her family in the first place. “B-But isn’t that great? At least the man is no longer in the pack. He’s no longer-”

“But he’s not dead.” How Julie says it makes me look at her in a different light. It’s like she’s not her usual self. I feel like I am seeing a new side of her. “I assume you want to see that hybrid, am I right?” She immediately changed the subject before I could comment on her earlier words. Julie starts to get up and offers me her hand, “Well? Are you coming?”

“R-Right. I’m coming.” I took her hand and allowed her to assist me on my feet. Julie guides me out of the room, where I see many girls pause to bow their heads at me in greeting. Julie told me to ignore them as we made our way out of the house.

She leads us to the backdoor that leads to a garden with beautiful arrays of flowers. The arrangement of the kinds of flowers was more mesmerizing compared to the ones that I saw in Tyrelle’s garden.

“If you want to pick a flower, then get one,” Julie tells me when she sees that I stopped walking to admire the sunflowers.

“What? I couldn’t. That would destroy the garden.”

Julie chuckles and turns to me. “Relax. We’re in a witch’s garden. Just snap one off.” When I still hesitated, Julie rolled her eyes. “Gabriella, don’t worry. Just take it and see what happens.”

I got curious about her words, so I decided to follow them. I look back to the flower to get the nearest sunflower among the batch. I feel bad about taking one from the garden, but just when I was going to apologize, the broken stem seemed of regain its color and sprouted a new sunflower right before my eyes. I gape.

“How-”

“The elder’s magic still lives in the soil, which is pretty convenient to raise crops and plants here,” Julie explains.

I remember Doctor Kusher telling me about this before, but I guess that I have simply forgotten about it. We continue to follow that path in the garden silently until we reach the cabin where I last saw Al.

It seems like he’s awake because I can hear screaming inside. I left Julie’s side and rushed into the witches' mob waiting outside of the cabin. I see Al still in his wolf form and seemingly bound by a chain to his neck that is connected to the wall. He lashes out at anyone that tries to go near him, especially doctor Kusher, who is sitting on the floor with a strange bottle in hand and being cornered by Al.

“Al!” I pant and rest my hand on the door frame. Upon hearing my voice, Al seem to stop as he and doctor Kusher looks in my direction.

“Lady, you can’t be here!”

I ignore him and focus my attention on Al instead. I see that the chains are digging into his collar and his eyes are wild with fear. On top of that, there’s a muzzle covering his mouth. I turn furiously to Doctor Kusher. “Why is he chained up? Who instigated this!?”

“I-I did. He has not morphed back into a human. We didn’t want to take the risk of getting bitten.”

“How can he turn back when you’ve done this to him?! I’m taking it off.” I move away from the other witches who try to stop me from going toward Al. I heard Kusher’s warning and screaming at me to stop, but I didn’t listen.

Al regards me with his wolfish gaze and carefully tilts his head in curiosity. He whines when I move my hands closer to his face instead of growling. “I’m taking the muzzle and the collar off. Just relax, okay?” I’m not going to lie when I say that my hands were shaking when I unbuckled the muzzle from him. I guess that he felt relieved because as soon as the muzzle was off. Al turns to Kusher and gives off a low growl. “Don’t do that. They only muzzle you because they are afraid of you.” I’m grateful that Al still has a bit of common sense to find some truth in my words b because he stops growling. He turns to me with a tilt of his head like he’s asking me if that was better.

“I’m going to take your collar off. But I want you to promise that you won’t attack them. Can you do that?” I felt silly waiting for a wolf to nod his head, but he fortunately did. With his promise in mind, I removed the collar from his neck. He shakes his fur and discreetly moves his eyes to the other witches and sneezes loudly. After hearing the witches scream in fear, Al makes a sound that’s quite similar to laughing. When I realize what he’s doing, I slap him.

“You’re doing that on purpose, didn’t you?” I forced Al to face me and squeeze his fatty wolf cheek. “Stop being mischievous when they’re only trying to help.”

“Lady,” I notice that doctor Kusher somehow regains his strength on his legs because he got up. He offers me a bottle with some green fluid in them. “This is a herbal potion that can help him relax. It will help him revert to his human form.”

I reach out to take the potion from the doctor and give him a curious glance. “Will it really help if he’s in his human form?”

“Yes. I don’t know why he must have to stay in that form for too long, but it will make it hard for him to return to his human side.”

“Is it really strange to stay in his wolf for such a long time?”

“It’s not if you are a new shifter. But for this fellow right here, it is indeed strange. And he is acting like he just recently started to shift.” I feel Al flinching at the Doctor’s explanation like he’s hit a mark.

I turn to Al, only to see an unhappy look on his wolf feature. His eyes lowered and his ears were flat. “You heard the doctor. Drink.” I raise the bottle to his lips. He avoids it with a snort of disgust. I turn to Doctor Kusher. “I don’t think that he wants to.”

“My lady, if he doesn’t revert back, it will be impossible for us to transfer him. And we can’t have him stay here because our ingredients are in this shed.”

I turn back to Al. “You’re being evicted. Drink.” Al starts babbling, and he sounds like a grumpy husky in doing so. I sigh. “Listen here, Al. Are you going to drink the potion or not?” Al’s response comes with a shake of his head.

Stupid mutt.

“Fine. If that’s the case, then you leave me with no choice.” I grab him by the snout. It looked like Al was going to bite me, but when our gazes met, he stops. That gives me the opportunity to open his mouth and pour the potion into his throat to make him drink.

Al whines and moves back with a shake of his head. His tongue is lolling at his sides in disgust. Suddenly, he collapses and starts shivering.

“Al!” I scream.

“Get him some covers!” Kusher orders the males in the room.

“What did you do!?” I demand, looking at Kusher furiously that it makes him uncomfortable. “He sounds like he’s in pain,” I noted Al’s whimpers and cries in the background.

Was I tricked? Do the witches hate Al as much as the other wolves? Did I feed him something harmful?

“My lady, relax. It is alright.” Doctor Kusher assured me with a gentle voice. “The pain is only temporary as he morphs back to his human form. That being said, I would like to ask you to leave and trust us. Besides, I think that Lord Tyrelle has arrived.”

“But why should I leave? I don’t think I can trust you alone with him.” I’m too stressed out that I forgot that I am sitting on the floor with Al.

Not a moment too soon, and I feel a hand pulling my shoulders back, making me hit a strong broad, and naked chest. “Because, my dear Gabbiee poo, if you don’t leave right now, you’ll see me naked before our honeymoon.”

I feel myself getting flustered and embarrassed that I forgot about being gentle with Al since he is a sick person. Instead, I grabbed the nearest thing that I could find, which is the sunflower in my hands, and hit Al in the face with it before getting up. “You sicko! Get away from me!” I hurriedly made my way to the door. “Doctor Kusher, I am leaving the hybrid to you. I’ll be leaving with Tyrelle for today.” When I got out of the cabin, I ran before anyone could see my flushed face.