Let The Alpha Fall 77

The transformation was brutal, but Lori knew when it was complete. When the pain stopped.
And at the end of it all… she crawled to the closet mirror with all that was left of her strength to look at her self.
Gray. Her wings were the color gray, large spans with mottled feathers tethering at the edge of gray and pure white. They were massive, and they probably weighed twice as much as her with the way they dragged her down.
They were a menace too! Large, clumsy and heavy. How was she every expected to move with something like this?!
At least the worst was over… she just needed to shift back, or at least find a way too. Having wings wasn’t as interesting
as it looked, she’d much rather stick to the other powers that she had.
No word from the guard. Or Gabriel, but Draco had called back. He was on his way. And no, he didn’t find Astra. Nor did
the guard whom she had sent to check her apartment.
She must have left as she mentioned she would, probably as soon as she left her apartment. Lori wondered if there was
another way.
Another way without the woman’s help.
There was a heavy knock on the door and she jolted out of her reverie.
It took her time to stand down and grab her shawl. The wings had ripped through her clothes while growing, and her
robe was irreparable. She would need a new robe. She threw it away and placed a shawl over her neck, trying to cover as much as she could. Not that it would hide the wings though.
At the door Draco gasped.
“Oh my god!”
He whispered as Lori ushered him in.
“I said the same thing when I saw them.”
Lori said dryly as she closed the door behind him.
“What’s happening to you?!”
“Your face! What happened to your eyes!”
”My eyes?!”
Lori asked and Draco nodded.
Did her face change too?
She had not really been focusing on any other parts of her body, just the gigantic wings on her back. But now that she
thought of it…
Lori looked at her hand and found claws instead of fingernails. Sharpened long claws, longer than she had ever seen.
They were curved like talons and Lori definitely knew that whoever she sank those claws into would be dead in minutes.
That was how deadly they look.
“Shifting.”
She said and Draco mindlessly brought out his phone, his eyes still fixated on her. He started calling Gabriel.
“I’ve never seen nephilim wings before.”
Lori nodded as she approached the nearest mirror.
“There’s always a first time.”
“Can you shift back?”
Lori shrugged.
“I can’t. At least not yet… I haven’t gotten the hang of it”
“Do you feel okay?!”
He asked and she nodded.
“Apart from having a pair of wings… I’ll be fine.”
“I called Gabriel’s number for so long…”
Draco sighed.
“Yes… the elder meeting…”
“Do you know what it’s about?”
Draco shrugged.
“I think we can make a safe guess that it’s about you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Her again?
“Me?”
She repeated.
“Why would it be about me?”
Lori eyed the sofa, she would like to lie down but her wings wouldn’t let her rest her back.
Draco sighed.
“I don’t know yet. These meetings take long and Gabriel is always fully occupied until it’s over…”
She nodded in agreement.
“So what other powers do you have?”
“The usual I guess. Super strength, healing, I think telekinesis… I’m trying to remember if I’m missing something.”
She murmured.
“There must be more…”
“Guess I’ll find out later.”
She sighed as she rubbed at her tired eyes.
“I can’t go around with this thing. I need to shift back. They need to go somewhere… anywhere…”
Draco nodded.
“Mastering shape shifting isn’t that easy… when I first turned into a werewolf… it took me days to shift back.”
Lori raised her eyebrow.
“I don’t think I have the luxury of days.”
“Do you know your eyes are glowing?!”
Draco asked, his voice sounded baffled and amazed all in one.
Lori’s eyes widened. Her vision did seem a lot sharper. Incredibly sharp.
“They are?! Hand me a mirror! Quick.”
She asked and Draco went to the nearest room to get one.
He was back moments later with a hand mirror and gave it to Lori.
Lori gasped as she touched her face.
Her eyes were glowing in a dim sort of way. They looked grayish too… She wondered what was up with their color.
“Interesting.”
She said as she studied the angles on her face. Weirdly… her face looked sharper, all the natural softness that was there
seemed to have been replaced with edgy lines. Lori wondered if she was imagining it or it was truly happening.
She looked slightly terrifying.
“Can you move them?”
He asked and Lori’s eyes shot up towards him.
“Your wings.”
Lori looked behind her.
“I doubt I have any control over them.”
She chuckled.
Draco nodded.
“I read somewhere that Nephilims never reach their full power… it’s quite extraordinary that you managed to grow your wings… I doubt many do.”
“There’s so much the world doesn’t know about your kind…”
“I mean.. people find it easier to believe that ghosts exist.”
“Ghosts don’t exist?!”
Lori asked and Draco shrugged.
“They’re not nearly as menacing as people make them out to be.”
Lori slowly nodded her head.
“Ahhhh.”
Her phone rang next to her and she struggled to pick it up.
Draco helped her with it.
It was Gabriel. Her heart leapt for joy as she saw the caller ID.
“Gabriel!!”
She exclaimed.
“Lori! I’m so sorry… the elder meeting..”
“No. No it’s okay. I understand…”
“Can you get dressed before I’m back?! My grandfather is adamant on seeing you…”
“Going where?!”
“We will have dinner with him. He wants to meet you and I must indulge him if I want him in our side.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Of all days!
Why did it have to be today.
“Yea… there’s been a bit of a situation.”
There was a short silence before Gabriel cursed underneath his breath.
“What situation?!”
He asked and Lori turned to Draco who quickly looked away.
“I don’t know how to explain it… I think you’d better come home and see.”
********************
Her wings had grown. Unbelievable. Gabriel thought as his shoulder slacked.
His grandfather was arriving in an hour and he had spent the whole time telling him that Lori was as harmless as a
human.
Now she didn’t even look harmless. Given his grandfather’s history with her kind he would be completely horrified to see
her wings.
Gabriel didn’t know where to look. Between the magnificent pair of wings, the glowing eyes and the otherworldly look on
her face…. He was in absolute awe.
She reminded him of those storybook warriors that he used to read as a child… from the claws… to her eyes.. to the
sharpness of her features… she looked like death incarnate.
But Gabriel knew she was nothing like that.
Even with her new look he could still hear the fear in her voice… the way she cowered and tried to make herself smaller
than she looked, the raw panic in her as she heard that his grandfather was coming to see her and she looked like that.
“What do we do?! I have to shift now!!…”
Lori said as she sat on a high bar stool in the kitchen. So far she couldn’t move around too much or the wings would drag
behind her. She couldn’t bear their weight yet. That and the fact that that was the only way she could sit without
experiencing the slightest discomfort.
“You can’t rush shifting..”
Gabriel said.
“But it is possible.”
“How?”
She asked and Gabriel sighed.
“Sometimes… shifting can occur when one feels drained… when you’ve over exerted yourself or used too much of your
powers… your body can voluntarily shift in order to conserve the little energy that’s left.”
“Can we do that?”
She asked and Gabriel shook his head.
He glanced and Draco who also seemed to disagree.
“We don’t know your power levels. Or how long it’ll take to drain your powers…”
Draco answered and Lori scoffed.
“There has to be something we can try! Unless you want your grandfather to see me like this.”
“Not that I’d mind but it won’t help my case that much…”
Lori murmured.
“She’s right.”
Draco pitched in and Gabriel rubbed his face.
“I know…”
“Wait… I have an idea!”
Lori said as she promptly remembered the time she spent with Astra.
“Wolfsbane, nightshade, silver, they can all weaken werewolves. There must be something that can weaken me too.”
“When Astra gave me the bracelet she said it was a cursed object made from black magic but what if the iron also weakens me too?”
There was a brief silence before Gabriel shook his head.
“No. Not Iron.”
Gabriel said as he picked up his phone.
“What?!”
Lori blurted out as she looked at Draco who looked equally confused.
“Draco, we need a witch. Here now!”
He finally looked up from his phone and Draco started moving.
“On it.”
Draco slammed the door after him.
“What? What do you mean?”
Gabriel smirked, he leaned towards Lori.
“It didn’t occur to me before… but when you mentioned black magic… it did. Black magic is the opposite of all your
kind stand for. It is evil, abhorrent. Ordinarily simple spells and magical trinkets won’t work on even the worst of beasts
but an ordinary bracelet made with black magic was able to stop your shift.”
“So black magic?! That’s my weakness?!”
She asked and Gabriel nodded.
“Yes. Black magic. We’ll have a witch draw up something as simple as a pentagram or a magic circle and you’ll switch
back to normal in the blink of an eye.”
Lori chuckled.
“That fast?!”
She asked and he nodded.
“Yup! Although I have to admit it’ll be a shame to see these go… they’re pretty cool.”
“Can I touch them?”
His voice was low and husky.
Lori nodded as she beamed. When he had walked into the room and saw her, she thought he would have looked
horrified… or worse… disgusted. But he didn’t. He looked like he was in awe of her and he didn’t tear his eyes off of her.
Lori felt his hand along the span of her wings. It was slightly ticklish… and that startled her.
“They’re… even more fragile than I imagined.”
Gabriel mused and Lori nodded.
“Yes… I noticed that too…”
“This is amazing…”
He whispered as he touched them more, then moved to her hands.
“Your claws are longer than mine.”
He said and Lori rolled her eyes.
“Liar.”
She whispered.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s compare then.”
In a flash Gabriel’s claws were out. Lori looked at him again and noticed that no other part of his body had transformed.
“That’s amazing… how you do that?”
She asked.
“In due time… you’ll learn that too.”
Together they put their hands side by side and Lori saw that Gabriel was right.
Her claws were longer and sharper than his.
“See. I told you.”
“I don’t know how to use them though. They’re useless.”
Gabriel shook his head, he placed a hand underneath her chin and raised her face to look at his. His blue eyes gazed into
her glowing eyes.
“I promise you. They’re not. You’ll learn to use them. And then you’d love them.”
The witch arrived thirty minutes later. Gabriel had already given up entirely that Draco and the witch would make it in
time… especially not with the way his grandfather would arrive soon.
The witch choked on her breath the minute she laid eyes on Lori.
Lori felt slightly uncomfortable with her reaction.
Gabriel rushed towards the witch as he put a finger to his lips.
“If you so much as breath a word of this to anybody… I will kill you and everyone you’ve ever known.”
The woman quickly composed herself.
She was a tall ginger head woman. With dark ripped jeans and a long flowing dress shirt.
She had all sort of trinkets adorning her wrists.
“A simple pentagram if you’d please. One that weakens. I need her to shift back.”
He said as he gestured to the large open space in the living room.