Her voice had at least calmed, turned a bit too flat, emotionless actually. Somehow this made me even more worried.
“Show her your wolf, Christina,” Zeke said. “I would go for broke now. Let her know it all and then begin processing it. I don’t want to take her by force, but she can’t go off halfcocked with all of this information in her head. Yes, the cops here know about us, but ordinary, everyday people don’t.”
“I wish she didn’t have to go through all of this,” I said. “Why can’t glamoring be a real vampire thing? You could just make her forget it all.”
“Sorry. I’m not a storybook vampire,” he joked.
“Vampire. Oh hell! Right! Did we just fall down the rabbit hole or something? Look. Just let me go. I won’t say anything. A friend wouldn’t take me by force. A friend wouldn’t just walk away in the first place, no matter what the reason. What the hell?” Chloe said, her voice getting louder with each word though her body must have remained in shock.
She hadn’t moved. While Zeke did make a formidable opponent poised to block her escape, she hadn’t even tried. Deciding to go for broke, I let my magic transform me. My clothes dropped away as bands of yellow light swirled around my body, blurring the transformation from flesh to fur.
Zeke reached out once I stood as my wolf, petting my head I knew, to show Chloe that the wolf was not mean. I turned to look at my friend, in my mind hoping that in some magical moment she would just accept me, like they all eventually did in the movies. Only this was real life, and instead of kind words of amazed acceptance, Chloe let out an ear-shattering scream right before she passed out.
Crestfallen, I changed back to human, snatching my clothes up as tears, hot and large, spilled from my own eyes.
“I’m sorry, Christina. She’ll come around,” Zeke offered.
“Just give her something to make her sleep again for a good long time. She deserves it. If you don’t mind, can you then keep track of her? We will take her to the same place we are taking the true werewolves. We’ll just keep her asleep until we find out where that is and can get there and get situated. Then, I’ll deal with her again, hope that at some point she can come to accept all of this.”
“I think they only pass out three or four times before they accept it generally. She has two out of the way already,” he said, trying for a sympathetic joking tone.
I gave him the best smile I could muster which barely moved my mouth before thanking him and going out to get an update from Nira and Lex on where they were at in our plan. I’d only taken a few steps before Lex hung up his phone and rushed to my side, scooping me up in his arms in a tight hug that took my feet from the ground.
“Sorry. Didn’t look or sound like that went well at all,” he whispered in my ear before placing a gentle kiss on my cheek.
“No, it did not. How are things on your end?” I inquired with a long sigh that exhausted me just to let out. “And, make it good news. I’m holding on by a thread here.”
“Yeah, how are things?” Nira offered coming up to us. “Because I have good news. My friend is bringing by two trucks that we can load the wolves into. He will take them wherever we want them. So, where do we want them?”
“Well,” Lex said. “The Royals, in true Royal fashion, acquired a building not that far from here, right after we left for the States. They already have a team of workers cleaning it up. They are giving them the day off so we can bring the werewolves there. Then, you can wake them up and explain to them the proposal. They think they can use a spell to stop their curse, and then another spell, our spell, to make them magical werewolves if they wish. Or, they can just go on to normal lives too,” Lex said with a smile on his face. “I have the address, so once we get them loaded, we can take them right to the facility. It’s only twenty-five minutes away.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad this is all working out. At least my magic held, keeping them asleep while we bound them up. I hope the conversation with them goes better than my one with Chloe did.”
“I hope so too,” Nira exclaimed, shaking her head. “Sorry, kiddo.”
“How is everyone holding up?” I turned to ask the crowd of naked werewolves in human form and vampires coming their way.