With Lex and Josh in human form, on each side of the true wolf, the alpha, holding the ends of the ropes that bound him, I touched his shoulder. I watched him wake, shake his head, and growl. Lex and Josh braced, holding him as he tried to get up.
“Please stay calm. We are here to offer help. The help that Daniel wanted. If you will trust us a minute, I will explain just how we can break your curse,” I got out in a rush of words at the thrashing wolf who tried to growl but only managed to slobber through his muzzled snout. “Please turn so that we can talk. The ropes are only a safeguard. We want to talk, not fight, and last we met, you didn’t seem to want to do anything other than kill us.”
When his transformation began, I stepped aside and found it hard to watch but felt obligated not to turn away either. While his transformation back to man was not quite as brutal, a shedding really of the wolf, it was still a bloody and horrific sight. The wolf cried out, a sound in the night I’d thought as a child a mere howling at the moon. I wondered how many times it had not been.
Lex and Josh pulled, letting the slip knots pull tighter to his human form. I’d offered him a blanket to cover his nakedness, but he had only jerked, throwing it off. He had not the mobility to fully do so, but he managed to make it bunch around his middle, which did serve as all the cover a man really needed. I’d woken the alpha first, hoping to convince him so he could help with the others.
“What the hell did you do to us, you witch?” the alpha yelled, making Lex growl and come forward to get between us, but I put out my arm to stop him.
“I merely put you to sleep, to stop the violence. We don’t want any more loss of life. I am so sorry that Daniel was killed. He honestly left us no choice, but I didn’t want that to happen again.”
“Right! Why would you care about us animals? You magical ones have it all, a nice secret island, money, a transformation like a light show, while we have lowly cabins in the woods, scraping by on blue collar wages, and being forced to turn once a month in a horribly painful way, more when we have to fight,” the alpha spat out.
“We know, and if Daniel had just asked us for help he would have gotten it. Instead, he took it upon himself to hate us, to hatch a plan to kidnap one of us and force us into helping. None of that was necessary,”
“That’s not what he said. He said he asked the Royals and was turned down,” the alpha argued, his voice deep and tense, but calmer.
“Then he lied,” Lex added, standing right beside me still. “The Royals were never asked. They want to help. They bought this whole facility to do just that.”
“Right,” he grumbled.
“Right,” I echoed. “Why the hell do you think that we went to all the trouble to take you alive, to transport you here unharmed? Just to kill you? We could have done that back at the factory where you meant to kill us. We want to help. All you have to do is let us. What other alternative do you have? In fact, I hadn’t thought it through, as things went rather fast since I came up with my plan, but if you refuse our help, I’m not sure what we will do with you. We can’t set free a group that only wants to kill us.”
“No, you can’t. So, what then? Am I to stay in ropes the rest of my life?” he challenged.
“No. I don’t know. So, don’t be stupid and agree to be trained. The Royals, both Edward and Catherine, are on their way here already. They have worked out a spell to remove your curse. Then you can decide if you want to be human or you want to be turned into Royal werewolves. All we ask in return is that you not go after us anymore. We only want a truce, and the trust would have to go both ways.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“Yes, just like that. You are new to this fight anyway. None of Daniel’s original pack survived. So, why would it matter so much to you? You can have it all.”
The alpha just sat there a minute, I guessed weighing his options though he really had none. Have your curse taken away or become some sort of war prisoner. Though I didn’t know that anyone had a plan for the latter. They had to be convinced.
“Some of the older wolves will never go for it. Curse or not, they have lived this way their whole lives. Daniel didn’t get the cream of the crop to help him from other packs, if you know what I mean,” the alpha said, and I got my first inkling of hope that things would go our way.