Sonia heard Callum draw a sharp, annoyed breath in through his nose.
He understood. He didn’t like it but he understood.
“All of it,” Regan put in and everyone looked to her but she was looking at Sonia, “was carefully planned from well before your parents died.” Her eyes moved to Lucien and Leah. “Once your situation… well, commenced, we put into action our plan.” She looked at her son. “As The Prophesies foretold, Lucien and Leah had to be mated then you and Sonia had to find each other.” Again, her eyes went to Sonia. “Wolf children, as you know, sweetheart, age far slower than humans do and part of giving you that injection was to force your aging process to accelerate to a human one so that you and Callum could find each other at the right time. If not, right now, by wolf age, you’d be just over seven human years old. Instead, you’re an adult female and thus could be mated to your king.”
“Now that I’m not taking the injection, is my aging going to slow again?” Sonia asked and Regan shook her head.
“No, you’re locked here, Sonny. Your development has stopped as it would naturally around this age as wolf. Unfortunately, however, you now must learn how to be wolf but,” she smiled, “not woman.”
This was true. Yesterday, her wedding day of all days had started out wonderful but it ended not all that fun. She didn’t remember “dying” (fortunately) but she did remember waking and transforming almost immediately to wolf. It scared her silly and more, her wolf instincts to find her mate taking over and making her new body not at her mind’s command, scared her more. It got worse when she found Callum and couldn’t communicate with him nor did she know how to turn back to human. It was pure luck and a huge amount of desire that made her able to do it.
Callum had told her that morning before they had their confrontation with the family that he’d work with her, teach her, they’d transform together and he’d take her out running.
She was looking forward to that.
She was also looking forward to being her age for eternity. That was far from a bad thing, never growing old, never getting wrinkled and gray but best of all, her husband not having to watch her do it.
“Why did she die?” Lucien asked and Sonia focused her attention on the vampire because she thought his was a very good question.
“She didn’t. Her human did,” Yuri stated.
“Explain that,” Lucien ordered and Yuri’s jaw got tight at the command.
Then he looked to Sonia. “You know, of course, that wolf DNA is dominant.”
She nodded.
Yuri went on, “That does not mean you don’t have your mother’s DNA as well. It’s latent and when the wolf DNA was suppressed, as explained, it came to the fore. Regan and Father have been titrating you off the medication now for weeks, the actual dose smaller and smaller even if the injection was the same amount, the rest was taken with vitamins and hormones that would not alter or harm you. You didn’t actually die since you cannot die as an immortal. However, your body did shut down to finalize the change.” He looked to Callum. “We also knew this would happen. It was explained by the physicians who created the injection, it was closely monitored and the ill-effects, which could have been worse, were calculated, controlled and monitored so they weren’t. Last, it was necessary, if difficult to witness and experience.”
“Difficult is not the word I’d use,” Callum gritted out and Sonia moved to him.
The instant she got close, he curled an arm around her shoulders and pulled her front deep into his side. She rested her hand on his stomach, wrapped her other arm around his back and pressed closer
“It was hideous, Callum, for all of us, not just you. Do you think it was easy keeping this from you? From Sonny?” Yuri asked.
“I would suspect it was easier keeping it from us than it was for us, living your lies,” Callum shot back and a muscle ticked in Yuri’s jaw, nonverbally acceding the point.
“It’s my understanding, Lassiter and Cherise Arlington were assassinated by the wolf rebellion,” Lucien stated at this point and a different feel came to the room, a feel Sonia decided was not good considering how tight Callum’s body became beside her. “Is that true?” he asked Gregor.
Again Gregor drew in breath before he admitted, “No. They were assassinated by vampires.”
“What?” Sonia breathed but no one answered her.
“My father,” Lucien clipped and Sonia felt her body jerk in surprise as her eyes shot to him.
She saw Leah’s face was knowing and angry and her eyes were also on her husband.