The Alpha's Desire 5 (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

As I headed toward the SUV, I heard Chloe’s voice, to the point of breaking over tears, in the high pitch of panic, yelling, “No… No… Stay away from me. Please let me go. No. Don’t touch me.”

Dressed now, I took a small leap toward the vehicle, pulling open the back hatch as soon as I got there. Chloe sat huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, face paler than I had ever seen it. She kept shaking her head, repeating herself for Zeke to stay away from her. Poor Zeke, on his knees, had his hands out in front of him, both promising her safety as much as begging her to stop.

He’d been answering her cries with, “I won’t hurt you. I promise. You are safe. Christina is here,” when I had thrown open the door shocking them both into silence.

“No,” Chloe screeched this time, seeing me. “Don’t you come near me!”

I stood there, taken aback by the reception I’d just gotten. With confusion contorting my face, I looked to Zeke for explanation. The poor vampire looked beside himself as to what to do next.

“I’m so sorry, Christina. She woke up suddenly. She freaked out instantly being in a car with a stranger, and she jumped up to escape as I went for something to make her sleep again. Unfortunately, she saw you right as you changed into that half wolf, half human thing that lit up like some sort of firework. She saw the magic, and everyone fall,” he rambled on, moving so Chloe couldn’t try to escape again, though she looked too afraid of me to try to even move.

“It’s okay Zeke. It’s not your fault,” I offered him.

“I thought at that point it might be better to just let her watch, rather than try to explain what even I couldn’t at the moment. In fact, I still really can’t though I at least see our people up and moving which is a relief. I didn’t know if they were all dead or not myself. Not that you would have wanted that, but I thought you lost control of your magic. I mean who could blame you… oh, never mind. You know what I am trying to say. Anyway, she saw you go to Lex, saw him shift from wolf to man, and then she just passed out again. I held her and watched, at that point a bit afraid myself, not of you of course, but of what was going on. Right before you got back here, she woke up again, and since has cowered in that corner, too afraid to even listen to me. I’d hoped she would at least listen to you.”

At this point, Chloe had been watching us interact, still white as a ghost, and looking more afraid than I had ever seen her. I didn’t know where to even start to begin to explain all of this to my friend, to take away that look on her face that spoke volumes. She thought me some sort of monster, just like I’d been thinking myself until just a few moments ago. Sadly, the moment that changed everything for me, had made me feel like a worthwhile contributor to the cause, had made my best friend scared to death of me.

“Everyone is fine out there, just sleeping due to some magical thing born of my anger. We are taking them somewhere to propose the Royal idea of helping them,” I said to Zeke in a rush of words before turning to Chloe. “Please, listen to me my dearest friend. I haven’t been honest with you these past months about what has really been going on with me. I just couldn’t, as I was afraid you’d look at me like you are now. But, now that you have seen it, I want to explain, to get everything out in the open. Please let me. I beg of you. I’m not bad, or evil. I have special powers, but I am still the person you knew, the Christina you have always stuck beside through thick and thin. Please, based on all of our years together, let me explain at least.”

“No,” Chloe demanded. “I don’t know what I saw. You guys drugged me or something. I’m seeing shit. Bad, unreal, shit. Damn it. I don’t know why you would do this to me, Christina. I don’t know you anymore. You leave, and then this. Just let me go before I start screaming and don’t stop until help comes.”

“You can scream all you like, sweetie, no one is going to come. I am still Christina, your best friend. I would never hurt you. I am sorry that those men took you. I never wanted that to happen, but it was all about revenge, against me, and I am so sorry you got involved. Just let me explain what you saw. Unfortunately, no drugs were involved,” I said, though something in me wanted to just tell my friend that it had been drug-induced hallucinations and leave it at that.

Maybe I should be selfless, just let Chloe go, let her think me some monster that drugged her, let her go on with her life, move on without me. Even as I thought it though, my heart broke. I didn’t know what was best, and I didn’t want to lose Chloe. We had too much history. I should have been honest with her in the first place, maybe eased my way in. Too late now, I just didn’t know what to do.

“No. It doesn’t make any sense. If you are my friend, you will just let me go and never contact me again. I’ll move. You won’t be able to find me. Just let me go. Please!” Chloe begged.

It broke my heart to see my friend like that, my brave friend, my strong friend, the one that had always been there for me through thick and thin. I didn’t know what to say to convince her of any of it being true, and I didn’t know if it was best to let her go off thinking the worst of me. Not even being selfish, the lie now would only continue to break Chloe’s heart too, to let her think that I thought so little of our friendship that I would hurt her.

“Show her, Christina,” Zeke offered as a way of help. “Seeing is believing. Better than a lot of talk, and a shorter distance to the truth no matter how hard to understand. Give her a glimpse of your magic so she can’t refute it.”

“Okay,” I agreed half-heartedly. “Listen, Chloe, I am going to show you some of what I can do. I promise you, I will not hurt you. Please, try to keep an open mind. Try to remember who I am, not these past seven months, but the past twenty years before that. I found out when Lex first showed up that I was a descendant of some Royal bloodline, a magical one, though I know how that sounds. Crazy. Believe me, I’ve been there myself.”

Chloe just remained in her upright fetal position shaking her head back and forth as I spoke. She blinked several times, looking from me to Zeke, around us, trying to figure out if she had a chance of escaping, I assumed. I had to act quickly. Making her feel a captive was not helping my cause.

“I should have never had any abilities, but falling in love with Lex, it brought them out in me because of what… well what he is. So watch. Please. I won’t hurt you,” I rushed through the words, hoping my voice would show my sincerity.

With my blood pressure up, my fears shooting adrenaline through my body, even after all the magic I’d just used, it took nothing to conjure up the power inside me. I started simple, forming a ball of light that circled about in my palm. Making it small, as non-threatening as possible, I even made it into a soft figure, an infinity symbol that I knew both of us loved.

“No,” Chloe said at first, guarding her eyes with her arm as if the light would hurt her. When I let it continue, played with it even, moving it, changing the colors of it, parlor games really that I’d learned during training to learn to control my magic, Chloe peeked out over her flesh.  “No. That is not possible. I don’t understand. What the hell did you guys give me? I’m seeing things. Only you must be seeing them too. Make it stop. Why are you doing this to me? What are you doing to me?”

In my agitation, the light shot from my hand, hitting the ground with the sizzle of lightening. Chloe screamed, a loud, sharp sound, which grabbed the attention of Lex and the others. Turning quickly, I saw both Lex and Nira on cell phones, as the rest of the group tied up the other wolves with ropes they’d gotten out of one of the other SUV’s I guessed. None of that looked good, I was sure, if Chloe were even paying attention to it. She hadn’t taken her wide eyes off of me.

“You haven’t been drugged. You feel normal, right?” I argued. “You saw my magic, in the infinity symbol. I know you did. I did that. No drugs. I promise. What those men gave you, who are not associated with me at all, those were just harmless drugs to make you sleep. They didn’t alter your mind. Please believe me.”

Chloe looked at my hands a minute, inspecting them. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I gave her a second, especially since she was calm, as in not yelling though her lips were still a greyish color. I hoped she wouldn’t pass out again.

“I don’t know what to think. Some men took me. They put something over my mouth and I blanked out. The next thing I know I woke up with him, and I saw you light up like some freakin’ torch. Yet, one minute there was an animal, and the next a light, a horrible bright light, and then you. You naked. I’ve lost my mind. My friend Christina standing out in the open naked. Whatever they put over my mouth killed brain cells. I’m insane. Call someone. Take me away. Put me away. Just get me the hell out of here,” Chloe begged.

“Chloe, you are not insane. It would be an easier explanation, but you are not. I don’t know what to say or do. But, if we were going to hurt you, don’t you think we would have by now? And, I know I’ve been a horrible friend these past few months, honestly trying to protect you from all of this, but please, after all the years of friendship we have shared, can’t you just trust me? Let me explain where I have been, what’s been happening to me?”

“I just can’t.” she cried out, but softly this time. As real tears spilled from her eyes, breaking my heart, Chloe begged in a quiet voice, “Why can’t you just let me go?”

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

I reached into my pocket for Chloe’s necklace, holding it out for her. The first rays of sun hit the silver, creating a magic show of its own. I couldn’t help but to smile, to hope that this made a difference.

“You were still wearing this when they took you, using you as bait to get to me. You wore it all of this time despite our distance. You held onto our friendship then, please, I’m begging you, hold onto it now. Trust in me. I unfortunately have more to show you, and so much more to explain.”

The three of us sat there in silence a few moments. The sounds from the parking lot and field of werewolves being tied up by a bunch of naked men and clothed vampires were all that could be heard along with some talk we couldn’t make out. I hoped Chloe wasn’t paying attention to all of that. My friend stared at the necklace dangling from my hand, though she made no move to take it back.

“I’m the same person, Chloe. The same person you have always known. I just have these unexplainable powers. I have this energy that runs through me. I can move things with it. I can do many things. I don’t hurt people with it,” I said, though the lie in those words caught in my throat like acid. “The men who took you have been after me. They want to use my magic. They have been ruthless, doing whatever they could to get to me including taking you. I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to say it.”

“Magic is something out of one of your books, Christina. Not real. It can’t be… Why are they tying up animals?” Chloe finally asked in a shaky voice, looking past the necklace to the parking lot.

“Those are wolves. And while I hate to throw more of the impossible at you, those wolves are the men that took you, the ones after me. They are just sleeping. They wanted to hurt us but I stopped it. I used this magic to put them to sleep. We are only tying them up to stop the violence, to try to explain to them that we can help them.”

Chloe just shook her head a few times before saying, “You are talking insane. I… I just don’t know what to do with any of it. I just want to go. You keep saying you are my friend, so please just let me go.”

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.