“He’ll turn me,” Allie said before Magnus could respond. “We’re life mates now.”
Dani didn’t even take her eyes off of Magnus to look at her, but stared past her at him and insisted, “Tonight.”
“Tonight,” Magnus agreed on a sigh.
“Good,” Dani said, relaxing. Finally looking at Allie again then, she smiled and hugged her. “Congratulations. I hope you two are very happy.”
“Thank you,” Allie murmured, hugging her back. “Stay safe.”
“We will,” Dani said, and then released her and turned to slip back through the crowd to Decker’s side. Expression solemn, he took her hand and then turned to lead her out to the garage.
Allie watched them go, but her mind was on the subject of no-fangers. Sam had mentioned them first, back at the Enforcer house. She’d wondered about it then, but they had been under Lucian’s “no questions until after” order and by the time “after” had come, she’d forgotten.
“Allie? You are very quiet. Are you all right?” Magnus asked with concern, clasping her shoulders and urging her to lean back against him.
Before her back could touch his chest, she turned and managed a smile. “I’m fine. I was just wondering what a no-fanger is.”
He hesitated briefly, but then said, “An immortal without fangs.”
“Oh.” She considered that briefly, and then asked, “Is that such a bad thing? Your people don’t bite people anymore anyway. You drink bagged blood. And why would that stop her from having children?”
Magnus paused briefly as if considering his answer, and then explained, “No-fangers are the result of different nanos than immortals. It was an early batch that were tested, but proved problematic. While it worked well in a third of the patients, a third died and another third went insane. That was enough to make them halt testing with those nanos and go back to the drawing board. They eventually came up with a new batch of nanos, the ones that immortals have. After the fall of Atlantis, those of our kind with the second batch of nanos gained fangs, but the patients who had received the first batch did not. We called them ‘Edentates’ if they were sane and ‘no-fanger’ if they were insane to differentiate the two,” he explained. “As for Dani having children, technically she could, but she does not wish to risk having a no-fanger child.”
“Oh,” Allie said quietly, glancing toward the people crowded into the pantry, watching Dani and Decker leave. Apparently, someone was holding the door between the pantry and garage open. She could smell a faint whiff of exhaust and hear the hum of the automated garage door being raised. Glancing back to him, she asked, “So are you really going to turn me now?”
He peered down at her solemnly. “Do you want me to?”
Allie nodded at once. There seemed little reason to delay. This is why she agreed to be his life mate.
Magnus was silent for a minute, and then nodded slowly. “All right. Then once everyone comes back from seeing Dani and Decker off, I shall inform them of your decision and we will start the preparations.”
“Preparations?” Allie asked with surprise. “What preparations?”
“Mom!”
Allie turned her head as Liam came rushing into the room with Teddy and Gracie on his heels. “The movie stopped playing. Can you come fix it?”
“Oh.” She hesitated. Elvi had found a movie on Netflix for the kids when they’d taken them pop and chips. If it had stopped working, the modem probably needed rebooting or something. She glanced back to Magnus, but then sighed and moved toward her son. Explanations would have to wait.
Thirteen
“Why is Leonora setting up an IV?” Allie asked with concern as Magnus led her into her room at Casey Cottage. It had taken her longer than she’d expected to fix the Netflix problem. And of course the minute she was done, the kids needed bathroom breaks and more to drink and she’d had to pause the movie she’d just got going. She’d then had to wait there until they were all set again before unpausing it for them. By the time all that was done, Allie had come out to find Magnus waiting to lead her here to perform the turn.
Allie had been surprised to hear the turn would be done in her room. She hadn’t really considered where she would be turned, but supposed because it was a medical procedure she’d had a vague thought of a hospital or a clinic now that Dani was gone. Which was ridiculous, Allie realized now. Immortals