Leah glanced at him and tilted her head, giving him a small smile before she turned and leaned into Sonia.
“I’m going now, Sonny,” she said and Sonia’s eyes flew open.
Sonia looked at Leah then Callum then Leah and she shook her head frantically, clutching tight to Leah’s hand.
Leah brought their hands to her chest and leaned further toward his mate.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. You just need to rest, get some sleep if you can, be with your mate,” Leah told her but Sonia kept shaking her head and Leah’s voice dropped when she continued. “Tomorrow, after you’ve had some rest, we’ll talk. I’ll explain a few things.” Leah grinned at her. “I’ll tell you my story. It’s a good one,” she confided as if sharing an exciting morsel of gossip before she concluded, “But you’ll understand a whole lot more once you’ve heard it.”
Sonia gazed at her new friend then her eyes went blank, she nodded and released Leah’s hand.
Leah bit her lip as she tucked Sonia’s hair behind her ear. Then she sighed, stood and walked to Callum. She touched his hand briefly while giving him another small smile then she walked through the room and closed the door behind her.
Once he heard the click of the door in the latch, Callum moved to the bed.
Sonia lay motionless, all but her eyes which watched him.
He put a knee to the bed and settled carefully on his side, up on a forearm, close to her immobile body and cautiously he reached out and laid a hand flat against the small of her back above her cords.
She turned her face away.
“Baby doll, look at me,” he ordered gently.
Sonia didn’t move.
Callum decided not to push it even though he disliked her resting her head on its injured side.
He slid down the bed so his head was in his hand, his elbow in the pillow, his body nearly brushing hers as he leaned forward and way too late whispered his secret in her ear.
“I’m a werewolf. My people are werewolves. As you know, I’m their king, as my father was before me, his father before him.”
Her body tensed tighter and tighter with each word he spoke but other than that she didn’t move.
His hand slid along her skin to curl his fingers around the side of her waist and he continued, “I’m immortal. I’m three hundred and eighty-three years old. I was there that night thirty-one years ago when your parents died. I was there on instinct, to protect you because you were alone. I’d got shot because I’d gotten cocky and you ended up protecting me.”
No movement, no sound.
Callum pulled in breath.
Then he kept going, “Werewolves are not what you think we are, not what you’ve seen in movies. We don’t change only during a full moon, we can change whenever we want and change back just the same. You can shoot us with silver bullets and our flesh will just eject it and heal. We live our lives in wolf settlements, like the town, or amongst humans. Like humans, we try to do no harm and we mean no ill-will to anyone. As you’ve seen, my people are kind and friendly, different than yours in many ways, but none of them bad.”
No response.
Callum kept going, belatedly sharing with his queen information he should have told her weeks before. “We’re born wolves. We have no capacity to make humans into wolves with a bite. No one understands truly how we came about, though there’s a great deal of research that’s been done. We do know we’ve evolved from wolves, unlike vampires, which you’ve learned also exist, who evolved from humans. There’s no magic, nothing supernatural, nothing sinister, we’re of nature, just like you. A she-wolf gives birth and a pup grows, slower than a human child, five years for wolf to every one for a human. Then we lock in our development somewhere in our late thirties and we never show any signs of further aging.”
Still, no reaction.
“Honey, please look at me.”
Her head turned on the pillow again and when her eyes caught his, hers were blazing with hatred.
His gut wrenched and his face dipped to hers.
“This, what you’re feeling, how you’re looking at me, is exactly what I wanted to avoid by not telling you,” he explained, his voice thick with emotion.
Finally, she spoke.
Her voice trembling with loathing, she whispered, “Obviously, you failed.”