Thesecond the TV came to life, I noticed a picture of Kai, and a frazzled-lookingblonde newswoman was explaining the story.
“Wehave live feed from an interview earlier this morning at Safe Haven domestic violenceshelter in Oregon. We have confirmed this is not a computer graphics trick andnews is coming in all across social media of reports of werewolves beingspotted all over the country.”
Ohshit. He did. Holy, holy shit.
Thefeed cut to footage of the gym at Safe Haven, Kai looked gorgeous as usual and Maxwas with him. Damn you, Max! Traitor. The women at Safe Haven were allclustered around them.
“Ihave dedicated my life to protecting my family, these women, humans,” Kai wassaying. The newswoman made a weird face when he said humans. Kai continued.
“So,at this point, I feel that to protect you all the most, I must share with you asecret. This secret may get me killed, but it could save your life.” Kai wasturning on the charisma. Not being too stern or scary.
Thenewswoman was looking nervously at the camera. “We’re here to learn about whatyou have been doing at Safe Haven,” she reminded him, nervously.
Butbefore she can cut the camera away, Kai shifts into his werewolf form blindlyfast. His clothes tear and he stands there in wolf form. His large black furand yellow eyes are menacing. He lowers his head to try and look timid. Thegasps from all the women in the auditorium make the footage seem all the morereal. Some of them scream. A few stumble backward. Max looks at the camera.“Werewolves are real and it is our intention to protect humanity from a veryreal and very scary threat. Vampires. Vampires are real too and they have beeninjecting your young ones with heroin and drinking them dry in order to gethigh. They want humanity to be asleep while they continue to use you as food,or worse, change you into drugged up bloodsuckers!” The newswoman was holding themicrophone in front of her in a protective gesture. Her hand was shaking.
Maxlooked at the camera. “Meet at your local parks. Your local werewolf pack willbe there to teach you how to protect yourself from the vampires. God help usall in the days ahead. A war is coming and we must unite to protect the humanrace.” Max finished. The newswoman dropped the microphone and the footage cutoff. I was looking back at the woman in the newsroom.
Shewas speechless. “Uh … well. We will be following this story closely. Let’s … goto commercial.”
Irealized I hadn’t taken a breath. I gasped. Oh my God. My mother. She wouldsee. EVERYONE would see. There was no going back.
Ipicked up my phone and saw breaking news alerts. Videos from werewolves allacross the country were being uploaded. I saw one of Shamus. Kai hadorchestrated this entire thing.
‘Kai,what have you done!’He was close. Icould feel it.
‘Ihad a dream,’he said.
Whatthe hell was he talking about? I heard a car door shut. I inhaled. It was him.I threw on clothes and ran outside.
Hewas with Max. They stepped out of the car.
“YourDevi spirit visited me in my dream and showed me two versions of the future. Inone, humanity and werewolves all but go extinct. They hide in caves andscavenge and kill each other over territory and food. The vampires over populateEarth and live off of drugged up human slaves with their half-breed demonicchildren.” His jaw is set, veins popping out of his neck.
Igrabbed my arms and shivered. I felt sick. “And the other?”
Hisface relaxed. “We unite. Not all humans will embrace an alliance with us, butmost will. It will be enough. We kill Layla and her clan dries out. The senselessbleeding out of humans stop and we all live together in a new future. A morebalanced future.”
Iswallowed. “After a shitload of drama, I’m sure.”
Kaishrugged. “There was no other way.”
“Thecouncil, your father. They’ll kill you.” My eyes went yellow.
Kaigave me a sly grin. “There is a law that states no council member may bepunished with death. That’s why I joined, I’m exempt now.”
Reliefflooded my chest. “What? You planned all of this, didn’t you?”
Kaigrabbed my waist and held me close. “Since the moment I knew that Layla andRAIDOS would stop at nothing to have you.”
Ikissed him.
‘Youstupid idiot. I love you.’
Hesmiled and kissed me deeper.‘I love you too. Remember that.’
Ididn’t like the ominous message. “How did you get so many werewolves to revealthemselves?”
Kaishrugged. “I called every pack that you had found a mate for and told them youneeded a favor.”
