The kidn*pped Soul of Luna

Chapter 5 - Revelation

Carmel lowered herself into the chair slowly, regally, chin held high. The last few years of sitting in on all of those board meetings, the ones that she was expected to take over soon, had taught her how to show no fear and the importance of taking control early in a session.

“First things first,” she said. “Who are you and where am I?”

Alexander narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to figure out the puzzle in front of him and decided to humor her a little.

“I, am Alpha Alexander of the Susitna Pack. You are in Alaska on our territory.”

Her eyes widened only slightly as she tried to hide her surprise at being so far from New York City.

                “Alaska? Alpha?” She queried, “Pack?”

                “Yes, Alaska. You can consider Alpha to mean leader… and our Pack is the group of us who live and work together like a family… now it is my turn,” he continued before she could ask another question. “Who are you… really?”

She squared her shoulder and head held high she told him, “I am Carmela Rose Jacobs of the Jacobs foundation.”

He looked at her with a blank face, telling her that he still didn’t recognize her name, but the nurse across the room gasped out loud. Everyone turned to look at her and her face turned red in embarrassment with the attention.

“Omega Becky,” the Alpha said to the nurse, “Would you care to enlighten us about your reaction?”

The room remained silent until finally, Becky couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Oh Goddess, you guys, don’t you ever watch the news. She is totally famous, so fashionable! She is in the celebrity news almost every week. In fact, she was all over the internet today!”

“What?” Carmel asked, wondering what the paparazzi had made up about her this time.

The nurse expanded, “apparently she… I mean you… well, she quit school today before her first class and boarded her private jet for the Bahama’s for a tropical vacation with her new mysterious lover,” the nurse gushed as if it was the most romantic thing.   

“They said I did WHAT?” responded Carmel, clearly upset.

“Carmela,” Alexander said trying to bring her focus back to their discussion. “Let’s get through all of the facts for now, okay?”

“Mr. Alexander, my friends call me Carmel. YOU may call me Ms. Jacobs. Only my parents called me Carmela.”

“They died in a tragic automobile crash four years ago,” the nurse supplied quickly, clearly star-struck and a little too well informed about Carmel’s life via the tabloids. "She inherited their fortune and their legacy. She is known as the poor little rich girl."

Pain laced Carmel’s face at the casual mention of the crash and the gossipy version of her inheritance. Her body caved in at the core as if she had been punched in the gut. Alex felt a twinge of her grief in his chest, which concerned him. He had built up strong walls between his and Kylara’s bond in the last two years. He shouldn’t have felt her pain.

“That is quite enough, Omega,” said Alex in his Alpha voice.

“Yes, Alpha,” she said, suddenly demure, eyes down at the floor.

Carmel straightened up her body as she worked to recover her poise. “How did I get here?” was her next question.

“You see, Ms. Jacobs,” the doctor broke in. “That is what we are trying to figure out. As far as I can tell from my research it involves a complex and ancient witch’s spell that is practically considered to be mythical, almost impossible to cast, and forbidden. I have reached out to the witch’s council to find out who would, theoretically, have the ability to perform such a spell. Once we have that information, we will be able to continue our investigation from there.”

“A witch’s spell,” she said sarcastically. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I know this must seem rather unbelievable to you… Kylar… umm… Ms. Jacobs,” said the Alpha. “But there are many beings in this world that remain unknown to you in your human world, and that does include witches… and werewolves.”

“Werewolves?” she scoffed, “And vampires and mummies and ghosts too, I suppose.”

“No,” he said, “not mummies or ghosts. At least, I’ve never seen a ghost, so I don’t think they exist. But werewolves, absolutely... and vampires too, unfortunately.”

She just looked at them like they were either stupid or on drugs.

Alexander sighed in frustration. “Omega, come here,” he said.

“Yes, Alpha,” the nurse said, eyes still trained on the floor. 

“Come shift for Ms. Jacobs…. slowly,” he commanded.

Alexander could have shifted himself, but his wolf was large and imposing while Becky’s wolf was much smaller and rather sweet looking. He didn’t want to have to sedate Carmel again.

Becky undressed in front of them and Carmel averted her eyes, “Goodness, why is that girl taking off her clothes? What is going on?”

“She will be going through a transformation from human to wolf. She is removing her clothes to keep them from being ruined during the shift,” the doctor told her clinically.

“I’m sorry if her naked form makes you uncomfortable.” Alex chimed in, “nudity is not something that we are concerned about as werewolves.”

Her eyes remained averted.

“You will need to watch her shift into her wolf if you are going to believe us,” he admonished her.

Carmel’s eyes jerked up to his. “Wait… are you saying that you are all… werewolves?”

Suddenly, Carmel began to hear bones snapping and cracking… a sound that she remembered from the prison before she had passed out. Horrified, her eyes swung back to the nurse. Once she began watching, she couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to. The woman began sprouting actual fur. The lower part of her face elongated out into a snout. Her ears grew tall and furry as they migrated further up on her scalp. Her long hair was seemingly absorbed into her body, as a brown mottled fur replaced it. Her hips shifted back as her legs changed orientation from upright to a four-legged creature. Claws replaced her fingernails and her fingers shrunk back to the furry nubs of a wolfs front paws.

Carmel’s eyes were unnaturally large as she watched all of this. When the black speckles started taking over her vision, Carmel breathed purposefully and deeply through her nose to keep herself from passing out again. Her vision cleared and a brown wolf stood next to the bed, tongue hanging long out of one side of her panting mouth. The wolf trotted over to her and nudged her arm with her cold wet nose until Carmel’s hand was on top of her head. She couldn’t help herself. Carmel found that she wanted to feel the fur to make sure it was real and she gently stroked the top of the wolfs head. The wolf put her chin on Carmel’s lap, clearly enjoying the petting.

“That is quite enough, Omega,” the Alpha ordered.

Becky’s head hung low as she walked back to the bed where she reversed the process, shifting back into a human. Once she was fully human again, she dressed herself and then looked at Carmel and said, “Ta-Da!” with her hands out at her sides, as if she had just completed a simple magic trick, obviously trying to lighten the mood. And then she tittered to herself as she went back to her station, “I can’t believe Carmel Jacobs touched my wolf!”

 As for Carmel, she was still breathing deep and thinking of what her next step was. The others in the room were just watching her patiently, allowing her the time to process what she had just seen. She processed every fact that she had in her possession, something that her mentor Richard had trained her to do. She was drugged, transported across the country into a jail cell and another body. She knew for a fact that her face and body were not her own, another piece of evidence of supernatural happenings here. Unconsciously, her fingertips trailed over the unfamiliar features of her new face as if to confirm that it was still different.

She pursed her lips and said, finally, “Okay, assuming that all of this is true, then… why me? And how do we change things back to normal?”

Alex gave her one of his little nods, apparently approving at her new approach to their mutual problem. As much as she hated his nods, she still felt proud of herself for getting his approval.

“Before we get to that,” Alex said succinctly, "there is a little more.”

“Goodness gracious, what else could there possibly be,” she said, a little scared to hear the next impossible thing that came out of his mouth.

“You are currently a werewolf as well, Ms. Jacobs,” Alex told her. “When Kylara switched souls with you, she left her wolf behind.”