“So…if the HR box comes up red I’m…what?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, that means your Heat Cycle is in full swing and you’re ready to have your belly filled with life!”
The way she kept talking about my “belly” swelling and being “filled with life” was deeply creepy and disturbing, but I tried not to show it.
“Uh, but what if I’m not in the red?” I asked, turning on the water and reaching for a small bar of soap that looked like the kind you got from a hotel.
“Well, then we’ll have to do what we can to get you into the red,” Ophelia said, getting a determined look on her face. “There are many things that can make a female Were’s first Cycle come on, you know. And we’re fully prepared to do whatever it takes so you can be bred on the full moon.”
I almost asked what kinds of “things” they were thinking of doing to me to get me “in the red” but I was too afraid to find out. Oh God, Jake and I had to get out of here, I thought, as I washed my hands in the ice-cold tap water.
I winced as the chilly water and soap stung the red welts the rope had left on my wrists. Ophelia saw me and frowned apologetically.
“I’m really sorry about the rope burns—I wanted to use silver restraints on you, but Professor Sorenson said we only had enough money for one set. They’re pretty expensive, you know, since they have pure silver fibers woven all through the silk strands.” She shivered and shook her head. “I tell you, just touching them drained my strength!”
“Because silver is bad for werewolves?” I asked, uncertainly as I finished washing my hands and began to blot them dry on the nice little pink hand towel that Ophelia had doubtless picked out herself.
She frowned. “Well, not bad exactly—it just saps your strength, you know? Makes you as weak as a regular human.”
“Uh, I am a regular human,” I pointed out. There was only so far I was willing to go with this crazy charade that we were all “Weres” here.
“No, you’re not—if you were, none of these boxes would be lighting up. And see—they are!”
Ophelia held out the pregnancy test excitedly for me to see. The box at the top, the Control box, had filled in a dark red. The box below it, marked O for Ovulation, was also red, I saw with some unease. The bottom box, marked P for Pregnancy was a dark blue—negative. Not surprising since I was still a virgin. But the box marked HC for Heat Cycle was still a blank white.
“All right, wait for it,” Ophelia muttered, talking more to herself than me, I thought. “The Cycle box always fills in last. Come on, red! Come on red!”
She sounded like she was cheering for a sports team rather than some weird bodily function, I thought uneasily. I mean, she was getting really excited about it.
But a moment later, her face fell and she said, “Awww…” in the same tone you’d use if you dropped your ice cream off your cone onto the street. Or maybe if your favorite team missed a goal or a basket or whatever. I don’t know—I don’t like sports.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to look concerned.
“Well…just look.” She sighed as she held out the test again. The HC box was blue. Not as dark a blue as the pregnancy box and there was maybe a hint of green in it, but it definitely wasn’t anywhere near the deep red that appeared to mean a positive on this particular test.
I wasn’t sure if I should breathe a sign of relief or not. According to the test, I wasn’t ready to be “bred” or “knotted” or whatever they wanted to call it so that was good. But Ophelia had said they would do “anything they had to” in order to get me “into the red.” So who knew what lay in store for me?
I really didn’t want to know. I wanted to be back home in bed with Mr. Binkers purring his rusty purr on my pillow and my nice clean sheets tucked in tight and cozy. I wanted this to all be a bad dream that I would soon wake up from. I wanted—
A sudden pounding on the door interrupted my mental wish list.
“Well?” a loud male voice shouted. “Is she ready to be bred or not?”
TWELVE
“I’m afraid not.” Ophelia opened the door and I saw Tainer and Sorenson standing right outside it. Jake was between them, his arms still bound firmly behind his back. “See?” She showed them the pregnancy test and Tainer scowled.
“Fuckin’ late blooming virgins,” he muttered, staring at me like it was my fault I wasn’t what these people considered “fertile.”
Sorenson, however, only shrugged philosophically.