Of course, this was hell on female Weres that had no mate, which was probably why the regular Weres had “breeding parties” amongst themselves. It allowed the females who were having a hard time, to get their itch scratched and also promoted the birth of more Weres.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t a regular Were—I was a Royal. Which meant that my Heat was more intense. Also, I had no male to help me with it. And worst of all, I couldn’t let anyone know what was happening to me.
I was afraid if I confided in my Mom, she would want to know what had started my Heat Cycle in the first place. Since, from my understanding, if I had been left strictly alone and not bothered by any male Weres, I should have been able to go on leading the sexless existence I’d had before I was kidnapped. If I told her I was having my Heat Cycle, she would want to know who started it—and all eyes would turn to Jake, no matter what I said.
So I was keeping everything inside and trying to act normal, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it up. Even though I said nothing, I was fearful of being “smelled out,” by my stepfather, especially. I had been wearing a ton of strong perfume and using a highly-scented, floral body wash to try and literally throw him off the scent, but I still saw him sniffing suspiciously anytime I was near him.
Which meant I went out of my way to keep my distance—because there had already been way too much suspicion against both me and Jake.
The day after we’d been brought home, after she hugged me and cried and told me how glad she was I was safe, my mom had taken me aside. She had asked me delicately if anything bad had happened to me during my time being kidnapped. “Anything bad involving your brother Jacob,” was how she had put it.
I had denied that anything “bad” had happened between us steadily, though it killed me to lie to my mom. But I just didn’t dare say to her what had really occurred—what Jake and I had been forced to do in order to get through that dark time together, locked in the attic.
Instead, I stuck to my story about constant indoctrination. I told them that Sorenson and Tainer had lectured us day and night, showing us films about the end of the world and reciting the crazy prophecy about how all the regular Weres would die if the Royals didn’t continue the line of the First Wolf.
According to this version of the story, Jake and I had been kept cuffed to the headboard of the bed so we couldn’t touch because they wanted to convince us first that it was our “duty” to be together. Luckily, we had been able to persuade them that we were true believers and then Jake had Shifted and torn out both their throats before we had to “prove” our belief—that was my story and I was sticking to it!
Jake and I had decided not to mention Ophelia, after a quick, whispered conference in the back of the car on the way home. In our agreed-on fiction, only the cult leader and his mountain man sidekick had kidnapped us. They had taken us to Tainer’s house together and had taken turns haranguing us about their “end of the world” prophecy. But though we pretended at the end that we agreed with them, nothing else had ever happened between us.
After I repeated this over and over to my mom, she finally seemed to believe me. My stepfather, Marcus, had been much harder on Jake, however. He had grilled my stepbrother for hours on end on several occasions, asking questions like what exactly we had done and why the damn sheet I’d worn home that night smelled like both of our scents.
Jake had stayed strong, though I could tell it killed him to lie to his dad. They’d had a very straightforward relationship up until the kidnapping and now there was a schism between them, because I didn’t really think that Marcus completely believed that nothing had happened between myself and Jake.
However, Jake admitted nothing. He said of course the sheet smelled like both of us—they’d made us live in the same room and sleep in the same bed. And all we had done was listen to crazy—and rather boring—lectures presented by Professor Sorenson and watch the weird movies he showed us to try and prove his theory and convince us the prophecy was true.
At last, his father seemed to accept that Jake was telling the truth—mostly anyway. But I still felt his sharp eyes on us anytime my stepbrother and I were in the same room together. Which meant we had to keep a strict distance between us.