13. Naomi

Naomi

"Aw, feck, this shite again!"

Fiona, the baker's daughter I'd put in charge of kitchen duty, cursed in her particularly Scottish way when a new tidal wave of scent heat swept through the habitat, overpowering even the smell of the Irish sausages she'd just finished frying up on the electric range it had taken us eons to learn how to use.

"The last one was less than an hour ago!" Orpah wailed as she ladled porridge from the large pot we'd made on the range's other front circle into my bowl. "I swear I truly can't take another day of this."

Bearing all crosses without complaint was one of the top tenets of self-conduct in the St. Ailbe Ordnung, but I couldn't blame Orpah for despairing.

I had to tamp down the urge to whine myself, considering we'd all just spent the last day and a half being woken up in increasingly shorter intervals by the scent equivalent of a tornado siren .

Somehow managing to contain a weary sigh, I set aside the white porcelain bowl of porridge I'd been so looking forward to eating before Amanda's latest heat spell hit our noses. "I'll go tend to her."

"But what about…?" Orpah started to ask.

"And I'll send someone else to help you finish filling up the bowls," I called over my shoulder as I walked through the kitchen's sliding metal doors.

The automatic doors inside the half-dome habitat were another surprising detail in a space full of them. The wolves who had kidnapped us wore hand-stitched clothes that reeked of animals, and they hadn't seemed that advanced in the technology department. Yet, this strange rock wall residence appeared to be carved into the side of something — a mountain, maybe.

The walls were made of stone, and the ceiling was a sloped piece of glass, giving the impression of being inside a half-dome. It was as if someone had taken one of those destination globes I'd seen at the airport and bisected it with a sedimentary stone wall. But instead of snow or glitter, there was conditioned air and intuitive lights that dimmed and brightened with the sun.

I could tell from the glass door that had opened for the Irish Kings, but not for us, that this place was meant to be some kind of habitat. Whoever created this space had done so with its inhabitants' comfort in mind. The domed-in cavern featured cozy double-occupancy bedrooms with bathroom facilities behind every sliding door of its four landings.

On the main floor, a set of double sliding doors led into what I could only describe as a cave kitchen filled with electric appliances and plenty of dishware.

The cave kitchen had a huge metal fridge, a walk-in freezer, and a pantry stocked with enough food for the fifty-plus she-wolves the Irish Wolves had kidnapped from Scotland. Everything gleamed like new, including a wooden island with a granite countertop, but there was no smell of cleaning products.

None of the appliances had visible energy sources — no plugs or dials — just strange symbols glowing red on touch screens that didn't leave fingerprints.

There were also windows in the kitchen that well… weren't quite windows. Last night, they looked out onto a starry sky over a snowy field; this morning, a sunrise over mountains and a narrow body of water. The picture-perfect view literally kept changing.

Most eerie of all, most of the seemingly inanimate objects in the cave kitchen vibrated with a strange force as if powered by an invisible energy field. Was that strange vibration also keeping the appliances, like photo-shoot-level clean?

I'd hoped to explore more of the habitat, but sadly, with Amanda's heats coming in increasingly short intervals, I hadn't had enough time or focus to investigate further.

I swear I'd never been so tired in my life. Even calving and lambing seasons were easier than this, I groused to myself as I trudged through the double doors into a front room filled with agitated she-wolves.

"Is breakfast ready yet?" Miriam, the foxy W?lfennite, demanded when I passed by her and the rest of the wolves waiting at the hodgepodge of quilts, couches, chairs, and various kinds of tables that we'd gathered into an eating area during one of the breaks from Amanda's heat episodes.

"It's almost ready," I answered. "Could one of you help Orpah dish it out in the kitchen? "

Suddenly, Miriam wasn't quite as eager to get my attention. She averted her eyes.

Leah, a W?lfennite with a broad waist and shoulders, jumped up from one of the couches to volunteer. "I'll do it!"

She headed toward the kitchen, grumbling, "Maybe the smell won't be so bad in there."

I didn't have the heart to warn her that the heat smell cut through everything. Even metal doors.

I glanced at the curved observation window which had remained free of panting wolves with their faces pinned to the glass since I took Amanda upstairs. By order of the Pirate King, I suspected, even though I'd kicked him and both of Amanda's would-be mates out.

If all of this wasn't his fault in the first place, I might have even been grateful.

"I'm ravenous," one of the Scottish she-wolves complained, pulling my attention back to the room full of she-wolves waiting for breakfast. "Not that it matters. The food will most likely taste off with our noses all a jumble like this."

I couldn't disagree. I'd been hungry when I went to help Fiona in the kitchen, but it was hard to think about eating — or anything else, really — with Amanda's heat lingering in the air like a thick cloud of smoke.

The heat scent appeared to also be an appetite suppressant, I noted as I made my way up the stairs. All thoughts of hunger disappeared as I approached Amanda's room, and that tingling disgust flared up in my lower belly again.

"How long will this last, Naomi?" Miriam called after me as if I hadn't received the same amount of wolf sex education as she had. Which was basically none at all.

A Scottish she-wolf ended up answering in my stead.

"Till she gets seeded with a bairn or she dies from the wanting. Whichever comes first."

The dire prediction sent a shiver up my back.

I would never have wished this kidnapping on my older sister, but not for the first time since this ordeal began, I found myself aching for her advice on how to handle… all of this.

Oh God, Tara.

The panic I'd been keeping at bay with fits of sleep and the determination to keep the other kidnapped she-wolves calm and fed began to claw its way back as I thought of my heavily pregnant sister. She must be terrified and frantic back in Scotland.

Would I ever see her again? What if I couldn't figure out a way to get us out of this strange prison?

Another wave of Amanda's heat pulled me away from those despondent thoughts, and somewhere I found the energy to speed up the stairs to see what I could do to help Amanda.

At least she wasn't screaming like last night when her downright vulgar pleas for relief had echoed through the domed cavern.

As my mother often said in W?lfennite: Gott sei Dank für kleine Gnaden. Thank goodness for small mercies."

"Hi, Aman —"

To say I was unprepared for the scene I walked in on after palming open the sliding doors would have been a complete understatement .

Amanda lay naked with each of her appendages tied to a bedpost, pitifully moaning, "It's not enough! It's not enough!"

The sight of Amanda tied up wasn't what shocked me. After her second heat cycle, Amanda begged Leah and me to tie her to the bed so that she could keep herself from the unholy sin of frantically rubbing the wet triangle between her legs.

Over the past twelve hours, I'd come in here plenty of times to find her all tied up, moaning with her back arched off the bed like someone possessed by one of the demons our community had warned us about growing up.

However, this time, when I walked in, I found Amanda's best friend, Priscilla, between her legs, frantically lapping at her sex.

That was new.

Thanks to the many seasons of Degrassi High I'd watched in secret, I managed to recover from my shock by the time the door slid closed behind me.

Still, I had to ask, "Priscilla! What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry!" Priscilla lifted her head to reveal a chin covered in the viscous heat fluid that seeped from Amanda's private regions whenever she had an episode. "I just came up here to check on her. But she was begging for relief, and some instinct told me this was the only way to help her. I know it is unholy. But she's my best friend. I had to try to help her."

"Please keep going," Amanda cried out. She lifted her hips as far off the bed as she could, trying to push it into Priscilla's repentant face. "It's not enough, but it's something. Please, Prissy! Please, don't stop!"

Priscilla's eyes darkened with some emotion I faintly recognized but couldn't quite label. She licked her lips like someone starving, and her head began to dip back down. But at the last moment, she restrained herself.

"Should I give her more relief?" she asked me.

As if I should know what to do in this situation.

I rubbed at the headache that always began to form when I stayed in Amanda's room for more than the minute or two it took me to retighten her makeshift restraints. I needed to think, but I couldn't do that with Amanda's heat smell filling up the air like the version of white noise favored by horror films.

It felt like I would be torturing Amanda if I said no. But what kind of psychological toll would giving Priscilla permission to provide Amanda with relief have later when she and Amanda regained their senses?

If Amanda regained her senses.

The Scottish she-wolf's ominous words rang through my ears.

God, I needed to think — to reason. But I was so tired…

"Ah! Can't take it anymore!" The sound of ripping fabric let me know that the makeshift restraints weren't any match against the strength of a she-wolf in heat.

Amanda pulled her best friend's head back to her glistening sex, and in an instant, the question went from whether to give spoken permission to whether or not I should cover my eyes.

"Cover my eyes" was winning out when the door whispered open behind me.

Oh no!

Deeply aware that neither Amanda nor Priscilla would appreciate being seen in this position, I spun around to tell the new arrival. "Get out, please. I have this fully under…"

The lie about me having things even slightly — much less fully under control died in my mouth when I saw two she-wolves standing there.

I couldn't smell anything beyond Amanda's heat, but I immediately sensed they weren't Scottish but Irish.

One was tall and thin with ash-blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. The other Irish she-wolf also had her hair pulled back in a bun. But that was where all similarities ended. She was much shorter and stockier than the ash-blonde, and her muscular arms bulged underneath a Teagan & Sara t-shirt. She had thick blond hair, pulled back into a stubby ponytail. If not for her soft jawline and the swells of breasts underneath her t-shirt, I might have mistaken her for a male.

Or maybe she was a male. All the cultural study I'd done to prepare myself for life at a human institute of learning jumbled through my overwhelmed head. Could this be a real-life example of the people who referred to themselves as non-binary?

The tall, thin one spoke before I could form the words to ask after the shorter one's pronouns. "Howya there. The doctor's here to sort you all out. What's the craic, then?"

That non-sensical greeting was all the warning I got before the she-wolf pulled out a needle and jabbed it into the side of Amanda's bare arm.

Amanda immediately went limp on the bed, her mad eyes falling closed.

But to my horror, Priscilla continued between her legs, audibly licking at her friend's heat like some kind of animal.

The tall woman made a slight tsking sound behind her teeth.

"Frey darling, could you help this one give up her feast? "

Like a soldier commanded, the short and stout possible they-wolf plucked Priscilla from between Amanda's legs, physically lifting her from the bed.

"Sorry, luv, I understand the compulsion. Believe me. But once she's passed out, you no longer have consent."

As grateful as I was for their medical and physical intervention, I had to lift both eyebrows.

" Now you Irish Wolves care about consent?" I asked my two saviors — but also total abettors if their completely non-bothered expressions were any indication.

"So, you come with sass on top of these loads of good looks!" The tall doctor snickered. "Oh, my brothers are going to have a time with you, aren't they? But I like you already, mo banríon ."

"Your brothers?" I asked, shaking my head.

"Aw, forgot to introduce myself." She transferred the needle she'd used to sedate Amanda into a pack she wore around her waist and stuck out her hand. "Howya, I'm Astrid, the Wild and Sea Kings' little sister."