“It’s really nice in here,” I said, deciding it would be best to try and keep on her good side. “Really clean.”
“Thank you!” Ophelia flushed with pleasure. “Now, let’s see—where did Tainer put those tests?”
She went over to an ancient looking medicine cabinet—the kind with a mirrored front—hanging over the sink and pulled it open. Inside were a few ancient glass pill bottles that looked like they’d been new when my grandmother was a little girl and a row of pale pink, rectangular boxes.
Ophelia took one of the boxes out and closed the medicine cabinet again. Flipping it over, she read the back, frowning as she squinted through the thick lenses of her glasses.
“All right,” she said at last. “Looks like you just need to pee on the end of the stick and then wait five minutes and we’ll know.”
“Know what?” I asked, frowning. “If I’m ovulating?”
“Actually, yes—but that’s not all. This is a three-part test—see?” She opened the box and held out the stick for me to see.
It looked like a regular pregnancy test, (I knew because Ashley had had a pregnancy scare our last year in high school) except it had four little boxes arranged in a row down the white plastic stick, instead of two.
“What are all these?” I asked, frowning at the boxes. The one nearest the part you peed on was marked with a capital C. The next one down had an O beside it, the third one in line had HC and the last one was labeled P.
“The first one is the Control box—that shows you really did pee on the stick and that the test is working,” Ophelia explained. “The next box tells if you’re ovulating or not, the third box lets us know about your Heat Cycle. The last box tells if you’re pregnant or not,” she added, smiling. “Hopefully we’ll be seeing that one light up pretty soon!”
I couldn’t believe she was acting like I was in on this with her—like I was super excited to be getting pregnant by my stepbrother. Which wasn’t going to happen, I promised myself. But the thing was, she had kidnapped me and now she was pretending like we were best girlfriends.
You’d better pretend too, whispered a little voice in my head. You probably have a better chance of getting out of here if you have somebody on your side in this mess.
I thought the voice was probably right, so I arranged my face into an excited smile.
“Wow, that’s a pretty cool test—it tells you everything!”
“It sure does—we have them manufactured by a special Were distributor,” she told me.
“Oh, really?” I tried to sound interested but inside I was thinking that somebody out there was making a ton of money selling “special Were pregnancy tests” to all these people who believed they were “Weres.” Probably the same people who sold Furries their costumes. Why do so many people want to pretend they’re animals so badly?
“They’re accurate right down to the hour—they have to be since Were pregnancies can be detected so early,” Ophelia continued, holding out the pee stick.
“Oh, er, really? Like how early?” I asked, taking it from her and going over to the toilet. I could keep making nice with her but I had to pee before I burst.
“This test can detect it almost as soon as the egg is fertilized,” Ophelia said. “Usually it can tell about two hours after you get knotted and breed. Oh—be sure you hold the end in your stream for at least five seconds,” she added.
“No problem,” I muttered. I had to pee so badly by that time, I felt like it would take me five minutes to empty my bladder. So I dutifully peed on the stick as Ophelia continued to talk.
“That same manufacturer also makes another test that tells not only if you’re pregnant, but also the paternity of your pup,” she said in a conversational tone. “It’s really useful for after Pack breedings—you know, where you get multiple knots in a single night?”
“Uh, no, I don’t know,” I said. Was she saying that these “Were” cult members were into orgies? If so, I really hoped I wasn’t going to be asked to participate!
“Oh no—of course you wouldn’t.” Ophelia made a “silly me” gesture with one hand. “You’re the Innocent Omega and must only be bred by an Alpha of the Royal Line.”
“Um, right,” I said, still peeing. I finished up and then handed her the stick, since she was holding out her hand for it. “Uh, now what?”
“Now we wait for two minutes and see where you are in your Heat Cycle.” Ophelia sounded excited. “Oh, I hope you’re in the red!”
“The red?” I asked, pulling my PJ bottoms back up and going to the sink to wash my hands.
“Yes, see—the test is color coded.” Ophelia showed me a complicated-looking set of directions that had apparently come with the kit. Sure enough, there was a colored chart listing for the HC box. It appeared to range from blue to green to yellow to orange to a dark, ominous looking red.