“But…they were so full of, er, seed after they got bred, it actually showed,” I protested, remembering the “breeding bumps” the girls were showing after the intense breeding.
Nick nodded again.
“Yes, that’s what a female with Were blood needs in order to overcome the Breeding Fever.”
“Is Were anatomy different then?” I asked. “Female Were anatomy, I mean?”
“Well, females don’t have a wolf like males do, but they do differ from human women. Mostly they’re, er, more elastic in certain areas.” Nick coughed. “That quality helps them to take a male Were’s shaft and knot when they get bred.”
I wondered if I, being half Were, had that same quality—that same elasticity. I had no way of knowing since I had never been with a guy with a really big dick. Honestly, I could count the number of lovers I’d had in my life on one hand. As I said, I just wasn’t interested in sex—or I hadn’t been until I met up with Nick again. Now it was rapidly becoming the only thing on my mind.
“Is it like that for all Were females?” I asked him. “I mean, they all need to be so filled with seed and then, uh, sealed shut afterwards?”
“All but the Royal Weres,” Nick told me. “They’re the ruling class—descended from the First Wolf—so their anatomy is a little different. For instance, Royal Omegas don’t usually produce breast nectar.”
“Royal Weres?” I frowned. “Do they have a palace or a castle somewhere?” I was imagining the Queen of England in Buckingham palace and I wondered if the Royal Weres had a similarly grand establishment.
But Nick shook his head.
“No, in fact, they don’t even rule the world’s Weres anymore. They couldn’t now even if they tried—public opinion has really gone against them.”
“It has? But why?” I asked.
Nick sighed.
“Recently there was a pretty big scandal involving them. See, the Royal Alpha lost his first Royal Omega, though they had a son together before she died. Then he found another Omega with pure Royal blood and married her but she already had a daughter. So in order to make the marriage official, they apparently had a Blood-adoption ritual making the son from the Royal Alpha’s previous marriage and the step daughter from his next marriage officially brother and sister.”
“So…kind of like the way our father’s joined as Blood-brothers and decided that we were also brother and sister?” I asked, intrigued by the similarities.
Nick nodded.
“Something like that but no branding was involved because they’re Royals. Anyway, it turned out that the two Royal siblings were actually Fated Mates, but they were forbidden to be together because of the Blood-adoption ritual.”
“Gee, that sounds very familiar,” I said dryly. “So what did they do?”
Nick shrugged.
“They ran off together, darlin’. Nobody knows where they went, either—it’s like they disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
“They’re probably living somewhere just the two of them, very happily not giving a damn what anyone else thinks,” I pointed out. “Which is what we should do, Nick.”
“Kira,” he said, frowning. “I already explained why we can’ do that. The chances that I might make you pregnant with a boy who would grown up to have a cursed wolf are at least fifty-fifty.”
“So?” I said. “I don’t care, Nick—let’s just leave and go off together. Let’s take a page out of those Royal Weres’ book and do what we want.”
His frowned deepened.
“Look, darlin’, we can’t just—”
But at that moment, the door of the cabin burst open, so I never got to hear the end of his protest.
TWENTY-FIVE
The booming sound of the door bursting open scared me into action. With a gasp, I rushed to pull back on my discarded T-shirt and Nick sprang in front of me in a defensive crouch.
But almost before I could take my next breath, the room was crowded with men holding shotguns. I recognized Bobby Aiken as well as several other Alphas from the Open Breeding and Deputy Boyd, too.
“All right, just stay where you are and nobody gets hurt,” Bobby Aiken drawled, waving his shotgun in our faces.
“What the fuck, Bobby?” Nick demanded, glowering at the other man. “How dare you break into my cabin and threaten me like this?”
Bobby just sneered at him.
“How dare you take the Pack Leader’s woman?” he asked.
“What?” Nick exclaimed. “What are you talking about? Kira is mine. I mean, she’s my little sister!”
“Yeah, we know all about what you’ve been doing with your little sister,” a new voice said. Sherriff McCain entered the room, a knowing leer on his thin lips. “We know exactly what you’ve been doing, boy,” he said to Nick. “And I know why you’re here in the first place—to play spy for the damn Elder Were Council!”
Nick reacted with surprising coolness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—I just wanted to come back to my hometown.”
“Don’t bother lying—I have eyes in the Council,” McCain spat. “All of them so damn set on holding on to the ‘ancient pack ways’ and ‘preserving the Unbreakable Laws.’”