For a moment, I fought the urge to slash out at her, to let the nails of my fingers transform into claws, to punish her hard for daring to lay hands on me. She didn’t look scared. Janice did, I could smell the acrid, enticing scent of the spike of fear as she watched my muscles tremble with the effort of stopping myself from lashing out. Carissa just smiled, the peaceful gentle smile of a saint and waited.
“It’s OK, what you’re feeling. It’s what we all felt when we created our packs. Girls who grow up here like Janice, they’ve been collecting little harems of friends since preschool, where we would play with dolls, having the princess wait to be rescued by the prince. One of the many differences between humans and animals is the amount of the brain hard-wired with instinct. Yours has shifted from the malleable pure human one, to one that’s all of a sudden dominated by strong instincts that probably seem completely alien to you.”
My eyes bored into the table-top as I listened. She paused, waiting for a response, and all I could do was nod.
“You have desires you’ve never had before. Impulses you’d never even consider are now second nature. You’re having to develop self-control in new ways. All of the little parts of your identity that you had painstakingly created over your twenty odd years of life have been thrown into disarray. You don’t know who you are some days...” My fingers closed tighter around the strange woman’s, encouraging. I needed her to keep telling this story.
“We expect to go through the heat. We school our sons and daughters, teach them how to get through it without hurting other people,” Janice said, “But Carissa made me see outsiders don’t get any of that. Kelly’s damn rules about newcomers prevent us from helping you with that adjustment before it happens.”
“Why is that?” I growled.
“Because not all of you will. We had some outsider girls come, get built up, expecting to turn, expecting to take a harem, and then...”
“And then they didn’t. It’s why Doc takes those iris photos, right? To see who’s most likely to turn,” I said.
Janice nodded.
“Our ways are different. What’s best for the family trumps what’s best for the individual. We had girls turn and run when the moon came and went, and nothing happened. There was even one who returned, letting humans into the Sanctuary. They brought weapons.”
I watched Janice’s fingers worry at a cloth napkin.
“People died, kids died. That’s when things changed.”
“So now, we come and try to help once the change has happened, try to assist you to make the mental as well as physical transition. This is hard, Jules, but you’re not alone.”
I looked down the table and saw every eye trained on me. Every one broadcasted what their owners felt, concern, worry, empathy. My Tirian snarled at this, she didn’t like any sign of weakness being shared with the group, but I had little choice. I was stunned to find tears burning in my eye sockets. What on earth did I have to cry about? I was an all-powerful supernatural creature, had legions of hot guys throwing themselves at me. It appeared any and all sexual fantasies I’d had in my life could be explored. I was safe, had a home, food, a job. Me and Buddy would be OK.
Buddy.
My eyes jerked up, belatedly searching the room, the yard outside for signs of the Husky.
“Guys, where’s my dog?”
The first thing I saw on the guy’s faces was wariness. My guts turned to ice as I scanned them. “Buddy?”
“He’s with the doc, Jules,” Finn said.
“Why? He’s my dog.” I felt my hackles began to rise, my voice deepening. “Why isn’t he here!”
“We thought it better that—”
“You’re a risk to the dog right now, and we know you’d hate yourself if you hurt him,” Slade said.
“Hurt him? He’s mine! He should be here!”
His eyes dropped down to where my nails, no, my claws dug into the table. Splinters had exploded around the puncture marks.
“You’re not stable yet, Jules. Of course, you aren’t. We didn’t want to bring your dog here until the change has settled and the heat is finished. You’ve gone through such a massive transition. The fucking bastard from the other side hurting you...”
I sat back down, focussing on just breathing for a moment. Buddy. The minute I’d said his name, it was as if a whole part of my brain had been unlocked, a rush of memories and feelings hitting me. The velvety-soft surface of his ears, his woo woo greeting whenever I got home, the little dance he performed when I was putting out his food, the leap up onto the bed and circling, always three times, before settling down in a tight ball. I rubbed at my sternum, feeling the ache now.
But they had a point. I glanced down the table and saw a big group of strong paranormal creatures all on tenterhooks, waiting to see how I’d react. I took a long shuddering breath and then settled back against my chair.
“What happened to it. Him. It’s a him, isn’t it?”
“The fuckhead that came through to take you?” Slade said. “He--”
“All unfriendlies are locked up in a secure facility. It’s an underground, fully reinforced concrete bunker. It has several lock fail-safes, is patrolled by a platoon of our best men, each one of them armed with high powered rifles,” Aaron said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”