Page 69 of Feral Werewolves
But Kestrel and Lazarus both had martyr complexes to various degrees, and so neither of them would say anything. They’d just do the other people’s work. Kestrel would get resentful about it and eventually blow up. Lazarus, however, just took it as his due.
Lazarus, I was beginning to see, was convinced that there was no way he could ever atone for what he’d done to Marina on the First Full Moon, but he wanted to try anyway. So, he took on heaps of pain or abuse or strain, whatever he could manage. He wanted to punish himself, constantly, forever.
And Paladin was just nervous. He was frightened of both of them, I could see that, and all of his behavior was some kind of attempt to appease them, to keep them from ever turning on him, from ever hurting him. His love for me was different, but there were elements of it in there, too.
I’d thought that he wasn’t as damaged as the other two, but now I thought his damage was just as bad.
And me?
What? I was the poster child for mental and emotional stability? Why had I come out here so readily? Was it really because of my biological urges and the way my tithe body had changed? Or had I just spent my whole life never being wanted and this felt decadent?
Was I really mated to all three of them, or was I just greedy for attention, any kind of attention? Was I just a bottomless well that wanted stuffed full of them—their cocks, their come, their knots, their love, their touches and caresses? I couldn’t get e-fucking-nough of it.
We mostly all had sex together, in the evenings, after dinner, and we all fell asleep together. If I had sex with any of them solo, it was in stolen moments, often in the mornings if one of them woke up and the others didn’t, or if we happened to be alone together for some reason.
I didn’t keep these little one-on-one trysts secret from the others for any reason I knew of, nor did I discuss with them that we shouldn’t tell the others, but we all seemed on board with not flaunting that.
I was learning to make bread, learning how long to let it rise, how to knead the dough, all of that. It was a complicated process.
I milked the cow once, too, which I found sort of weird. Apparently, you had to make sure to keep milking the cow, even if you didn’t need the extra milk, because the cow’s milk supply rose to whatever the demand was of milking. This cow had once had a calf, I learned (which was a duh moment for me, becauseobviously, the cow had to have a baby to make milk) but it had been over a year ago, and the calf was weaned and had been traded off at some point for farming equipment. I felt a little sad that the mom cow had lost her calf, but also stunned that the cow was still making milk. Apparently, though, as long as you kept up milking the cow, that could go on and on for a while.
Eventually, they would have to breed this cow again if they wanted milk.
We.
Wewould breed this cow. It would be us, because I lived here now. Odd that I felt so happy to be in this place with them, like it was being dropped into a decadent vat of being desired and valued and how much I loved it, and yet I didn’t feel like it was real, either. It was like some part of me thought that I’d just go home eventually. Deep down, Ididn’t believe it was going to last.
I put off calling my dad for too long, maybe because of that weird deep-down feeling?
I wanted to call Ninnia, but I had this thought that she might talk to my dad after I talked to her, and that would be shitty, if he found out from someone besides me.
I had a bunch of missed calls on my phone from my dad, of course, and texts, too.
Finally, it was a week after we got my stuff and I called him before dinner, while Paladin was in the kitchen frying up frozen chicken nuggets from the rations along with greens from the garden.
I went out on the porch and selected my dad from contacts and I dialed and it rang and I waited and some part of me hoped that he just wouldn’t pick up.
But he did. “Jesus, Clementine, it’s you. Is it you? Is it really you?” His voice was cracking.
“It’s me,” I said in a tiny voice.
“Jesus.” And then he was crying. Again. I was not used to my dad crying.
It made me cry too. I sobbed out a bunch of apologies, wiping frantically at my eyes, feeling like shit for not calling him for so long.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Just tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get you.”
“Oh, Daddy.” I cried more. I couldn’t even form words.
“Where are you, baby?”
“I’m staying here. I’m mated.”
“You’re what?”
“Dad, I know you won’t get it. I don’t get it. I know, you’ll say whatever it is you want to say about Mom, and I know that, too, I just… Dad, they love me, and I’ve never felt love like this before. No one’s ever wanted me the way they want me. I know you won’t like it, but I’m staying.”
“No one’s ever wanted you?” Now, he was angry.
