“Um…” My face heated.I hadn’t told anyone about the letters Sea had sent me,just passed on the knowledge I’d gained from them. Well, everything except for the Sadie explanation. That was just too strange and shocking to fully convey to ultra-cloistered she-wolves who were already taking in a ton of new information.
"Amanda is very devout!" Priscilla insisted to Kirsty, saving me from having to answer Miriam's question. "Now that she has completed her heat cycle, I'm sure she’ll return to the rules of the Ordnung.”
Kirsty just shook her head. "Alright, what part of marrying not one but two Irish lads are you not comprehending here, Prissy?"
“Yes, Leah, I see you have a question,” I said, pointing at the Wölfennite in the front row before Priscilla could get in yet another squabble.
To say she hadn't taken the news of Amanda's pending double-husband marriage well was an understatement. She'd been painting an unnecessarily saintly picture of her best friend ever since and doggedly arguing in her defense if anyone tried to disagree.
“Yes, I have a question.” Leah scrunched her brow. “Willslaverycome up on this group date?”
Worried looks all around as the Wölfennites, who'd been kept mostly ignorant of history outside the bible until I’d set up my impromptu classroom, shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
“No, no, nothing like that,” I assured them.
“Then why did you teach us about it?” Orpah asked, her expression truly flummoxed. "That particular subject was upsetting — I mean,incrediblydisturbing!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose and mumbled under my breath, "Not nearly as disturbing as having to live with your ignorant…"
"What are you saying?" Hannah, one of the Wölfennites, sitting on the front row of blankets, asked. "I can't quite hear you."
I clenched my teeth into a cheery smile to remind them. "Knowledge is power. And we need all the power we can get so that all of us make it through this wedding without going into heat. So please, follow my instructions to the letter so that no one else ends up like Amanda.”
Even more hands went up into the air.
“What if we do go into heat on ourgroup date?” Esther, the Wölfennite sitting next to Priscilla on the couch, asked with a fearful squeak. "How will it work, being mated by two wolves at once?"
“Oh, I’m sure they take turns,” Fiona assured Esther in that jolly way of hers — and with way more authority than she should've had, considering the circumstances. “From what I can work out, Amanda was claimed by one of her mates while we were sedated and the other one quite a while later. For all we know, they might not even do the claiming in the same room!”
For all we know…
My stomach twisted, remembering the scene no one but me had been awake to witness. I just didn’t have the heart to correct Fiona and tell them that Amanda had been taken by two wolves at the same time while all the other kidnapped she-wolves lay unconscious.
“Main point: if the worst happens and you go into heat, just remember to keep your wits about you so that you only have to mate one wolf.One," I reminded them. "It's very important that you only give your pledge, as they call it, to the sole wolf of yourchoosing. Don't let them use your heat confusion against you like they did with Amanda.”
Nods of solemn agreement met my emphatic words, but I could see the dread in their eyes.
It matched the bloom of anxiety in my chest.
“In fact…" I took a deep breath and pushed my fear of gettingfurther educatedby Wild to offer. "If any of you want to abstain from tonight's event, I will support you. Do not worry; I will fight for your right not to participate in this ridiculous group date. Just raise your hand.”
I was completely serious, but instead of jumping on my offer, the she-wolves, with their hands in the air, snatched them down. An awkward silence stole over the room until Fiona declared, “Well, I, for one, could use some fresh air. Any excuse will do.”
Murmurs of agreement filled the air as quickly as the hands had come down.
“It’s not truly fresh air,” I reminded them. “It’s more likesome kind of tech that I can’t really explainair.”
“Well, maybe if one of us Scots took a look at it, we’d be able to explain it to the lot of you," Kirsty said, her voice taking on a helpful tone it did not have when she was needling Priscilla. "I studied for half a year at university in Glasgow before deciding to move back to Faoltiarn, you know.” She nodded around the room with a look of great authority before adding.“Computers.”
“Did you actually study computer science, or are you just bragging about knowing it exists?” I started to ask, then waved my hands in front of my face before she could answer. “You know what, never mind. It doesn’t even matter. Whatever’s going on here isn’t just computers. This secret kingdom runs on something way beyondthat — like alien tech or some kind of advanced quantum science that doesn’t yet exist.”
Kirsty regarded me with a deeply pitying look. “I’m sure it would seem that way to you, having never encountered the kind of superior technology I did during my half year of uni."
I glared at Kirsty, but ironically, Priscilla cut me off before I could fully out myself as someone who’d taken several advanced courses in actual physics while she’d been on her way to dropping out of university.
"We really should check on Amanda, make sure this is what she really wants,” Priscilla insisted. “She is our sister no matter what fate has befallen her."
I couldn't disagree with her there. I nodded along with all the other worried Wölfennites.
