Page 44 of Wicked

“We have this whole courting process that can happen safely within the confines of the sanctuary. The omegas choose who they’d like to date in this binder we keep with bios of the eligible red wolf shifter alphas in the vicinity.”

“And Milo doesn’t want to cooperate?”

Ken shakes his head. “It’s not uncommon for former thrall hustlers to buck against the process. Unlike you and me, they aren’t raised with a family who loves them. They usually grow up in the care of human traffickers who only see them as a paycheck. It’s very hard for omegas like Milo to believe they are worth more than that. And with Milo’s face…”

With Milo’s face, he won’t even be able to hustle anymore.

Ken slides his key card through the door. “There’s also his age. He’s twenty-eight, which is old for a thrall hustler. Most of them end up dead or in jail by that age. I don’t think I’ve met another hustler older than twenty-three. The longer they’re in that life, the harder their recovery is.”

A pair of guards nod to us on the other side of the door. Milo walks ahead of us through the corridor, and turns right once he enters the medical wing. The sanctuary has a full medical team because of how dangerous hospitals are for omega red wolf shifters with a thrall. That’s probably where Milo is staying because of whatever happened to his face.

It makes me wonder what the medical professionals who worked with us after we got out of the pits thought about our situation. Did they worry for us the way Ken is worrying about Milo? Did they wonder if we’d ever recover from what happened to us?

Did we recover? How is my situation with Candlewick any better than Milo’s refusal to find a mate?

Ken guides me through the medical wing to the center of the sanctuary where there’s a glass door with his full name written in gold lettering.

If I had stayed and helped with the sanctuary, rather than working with Anne, would I have a door with my name on it too? How would that have changed my own healing process? Did it help Ken to read about the trauma of others while he was dealing with his own?

The furniture inside Ken’s office looks very different from the modern vibe of the sanctuary. He brought his old desk and chair from the last sanctuary, and the cheap bookshelves he got from IKEA. I sit on a plush loveseat situated on the other side of his desk. Ken sits in his office chair, like I’m just another patient.

I guess I am.

“Last night I met my fated mate,” I say, even though he already knows. “This morning he told me he was going into heat, and I left him. I panicked, I guess. We still haven’t had sex, and I’m not sure I’m ready. Last night when we tried to have sex I got anxious, and I panicked then too.”

I expect him to ask something like, “how did that make you feel?” Instead he opens the top drawer of his desk and takes out a long, thin jewelry box.

“Do you know how fear works, Manny?”

I shake my head.

“First, your body perceives danger. In response, it produces large amounts of cortisol and adrenaline to help you survive. When levels of these hormones spike in your bloodstream, your body goes into fight or flight mode, or in the case of many people who have experienced trauma, freeze. If you were standing in front of a bear, this would help you stay still until the bear moves on. It’s a helpful response for dangerous situations with predators, but not a helpful response when your body is triggered from trauma.”

I’m not sure how that will help handle Candlewick’s heat. I don’t need a lecture on how my body works, I need a plan. Candlewick is waiting.

“How do I get my body to not do that?” I ask.

He smiles. “That is exactly the right question to ask in this situation. You have to teach your body that sex isn’t something to fear.”

“Okay. How do I do that?”

Ken opens the case to reveal a ruby necklace. The strange thing is that the chain connecting the jewels is intricate and thick, but it doesn’t seem to be made of a precious metal.

“Triggers are created by reinforced mental pathways. For instance, let’s say you walked past a bakery that smelled like warm bread every Friday, and each time you did, someone beat you up. After a certain point, you might find the scent of warm bread so triggering, you’d have a panic attack every time you smelled it.”

That makes sense. Every time I had sex in the pits I felt guilty, out of control, and used. It felt good in some ways, but overall, it was a miserable experience.

“There are several ways people can cope with triggers. For some, it’s best to avoid the triggers altogether. Their mental pathways are too ingrained and painful to target in therapy, and reopening old wounds only creates more trauma. But in cases like yours, where the trigger is something like sex, it can sometimes be helpful to try to change the neural pathways your body associates with sexual stimuli. But only if that’s something you really want. This isn’t something that we should try because you feel pressured by someone else.”

Do I feel pressured by Candlewick? This morning he was completely supportive when I asked if we could take things slow. It isn’t his fault that he went into heat early.

Maybe I feel pressured by the situation, but not Candlewick.

“How do I change my neural pathways?” I ask.

“Normally, I would suggest a gradual build-up between you and your partner with things like sensual touch and a focus on emotional intimacy with your partner, but that takes time. You don’t have time. What you need is something that will stop your body from hitting the emotional brakes, so to speak, when you become physically intimate with your partner. That’s what this is.” Ken lifts the necklace by both ends and dangles it in the air.

“What is that?”

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