Page 50 of Ulune's Daughter

“You’re being such a good boy. I know the carrier is scary and the car is scary but we’re here now and afterwards you’ll look so good and smell so nice.”

What is she insinuating? I look and smell good now. My fur is soft and glossy. I smell just as a tomcat should: musky and potent, announcing my virility and strength to all who dare enter my territory.

She walks through a side gate and around the back of a small, tidy house. Is she not welcome through the front door? I know some humans have unreasonable prejudices against dark fae but I wouldn’t have thought Kellan was so easily recognizable as one of our kind to suffer their intolerance.

“Hi, Manda!” Kellan calls when she reaches a screen door on the house’s small back porch.

“Kells!” A woman’s voice calls from within. “Bring him in. I’m all set up.”

My mate opens the screen door and walks into a strange space. There’s a huge stainless-steel sink on one side. On the other, there’s a bizarre glass booth with circles cut in the glass, also at waist height. A long, stainless-steel surface is bolted into the wall between them. There are towels folded and stacked on the stainless-steel bench. A strong soap smell nearly drowns the stink of animal fear. What is this place? Is it a laundry? Does the laundress have an anxious dog?

A woman with a brown, smiling face directs my mate toward the high sink. Kellan puts the plastic box down on the side of the sink and embraces the woman. They talk in familiar terms for a minute. The woman wears a heavy, striped, canvas apron over casual clothes. She rolls a clear, plastic ball with a hole in one side between her hands. It looks like a hamster ball. Is she going to put a hamster in the ball and let me chase it? Is that what this place is? If so, I like it very much. Hamster tastes almost as good as chicken. I like crunching the little bones.

The woman picks a bottle off a shelf above the sink and holds it out for Kellan to sniff. The odor is floral and unappealing. Maybe it’s to cover the smell of the hamster? They can have a strong odor, particularly if they piss themselves in fear when I start to chase them.

“That’ll be nice,” my mate says. “You wouldn’t believe how my bed and closet stink.”

Perhaps I’ve been overzealous in marking my mate’s den.

Perhaps if she’d give me one night where she didn’t edge me for hours, I wouldn’t feel the need to spend the whole morning jacking off all over her bed.

I growl so she can be in no doubt as to my views on her lack of appreciation for my diligent scent-marking.

“He’s a feisty boy, isn’t he?” the smiling woman asks, still smiling her warm, white smile. Although I like her very much already, I’d like her more if she’d bring out the hamster.

Instead, the woman opens the wire mesh door of the plastic box, reaches in, and fastens the plastic ball around my head.

I’m so shocked I only retreat a step as she wraps a cloth band around my neck, securing the clear ball in place.

Then I explode in fury, clawing at the ball with my hind feet, writhing to smash the ball against the sides of the plastic box. How dare she put the hamster ball on me? On me! I amCait Sidhe. My blood has protected this world against the Mirk for twenty generations. And this is how I’m rewarded? With a plastic ball over my head?

“Oh, dear, such a spicy boy,” the smiling woman croons. I will claw her face to red ribbons. “Did someone wake up and choose violence today?”

She reaches into the plastic box again and wraps my thrashing body in cloth. In three deft movements, I’m a burrito. A burrito with a plastic bobble head. What in the Nine Hells is this?

I yowl at my mate to save me. She cannot abandon me to this fiend. I thought she loved me? She speaks such sweet words to me. She clings to me so tightly in the night. Was it all a lie to set up this betrayal?

“He sounds really unhappy, Mand,” my mate says, watching as the fiend lifts my bound, helpless form from the plastic box and sets me in the sink. I try to kick my way out of the swaddling but it’s too tight. I’m trussed like a pig for slaughter. Is that what happens in this place of steel and fear? Does the smiling woman sacrifice animals on this metal altar? I howl so loudly a dog in a neighboring yard begins barking.

“He’ll be fine, don’t worry,” the fiend reassures my mate with an undimmed smile. “First time’s the hardest.”

First time? First time she sacrifices me to her metal god? Will she reanimate me over and over again to spill my blood across the steel? I knew my mate had an affinity for the dead, but surely she’ll not abandon me to such torment? I’m her pet! She loves my toe beans!

The fiend pulls a tether out of a wheel affixed above the sink and clips it to the plastic bubble. She tugs the tether until its taut, lifting my head away from the burrito, exposing my throat. I knew it! She’s going to slit my throat. No, I cannot allow this. Not even for my mate. I prepare to slip my fur. Even if the damn plastic bubble strangles me, I won’t go down without a fight.

The fiend pulls a pair of clippers off a rack at the back of the sink. With a practiced movement, she flips open the burrito and, as I vainly kick, applies the buzzing clippers to my hind quarters.

What is she doing? I shriek at the strange touch of cool air across my balls.

“Ooo, he’s a big boy, isn’t he?” the fiend asks my mate. I stretch my head back as far as I can, find Kellan’s worried gaze, and yowl at my mate. How can she subject me to such horrors? To such terrible indignities?

“Aww, boy, you’re breaking my heart. Don’t cry like that. It’s not too bad. You’ll smell so much nicer when she’s done,” my mate soothes.

She won’t. I’m going todrownher in my seed for this. I will spray every corner of her den. Even inside her precious boots. No corner of her den will be untouched. I’ll soak everything she owns!

The fiend finishes trying to emasculate me and grips my hind paws. With sharp clicks she does something that tugs at my claws. Before I can savage her, she wraps me quickly again. She pulls my front paws out of the burrito one at a time. More tugging. I can’t see what she’s doing because of the way the cruel ball is holding my head, but something very terrible is happening, I can tell. This is surely just a precursor to cutting my throat.

The fiend unwraps me suddenly and sets me on my feet. Is she releasing me? I try to bolt, only to be yanked back into place by the ball. I struggle, my paws sliding on the stainless steel. I can’t get any purchase. I kick futilely at the ball.

---