Chapter 41: 1. Temple of Love.
After all the females were dealt with, they moved inside and changed into human form. They went to eat, and then Mariella and Damon ended up in bed while the wolves took some males. Some stayed to cook and make desserts. They were going through Mimi's houses. There were always gorgeous fridges full of luxury items, and so they had plenty of inspiration.
Mimi had bought everything before them and there those ingredients then were and so much more. She might have a whole big outdoor freezer full of whole carcasses of different animals, from wild boar to deer, rabbits, bears, moose, and even yak or buffalo. Her pigs had been different breeds, so there was a lot of pork meat to try for. All those different cattle breeds, from double muscled, to wagyu, to highland cattle. So much to work with.
And that's what they say. Time flies when you're having fun. But the English weather is what it is, and it was quite a late summer, the start of autumn, so there was a storm. A proper thunderstorm that didn't end straight away. There was rain, there was lightning in the sky and the skies opened up, big hail fell in sheets several times and the men were amazed at the weather and even commented on it.
Their protective bubble had not adjusted so that rain could not penetrate it because then the whole yard would be dry as no rain would wet it, and since there was no danger, no one even thought of putting the bubble harder so hail would not penetrate it. Instead, they just marveled at ice cubes in the lawn as it was quite a spectacle. They had seen a few tornados during those seven years but were always inside their bubble, which had withstood them easily.
But no one remembered to look where Mimi was.
Mimi was in her breeding fatigue sleeping when the storm started, and the rain was relentless. She slept deep and did not wake up when rain hit her. There was not much shelter where Mimi slept, so the cat got wet pretty quickly to the base of her skin as she was in a deep sleep. Her temperature dropped as the hail fell, raining down on and around the cat, ice cubes cooling her effectively and deepening her sleep.
The hail was also bruising because it was quite large and heavy. It came several times. Her ribs took the beating. She was healing, but since she was also cooling down, her metabolism got lower, and the same went for healing. The kittens compensated when they noticed the temperature dropping and moved deeper inside Mimi into the warmth. But as the cat's temperature continued to drop, her core temperature dropped below the threshold that kittens could withstand, so the kittens suffered and tried to protect themselves and their mother. Then, they, too, came to a threshold, and their distress showed on the radar, and likewise, it alerted their father.
Mariella and Damon had been fucking for almost a week, Mariella would soon have a full week of pregnancy, and shadow would be on the radar. Mimi would have three weeks full. Mariella was happy, and they had been lying in bed for several hours now, admiring the storm raging outside, when Damon started suddenly swearing profoundly, and Mariella noticed the radar alert.
Damon said," Oh fuck, Mimi stayed out to sleep and then didn't wake up, and the fucking storm has been raging for who knows how many days. I have to go right now. The cubs are in so much distress."
Mariella said," Go; I'll get the medbay ready, so we can probably get her a bit warmed up."
Damon cleansed himself help of energy, put on his clothes, teleported out, ran to Mimi, and cursed. Mimi was covered in hail almost fully, and it was his fucking fault for not making sure Mimi was sleeping safely. The whole Mimi was forgotten again as he fucked. He was no good.
He gathered the wet cat into his lap and dried it with energy at least a little, putting the heat energy directly into Mimi's ribs so the kittens would warm up a little. He could feel the broken ribs that had been badly ossified when the hail had beaten his wife. He cursed under his breath as he acted.
He teleported to the medbay and continued to dry off. Mariella had the heat lamp ready. It had been in here and now it would be useful; she had also blow dryers too. Damon took one of them and tried to dry Mimi as fast as possible. So did Mariella.
Damon said when they got the cat dry, "I guess the human form is better."
He transformed Mimi into human form and let the collar stay on her neck. It was a magic collar, and she had it firmly rooted in her neck, even in human form. Damon cannulated his wife and made the hot bump drip straight down at full speed. Mimi was under the electric blanket, and Damon was still wondering what he could do. Her core temperature was still only 35 degrees celsius and even cubs weren't anymore distressed, she needed to get warm up properly.
Damon said, "Darling, how about I make a special jelly that will hold up to the heat? Then, the jelly will be absorbed slowly and mixed in with some more blood and nutrients. Then we'll jelly her up with it. It will give cubs food and warmth and get her temp up, too."
Mariela thought for a moment and said, "That's a very good idea. There is only a week to go, and you will already feel how big the cubs are when they have come out more. "
Damon nodded and went off to make some jelly. Meanwhile, Mariella kept putting extra bags of hot bump in the drip so that the cubs could start eating now and then. She did not put centrifuged, but just a warm Damon's bump. Quite fresh, too. Mimi was still pale, out cold, and her skin was chilly.
Then Damon got the jelly ready and started jelling the abdominal cavity first because the cubs always came first, then the limbs, and finally the back. Mimi was still cold, but the puppies were now fine and eating. They were warm, and Mimi would take time to warm up. Mimi was quite full of cubs so there was a limited amount of jelly that Damon could fit into her.
The rest of the time, she would be inside, and the puppies would be made to stay inside because the weather was what it was, and Damon didn't want to risk his puppies. There was plenty of room in here for cubs and puppies to be inside, too.
The other females would start looking for their puppy rooms, and Damon would let Mimi find her own, but he would help her decorate it. And then they would make a litter together. He would support her during birth and breed directly afterward, over and repeatedly.
I started waking up to the fact that I was hot, very warm. There was something heavy on top of me and I felt pretty damn full. I got my eyes open, and I found myself in human form, in medbay, and I was like, what the fuck? I moved a bit in bed, then heard rustling as Damon turned to look at me.
Damon came up to me and said, " Sorry, I didn't see you were safely asleep. There was a long thunderstorm that wet you and cool you and the cubs. You're now three weeks full, and we're making the kittens inside. So you're on your own to find your puppy room and start fixing it up. I'll help you where needed."
He unhooked the hoses, take cannula out of me before I got a chance to yank it out, and lifted the heavy fucking electric blanket off me. I got up to sit. Oh, I was full of cubs. Now I felt them pretty fucking well, and I started walking. I had no hurry to teleport. My body needed movement, and it was good to keep myself in shape before giving birth.
I thought for a moment, and I already knew my room and where I was going to give birth. Somehow, I knew I was going to give birth a couple of days in advance, and I wanted to do it hidden. In a den. I just had one room with a secret chamber attached. I wanted to do this alone. Once again, my instinct as an alpha female, got on the surface, driving me to find my nest.
It would be good to give birth there and then move the puppies on an official day to the litter room, so I would be done when the fucking breeder came to watch. I had my alpha and protective instincts pretty much on, and I didn't want to be vulnerable in front of the pack.
I found my way to the room and sat on the bed for a while, sensing Damon was close and coming this way. My room was big and spacious, and it had light-colored wood panels and a light violet ceiling. I had thick luxurious De la Renta rugs on the floor; they were not antic, but not cheap for most humans. They were just the right color, pale apricot, and yellow, soft as hell too. The bed was enormous. It had a bright golden-colored satin bedspread, thick, full pillows, for many, and perfect blankets, and silk sheets too.
We could see each other's positions through a sort of radar or pack bond, but I didn't always keep it open. Now, I did when I wanted to keep my nest cave hidden from others. Damon entered the room and looked it over, not saying anything yet. Although he looked at rugs for quite a long time, moved them with his feet too.
Then, after a while of poking and prodding, he came and sat next to me on my bed and said, "I've changed. I mean, I really have. Although it may not seem like it to you, you stir up such powerful feelings in me, and I don't know how to deal with them right away. This guilt is the worst of it. It always reminds me of how awful it must have been for you to have to cope alone, to be so damn weak, no one to help you, no one to be weak with. Vulnerable, needing to be protected."
He sighed, looked at me, and continued.
"And we had a perfect, peaceful life, and I was so fucking happy at first. Mariella was enough, and everything was simple, and normal. I didn't even think about you, what you were doing, and then when I got some sense in my head. I mean, in a shop somewhere, some woman reminded me of you, so I went over ten times to different shops, past these women, and none of them were you. I just started to realize what I had missed. I started to unlock that feeling you burst out to me. "
His voice was hollow, kind of like he was living in his memory. "And I couldn't sense you anymore—I couldn't sense you at all—and I blamed myself. It was my fault. And now I've got you back, and oh my God, everything has happened to you already, and you're still so incredibly vulnerable. You're so tight in your shell, and I hoped that one day I'd get that shell off, but there's no hurry. No hurry at all."
He put his arm around my shoulders; I moved away slightly, not relaxed at all, not yet. He noticed this and said, " Yes, I will, baby. I'll teach you to be touched again. Don't you worry about a thing? But this is a very good puppy room. I will fix it now that we have less than a week to go. Those rugs will be moved though De la Renta rugs are not really suitable in the cub's room. "
I looked at Damon and said, " You know what? I didn't have to go to any of the gigs. It was totally my choice, and time and time again, I always did it. They say that the wise learn from their mistakes, but I'm not wise. I made the same mistake repeatedly, expecting a different outcome."
I had realized this myself recently too. I continued my musings.
"The wisdom would have been to collect myself, live in peace, and maybe go to a bakery for a gig. Not to go straight to the medical facilities and properly offer yourself. No, no, that's not wisdom, so you can stop blaming yourself. I'm me, a reckless, brash, cocky with no self-control whatsoever when it comes to sarks and gigs, not a shred of self-preservation instinct. No, not at all."
Damon chuckled and said, " You have changed a little. No, you always blame yourself, but baby, we have to move on, and you believe you can't help yourself. You really don't, and it is what it is. But now, missy, I'm going to fix up this room, so it's ready for when the first kittens are born to us in almost eight years."
He organized the room: the rugs, the curtains, everything, even the kittens' feeding stations. Luckily, my room was on the other wall, and these didn't have floor plans so that everything wouldn't be immediately exposed. I sat on the bed, watching as he changed even color of the roof too.
Damon looked at me, smiling crookedly, which made him look younger and softer, too. His voice was ever so tender as he said, " Now you need to rest and eat and drink. The birth is going to be hard because they are going to be big, so you need your strength. We have the option of surgery, but we'll see if we can get you to deliver them. It would always be better."
He sat next to me for a moment, pulled me against him again, and squeezed. Then he dumped me on the bed and went on top of me, purring to his kittens. But the feeling of over 300 kittens inside your belly purring back was something I had never experienced. I don't know how Damon did it, but that's how they were purring to each other, and I couldn't help it when I joined in and purred along. We were a family—a pack. We are an alpha couple. For the first time in my life, we were an alpha couple. Genuine family.
Then Damon finally stood up and said, " Well, now I've got to go and see if I can give Shadow a flank again. She doesn't obey, so not at all. But you, baby, take it easy, okay? We have a big day coming for us. "
He went away, and I sat for a while. I went over the whole thing in my head, and although that had been incredible, I still didn't quite trust it. No, I still wanted to give birth in hiding, in safety, and then take my cubs back to the pack, just like in the wild. I worked in the room for a couple of hours, teleporting in and out to get some supplies from my stash and then putting them in place. I knew what I had in my storage rooms and I had here quite a lot stored different things.
I always came up with something small, like a rocking chair, and it was good to sit in. It was just right. Then, when the time was right, I'd go to the wardrobe, open the door, and touch the button on the back wall. The door slid aside, and I was in my den. I used to deliver supplies here, too, now and then. This was a quite big room with nothing but a small window at the top. It was hidden from the outside, and I wasn't going to take it out, but I supplied another set of lights here.
I was not sure what this space had originally been. It was not drafty, not at all, but it had good airflow and it was a perfect birthing den for me. I was safe, and hidden and so were my cubs. We would have a few days time to bond, without the entire pack being all around us. I understood that the whole pack was so excited to have cubs, but I just needed my own space. I felt almost suffocated by their enthusiasm.
I got my supplies, a few animal skins, a rocking chair for me to sit on before birthing, then, a soft mattress where I would birth. Lots of soft stuff where the puppies would be warm and safe, but not too dangerous. Milk bottles and milk formula because I wasn't allowed to produce milk, none at all.
A few days went by so fast and my body knew what to do when I felt the first contractions to start. I got restless, and it was very difficult for me to be in the actual litter room, but I had to be when Damon was on the move.
I was already in labor, and when he came to watch from the door, he just smiled and said, " Not long now, baby, soon, soon we will have our litter." He was a little absentminded, and I knew and smelled the reason for that.
And as he was leaving, I smelled Mariella, and I just thought, yeah, it won't be long now. I went into my birthing chamber and changed into jaguar form. I guess Mariella would keep Damon busy, and I could concentrate on my little ones all by myself. Myself. We could have time to bond. I already put the milk heater on. I had the latest model here, hidden away. It was good to have zoo contacts.
" Darling, what do you want to do now?" Damon asked Mariella after he'd checked at Mimi, calmed down Shadow for a couple of days now at least, and made sure Mimosa was okay, too. Shadow had gotten her radar at the same time as Mariella, and she was impossible.
She did not listen at all, was stubborn, and did exactly what she wanted. But when that didn't suit Damon's new outlook on life, he acted. He didn't even warn. He acted. Shadow had found Mimi's huge greenroom with the multitude of rarest orchids and other plants and she had been tending them, not easing up at all. Now she was sleeping in one bedroom, in IV feeding.
Mariella said, "Honey, check on Mimi. She's hiding something, lepard senses it, you know that boy has his instincts too, and he has seen her teleporting from one huge storage room stuff somewhere and now I don't know what she's hiding."
Damon sighed, and sensing Mimi, scanned her thoughts too, in that way so she would not notice. He furrowed his brow and said, " Fine. We need to find the blueprints of the house. Somewhere, there's a laptop with the floor plans of all of Mimi's houses and every single secret stash or room. Oh fuck, oh bloody fuck. Mimi's already in labor. Oh fucking stubborn, crazy, self-confident female. There's a cache in the house, attached to that room, some secret chamber where she's off pushing giant kittens into the world all by herself. I tried several times to tell her that these are big and they take time and effort, but she didn't believe me. "
Mariella rolled her eyes. They went to Mimi's puppy room and told the rest of the pack. Soon, the entire pack, except for Shadow, who was asleep, was ready.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
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