Cara Randall has dedicated her life to helping protect and save hybrids. Her hospital and shelter, Sanctuary, helps the injured or mistreated hybrids of Samta, New Kanoa. While she has success with her job, she's lacking the one thing she wants most...
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At the end of the third day of Yoongi's rut, I was incredibly thankful that he was a cat hybrid. Cat and rabbit hybrids had the most frequent heats and ruts and because of that they were short – only lasting about three days on average.
I was worried, however, with how many times kittens were brought up while Yoongi fucked me or rested afterwards. Because of the hybrid contraceptive, there would be no kittens that came from his rut and to be honest, I was nowhere ready to be a mother anytime soon.
"How'd your first time helping Yoongi with his rut go?" Lisa asked as we caught up over brunch the day after his rut finished; for the first time, we were also joined by her mate, Joy.
Over glasses of hot mulled wine and plates of nibbles, I filled the two women in on parts of what happened over the past few days, making sure leaving out any X-rated details since they were only for Yoongi and me to know.
"So, there was a lot of talk about kittens?" the doctor asked when I'd finished.
I nodded, taking a sip of my sweet, spiced wine. The heat of the drink, plus the alcohol, helped warm me right up and soothe premenstrual cramps that had started earlier this morning. We really had picked a nice place today; inside was warm and really cosy, while the light snow falling outside painted the world around us white.
"Yeah, most waves had some mention of breeding or kittens. Is that normal?" I asked, looking at the two women. "I'm worried to bring up the fact that I was on contraception the whole time... and still am."
A soft look came over my best friend's features as she pushed her newly dyed brown hair behind her ear. "It's normal rut behaviour for male hybrids when they have either a female destined mate, seeing as they're the only ones they can conceive a baby with. Chosen mates can't breed, so they don't have that same primordial need that drives their ruts."
"What you do need to think about is how you'll prevent his post-rut funk," Joy said, reaching across the table and placing her hand on mine. The fennec fox and I had formed a quick friendship, not only thanks to her being my best friend's mate, but because of the kindness and warmth she brought.
"Post-rut funk?" I'd never heard of such a thing, not even when I was helping my brother study whilst he was in medical school.
In layman's terms, Lisa explained that basically it was the emotional crash hybrids experienced when they realised their heat or rut wasn't successful in creating young. "Usually, it happens a couple of weeks after the heat or rut, or when a human female's period comes," she said.
"Mine is due in a couple of days," I admitted. It hurt to think of Yoongi becoming depressed over the fact he didn't actually breed me successfully.
"You'll need to get a kitten surrogate," Joy instructed, grabbing her phone and pulling up images of a life-size doll, like something little girls would play with. "Usually they're made of felt, wool or cotton and they are placeholders to help male hybrids relieve the breeding hormones that they would get if their destined mate were actually pregnant."
