Beneath the Blood Moon

Chapter 3

Leila slowly opened her eyes to the sound of a boat's loud foghorn. She could hear the lapping of the water against the rocks and the smell of the sea was strong. The room was dark, aside from a light that brightened the curtains of the window every few seconds. It cast slanting shadows across the room.

She stared up at the strangely angled ceiling for a moment to allow the fog of sleep to fade away, before she swept a glance over what she could see of the rest of the room.

It was a massive rectangular room with a circular sweep along the far wall. It was sparsely cluttered with books and other trinkets, clearly a male's. She laid on an unmade bed. Her body felt completely relaxed, almost like she had been asleep for days.

Leila slowly tried to sit up, and immediately regretted it. She flopped back down on the bed with a groan. She felt like she'd been run over, about a hundred times.

She glanced down at herself. She was wearing a male's plain green shirt that reached down to her mid-thigh. Leila ran a hand back through her tangled unbrushed hair; it was dry.

She remembered the shower. Shouldn't her hair be wet?

Her thoughts were so foggy, why?

It took her a moment to realize the terrible maddening ache she had been suffering had dulled to a tolerable nagging. Leila turned her head on the pillow and found the digital clock nearby, it illuminated a red 8:38 p.m. She stared at it for a moment and wondered how long she'd been out.

Leila looked up to the ceiling again. She felt... odd. There was some kind of fullness in her chest now. Through the fog in her head, she didn't fully understand it, it was strange... there was some kind of weight there. Some kind of... bond. Leila's eyes widened, a mating bond...

And not just one.

She concentrated on the feeling and could clearly discern five distinct links. Five... Leila took a sharp breath. She felt the flush of her face at the rush of memories that surfaced. She didn't even think it was possible for a female to be able to have multiple mates. At least, not all at once.

It was the female wolf that held the mating bond within herself. Because of this, it was possible for males to have multiple mates, but not females. Once mated, they lost interest in others, in fact, it would make them physically sick to even try to be with another.

So how was this possible?

She brought a hand up to make a slight fist in the shirt's fabric above her heart as she tried to make her thoughts settle.

Five bonds...

That meant five mates.

Leila felt the shock of that realization full force.

What the hell was she going to do?

Leila took several deep slow breaths to keep herself from hyperventilating. She felt her heart start to race.

Leila glanced at the window and forcibly shifted her thoughts to the fact that she had no idea where she was. Despite the discomfort, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her whole body felt sore like she just run a massive marathon, several in fact.

Leila lifted the shirt over her hips where the worst of it was, and a deep blush reddened her face at seeing the bruising on both her inner and outer thighs. She glanced over the rest of herself, and ran a hand up along her neck where she felt the most soreness.

She was covered with the marks of that night.

Leila took a hard breath to keep from thinking of the memories of how it all happened and moved to the window to open the curtains and peer out into the darkness. A pleasantly cool ocean breeze brushed over her face. It was refreshing, the room was warm, and she still felt the flush of heat on her skin. The bright light of a lighthouse shone above her every few seconds. It illuminated the rippling water of the bay.