Chapter 112 The Morning After

Chapter 112 The Morning After
HER
I woke up feeling completely wrecked. My head was pounding, a brutal thump, thump, thump echoing behind my forehead and ringing in my ears. My eyes burned so badly I genuinely feared I had contracted the worst case of conjunctivitis of the century.
When I forced them open, the morning light felt like daggers, forcing me to snap them shut. My brain felt entirely hollow. Empty. There was nothing inside but the distant, phantom chirp of a cricket. Crick, crick, crick.
Oh, Allah... my stomach was violently churning.
My entire body was a map of deep aches. My throat was parched, and a feverish, sickly malaise settled over my skin.
Could it be dengue? Did they even have Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes in this damn forest?
Pee...
I desperately needed to get up. My bladder was about to burst.
Opening my eyes again, I pressed my hands against my head—an instinctive but utterly useless gesture. Obviously, the blinding migraine wasn't going to vanish just because I massaged my temples.
I attempted to roll over, but a sharp, throbbing ache between my thighs paralyzed me instantly.
Uh-oh...
What the hell happened to my little friend downstairs?
I pushed myself up into a sitting position and let out a ragged groan. It wasn't just my core that was sore. As I looked down, my breath caught. My breasts were covered in dark, distinct bruises...
Oh, Allah. A bite mark.
Two of them.
Purplish-red hickeys and love bites were splattered across my chest, my stomach, and my thighs. And there was another bite mark—a deep, unmistakable Lycan mark—bruised deep into my inner thigh.
Oh, no... What did we do?
Struggling to stand, I stumbled toward the "bathing chamber," as they so elegantly called the bathroom around here. With my very first steps, I felt something thick and warm dripping down my leg. I quickly sank onto the stone toilet, and a massive amount of spent male seed began leaking from my vagina and my...
Oh...
“AHHHHH!”
A terrified shriek tore from my throat.
Before my brain could even process the horror, the door burst open. A massive, completely naked Ares stormed into the bathroom. His dark hair was wildly disheveled, and deep, dark circles shadowed his bloodshot eyes, looking as though he had smoked something he definitely shouldn't have.
“AHHHHH!”
I screamed again, scrambling to my feet and bolting inside the shower stall. I was dazed and utterly confused, but there was no way in hell I was going to let myself be seen sitting on the toilet!
The shower stall in this archaic bathroom was nothing more than a cramped stone alcove without a door. I threw myself behind the stone partition, standing directly beneath the prehistoric showerhead, poking only my head out to confront the hulking Neanderthal.
“Female, what's wrong?” he demanded, his voice thick, gravelly, and laced with raw panic.
“I... you... Ares, what the hell are you doing here?!”
“I...” He blinked, scanning the room, looking just as disoriented as I felt. He let out a low growl, closing his eyes tightly as he dragged a hand through his messy hair. “I don't clearly remember. This is the Black Wolf territory. I came to get you.”
As he spoke, my eyes widened in a mix of shock and sheer embarrassment. He had more bite marks on his skin than I did. Deep, purple teeth marks patterned his arms, his neck, and even the inside of his thigh, dangerously close to his...
I squeezed my eyes shut, slapping a hand over my mouth.
Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong, and I couldn't piece it together. A louder, agonizing groan from Ares made me snap my eyes open again. He was leaning heavily against the stone wall, both palms pressing hard against the sides of his head. His face was deathly pale, his lips slightly blue, looking as though he were on the verge of collapsing.
“You are mine,” he rasped. His voice was barely a whisper, as if the realization was only now breaking through his fogged mind.
“I don't know about that! I'm still mad at you! I am not that easy!”
“You are my Luna. Marked and claimed by all three of my forms.” He uttered the words slowly, his eyes widening in sheer shock as the memories hit him. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you? I don't know what happened... I... the third form... Esmeralda, how do you feel? Do not lie to me!”
There was such a profound agony in his gaze that my heart painfully twisted. I could feel his overwhelming guilt, his terror, his shame, and his deep self-loathing. Those weren't my emotions—they were his, bleeding directly into my mind. The realization hit me like a freight train: we were connected on an absurd, primal level.
Slowly, he reached out, touching the tip of his finger to a deep mating bite positioned right over my heart. There was such a devastating tenderness in his touch, as if he were handling something priceless.
He lifted his eyes to meet mine again, his lips trembling, his dark eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
“You don't remember?” he asked, his voice dripping with sorrow and a dying ember of hope.
Seeing him broken like this nearly shattered my resolve, but I had to hold my ground. You can't reward men when they screw up. Rewards are earned, not given out of pity!
I took a deep breath to steel my character and poked my head further out of the stall.
“Ares, please leave. I need to be alone to think about what happened. I need to understand how things got to this point.”
“But... we are bound. You marked me.”
“Ares, I said please. Respect my boundaries, okay? Just get out. I need time alone. And go put some damn clothes on—I am not having this conversation while you're standing there naked!”
His broad shoulders slumped heavily. With his head bowed in defeat, he turned and quietly walked out.
The moment the door clicked shut, my own chaotic emotions spilled over, and I burst into tears. I felt violated, yet deep down, I knew it wasn't true. As the tears flowed, jagged pieces of our "union" began exploding in my mind. Blocks of awakened memories flooded my consciousness all at once—overlapping in a confusing jumble of time, space, raw sensations, and overwhelming emotions.
I sobbed uncontrollably, my brain working overtime to organize the mental avalanche. Turning on the handle, I let the freezing water cascade over my sore body, praying to the Goddess it would wash away the stains on my soul.

THREE DAYS PRIOR...
Esmeralda was throwing a silent tantrum. Her Gama—who looked infuriatingly attractive and alluring under the moonlight—had just coldly refused her embrace. She wanted a hug so badly. Her core was burning hot, pulsing with a desperate, heavy need for a man's touch.
Ares...
And there he was. He was staring at her with such a carnal, blistering ardor that her slick wept with longing, the hot cream of her arousal dripping down her inner thighs.
He gazed at her as if the rest of the planet had suddenly ceased to exist. His irises were completely pitch-black—the terrifying, magnificent merging of all three of his primal forms.
A female from Derik’s pack stepped forward—someone Esmeralda hadn't met before. The she-wolf deliberately stepped into her line of sight, blocking Ares from view. Angered, Esmeralda shoved the woman away, but the wolf was built like steel and didn't budge an inch.
Suddenly, a warm, aromatic oil was slathered over Esmeralda's bare skin. Even though she was fiercely heterosexual, she couldn't help but lean into the soothing touch of the she-wolf’s hands as the oil was rubbed into her aching core, providing a fleeting, blissful relief to her intense torment.
When the woman finally stepped aside, Esmeralda's eyes locked onto Ares again. Another she-wolf was currently rubbing the exact same oil over his broad chest, her hands slicking lower, tracing down the hard, throbbing length of his erect penis.
A wave of explosive, possessive jealousy consumed her. Blinded by rage, she sprinted across the clearing and violently shoved the she-wolf away. The attack was so sudden and raw with emotion that the pack female stumbled backward.
“He is mine! Don't you dare touch what belongs to me, you cow!” Esmeralda shrieked. Her chest heaved violently, her hyper-sensitive nipples rubbing tightly against the sheer fabric of her dress with every ragged breath.
“MINE!” Ares roared, a dark, primal pride swelling in his chest as he watched his female physically fight for him.
“You belong to me, Ares! You don't let any other woman lay a finger on what's mine, do you hear me?!” she screamed, her face flushed red as she poked her finger directly into the chest of the towering Alpha.
Lord Agar let out a quiet chuckle as he witnessed the feral display, though neither of the enraptured lovers paid him any mind.
The deep, booming voices of the two ancient servants of Hecate began to echo through the trees, sacralizing the ritual before the entire pack.
The ceremony was ancient and legitimate. Under the sacred blessing of the Great Goddess, Ares and Esmeralda became one—inseparable for eternity. The Gamas stood firmly at their perimeter positions, validating the union as decreed by the Goddess's law. Their eyes glowed with the ethereal luminescence of the full moon, transforming them into otherworldly guardians of the new Luna.
The blood from their sliced palms was spilled into a sacred chalice. Together, they drank the crimson tide and recited the ancient vows, moving through the motions like a beautiful, feverish dream. They were euphoric, smiling, proud, and—though they would never admit it when sober—madly in love.
However, after they shared the ritualistic blood-wine, the remaining liquid was secretly poured back into Derik’s large wine pitcher, which was promptly shared among the marked females of the pack and Hira.
The newly bound couple remained entirely oblivious to the parallel ritual taking place in the shadows. Hira, who had already consumed her own specialized, alchemical brew, drank her portion of the couple’s sacred blood-wine. Her body immediately shifted into her sleek wolf form, presenting her heat to Derik. Derik’s inner beast readily accepted the Beta female's intoxicating pheromones, mounting her fiercely. He expelled his potent seed deep into her womb, instantly fertilizing her with his very first pup—a dominant Alpha male, the future heir to the Black Wolf Pack.
Since that fateful night, Derik’s third form fell utterly silent, retreating further and further away from his human consciousness.
But that... that is a story for another time.