Page 73 of Mated By Twilight

“It’s… nothing important,” she mumbled, resting her hands on her belly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I guess, I just assumed that you would know. That it was a universal thing.”

“No,” Sollit said.

“Not at all,” Tillos said.

She chuckled, giving them a small smile.

“What’s a period?” Sollit asked.

“Erm,” her face flushed again. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a female thing.”

“Yeah, well, so was the hymen, apparently,” Tillos frowned at her.

She rolled her lips into her mouth, biting them like she was embarrassed.

Sollit chuckled. “You know what, it’s fine.”

“Sollit,” Tillos gave him a look.

“It is,” he insisted. “She can keep her feminine secrets. Just so long as it isn’t something that makes you bleed too, alright, Leah?”

Her eyes widened. Her jaw tightened as she bit harder on her lips.

“Leah?” Tillos started, narrowing his eyes. “It’s not something that will make you bleed, right?”

“It’s a normal bodily function!” She yelled.

“Whatbleedsas a normal bodily function!?” He yelled back, getting more panicked.

Chapter 32

Sollit

Human females were such strange creatures. So apparently delicate, small and beautiful and pleasing to all the senses. Sweet and seductive and practically begging to be bred.

To the point that their bodiesbledevery thirty days or so if they weren’t impregnated. As if punishing themselves for daring to not have offspring taking root in their wombs.

Something he would happily rectify for her. The mediscan was too soon to determine if they’d impregnated her, but they did learn that she hadn’t accepted the birth control offered to human females as part of the immigration process.

When they asked why, she blushed and said that she hadn’t been sure about it. That being told that they could turn off her ovulation sounded so permanent and frightening. Birth control was forbidden in her religion and, though she had left it, those old lessens and horror stories and warnings about how it was bad for her and an afront to her nature as a woman had reared its ugly head and she hadn’t been able to do it.

And also, she wasn’t actuallyopposedto starting her family early. If they were okay with it, of course. With the newly locked bond, it was a silly question to ask. Of course, they wanted to breed their mate. They would happily do it now if she wanted.

But she told them that she didn’t think she could get pregnant right now as, by her math, she was about to start her dreaded period. Which was going to be a horrible time in which she was going tobleedand be in pain and if they hadn’t asked her directly, she wouldn’t even have told them.

And true to her word, it came within just a few days.

Sollit and Tillos bothhatedit.

Leah had severely understated the bleeding of the period time. Sollit was envisioning something like the breaking of her hymen – a small amount of blood, maybe some brief pain. No. Not at all. She lost a lot of blood, and there wasa lotof pain.

Cramps, she said. Just part of the shedding of her womb, she said. It wasnormal, she said. If anything, it was better since her initial medical scan had removed the masses that used to make it worse. It used to beworse!

This wasn’t normal at all. It was horrible and unpleasant. Sollit hated that his mate was in pain. He hated seeing her walking around, occasionally wincing, sometimes grimacing with a hand to her lower belly.

They only let that happen for about a mark before ignoring the way she insisted that she was fine and carrying her back to their room. She told them she was okay, that she was used to this, that she could still do her job – she was still cleaning between performances and training because she said she liked it.

Then, Sollit and Tillos started purring and her protests ended.

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