I wasn't sure if Ambris' appearance had made things better or worse for the situation with Amelia passing way. On one hand it had helped relieve me of the guilt that I had previous with the thoughts that all that pain from losing Amelia had been my fault. On the other hand it still didn't feel like a good enough trade but there was the thought that if it had to be what it was, then that was okay. Amelia was a loving little girl and the thought that she had been the one to give so many people love seemed fitting.

I was glad that her name would live on, that she would be the only moonborn that would be known to our world. We never thought about the moonborns or their blessings but she was being written into the history that rested in the heart of our world. Her name would travel through time and would forever mark our lives. Amelia brought love and it was bittersweet for me. I was glad that people would feel the ripples of her, that they would get to experience the love that she gave in life but losing her was difficult and it hurt. It was hard to justify that pain, that loss.

I think it was simply too soon for the declaration of the Head Priestess to minimize the pain of the loss, to make anyone feel better about it. I was grateful for it, I knew a lot of people were grateful as well but it was simply too soon. The loss of Amelia would be a heavy and dark cloud that hung over our heads for a long time. It was how it was when there was such a serious death. The fact it was a child made it that much worse for everyone involved.

I had lost Catherine and Bethany and their deaths was all I had. A landslide had taken out the road and with it my future. I had no closure or reasoning of why when I had lost them. It was part of the reason I was partially thankful for Ambris in giving the closure for Amelia's death. There was a clear reason for why she had died, for why Mene had taken her away.

There had been no reason for Catherine and Bethany's death. It had been an unfortunate accident I had been told but it had left this giant hole in my soul. I had no closure with it and with being barred from their funerals and barred from giving them their last rights, it had made it so much worse for me. I felt it was easier to grieve when you had a reason for the loss. It was one thing to grieve a loved one who had succumbed to a long fought sickness or to have advanced notice that they would die. It was another thing to have them ripped away without warning.

The pain was still the same, losing someone you loved hurt regardless of how you lost them but having that reason behind it made it almost easier to bear the longer you were without them. Having that reason there allowed you to accept something that you would not otherwise accept. It would take time and the pain would linger but it would help, perhaps not at the beginning but it would later.

I heaved out a sigh, wanting to shake the heavily melancholy thoughts that were in my mind. Amelia's death had brought up a lot of old feelings I had buried deep within. The loss of Amelia was harsh and it reminded me so much of the loss of my Bethany and of Catherine. I knew it was time to stop hiding from the loss and it was time to work through it but it was hard, the old feelings of loss were mixing with the new feelings and it made my chest ache almost unbearably.

"Can I wear this?" Lilith held up a large t-shirt she had pulled from my dresser drawer and I nodded.

"Yes, you can." I watched as she giggled and put the t-shirt onto the pile of clothes that she already pulled from the dresser. "This?" She yanked out a pair of my jeans and I looked over at her from my place on the bed.

"They will be very big but if you want too, sure." I watched as she tossed the jeans onto the pile and continued to dig in the drawer. It seemed to make her happy to ask if she could wear my clothes or perhaps it was because she didn't have any limits on what I said she could wear. She had no boundaries for her clothing choices because I didn't particularly care what she wore and I could see that made her incredibly excited. I could only imagine what rules Adam had enforced on her to where she would be happy being told she could wear whatever she wanted.

"Can I be naked?" Lilith looked over her shoulder at me and I blinked at her slowly before I narrowed my eyes slightly in confusion.

"You would really want to run around naked if I said I didn't care?" She nodded quickly at the question and I adjusted the pillow behind my head before I gave a heavy sigh as I stared up at the ceiling. "If you really wanted to run around naked, you could run around naked. It's your body, Lilith, you can do what you want with it. It is not my place to say what you can or cannot put on or in your body." She was the master of her own self, it was not my place to dictate that to her.

"Can I cut my hair?" She was shifting in her spot, I could hear it but I resisted the urge to look at her.

"If you really want to. It's your hair." She could shave herself bald and I wouldn't care. If it made her happy she could do it.

"Can I cut your hair?" At the emphasis of the question I had images of her taking a pair of electric clippers to my head at night.

I lifted my head to look at her incredulously. "Why would you want to cut my hair?" I stared at her and she simply giggled as she turned back to the dresser. I ran my fingers through my hair, wondering if I would wake up one morning to half of my hair missing because she decided to play barber while I was asleep.

Last night had been strange enough for me. Lilith had been quite adamant that she wanted the lights on. I had finally managed to get her bartered down to several lamps and some night lights. It had been still hard for me to sleep but it was better than the harsh main lights in the room. Outside of that Lilith had refused to sleep under the blankets, instead she had curled up at the foot of the bed. I had been paranoid that I would kick her in my sleep so it had been a fitful night all around.

"If you take all of the clothes out of the dresser, can you please put them back?" The last thing I wanted to do was sit and put back all of the clothes in their appropriate place.

"Can I wear all of them?" Lilith asked it lightly and I gave a small hum of acknowledgement as I drummed my fingers on my stomach.

"Whatever clothes that are in there, you can wear. Any clothes you find that don't belong to someone else, you can wear." I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. "As I said, it doesn't matter to me what you want to wear." It truly didn't matter to me, there were bigger issues in the world than to nitpick someone's clothing choices.

"Why are we staying in the room? Am I not allowed out?" She said it softly that shame coating her tone thickly and I lifted myself up onto my elbows as I looked at her.

"We are staying in because we are grieving a lost loved one, not because you are locked in here." It was to be a time of reflection and solitude to remember those that had been lost. I didn't particularly care about this part of the tradition. "Besides you like to wander away and I need to keep an eye on you." I was lucky that she hadn't wandered off in the past twenty four hours but that didn't mean she wouldn't. All I needed right now as for her to wander off and get lost.

"I'm sorry." She said it so quietly that I had a hard time hearing her.

I let out a long and heavy sigh as I laid back down. "It's just how your mind is, Lilith. It is how it is and I doubt it will change. There is no need to apologize for what you can't control." And she couldn't control it. I knew that and I knew that she probably did as well on some level. There were parts of her that did know what she sent through and did understand that her mind wasn't all there.

"What can we do?" Lilith crawled onto the bed, sitting at the foot of it as she stared at me intently.

I ignored her look as I tucked my hand behind my head. "Reminisce."

"About what?" She bounced slightly in her spot and I kept my gaze on the roof despite how every instinct in me urged me to look at her, to trace her features with my eyes and commit them to memory.

"Those that we have lost." We needed to remember them, to mourn them, to grieve. It was to allow us to let out our pain in our private dens.

Silence fell and I slowly lifted my head to look at her. She stared at her hands as she slowly brought her knees up to her chest and picked at her nails. "I don't remember anyone before Adam." There was a heaviness to her voice that tugged on my soul in a way that was nearly unbearable.

"Not even your family?" She must have had family that loved her, there must have been someone in her past that she could remember, look too.

"It is black. I remember nothing before he put me in the dark. It ate all of my memories until there was nothing left." There was a hollowness to her voice that had me sitting up completely.

"Come here." I gestured to her and she hunched her shoulders forward but slowly turned and crawled towards me. Once she was in range I pulled her onto my lap, wrapping her up in my arms as I rested my chin on her head. I rubbed her arms gently as she seemed to sink into my chest. My wolf let out a low but content rumble as she did so. "Adam may have taken that away but the memories you make now can never be taken away from you. Perhaps one day you will get some of those old memories back." I kept her tucked on my lap and she pulled her knees up to her chest but didn't seem uncomfortable in my embrace.

"Why did he do that?" It was a broken question that scrapped my soul raw where she was connected to me. I could feel her pain, her raw and aching emotions from a situation that had caused so much harm to her.

I rubbed my chin against the top of her head. "Some males are broken in a way that cannot be fixed. They are soaked in a culture that keeps them that way." There was no reason I could give her that would help her understand why a male would do such a thing. I didn't even understand it fully, I couldn't comprehend taking a female and putting her in a dark hole and leaving her there for months.

"There was a chain around my ankle. It rubbed me raw but I couldn't get it off." She rubbed at her right ankle as if she could still feel the metal biting her skin. She shuddered in my hold and I closed my eyes, trying to breathe as I listened to her. "He kept telling me to break but I didn't understand what he meant. He would hit me and yell and hurt me. He kept saying break, break, break. I didn't understand it... until I broke. Then I understood nothing anymore." Her voice was so shaky it was hard to understand but I shushed her softly, rocking her back and forth gently, trying to comfort her as she remembered what he had done.

"Come back from there. You can let it go, you don't need it." I brushed her air from her face, tucking it behind her ear before I shifted my head and rested my cheek on the top of her head. "It's alright, Lilith, you can let it go." Her heavy trembling slowed after a few moments before it stopped. "There we go, we don't need to hold onto it." If it hurt her she didn't have to hold onto it, she could let it go.

One of her hands grasped my shirt and held it tightly as she let out a shuddering breath. A thick silence fell as I simply held her close and allowed her to come down from the intense remembrance of Adam. I could feel the intense pain and hurt radiating off of her soul and I knew her words, the little sharing of remembrance, was the least of what he had done to her. Her soul against mine ached unbearably with what had done to it.

There was a soft knock on the door that broke through the heavy silence and I didn't have time to call out for them to enter before Mari came into my room. Her eyes were red and her face was pale but she had a soft smile on her face. "Hey, Micheal." She brushed some strands of hair from her face that had escaped her bun. "Luka and Shey have locked themselves away." She looked exhausted and I exhaled, feeling the stress start to climb back over top of me.

"It happens, Mari, I woul-"

She shook her head, cutting me off. "Separately, Micheal."

That caught me by surprise and my arms fell away from Lilith as I shifted to look at the small female. "What?"

"Luka has locked himself in the office and Shey is in their bedroom. Neither will come out and Luka refuses to go to Shey saying he needs to do his work." She wrung her hands together and I shifted Lilith off my lap before I ran my hands through my hair, unsure of what I could do. I needed to stay with Lilith, to keep an eye on her but I also knew that Luka withdrawing from Shey was not good and it needed to be remedied.

"Your mum's name was Petunia." Lilith said it almost bluntly and I watched as she stared at Mari. "She was killed and in death she mourned you, feared for you. She loved you a lot you know." I glanced at Mari and she was staring at Lilith with her head tilted slightly. "She went to Mene pleading for her to protect you but Mene cannot interfere without death." Lilith wiggled her toes in the bed spread before she looked towards Mari. "You look like your mum. A lot like her. She was pretty."

Mari blinked before giving her a small smile. "Thank you." She turned her grey eyes back onto me. "Micheal, can you help with Luka and Shey?"

I gave a rather helpless shrug as I looked at Lilith as she started picking at the bedspread with her fingernails. "I can't just leave Lilith." I needed to stay close to her so that she wouldn't wander off or get lost or forget.

"She can come stay with me. I'm sure she would like meeting Jackson and the others. Wouldn't you, Lilith?" Mari moved into the room and held out her hand towards Lilith.

Lilith stared at the hand intently before she looked up at Mari's face. "Your baby died because she was sick in a way that couldn't be fixed. If you had her she would have suffered, never would have taken a breath and suffocated in your arms. Her little face turning blue, her little mouth gasping for air that would never reach her lungs. Mene took her early so you wouldn't see that." Lilith looked almost sorrowful as she reached out and grasped Mari's now shaking hand. "She didn't want you to see that." It was a softly said statement and Mari let out a shuddering breath, her eyes slightly glassy.

"I miss my baby but if Mene took her to save her suffering, then the goddess has my thanks." Her voice shook and she gave Lilith a strained smile as she gently urged her off the bed.

Lilith stood on her feet before she reached out and touched Mari's belly. "She gave her back." Lilith gave her a bright smile as she gently smoothed her hand over Mari's flat stomach. "You should tell Bennett." I watched as Mari's mouth nearly dropped open as she stared at Lilith much like I was.

"We can... we can talk about that later, Lilith." Mari's voice trembled but I could see she was trying to keep her composure. I didn't blame her, Lilith just told her she was pregnant completely without warning. That was not the type of news you expected from someone you didn't know. "Let's go meet some others okay? Micheal needs to help Luka." Mari didn't look at me as she carefully lead Lilith from the room, leaving me alone. I could only imagine what Mari was feeling. I didn't know how accurate Lilith was with what she said but I knew it had hit Mari enough to shake her composure.

I got off the bed and left my bedroom as well. I headed down the hall before I went up the stairs. Luka did not need to seclude himself away from Shey, not right now. I knew this was how he worked, he liked being alone with his pain and his wounds but this was a wound that needed a mate to help take care of it. Once I hit the office I tried to open the door but found it locked.

"Luka. Open the door." I knocked as I said it but there was no response from inside the office. "If you don't open the door, I will break it down." I held onto the door knob but there was no response. "Fine." I pulled back from the door and slammed my entire body weight into it. The latch buckled and I stumbled into the room. The curtains were all pulled and the interior was dark.

"You are paying for that." Luka's voice was a low rasp and I looked around, spotting him sitting at his desk. His face was so pale it was nearly grey and his eyes were red rimmed. He was looking over his paperwork and I moved into the dark office carefully, unsure of how he would react to my sudden intrusion. "I need to get my paperwork done." There was a low edge of a growl to his voice that kept me wary but I also knew I needed to ensure that both Shey and him had someone to grieve with. Their relationship would never survive if Luka retreated because of this.

"What you need to do is be with Shey and grieve." I moved closer and there was a heavy rumble from him.

"I need to be an Alpha." His voice still rasped but I knew he wasn't staring at the paperwork, his eyes were trained on me completely. I narrowed my own eyes at him.

"You need to be a father and a mate. Being an Alpha can wait. No one in this pack will think less of you for taking time off to grieve for the loss of Amelia." His attitude towards this was all wrong. I knew people grieved in their own way but this was wrong. Shey wouldn't be able to heal and neither would he if they didn't walk this path together. "I can take over your duties. That is my job, your job right now is to be with Shey."

I stopped in front of his desk and he waved his hand at me, a clear dismissal of me from his presence. "I can't deal with that right now." A strange sort of agitated anger rolled over me and I moved around the desk, grabbing his upper arm and hauling him out of his chair.

"You need to deal with this right now! I will not allow you to waste away in this fucking office while your mate has locked herself up in your bedroom because she needs you and you are not there!" I would have given anything to have Catherine with me with the loss of Bethany, I had to deal with that alone so I refused to allow Luka to isolate himself from the one person on this planet who could help him through this.

"Let me go." Luka's voice was a low and deadly warning that I ignored as I pulled him around the desk and nearly dragged him from the office. He grabbed my wrist with his hand, digging claws into my flesh but it wasn't enough to get me to stop or let him go. "Micheal-" I came to an abrupt halt and shoved my finger into his face.

"Your female needs you right now, Luka. So stop this bullshit you have going on in your head thinking you can avoid this because you can't. This is not something you can push away and ignore, Luka." My own grief rose up as it mixed with my anger at him for not seeing what was in front of him. "You buried your daughter yesterday, Luka. That is not something you can ignore or you can push away. Amelia is gone and you are sitting in your office pretending to do paperwork while Shey has locked herself up in your room grieving alone because you aren't with her!" He needed to be with her. That was something I knew straight through to my soul, nothing would ever be okay unless they grieved this loss together.

"I am your Beta and it is my job is to ensure that you are at your best and your best right now is holding Shey close and grieving for what you both have lost." I hissed the words at him, ignoring his bared teeth as an angry rumble escaped him. "So enough. I would have given anything to have Catherine with me when I realized Bethany was gone. I had no one. You have Shey so don't spit on that." I stared him down, pulling myself to my full height before giving him a small shake, stopping the rumbles abruptly. "I love you as a brother and it as a brother I am saying that you need to stop. You need to hold Shey tight and grieve because your daughter died two days ago. So enough. Am I understood?" I stared at him intently and his eyes glittered dangerously at me before they watered and his shoulders crumbled.

He leaned his head forward, pressing his palm to face as his shoulders shook. "How do I deal with this, Micheal?" His voice was a cracked and broken whisper and I pulled him close, hugging him tightly.

"Be with Shey. Hold her tight and grieve, together." It was all he could do and it was what he needed to do. I let him go and wrapped my arm around his shoulders as I lead him towards their bedroom. I opened the door, glad it wasn't locked, and led him inside. The bedroom was dark and once my eyes adjusted I spotted Shey sitting on their bed, clothes spread across the bed spread and she was pressing what looked like a t-shirt to her face.

She let out a shuddering breath that nearly broke on a sob before she look at Luka, holding out the tiny t-shirt in his direction. "It still smells like her, Luka." A soft sob escaped her before she pressed her face back into the shirt, her shoulders heaving as she muffled her sobs with Amelia's shirt. Luka shrugged off my arm and headed straight for the bed, getting onto it before he pulled Shey to his chest. She clutched at him, moving her face from the shirt to his shoulder. "I miss her. I miss her so much!" It was a trembling declaration that pitched her voice higher as her breathing increased as if she were having trouble getting proper air.

"I know, lubirea mea, I miss her too." Luka's voice shook as well as he held her tight to his chest. "I miss her too." I watched as they both laid down, curling into each other. Once they did so I slowly backed away, closing the door as I did so. All we needed to do now was to ensure that Luka and Shey stayed together and grieved.

It was all we could do.