A week later

I brushed my teeth, feeling exhausted from the activities of the day. Lilith had wandered off no less than three times today and Shey and Luka had a set back. It had been Luka that hadn't wanted to get out of bed. He had curled up in the dark, refusing to leave the bed, let alone the room. Shey had stayed with him and it had taken them nearly two days to come out, even with May going in and out periodically.

I did think that a lot of the problem had come from the fact Mari, Bennett, and Jackson had gone home. Mari was a huge stabilizing factor in Luka's life, she always had been. So my guess was that her leaving had left Luka feeling uncertain and unbalanced and hit by everything he had been trying to drink away. It left him practically shut down and unwilling to leave their room. I didn't blame him, losing a stabilizing force in your life after something so horrendous had happened would make anyone shut down.

However today was the day that both he and Shey had returned back to their schedule after all that. It had been hard, you could feel their grief and it was hard to be around. It was a dark and heavy cloud that drug you down but they were our Alphas and we needed to be there for them. I knew Kiel had been distracted with Heidi, he had been with her pretty much all the time.

Although for the past two days Heidi had been with Shey and Luka. Kiel had been with her and I knew the entire situation was hard on him even more so than with me. He had been within the emotional turmoil and I had been stuck on the edge. Kiel had left the house early this morning and had only come back when it was Heidi's bed time. I didn't pry into his reasoning, there was no reason for me to do so, I understood him. I hadn't spent years with him to not know how his mind worked.

"Micheal?" Lilith's voice filtered into the bathroom and I finished up brushing my teeth, rinsing out my mouth.

"Yes, Lilith?" I rinsed off my toothbrush, setting it into the holder before wiping my face.

"Where is my blanket?" She sounded so confused and I headed out of the bathroom. She was wandering around the room, looking for her blanket. I knew that it had been washed because she had drug it outside to play with Heidi.

"It was washed." I came into the room and grabbed the laundry basket that sat by the dresser. "We just haven't put anything away yet." I pulled the blanket out from the bottom of the basket and Lilith gave a happy sort of wiggle as I tossed the blanket onto the bed.

"Thanks, Micheal!" She crawled onto the bed, wrapping herself in the blanket so that only her face poked out. I ignored the action, just happy that she was using a blanket and sleeping on the bed properly. I lifted the laundry basket, putting it back before I pulled off my tshirt. I tossed it into the laundry hamper before I walked around, turning on the side lamps and the plugging in the various night lights we had for Lilith. Once those were all on and plugged in, I shut off the main light to the room.

I moved towards the bed and Lilith peeked out at me from her blanket cocoon. "I don't like the dark." She frowned as she said it and I nodded.

"I know, Lilith." There hadn't been a single night we had slept with the lights off and she avoided every single dark place there could have been. I knew how she didn't like the dark. I walked to the bed, pulling back the covers, and getting in. I sighed and rubbed at my forehead. I just wanted to go to sleep and I hoped that the slight headache I had from my exhaustion would disappear.

Lilith shifted on the bed beside me as I pulled my blankets over top of me. "Time for sleep?" At the question I nodded, exhaling heavily.

"It's ten, Lilith and I am tired." I just wanted to sleep and get rid of the headache that was growing in the base of my skull. My wolf huffed at me, covering his snout with his tail. I shoved at him mentally, irritation filtering in that he could just push everything away.

"Why don't you have sex with me?" At the abrupt question my eyes snapped open and I turned my head to stare at Lilith. Even my wolf had stiffened in reaction to my own shocked reaction. He might not have understood what she had said but he understood my reaction to it.

"What was that, Lilith?" I sat up as I looked at her, sure I had misheard her somehow.

"Why don't you have sex with me?" The question was just as abrupt as the first time and I stared at her, looking for anything in her expression that would let me know she either didn't understand what she was asking or she was joking. Her expression was serious and she looked like she wanted an answer.

"You aren't in the right mind for that type of relationship, Lilith." I said it slowly as I shifted in my spot, sitting up straighter with the agitation the question brought.

The blanket slid off her head as she tilted it. Her expression crumpled with confusion. "But it is your right as my mate to have sex with me." The statement made me cringe hard.

"You need to stop saying it like that." I shoved my hair back from my face as I shook my head. I had a huge problem with how she was wording that statement, it reeked of Old Way male.

"Saying it like what?" She tilted her head again.

"Like you are an object. Sex requires consent. You are not an object I can use without your consent and you cannot give me consent right now." That was the problem. She was saying I could use her for sex and that was just... so fucking wrong. She wasn't an object to be used and it was horrible that she even saw herself like that.

"It is your right-"

Anger surged through me as the words came out of her mouth, even my wolf gave a low and heavy growl to it. "I do not have a right to your body, Lilith! No one gets to touch you without your consent, no one. Not even me." My voice rose as I spoke but I couldn't help myself. It was bullshit that she was telling me it was my unalienable right to use and abuse her and it made me wish to find Adam and beat him to death. My wolf felt the same as he paced aggressively inside my head, craving his throat between his teeth.

"You forget things, you don't understand half the concepts introduced to you. You can't tell me yes, even if you want to because if you forget halfway through then that makes me no better than that fucking bastard who did this to you." No female was an object to be used and no female lost their right to say no to their mate when it came to sex. The Old Ways were sanctioning fucking rape as an unalienable right for males. I wasn't having it. I was going to slam that point home for her, I didn't want her walking around thinking I would force myself on her because she had been trained into believing that it was the right of her mate to rape her.

Her eyes were wide and she hunched her shoulders forward. "But-"

"No buts, Lilith. I will not touch you like that until you are in a place where you are able to remember better and you can stop disassociating so badly." There was no way I was going to have sex with her while she was like how she was. I reached over and pushed the blanket away as I grasped her hands. "You are not an object that can be used. I don't know what Adam has done to you, Lilith. All of that is trapped in your mind but forget that lesson like you have everything else. You are not an object, no one has the right to your body but you." I wanted her to understand that, to understand that her body was hers. Adam had made her body his property but I wanted her to know that her body was now her own and no one else had a right to it.

She looked at her lap and I squeezed her hands, trying to get her to look at me again. "Your body is your own. I do not have any right to it. No one does." I wanted her to understand that, I didn't want her to ever be in a situation like she had been with Adam again. "No one has a right to your body but you. Do you understand?" I let her one hand go and lifted her chin with a knuckle. "Lilith? Do you understand?" Her blue eyes were swirling heavily but she nodded.

"My body is my own." It came out on nearly a whisper and I squeezed her hand again as I gestured for her to finish the statement. "No one has a right to it but me." I nodded, giving her hand another squeeze.

"Exactly. No one has a right to it but you." I let her hand go before I shifted my blankets over my lap. "Now, let's go to bed." I shifted, laying back down as I pulled the blankets back over myself.

"My body is my own." Lilith whispered it and I nodded, closing my eyes.

"No one has a right to it but you." I wanted her to remember that, even if she forgot everything else I wanted her to remember that.

"Thank you." She shifted closer to me on the bed and I cracked an eye open right as she reached over and stroked the line of my jaw. "I haven't belonged to myself in so long it is hard to remember what it is like." There was a painful awareness to her voice as she let out a heavy and shuddering breath. "Thank you for reminding me that I am in control of myself and I get to say when. It was taken from me and I forgot it had been." I hated it when she got like this, like she was deeply aware of just how badly her mind was fucked up. The moments of awareness were torture because it reminded me that deep down Lilith knew every horrendous thing that had happened to her and there was a part of her that was acutely aware of just how badly she had been broken by it all.

"We all need help sometimes, Lilith. And some wounds are too deep to heal without a scar." I closed my eyes once more and I could feel her lean over me. There was a few moments before she softly pressed her forehead to my cheek. I leaned my head against hers when she pulled back slightly. "It's alright, Lilith. Now we can sleep some." I could feel her lay down, curling up near me but not close enough to touch. A silence fell over us and I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable spot so I could go to sleep.

"Can you tell me about your childhood?" Lilith's voice was small and I felt a flash of irritation because all I wanted was sleep but I pushed it away.

"What do you want to know?" I hadn't really thought about my childhood in a long time and I figured it wasn't a bad thing to reminisce about. Yes, I wanted to sleep but she wanted to know so it wasn't a bad thing. It was good to remember my family and to remember my childhood growing up.

"I don't know. Just tell me something." She shifted on the bed beside me and I looked up at the ceiling in thought.

"You already know about the angel braids and how they drove my mum crazy." I had been a wild child, running all through the woods and trees. It had been a happy time for me, one that was fond to remember. "I am an only child but my cousins were almost like my brothers. My father and his mate brother were very close so I grew up just as close with my two cousins." Thinking about Vince and Walt as we grew up made a warm feeling radiate out of my chest. We had been little hellions growing up but we always had fun and we had been so close. I was in the middle of Vince and Walt, Walt being the eldest and Vince the youngest. We had been a small crew, I'm sure that everyone in the pack back in the day groaned when we would be seen running around.

"We got into so much trouble as kids." I chuckled, unable to help myself. "Walt and Vince were good kids, I was the one who suggested all of the trouble." It had always been like that growing up and I am sure it drove my Uncle Maurice and Aunty Jane crazy. There hadn't been a time where we had gotten into trouble and it hadn't been my fault.

"A little wild child." Lilith said it with a slight giggle and I looked over at her. She was once again wrapped up in her blanket, her face peeking out but it was the slight pink on her cheeks and the lines beside her eyes as she smiled at me that made my heart turn over in my chest. My wolf pushed at me slightly, wanting out so he could spend time with her. He had a chance to meet her and I knew he cared about her a lot but I gently pushed him away. Lilith and I were talking and he could have some time afterwards.

"Yes. I was a horrendously wild child. Must have driven my family crazy." I could only imagine just how badly they tore their hair out when the patrol leader or Beta dropped my and my cousins off at home by the scruffs of our necks. "Wild or not, I love looking back at those times. All it brings me is this feeling of being extraordinarily happy and free. We could do what we wanted and we were there for each other. I felt like it was us against the world and we would walk out of the fight unscathed." It had been a wonderful part of my life and it made my chest ache for my family. It had been so long since I had thought about them that I felt suddenly morose and sombre.

"You miss them?" Lilith wiggled a bit closer to me and I nodded.

"Of course I do. Its been so long that I have thought about them that you kind of forget how much your family means to you and how much you miss them when they aren't with you." It suddenly felt like a heavy weight had pressed down onto my chest, the feeling of loss was heavy within me and I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. "You never expect it to hit you this suddenly but I miss them a lot." We had been so close so the fact I realized I hadn't thought about them in years was hard for me. I had been so lost, thinking about losing Catherine and Bethany that I hadn't spared a thought to the other family I had.

"They miss you too." Lilith reached out, touching my shoulder as she did so.

I gave an abrupt chuckle, doing my best to ignore the grittiness in my eyes. "You sure? I got into a lot of trouble growing up. They were probably relieved that I was gone, less chances for the Hunters to show up at their front door." I could only imagine how much trouble I would have gotten into if Catherine and Bethany hadn't died. Even after Bethany had been born, I had been all over the place and chaotic.

"I would miss you if you were gone." Lilith gave a shy little giggle, her cheeks going a touch more red.

I grinned at her. "You sure? I'm cranky a lot."

"You're funny." She reached over and poked my nose and I wrinkled it at her with a huff. She gave another giggle, her eyes turning that startling blue as she smiled brightly, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

"If I'm that funny maybe I should take this show on the road. Book a full tour for my comedy gig." I gave her a wry grin as she giggled harder. I shifted my head on my pillow, looking back up towards the ceiling, the sombre feeling encasing me again. "I do miss them though. I haven't given it much thought, perhaps I've been too busy, but I miss them a lot." There was an ache in my chest at the thought of my family and how much I missed being around them. I didn't know how they were or where they were. I didn't know if Walt and Vince had found themselves some females to settle down with. I didn't know anything about my family and it hurt.

"I have no one to blame but myself for that though." I had run off, left all of my family behind. There was truly no one else to blame. I hadn't reached out, hadn't sought them out, hadn't even thought about them. That was on me and no one else.

"They still love you." Lilith said it so easy and I shook my head. She didn't understand, she truly couldn't. I had left my life, too grief stricken to live with what I had done and I had left my family to deal with the fallout. It was an action worthy of resentment and hate.

"It's easy enough to say but we can't know, Lilith. Let's just sleep. Tomorrow is another day." I hoped that with sleep that I would forget the morose feeling that had settled into my bones with the remembrance of my family.