Chapter 99
Delta David had only been dad’s delta for five years at that point and I didn’t remember ever seeing his mate with him. She came back to me six months later, in the same terrible pain. She was even worse this time than the first. I ran her a hot bath before leaving the room. I have a coded lock on my door so no one can get in and I developed precautions so when dad put a camera up to capture the code he never did.
We have a similar store room as yours. Only ours is a combination of new and used clothing. I went through the clothes and found a nightgown and underwear before stopping at another area of the closet and picking up two bottles of the grape flavored liquid Tylenol over the chewables. I could tell she didn’t like the taste last time so I was hoping this would be easier for her to take.
I went into the bathroom when I got back to the room. The tub was positioned on the other side of the room opposite of the door with a wall at one end so even without the curtain drawn you can’t see anything but the head of someone who’s soaking in the tub. I left the clothing as well as a towel on the counter near the door and left without a sound. I know she saw me but the smell of fear was so overwhelming that I didn’t speak. I just left the items before leaving the room. It was the first time I recognized the smell even though it was oddly familiar.
When she finally came out of the bathroom I was doing an assignment for school on my laptop. She didn’t say anything, she just crawled into my bed, curled up into a tight little ball and started to cry. I saved my work and joined her in the bed but things were different this time.
Even though she knew me, she didn’t trust me not to hurt her the way someone else already had and it tore me up in the worst way for her to fear me. So I slowed down. It took me three hours before I could put my hands on her and even then the pain was so much worse. Somehow we worked through it. I skipped school, we’ll sort of. I was a freshman in high school and due to a series of events I had been switched to virtual learning so I could complete all my work on my laptop.
She was so exhausted from the constant pain that she slept for a week. I was barely able to wake her long enough to force her to the bathroom, get her to eat and drink and get medicine into her before laying with her and massaging the knots out of her abdomen. It scared me badly for her to be like that but I didn’t dare seek a doctor.”
“Why not?”
It’s the first time Lilly has spoken since he started his story.
“Livy told me that she had been to the doctor before for the issue and she ended up being punished by dad for lying. Unlike the doctor, I was willing to believe what little she was willing to share or perhaps the doctor believed her and took it to my father instead of the council. Either way she was punished in such a way that it prevented her from seeking help from anyone but me.
She started feeling better after that first week with me and left me a week later. That was around the time that I heard the first of the rumors. Whispers about me spending too much time with a seven year old girl. She came back six months later in even more pain than the previous times. I went with what I knew but her screams alpha.”
He pauses again, breathing hard. He’s starting to paint a very undeniable picture of being a caretaker despite the unimaginable abuse he appears to suffer.
“I didn’t mean to do it, alpha.”
He finally whispers, catching Lilly and I off guard. I grab Lilly’s hand as she opens her mouth, shutting it silently as we wait for him to continue.
“The screams of a pup in such agonizing pain. It does something to my wolf. Twice before I had controlled it but this third time….”
He pauses again. I can tell the story is getting more difficult for him to tell but I’m at a loss as to why.
“I hurt her alpha.”
He whispers as I hold Lilly back.
“I lost control of my wolf and hurt her. I didn’t want to do it. I was appalled that it had happened. Yet everything changed after I did. Suddenly I found that even though I didn’t understand what was going on with her to make her so sick and in so much pain, my instincts on how to help her was what she needed.”
“You're talking about your wolf. He knew how to help her when you didn’t.”
“His solution was painful but somehow it helped. The cramps and the extreme fatigue decreased. Her appetite and just her general willingness to play and be a child, it all got better. She still stayed with me for two weeks because we didn’t understand what happened but six months later she came back begging me to do it again.”
I look at Cole as his tears finally fall. A slight sniffle beside me draws my attention to Lilly. The waiver in his voice, the sadness and regret he’s expressing even so many years after it happened has moved Lilly to silent tears.
“I tried alpha. I swear for three days I tried everything to relieve her of her pain but nothing worked. So I caved. I gave into my instincts but with a lot more control. I made her a hot bath with essential oils to help her to relax. I helped her get dry and dressed before putting her on my lap and holding her. Comforting her, getting her to relax before we hurt each other.”
“Each other?!”
Lilly couldn’t help but blurt out the very same thing I was thinking.
“I agreed to give her what she wanted only if she did the same to me. It took three days for the symptoms to subside but this time once they were gone, she thanked me and left. Within days someone found out, started claiming that I had raped her. No matter how I denied it, because I was afraid of admitting the truth, no one believed that I didn’t. It got back to my father. The day that Jon figured out what was going on was the same day things started getting really bad with dad again.
Three months later, a few days after Christmas and a month before I turned eighteen, Olivia showed up at my door, late enough at night that there was very little activity in the pack house. I didn’t answer the door at first but she kept knocking and I recognized the knock so I answered. When I opened the door I found Olivia holding and comforting a very scared and battered nine year old girl named Annabel. Livy told me that Anna was her friend and she needed to be protected by me the way I had protected her.
I had no clue what she was talking about and it scared me to think Livy was asking me to do to a second child what I had to her but she insisted that was what Anna needed. I called my wolf forward, I followed his instincts and I complied with the request. She stayed three days. A week later I was called to my father’s office. Six weeks later Livy brought me a third child. She was seven. A week later I returned to my father. Two weeks after that he sent me to live with the Jenkins.”
“So that’s how it got started?”
I am surprised at the awe in my own voice.
“I tried to stop it alpha. I didn’t touch any of them while I was at the Jenkins but that didn’t keep it from snowballing. Before I made it to the Jenkins everyone was already convinced that I was raping them but there was also an underground rumor. One that I had no idea of the power it held.
The girls were passing on the truth of what happened in my room and when I returned to the pack house eighteen months later there was a notebook left on my desk where I could see it. One of the older girls that sought safety in my room started it. It took a while to decipher how many individuals wrote in the notebook but in the end I came up with twelve.
Word of my return to the pack house got out and two to three times a month around 10pm I’d get a knock at the door from a little seeking protection or a little that had gone through the pain of getting the protection they needed and they had convinced a sister or friend to do the same.
No matter how much I tried to stop it, I couldn’t. Even with me leaving the territory on these runs they keep looking for me. I have new notes every time I return. New girls that are frightened and scared, apologizing for being there without my permission. Terrified of me when they finally meet me because I’ve been demonized but every adult in the pack. Confused and uncertain because of what their friends tell them, that this is the only solution.”
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