I leaned against the wall beside the bathroom, listening intently at the sounds Lilith was making. She had been so cold that I figured it would be best to give her a bath to get her temperature back up to normal before we went to the dining hall. She had been in there for a while but now all the sounds had stopped. I reached over and knocked on the door lightly. "You doing alright, Lilith?" I listened intently and I heard water splashing in the tub as she moved.
"Yes." It was said so softly I had a hard time hearing her. She was so timid it was almost painful. Ainsley had been timid as well but Lilith's timid behaviour was almost worse. Perhaps it was because I knew just what it was that caused it. Perhaps it was just the bond but it was still there all the same.
I ran my hand through my hair, tugging on the strands slightly. I honestly didn't really know what to do with her. It had been so long since I had lost Catherine that it was like I had forgotten how to be a mate. "Did you wash your hair?" I had to ask. Her hair was so tangled I wondered how on earth we could get a brush through it without cutting it all off.
There was a pause and I could faintly hear water moving around again. "I tried. It's tangled." I could practically hear the shame radiating off of her tone and I winced at it. I doubted that I would be able to get used to that, hearing her be so ashamed about things she couldn't control.
"I know, Lilith, just try to get it as clean as possible and then we will try to brush it out." I pushed away from the wall slightly. "I'm going to find a brush. Let me know when you are done." I headed for the dresser as I tried to remember whereabouts I had seen the brush set. I had used them not that long ago but my bedroom wasn't exactly clean. I reached the dresser and lifted some sweaters off, putting them into the dirty laundry basket. The brush set wasn't there and I looked around, frowning slightly. My room really was a mess.
I heaved out a sigh and set about tidying it. Normally I didn't care but Lilith would be staying with me and I felt a little flustered that I had left the space the way I did. It was like a compulsive urge to make my den as presentable for her as possible. I quickly cleaned up all of the dirty clothes I had left lying around, shoving them into the basket before I turned to my bed. I hastily made it, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in the bed spread as I did so. I moved to the head of the bed, arranging the pillows as best as I could before my eyes were drawn to the top of the dresser. It was cluttered with various things and I moved over to it, starting to straighten it up before the bathroom door opened. I jolted slightly before I whirled around and nearly choked.
"I'm done." Lilith stood in the doorway completely naked. Her hair was hanging around her face and water droplets slowly slid down her skin. I blinked at her several times, wondering why the hell she decided to come out of the bathroom wet and naked.
"Where is your towel?" I did my best to keep my eyes on her face but I couldn't help it. She was appallingly thin and it was her stomach that caught my attention. Below her belly button there were several slashing scars that stretched across her nearly bone white skin. They were a pale pink but they were noticeable as they seemed to stretch from hip to hip. I wanted to wince when I realized what they were from. Apparently Ambris had been downplaying the severity of the wounds. It looked like Lilith had brutalized herself when she removed the baby.
"Towel?" I glanced up at her face and she cocked her head to the side as she looked at me. There was an innocent sort of confusion to her face as she seemed to study me.
I cleared my throat slightly, "Yes, Lilith. You need a towel to dry off with." She blinked at me but didn't respond. I pulled my eyes away from her and bit back a curse. I headed towards her, keeping my eyes on the ground I slid around her into the bathroom and grabbed the towels I had set out for her. I took the larger one and shook it out before I returned to her and wrapped it around her shoulders. "You need to dry off." I let the towel go before I turned back to the bath. She had left the water in it and I grabbed another towel, setting it onto the floor as I cleaned up the water she had gotten all over the place.
"I'm sorry for making a mess, Micheal." The words came out almost croaked and I shook my head as I picked up the now damp towels.
"It's fine, Lilith. Just make sure you are dried off." I moved to the tub and pulled the plug, letting it drain as I grabbed the other towel. I spotted the brush set next to the bathroom sink and I nearly rolled my eyes as I grabbed it with the leave in conditioner I spotted beside it.
She was standing in the middle of the room, her entire body trembling as if she were cold and the towel still wrapped around her shoulders like I had left it. I heaved out a sigh. "Lilith." I couldn't help how it came out slightly clipped and she turned towards me, her shoulders hunched forward almost meekly. "You need to dry off. You are going to catch a chill." That was the last thing I needed. She was thin and the treatment previous to her being in my care probably made her immune system compromised. I didn't want her to get sick.
She didn't respond, simply stared at me with those wide and terrified eyes. They shifted and swirled with that fractured black. I reached out my own mind to hers, the action was seemingly reflexive but the moment I touched my mind to hers the chaotic swirling and ripping of her fractured mind made me yank away from the connection, feeling my stomach clench unpleasantly and a heavy throbbing in my head from it.
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, pinching my nose as I tried to will the sudden negative reaction away. After a few moments it faded and I dropped my hand as I opened my eyes. She was still standing in the same spot, shivering as she stared at me intently. She wasn't blinking and I moved around her, setting the brush set and conditioner on my bed. "Okay, let's get you dried off." I turned towards her and gestured for her to come closer. She shuffled towards me and I grasped the towel, pulling off of her shoulders.
"Come here." I gestured her closer and once she was in range I started to dry her hair. I winced at all the tangles but did my best to get her hair mostly dry. I put the towel over her head and rubbed at it, making sure to get as much water out of the strands as I could. Once I was satisfied with how her hair was I pulled the towel off, holding it out. "Can you do the rest, Lilith?" I felt uncomfortable doing it for her, her hair was one thing but we were in a weird place. She was a virtual stranger and one didn't just dry off a person without getting to know them first.
She took the towel and started to dry off as I turned away to give her some privacy. Normally nudity didn't bother me, skin was skin and living as a wild made it so I felt little to no shame about it but this was different. Lilith was my mate but I had no clue who she was and then there was the aspect of her history. I knew how the Old Ways were and I knew she deserved that privacy of doing things on her own without interference of a male telling her what she could or couldn't do.
I grabbed the needed tools and sat down on the edge of the bed. "When you are ready, I can start to try and brush out your hair." It was looking just as matted and tangled as my own hair had when I had first returned from being dark. It would take a bit of work but I knew we could get it tangle free.
"Can I get dressed?" She asked it slowly, as if she were afraid I would snap at her. I could only imagine what that male Adam had done to her to get her to ask such a simple question like that. My wolf rumbled slightly in my chest at the thought and I didn't blame him.
I lifted my head to look at her and she was holding the towel to her chest. Her shoulders slowly hunched forward underneath my gaze and I gave her a slow nod. "Of course you can, Lilith." I gestured to the dresser rather lazily before I pulled out a comb and a wide brush from the set. The two were what I had first used to get my hair relatively free of tangles. I figured it would work with hers.
"What do you want me to wear?" The question made a heavy and dark feeling rise up in my chest and I did my best to stifle the angry rumbling that erupted within me but I failed rather miserably. It shook my chest and throat with my wolf's rage at the reason behind her question. We wanted to kill the male who had done that to her.
I inhaled deeply, calming myself down as I reprimanded my wolf before I looked at Lilith. She was staring at me with wide eyed terror and I exhaled slowly. "I apologize for that, it was unneeded." She didn't move, holding that towel tightly in her hands as she stared at me with those unblinking eyes as she trembled underneath my gaze. "You don't have to ask that question anymore, Lilith. You can wear whatever makes you happy." I said it slowly, trying to make sure she understood what I was saying. I gestured to the dresser slowly, trying hard to not startle her. "You can put on whatever you want from that dresser. Your choice for that doesn't matter to me, I have no investment in it." It was clothes, there was nothing I wanted to care about in regards to it.
I watched as she slowly stopped shaking and relaxed almost a fraction before she tilted her head to the side, blinking at me slowly. "I can pick myself?" She asked it with the barest hint of hope and I nodded at her. She gave a surprising chirp of excitement before she dropped the towel and whirled around. I shook my head at the sudden shift in her personality as she yanked open the top drawer. She hastily pulled out a pair of my sweat pants. "I can wear these?" She held them out with a bright smile on her face that almost made my heart ache to see. She looked so sweet and innocent and it was a harsh contrast to what I knew she had suffered.
"If you want to. Just make sure to tie it at the waist, they will be too big on you otherwise." I watched as she gave another sound of excitement that sounded suspiciously like a yip as she hastily yanked the sweats on, tying them at her waist before she returned to rummaging in the drawer.
I shifted further onto the bed and set the brush and comb off to the side. "Can I wear these?" There was that happy little chirp in her voice and when I looked at her she was holding a worn out t-shirt and a pull over hoodie. I felt a wry smile grow on my face as I gave her a small nod, watching as she put them on just as quickly as she did the sweatpants.
She was swimming in the clothes but she looked happy and excited so I wasn't going to point it out. If it made her happy she could wear whatever she wanted. She tucked her hands into the front pocket with a giggle as she whirled around her still slightly wet tangles sending droplets of water everywhere. I found myself chuckling at the rather exuberant display and it was a slight shock to me to feel amused after everything in the past twenty-four hours.
The thought soured the moment for me slightly but I swallowed it down. "Come here and we can deal with those tangles of yours." She stopped before nearly bouncing towards me and sitting on the bed in front of me. "I apologize in advance if I yank on any of your hair, Lilith. I won't mean to." I needed to make her presentable to the pack and everyone in the dinning hall. I was still stressed about her meeting everyone but I felt a little better with her being saturated in my scent. They would smell me on her and hopefully not question her too much about it.
I carefully sprayed her tangled hair with the leave in conditioner, making sure each heavily tangled piece was soaked with it. I grabbed the comb and started to carefully de-tangle a small section of hair. I started at the bottom and slowly the tangle started to come out, leaving smooth strands that felt silky underneath my fingertips. Lilith started humming and I knew she was picking at nails but I would work on getting her broken of that habit later. She needed time to work through some of it before we could start helping with her not so healthy self-soothing actions.
She would do well in therapy and no one ever got better without it. Especially not with the trauma that she had. I finished the one section and grabbed another one to start on. "I think we should have you in talking with May." She didn't respond to me and I frowned slightly. "Would you like that?" Her humming continued before it stopped abruptly.
"May helped Lily when she was here." She said it almost happily and I blinked in surprise. I hadn't expected that answer or that statement.
"She did." I said it slowly, warily and she seemed to wiggle in her spot for a moment before she fell still. I continued to comb her hair out. I was about a quarter done but she was dealing well with my slight yanking as I tried to get her hair smooth and tangle free.
"She can't help me, not really." Lilith gave a little sigh and leaned forward. When I peeked over her shoulder I saw she was leaning against her hands as her elbows rested on her knees.
"It's still nice to talk to someone." Even if she felt like it wouldn't help, sometimes talking through the hurt was important.
"Talk about what?" At the suddenly confused tone her voice got I exhaled slightly.
"How you feel, Lilith. It's good to talk to someone about how you feel." I knew it was a long shot, her mind was all over the place and I doubted that May could truly get a bead on her but sometimes talking helped cement someone's place in reality.
"I don't feel much of anything anymore." She said it simply, as if it truly didn't matter to her and I slowly shook my head.
"It's okay to feel things, Lilith. I know you shut everything out to protect yourself but feeling things is okay." I felt a little hypocritical as I said it but I sighed heavily. I had to work through my loss now, there was no other option. I had to do it so that eased a bit of that sick feeling in my stomach. It was like I had lost the both all over again and I knew I needed to work through it.
"You shut down." At the rather blunt statement I stared at the back of her head my hands stilling, wondering if she had read my mind. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she did.
I slowly started combing her hair our again. "It wasn't healthy, Lilith. I know that now."
"Good." At that I had to chuckle at her. I should have expected the answer, I really should have but it still made me laugh all the same.
"Do you know everything?" I smiled. I couldn't help myself. She was such a strange and odd little creature. I didn't particularly know what to do with her. I would try my best but she was just so strange that I knew that it would be a learning curve for me.
"I know as much as Mene does and perhaps a bit less. It depends on what she wishes to show me." She gave another small sigh as she said it, shifting on the bed in front of me slightly.
I chuckled at her statement, unable to help myself. "So everything, then." If she knew what Mene knew or close to, then that was a fair amount that was more than likely bordering on everything.
"She is not all-knowing, Micheal. There are things in this world she doesn't know or understand." She said it almost carefully and I paused in my combing of her hair for a brief moment. "It is hard for her. She is across the tides and she cannot see us all. We are her children yet we suffer because she cannot reach over the tides without death. She is powerful but she cannot truly see us all without death following in her wake. She is stuck in her temple only hearing faint whispers and suffering."
She shifted again, turning her head so I could see the profile of her cheekbone and part of her nose. "It is why she creates her heart lands, why she births the priestesses and priests. She needs the connection to us, to try and see us all with others because she can't herself." She lapsed into silence and I didn't feel the urge to question her as what she said sunk into me. To be honest it was the most I had ever learned about Altia and the other lands similar to it. They had always just been there, you never questioned their place in our world. It was interesting to learn more about why we had them, why Mene created them.
I turned back to her hair, putting more focus into it as I absorbed what she had told me. Knowledge was important, I knew it was, and I wasn't going to question her too heavily about it. She would more than likely forget what it was she had said. I let out a heaving sigh as I picked up another tangled chunk. "Perhaps we can try to not get your hair into angel braids next time." I worked as a very difficult knot, trying hard not to damage her hair too much.
"What's an angel braid?" She asked it softly and hunched her shoulders forward as I worked a bit harder on the knot.
I frowned slightly as I remembered where the term came from. It had been a long time since I had remembered home. "It's a term my mum used to use a lot. It means tangled but she would say that angels did it when I wasn't looking because I would never admit to getting my hair like that as a kid." My hair had gotten so tangled it was damn near like dreadlocks. But only if dreadlocks were comprised of hundreds of knots with bits of grass and twigs that were nearly impossible to brush out. I found a faint smile on my face at the memories of my mum's exasperation with me as a child when I would show up at home with my hair like that.
"You had long hair?" She asked it carefully and almost as if she were afraid I would reprimand her. I swallowed my reaction down, forcing my wolf to focus solely on my hands as we combed out the difficult knot and finally had another chunk of her hair smooth to comb through. I wanted him to focus on the fact he was grooming his mate to keep his agitation from rising more than it already had.
"Yes. Refused to let my mum or dad cut it. A little wild child I was." It was probably why I kept it haphazardly shaggy now as well. Old habits died hard and all that. It did make me feel a bit somber about home though. I hadn't seen or talked to anyone in my family for over ten years and it made a lump appear in my throat at the thought of them.
"You are a shifter." Her voice trailed off slightly and she slowly looked over her shoulder, her eyes that starting blue as they sparkled mischievously. "We are allowed to be a little wild."
At that I had to laugh before I smiled at her. "You have me there, Lilith." I gestured to her slightly and she turned her head back forwards and I continued to comb out here hair. Little by little I was getting all the tangles out. I was surprised to see that her hair was a sleek and deep brown. There didn't seem to be a single wave in the strands and the colour was so dark it was nearly black yet just light enough to be brown. She started humming again and I continued my combing, happy to see that we were a third done her head. "Once we are done we are going to go see everyone else. Is that okay?" I waited for a response but she merely continued humming. "Lilith, is that alright?" I stressed the words and she stopped the humming abruptly.
"Yes, Micheal." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she immediately started humming once more, lost in her own mind as she shut everything out. I wanted to sigh but I just knew that was how she was and I would learn to deal with it.
She was right, her mind was not her own and that was something I would need to get used too.