He was purposely trying to provoke me.

I didn't know what I had done to warrant his ire but I had somehow gained it.

For days and weeks on end he had been pushing me, his tone short and his words abrupt. He kept pushing at the barriers that was our relationship and I was cracking. The pressure was becoming too much under his unbridled anger.

He blamed me for something but he wasn't man enough to tell me yet. He acted as if he no longer needed me. I guess he had finally replaced me like I always feared he would.

I guess he didn't need this mother's love any longer.

The day had come when my little boy was no longer my little boy and I felt the blow to my being

The grass bristled harshly in my ears as his breath gushed over my shoulder, his breathing purposefully heavy as he fidgeted ostentatiously. The blades of grass crushing beneath his growing body.

The sharp snap snap of the crippled blades halted me in my chants. My fist clenching along my knees as I had to physically restrain myself from reprimanding him and starting another argument.

I shut my lids tighter and began praying again this time asking for patience and a sane mind because this child was determined to drive me crazy.

Just as I was falling back Into the natural vibrations that the tree at my back provided, my chant was halted again. This time by the filthy and unfiltered mouth of the child beside me.

"This is shit," he gritted, a twig flying passed my head as he threw the stick.

A sharp gasp filtered through the air between us as my head rose and I glared at the boy in front of me. Grey eyes staring defiantly back at me.

"Mama, Kai said bad word," her big blue eyes peering up at me as her small hand wrapped around her lips. I nodded my head noncommittally at her, not giving her the attention she needed because yes, Kaiser had said a bad word in front of me and his young and impressionable sister.

"Bad," she repeated her little fist wobbling as she waved it at her brother.

"Shut it Winnie," he grumbled, forcing her hand ways from him rather forcefully. Winter toppled to her bottom, eyes wide and then she was blubbering.

Her little face blotched red as she grew angry at his callous words. "No," she screamed and then ran off across the field. Her legs pumping as she tumbled off to go find Carson who was within my line of sight.

I felt the hairs at the nape of my neck turning grey at the turn of events, my nostrils flaring as I did everything I could to control my tongue.

I stared at this boy, this stranger. This imposter who sat in front of me with golden skin, cloudy green eyes and blonde curly hair. His cheeks chiselled and lips pouty, nose wide and brows thick.

He glared back, face a mask of disgust and outrage as if I had betrayed him. As if my presence offended him. Seeing his disdain for me was another dagger to my heart, the organ torn into pieces as life moved on and I struggled to keep living.

"Don't you ever speak or touch your sister like that again," I gritted, my tone controlled and as even as I make it.

"She is not my sister though, is she?" Words like a whip, lashed across my face and had me jerking back in shock.

His eyes softened at my response but at this point I was unseeing, disbelieving because I had received one too many blows to comprehend this level of rejection.

Climbing to my feet I left him there, sitting by that tree that had meant so much to us. It would now be tarnished by this day, this memory seeping into its roots and bending its bark.

I took my belongings and met Carson half way, mind a haze with his words.

"Come here baby" I heaved, my arms outstretched and welcoming my teary eyed three year old from a furious Carson.

Her breaths hiccuping as she cried into my neck. I shot Kaiser the dirtiest glare over my shoulder.

He did look remorseful but I was so over this. The boy had slowly been morphing into a child I did not recognise and I couldn't continue to put my energy into righting him when my being was off kilter and something inside me was perpetually wrong.

"You need to speak to him because I refuse to," I spat, thunder in my voice as I pointed at the sulking child sitting on the grass.

I don't know what had happened to Kai in the past few months since he had returned from his visit with Alpha Nathaniel but he was pushing me past my limits.

I was at my wits ends with that boy.

I trudged across the grass, leaving a disheveled Carson to deal with the demon who had possessed the lovely boy I had helped raise.

Patting Winter's bottom as I tried to soothe her sniffles but she wasn't ready yet and I understood why.

Normally my little girl was a fireball, she didn't resort to tears often unless she was tired or being told off.  Unless it was a day like this one.

Winter was little, too little to feel the grief of loosing her father but on days like this... at this time of the year, she became sullen. We were so in tune, our maternal bond so strong that she was reacting to my projected feelings. Feelings that I tried so hard to control every year but with Kai's change of attitude I felt that calm control that I had only began to grasp slowly unravelling.

My mind was unwinding and I was sinking deeper into the dark waters. Wading further and further away from the shore with no hope of returning.

My sanity was at the end of its tether.

I was not the same woman I had once been. I had been strong and assured and with Meilan at my side I had been balanced. Our rune stones had slotted together so perfectly we had almost moved as one.

Without him my hold on sanity was precarious, add loosing Kaiser's affection into the fold and I was suffocating under the thick cloak that had always flittered at the edge of my life.

I headed straight to the kitchen and heated up a bottle for her, knowing that at this point all she wanted was to curl up and lay beside me. She had been taken off the bottle just before Meilan had passed but sometimes the warm milk helped her sleep and I didn't see the issue. Once her bottle was warm, I carried my sniffling daughter into our room and stripped her down to her little knickers.

I pulled off my long billowing dress and threw on a night tshirt before flicking through my comms device. I picked out our favourite video and then threw it out, his beautiful face appearing in front of us. My daughters eyes widening at the sight of her his sculpted face.

"Papa, come here," she called, her hands waving as she tried to get him to come over. He moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed as he began humming a soft tune.

I rested my back on the head board as she curled into my chest. Tears strolling down my cheeks as he serenaded us in his soft crooning tone. He'd had a deep sultry timbre to his voice that had always put Winter to sleep.

He sung for her. From the moment he had known of Winters existence he had always sung for her, her wild kicks ceasing as he would rub my stomach and sing his wild daughter to bed.

His cheeks dimpled as he rocked her in his arms. He sung songs of changing times and weathers. Of the sun that still shined in winter and the life that struggled to keep existing in the pure sheet of snow.

He sung of his favourite season as he rocked a baby Winter in his arms, his lilting voice sending her to sleep. She snuggled along my chest, her slanted eyes peering up at me as she removed the teet of her bottle from her lips.

"Papa" she murmured again, big blue eyes glossy with confusion.

"Yes love, papa" I sobbed, clutching her tighter to my chest.

She resembled her father so much even though she had my hair and eye colouring. The oval shape of her head, her slanted eyes and lightly bronzed skin, her pert nose and Cupids bow lips, her freckles. She was Meilan's daughter. Through and through, she was his and it hurt to know she woukd never really see that for herself.

My heart hurt. It was splintered.

I felt crippled at the knowledge that this was all we would have. These holographic memories of him were so real but I would never feel the heat of his hand against my cheek, his warm flesh was gone.

He was buried by our willow tree under the falling leaves of this autumnal weather.

Winter curled tighter into me, her eyes drooping closed as the hypnotic lull of her father's voice washed over her.

I missed him every day. Life was monotone without him, what had been a world full of sparkling colour and passion had become a struggling cycle of quivering heart beats and a shredded soul.

The pain so profound the action of breathing was a struggle.

When he had died I had been prepared to lay down and die with him. I would have if it hadn't been for those blue eyes that had looked to me for love. If I hadn't had Winter to hold onto, I would have been lost.

Lost in the toxic tumultuous emotions that I had been left to suffocate in. My larynx crushed as the poison flowed through my veins and took my being because he was my love.

Though Carson was my mate, Meilan was my one. From the moment we had met I had known.

The leaves had been twittering from the trees, crunching along the ground as a cold frost had begun to fill the air. Autumn had killed all life and winter had taken its hold over the land and there he had been. Standing by the weeping willow tree as if he was one with nature.

My Meilan.

He had been everything to me. Loving him had made me see how my parents could happily die for each other.

Loving him had made me see real love. Not the warped childish obsession I'd had with the mate bond.

No

Meilan and I had been real. Our bond so pure.

He had been it for me, never would I love a man like Meilan and never would I want to. My heart was the loyal type and I would never love this profoundly ever again.

The Veris and Carson's of my world were a drop in the pool of life compared to my Meilan who had been the natural rocking ocean.

The pain of loosing him washed over me. I was drowning in the emotion. Suffocating under the overwhelming grief that never seemed to lessen.

Everyday I felt encumbered by the guilt. The guilt that I couldn't save him. What good was being a healer when I couldn't save him.

What good was all this without him?

His singing voice halted for a moment as he began muttering to the Winter in his arms, bouncing her up and down as he told her how much he loved her. His little angel.

Salty tears slid down my cheeks and seeped into my mouth as I watched his strong body cradle her in his arms. Pale skin stretched over lean muscle.

He was so handsome. He had hazel shaped eyes that had been kind and lined with fine smile wrinkles. Lips curved like Cupid's bow and a pert nose that was splayed with a light cluster of freckles.

He had been everything to me, he still was. He had given me so much love that even in his death I never felt bereft of his feelings. They lingered on.

Late at night when I lay my head to rest, I could hear his whispered words of love as his lovers touch ghosted along my skin.

He was the phantom of my life. Haunting every living and dreaming moment I had.

My world began and ended with Meilan and yet I struggled to move on. One weak vessel pumping blood around a weakening body. I was a slither of the former me. A year, two... what did time mean when time was immaterial.

What did time mean when I was still bleeding love, my my lungs were drowning in the potent red. Black plumes burning through my chest as I choked and spluttered on my crimson liquid.

On days like this the thought of moving was impossible.

My eyes slid closed as a kaleidoscope of a hundred different hued memories filtered through my mind. Travelling faster than the speed of light as his laugh, his smile, his touch, his sweet words. His pain, the sight of him fighting to remain strong even as his body betrayed him. Just him, memories of him filling my being.

My heart gentled to a slow as the sound of his melodic voice changed to the soft thumping rhythm. Delirium dragging me under as the soft thud of his once beating heart rocked me and my daughter to sleep.

—————

AN//

And so the journey begins. Are you ready?