22 Years Old
Febuar

After our conversation that night I was done with Carson. I mean I had been done for years but from that point onwards any little niggle that I may have had left in my heart for him had quickly dried up.

Poof

Gone

I had heard all I needed to hear and it seemed he had said all he could say because his tune never seemed to change.

It was always me, me, me.

I need, I want, I suffered, blah blah blah. The story repeats itself.

It was always about him and no one else, I thought fatherhood would change him astronomically but I had only been lying to myself. He was always about himself, Carson was always Carson's first thought in life and I was always some whittling factor he considered after he made his choices.

I was never first for him and though I had no desire to be his priority, it always bugged me that I wasn't. That he couldn't just use his initiative and realise that if he put me somewhere near the top of his priory list, his life would run a lot smoother. He wouldn't be sitting around self depreciating himself in the moments that he wasn't being an amazing father or trying to be an upstanding citizen.

He would have been enjoying life because his guilt for all the crap he had put me through, would be somewhat atoned. We would be amicable and he would sleep easy knowing he had tried.

Not Carson though, he was the roll on your back and let life happen type. He did dumb stuff that he thought would benefit him and when it didn't, he sat back and twiddled his thumbs waiting for the landslide to crush him. The male was dense. He acted as if everything he did was somehow a way to protect me or benefit me but in actuality, the reality was that he did things for himself.

He didn't mate me back then because he wasn't ready, not because I was too young. He gave Yavan my names because he wanted me to feel obligated to his son, not because he wanted to give me something back. I was done being his mat, he had walked over me for so long but I was over that.

He wanted me to be there for his son but if he knew me at all he would have known that I would be there for Kai regardless of whether he was my son or not. That was just the type of female I was. I would have been attached to Yavan whether he was Carson's son or not because that little boy was something special. He was different, a unique ball of light.

In the few months that I had been here, he had filled my life with a lot more joy. Being around him made me happy but also sad because I missed the children. Neema had given birth to Noah quite some time ago. The twins were 8 and Micah was 4, Jana was grown and Caillum was going through puberty. Everyone was growing without me and I needed to be around them again and so I was leaving another home away from home.

Before that, I wanted to make sure Kaiser was stable enough and that we had pinpointed exactly what disease he had, so we could start discussing medicines and healing options. We had made quiet a few discoveries when it came to his illness and the main clue had been his struggle with breathing and Nelly's the Rh incompatibility during her pregnancy.

The issue was something to do with his blood, we hadn't pinpointed which disease it was but I was leaning more towards a type of anaemia. It would mean his blood wasn't transporting oxygen around his body efficiently which would explain his breathlessness.

It wasn't concrete information but I was slowly working my way through an old world scientific journal of common diseases and all their uncommon variations. There were loads of scientific words that I didn't quite understand and the way words were written slightly differed. It seemed that the English language had varied over the years, if only in written form and so it took me a little longer to read.

Nobel was reading up on some German and Russian journals because he could read the languages but apparently couldn't speak them and Manal had a mountain of scripts in Arabic because she read, wrote and spoke the language fluently. That was the biggest surprise for me because in the time I had known her she had never suggested she could speak a dead language but what could I expect, the female was sneaky.

She had plotted hard to get me here. She hadn't been lying when she had said she needed my help but the way I had entered the compound, the surprise meeting with Kai and Carson, that had been planned. I had initially wanted to get back at her but then I had caught sight of Ryan slinking around the compound and had known there was no need, that male would drive her crazy before I ever could.

I spent most of my days with Yavan-Kaiser, or Kai as he liked me to call him. We read books and articles about all the different animals and plants, all the while I helped him with his breathing. I occasionally read him a few bedtime stories but our favourite was the very one my mother had told me. I knew it off by heart and every time we had an afternoon together he demanded I retell the story.

We had a little bond and though I wasn't acting like a substitute mother, I felt a maternal bond with him that surpassed names and biology. He was the image of his father but his soul... he was like a kindred spirit, one that needed gentle hands and soft words. He needed nurturing.

I had never thought I could love a being the way I loved Kai and I would be sad to leave him but I had other duties that couldn't be dismissed. Simeon had asked if I wished to return for a few more months because things were truly becoming disastrous out there. I had of course accepted but had requested a short break. Eliza had informed me that she was ready to consummate her mating with Samyuri and by consummate, she really just meant she was ready to stop torturing the poor male.

She was having a small ceremony, a really small one that was also a little wedding and I was apparently the maid woman, or whatever the term was. She was finally ready and I was excited for her. On top of that Cobalt had come out of hiding from wherever he had been. Eliza had told me that apparently he had been trying to make it work with his mate but that had gone sour and so now he had a new woman. She was pregnant and apparently the child was his, so there was that.

Nerro and Niko were adopting their first ever child and were preparing to throw her a little welcome to the family party. I hadn't asked them all the details about her origin, I had just been so excited that they were able to achieve that.

So much good was happening back home and I didn't want to miss a moment of it and so I was leaving. The only regret I had was Kai but I hoped he understood.

"Can I come in?" Long blonde hair whipped back against strong shoulders, grey swirling eyes grinning at me as she nodded me inside.

"Sure, he's just woken up from his afternoon nap" I shuffled into the cloud painted room and closed the door softly behind me, making my way over to his fluffy little bed.

"Hey Kai, how are you feeling this afternoon" His short blonde eyelashes fluttered at me, cloudy grey eyes sharpening as he yawned himself awake.

"Have you come to poke me" he murmured tiredly, wiping at his eyes as he shuffled to an upright position. His arm extending out towards me in preparation for what he thought was another blood test. His skin was a little yellower today than it had been for a while, the jaundice making its presence extremely visible.

"No little man, I'm here to sit with you. I know you're having a not so good day, so how about I sit here and read and talk with you."

Kai had up and down days. Sometimes he was like a normal kid, running up and down hooting and hollering at the newest thing and sometimes he was like this. Bedridden because his body had over exerted itself, his oxygen levels were low and we feared that too much movement would send him toppling to the floor.

On days like this it hit me the hardest because it wasn't as if he was being forced to stay in bed, he just genuinely wasn't strong enough to move. The recovery was always amazing to watch because he would go from this, to having life for weeks until his body crashed again. It was scary being a part of this but seeing him at his lows only made me want to make sure the rest of his life was a constant high.

"Dos nana have to stay?"

"Nana can stay if she wants to," I shrugged, I wasn't really fussed who stayed around when me and Kai had time together.

I had become pretty good at pretending people weren't there. Take Carson for example, I had become so good at pretending I didn't see him shadowing me and Kai, that even when he was there I couldn't tell anymore.

Kai looked pensively at his nana before shuffling further to the edge of the bed, his small hands cupped around my ear as he whispered in a not so quiet voice. "Nana doesn't look good, maybe she needs a nap" and then he leaned back in his bed and looked at me for reassurance.

I fought the grin that tried to break over my lips, chancing a look at his nana made that fight futile. Her grey eyes were bulging wide as her mouth hung open displaying her tongue and tonsils. At my slight and uncontrollable snort her hands flew to her head as if to rearrange her hair and make herself look presentable. When that wasn't enough she quickly excused herself and headed out of the room.

As soon as the door shut me and Kai burst into laughter, he was such a crafty child.

"Nana didn't look that bad Kai" I muffled through my laughter. His little eyes sparkled as he shook his head.

"I know but Nana has been watching me all day" he giggled lightly, pushing his curly hair from his eyes.

I couldn't help but smile at that little gesture. Every time he did it Alpha Nathaniel would threaten to cut off his hair but then Kai would throw a tantrum and call him a meany. He was attached to his curly blonde hair and was very bossy about how many finger spaces his nana could cut off when she trimmed his hair. It was two of his fingers placed closely together or just one of hers and god forbid we cut anything more than that.

"Vanya, can you tell me the story about Kaiser" his little chubby cheeks were dimpling in excitement because he knew that I loved this story just as much as him. I would never say no, well to anything he asked but especially not this story.

"Sure but first I have to tell you something." My finger stroked against his slightly darker eyebrows, memorising his cherubic face. "I'm going home in a few weeks Kai"

"And not coming back?" His eyes got glassy as his lip wobbled in what I could only describe as fear.

"No, no sweetie. Of course I'll be back but I'm just gonna be gone for a while" I pulled his head into my chest as he sniffled a little bit. When his shoulders stopped shaking, I let him go and leaned back to look at him properly.

His nose was slightly red as he rubbed some of the watery snot away, "Oh I know, I heard papa talking" my mind did a little whirl at his words but when I snapped back and was ready to reprimand him for being nosy, his soft voice interrupted me.

"Papa said to uncle Ryan that you can't keep butterflies trapped cos they just be miserable anyway. Are you a Butterfly?" his brows knotted together in concentration and confusion. His nose wrinkling as he thought back on his father's words.

"I guess so, my name does mean Butterfly." Plus, his father and his brothers had been calling me Butterfly from the beginning. Neema not so much, but for Khan and Carson, that was all I really was. I guess I was just another pretty Butterfly among many for Carson to look at.

"Papa told me about his friend the Butterfly. He said she was the prettiest and nicest ever and that he did something that made her stay away but that she loved me anyway."

He was picking at his finger nails in one of his gestures that he did when in concentration. It was either pick at his nails or pull at his feet. Just as I thought it, his hand moved down to his socks clad feet beneath his messy blankets and he began pulling at them.

"He said the Butterfly was happiest when papa wasn't around but that she liked me mostest"

"Guess you the Butterfly?" His tongue curled around the S and made a cute little shh sound, his lisp only made him that much cuter than he already was.

I nodded my head in agreement,"Yes I am,"

There was small lull in our conversation as we both thought over the new information but then little Kai was back at it again with his prodding but innocently placed questions.

"Did papa hurted you? Cos I'll tell him off." I didn't know how to answer his question, I didn't want to turn him against his father but I also didn't want to lie and so I went for a half truth and hoped he wouldn't catch onto it.

"Papa isn't mean Kai, but there are people out there who are and so I have to help those who have been hurt by them"

"Like you help me?" His hand released his foot and grabbed at my hand, pulling it to his chest and motioning to the way I rested my palm over his heart when we did our breathing exercises. My hand would lay flat as I monitored every little hiccup or skip of beat. Sometimes his small palm would lay over mine and we would just listen to the sounds of the world. I would miss it when I was gone.

"Like I help you" I nodded.

"But I'm your favourite right? Cos papa said I was"

"You are definitely my favourite Kai." I chuckled, kissing his forehead and rubbing his hair away from his face. Taking a band, I began tying up his hair, struggling to grasp all of the coiling different strands.

"You're my favouritist too" he grinned pulling his head back to look up at me, I smiled back but asked him to stay still as I tied his hair back. He didn't seem to mind when his hair was tied as long as it wasn't too tight.

Biting my lip, I tried to fight myself but I had no self control and gave into my baser urges, "What else did papa tell you about me".

"Mmm, sometimes he called you Van," his chubby hand rested on his eyebrow as he pinched it lightly in thought.

"He said Van was- was strong and that she would teach me to be strong and nice... ooh" he squealed, his hands clapping together in excitement, "He said you was loving and  you deserved the best and I'm the bestest" his hand patting against his chest as he bounced excitedly in his bed.

"You are just the cutest child ever" I growled, playfully pulling at his cheeks. He swatted me away as he puffed up chest with pride.

"I'm not cute I'm hanshum, nana said so" and the way he was nodding his head so enthusiastically I couldn't really argue with nana about it.