Page 206 of Gift from the Wing

I didn’t know how to be touched tenderly, caressed, or wooed.

They had to reteach it all to me.

It took me many, many years to admit the fact that Franklin raped me. I’d trained my mind to believe it wasn’t true because I knew what was to come and I didn’t want you to know one day you weren’t made from love.

You were and you weren’t if that makes sense, but I wasn’t going to have a way to show you that. You would only know him.

That’s why it was so important to me to tell CC to show you as much love as he could. I knew it wouldn’t prepare you romantically, but my mom’s and dads’ love held me together for the majority of those first twelve years.

It was around year ten, Franklin informed me that they were gone, and that seemed to shatter something inside of me. They were my hope, my heart, and I held onto the thought of them during the long nights.

I didn’t know it would happen so soon. Their deaths made me angry, rageful, resentful. I’d run through in my mind what I thought was happening to them. If Franklin was draining me almost every day, they surely did the same to my mom. They probably made my dads watch. The thoughts and questions caused me to fight back, and I paid the price for it at every turn, but I didn’t care.

I hated Franklin for all he had done to me, and I wanted to kill him. So many times did I want to unleash my strength and end his miserable existence. And I could have. I had a choice to make, though, as you well know, and I chose you.

Even as a young child, I knew I wanted to be a momma. Have a Nexus like my parents. I wanted men to shower me with affection and love the way my dads did my mom. So even at fourteen, I knew I wanted you.

I had loved you from the time Elementra showed me a little girl with silver and violet eyes that looked just like me. She told me your soul was in thebeyond with her, asking a thousand questions, and I thought to myself, yeah, she’s going to be mine.

“My, the questions I asked growing up. I needed an understanding of everything. You poor thing. You probably got a double dose of it being raised by CC. He asked more questions than even me.”

Yeah, she’s going to be mine.

Laying the book to my chest, I close my eyes as silent tears flow down my face. I let the claim I’ve desperately craved my entire life settle into the void in my heart that I thought I’d filled in with the family I’ve created and grown to love.

I knew a part of me would always be eager for her. I thought I’d done a good job of accepting the fact I’d never have her until I found out I had a brother, then I heard his sweet little voice call her momma. And then this book.

I’ve realized here lately, I want her badly. I want her love.

I’m getting it now. It’s not conventional in any sense. But this was the way she was able to make sure I knew it.

Using my hands to wipe my face dry, then rubbing them down my thighs, I peel the book off my chest and pick up where I left off. If I get nothing else from this book but this note from her, I’ll be okay.

I’ll be better than okay.

“Elementra came to me a few more times throughout my life. Anytime there was a major change in the plans. Usually, her visits were accompanied by CC’s either before or after. Sometimes there were years in between, but I knew that it would all line up.

When he came to visit me and informed me I was pregnant, I was around six months along when Elementra came to me. Told me the story of the wolf. It was my new path. My course had changed just a smidge with Lyker’s upcoming arrival, and I had to begin making decisions for his future as well as yours.

The biggest decision was whether my men would accompany me on my return. There were two paths to that, and the only one that guaranteed Lyker’s future was if they left him. Everything would’ve changed if they had stayed with him because they would’ve died eventually whenI did, with Lyker there to witness it. It would’ve started a devastating chain reaction for him. But I couldn’t tell them that straight out.

So going against what I was told not to do, I only told Lyker one version of the story of the wolf. I’m sure Elementra knew, probably shook her head at me, but I had made my decision.

On the second return, they were my rocks.

Franklin was too consumed with himself and torturing us to concern himself with learning anything about my men. He’d torture them in front of me, he’d torture me in front of them, make us all watch, then lock us away in our cages every day. Separately.

But if he’d taken any time to know anything, he’d have easily found out that Allton and I could mend any metal. Those cages couldn’t keep us apart and every day, after everything he’d done to me or them, we held each other close.

Day in and day out, Franklin would rape me, and I fell pregnant rather quickly, which was Elementra’s interference. That shouldn’t have been possible. He didn’t touch me again after that, though. The deed was done, and he had no more use for me sexually. He found it vile to have sex with a pregnant woman, as he said, and I was beyond relieved.

So for the entirety of my pregnancy, I wasn’t tortured or raped. Yes, he still drained by blood, but within the limits that Drin had told him was safe without harming you.

I spent those nine months in the arms of my loving men every chance I got. They’d rub my belly, talk to you, they staked their claim over you as though you were theirs. The first time they felt you kick was when Sedric was purring for me. You went crazy with your little legs, and they celebrated as if they’d just won a war.

I often referred to them as your fathers when I talked to you. They were in all things other than blood. They got to hold you before I did.

The morning you were born, Elementra came once again, but this time, not only to me but to my men. All she said was, ‘It’s time to come home.’

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