what am i supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you

She was quick to draw up next to him, and though exhausted he knew that he was letting Theory down. She was a yearling, she shouldn’t have been in the position she was trying to support the pack as much as she was. An alphas job was demanding, even more so when you were inexperienced as his daughter. And she didn’t have him to lean on. He was weak, and he’d found his breaking point.

He sighed heavily and leaned against her touch, her words quickly finding their way to his ears. There was no mention of anything more than difficult times and Rhyme felt himself able to focus himself despite his lack of sleep. Healing and herbs. These were things he knew since puphood. Though he was never an excellent healer he learned a lot through experience and age.

”I can teach you,” he offered simply enough. His words were sure even if his gaze didn’t quite focus. ”What do you know?” Rhyme asked, his mind working better with a real goal. ”So I can gauge where we start.” For a brief moment he fleshed back to a time long long ago. His mother, young, vibrant, and fully sighted seated between himself and a yearling Shaye. She’d taught both of them some of their very first lessons. Those joyous moments were a far cry from the sorrow that brought Theory to him today.

Rhyme focused his gaze, leaving Imperium’s meadow and returning to the smoke skied hell they were in today. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but deep in his heart where his conscious was being kept prisoner he begged Theory for forgiveness that she’d been forced through so much grief. Forced to be stronger than any yearling ought to be.