9.

Mimi just entered the kitchen and Mariella saw that on her wrist was the bracelet and the stones, just as they should be. She was pale. Mariella could see it now and she had her certain pheromones open so no one would pay attention to her. She was in a nurturing mood, but she covered it up.

Mariella whispered, " Honey, what bracelet is Mimi wearing? I've never seen it before?"

Damon looked at Mimi's wrist and frowned. He was worried about her; she looked pale and her hands were skeletal, meaning even though her pregnancy rounded her up, she was slim beneath those cubs. 

He said, "I made that for her, but now I can't remember the last time I even saw that. She loved it back then. I knew that she loved rose quartz, so I went into one mine and got those pieces of rocks myself and made them into bracelets for her."

Mariella said, " There's a challenge: take that bracelet, read its past, and then show me. I bet you can't get past two years. You will just see that bracelet being in some box stored. Besides, I am better able to tell who handled that bracelet. I bet you get only Mimi's imprint and maybe your own."

I came into the kitchen to find some food so I could eat quickly before I went to tend to my puppies. Damon looked at me quite sharply but I used my pheromones to keep myself kind of nondescriptive. Someone you don't pay attention to. I hoped that my pheromones would work subtle enough; it was soon time to give my cubs some day meal. I had done this by giving them coffee, chocolate and nuts, blood during the day, so they would get fed thrice each day, not just two times like normally. 

I had made my own routine because my cubs were strong creatures and they thrived better when they got their meal three times a day. I had procured these things in my room, so I did not have to come and fetch them from the kitchen. I kept my cub tending routine hidden in my mind. No need to challenge Damon to show his power over me and order me to feed them only twice.

I was in the fridge, looking at what would be fast to eat, when Damon came in and said, "Come on, baby, here is your tray, all ready and these are your smoothies. Give me that bracelet, and I'll show my wife what I can do."

He took my hand and snatched the bracelet away before I could say or do anything. I took my serving and wondered what the fuck they were up to now. The tray was packed full of food and freshly made because this had not been here before. Mariella looked at me triumphantly as I came out of the fridge and put the food in the oven to warm up.

I didn't have a formal seat at the table, so I didn't have the magic to heat the food. I saw Damon furrow his brow. He was feeling guilty too, again. 

Mariella said, " You see Mimi, I just challenged darling here to show me how well he can read the past of things and objects. I bet he can't get past a couple of years of that bracelet of yours. He will only see it being in some box."

Damon said, " Fine, I'll start from the very beginning when I made this, honey, so I'll send your mind where this has been. "

Oh fuck, oh fucking fuck, if I didn't say so myself. I kept my expression neutral. it could be that maybe the bracelet was shielded or he would not go that far. If he saw that session where he killed me in the end, well, it might drive him to fuck.

I took the food out of the oven and concentrated on eating. Well, the best-case scenario, or the most likely scenario, they're going to fuck. If he sees those moments, it will be too hard for him. But what I know about Damon it's nothing new. But when that terrier digs them out of my head.

Well, that's the trouble of the moment, but the puppy time may be cut short when Damon finds out what I've been through. He then would start to plan how to get them out and that might include drugs, heavy sedation for me, or something else that I do not want right now.

Mariella said in my mind, " Believe me, Mimi, this will help all of us. I am sure that Damon will see what Damien did with that bracelet. You don't know Damon that well, but he really wants to help a lot, especially you. And I don't know yet how we will get those memories out, but we will. They will give me so good a boost that you have no idea."

Damon's expression sharpened. He gripped that bracelet more, and there was a subtle shift in his aura. I was able to see auras if I wanted to and Damon's aura was usually purple, golden, and red, but now there was smoky inkiness, and blackness as those memories corrupted almost him. I saw that he already saw, already knew. He focused, furrowed his brows, and looked even closer. Darkness took more over to his aura. I focused on eating quickly, and I didn't want to see the pity, the horror in his eyes, or even the self-loathing. I stopped seeing his aura because I did not want to see how my shit corrupted his aura.

Damon said softly, "Mimi, I'll help, but come on, you compelled Mariella, really? Well, I'll take up the challenge and see if I can break it down. I have my abilities, too. You just challenged me and good too. Thank you for that."

I said wearily, "I've got to go tend to my pups now. Good luck with that. I'm still pretty damn strong. It might take you awhile and my compulsion will erase her memory in a few days, so you might just leave it be. No need to dig up this shit."

Damon chuckled and said, " See baby, I've got one thing so fucking much more than you and I swear that everywhere raw power doesn't work. You have power, but I've got experience, a thousand years and counting, so you can be pretty sure I'm going to enjoy this. "

I had eaten everything that was on the tray and drank my coffee and my cokes too. I walked into the puppy room and sat down on the bed. I knew that if Damon could get my compulsion off in some kind of way, Mariella would need treatment. She was probably pretty badly traumatized, and that's why I would have let my compulsion be on and erased all the awfulness. I would just hope that it would take time for Damon to break through my compulsion and it would have time to erase that shit from Mariella's mind. 

I started taking care of my puppies, picking them up to feed them, luckily someone had loaded up the feeding bottles, and I got the towels ready to get the puppies to pee and poo. I had coffee, chocolate, and nuts for these guys ready and I didn't mind doing this on my own, not at all, and that's why I was so fucking happy for Damon to take the time to get my compulsion and recovery on. This took some time, as there were over 700 cubs in here and I could make them feed by themselves, but by putting them onto a bottle and then starting to wipe, time went by.

I wasn't at all prepared when, all of a sudden, someone wrapped their arms around me, hugged me quite tightly, and said, " Good compulsion, but you little lady can't do anything to me. That's the experience that helps. We came to help with the puppies and the entire pack, and then, my lady, we will start a little bit of a search for where those memories were and the other memories. I don't erase them, I will dispel them and put them away so you can't have access to them quite so easily, but those shed sessions will go away completely. Mariella shared that piece, and it was too much. I took it away from her fully. She is fine. The spell that the jewel was made with would always guarantee maximum pain, and I don't want a single drop of pain for you. "

He let go for a moment, looked at the room, and smelled the air too, inhaling my nurture pheromones deep inside him. He looked at me. I looked at Damon for a moment and said, " You feel sorry for me? Don't you? I've been through too much. I'm too broken. I can see that and just let that shit be in my head. I can take it. I've put up with it here. I don't need pity when it doesn't help anything."

I took one cub, who had just fed, and started to wipe him. He was the black lion, a vampire too.

Damon sighed. He took the cub from my hands, wiping him, and said, "I don't feel sorry. I've never felt sorry for anyone because I'm always a vampire at first and I've been eating people dry for so many centuries. That's where the pity goes. I have experienced torture myself, mental, physical, and psychological, but I have found how much it helps when Mariella has dispelled them in my head. I am a thousand-year-old strong vampire. I have learned to let go. It's not my place to rewind them in my head and let them drag me down."

He got the cub wiped, and kissed him on the nose, making this little creature hiss at him. 

He still spoke softly to me as I wiped another cub, "Not when they fade away to where they should be, and honey, I get the memories so you never really see them. Because now I'm going to make it so. I know you have a storage room somewhere, where all the sheds are stored. I know that, but now I'm relentless and I'm blocking your access to it."

He looked me in the eye and meant every word. I guess he had seen that session where Damien killed me the first time. 

He explained to me, logically as always, " I know you well enough to remember that you have to look through those sessions. But when you don't, it's part of the programming that Damien put on you at the very beginning, when we'd been together less than a year. Sark and Krycheck, you see, started it there on the ship when you were still human. Your photographic memory was created. I can't get it out, but I can manipulate it now that I understand what I have to do. And baby, I'll do it. Even though you have the power and a lot, you can't stop; that experience is to my advantage here. "

Damon touched me. I had just put a cub back in their box and Damon gripped me again in his grip, pulling me tightly against him.

He said, " Now, missy, I'm not gonna give you all the time and space you think I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna decide how this thing is done. I'm going to teach you how to touch, just for today. We're going to the sauna, you, me, Mariella, and number two, Charles and Adam. Just to the sauna. Then we'll relax a bit, and I'll see if one thing works for those memories. It's all right, but you're not in charge, missy. I am. "

Then he let go of me and went to take care of the puppies. I sat on the bed, not quite sure what to do, just knowing that the other females would breed soon enough. There was a whole pack now in my den, and I felt a little unsure about the whole thing. Damon walked a little everywhere, marking over my scent marks by rubbing his fingers behind his ears, getting his pheromones, and then touching over my scent marks. Making this our den, not just mine. I had almost a week to go until the next one. These were only a couple of days old. But others had their days when they were operated on. I was not sure how recently they had been operated on and had it made them synchronize their births.

The kittens were quickly and efficiently dealt with.

Damon came to me and said, "Come on, sauna time. Let's relax a bit."

He pulled me to my feet, and we all six teleported to the sauna. There were bathrobes on a nail, and I had my nails, too. There were a bunch of people in my spa. 

I took off my clothes and went into the shower. The men were hanging around Mariella, and I had dropped a small pheromone, which added to Mariella's charm. Alpha female business. That pheromone told everyone that Mariella needed breeding and men. She's not quite fertile enough, and that's something that could be helped.

I gave myself a preliminary wash and watched as two and one were already fucking Mariella full-on in the tub. Adam and Charles were also ready. Yes, I understood Damon wanted to help, and I did, but those memories and all that I went through, that's my problem, not the pack's, and on this issue, I'm better off being a lone wolf. 

I didn't even go to the sauna. There were already five of them there. I put on my bathrobe and went to watch a movie. My cubs were fed, I was quite full of cubs so there was not much room inside me to eat all the time but I had a fridge where I had my own concoction, it was chilled liquid, made of fresh crushed strawberries and pure bump, a little bit of full-fat yogurt, it was really good to sip on.