Chapter 23

(Demetri’s POV)

I start stirring around as the familiar tingles of the bond alert me to Lillian’s presence,

“Don’t try to get up quite yet. Ang and I need to help get you loose from the young man you seem to have bonded with.”

She whispers softly in my ear. My wolf purrs softly as I open my eyes to be greeted with the gentle sky blue eyes of my mate, my luna. I give her a gentle smile receiving a short but passionate kiss from her in return.

“You told me that you had a meeting with Ang and one of the prospects that came inst night but I got worried when I didn’t find you in your office. Ang filled me in on the events of earlier this morning. I came in about two hours ago. He was still fairly rough so I left you with him hoping that being with you would help.”

I close my eyes briefly as she runs her hand gently through my hair.

“He’s been abused, Lilly.”

“I figured you believed as much. You don’t usually invest this kind of time on the first day unless you see something, sense something going

on.”

“Between what little he’s been willing or able to tell us and the little bit Ang was able to get from Dr. Carter he’s a severe asthmatic with significant anxiety issues that’s regrly denied ess to both his medication and medical care. ”

“So he’s being denied medical attention, Demetri. Most prospectse from lower wealth families within a wealthy pack looking for something better than what they have. It doesn’t always equate to the prospect being abused.”

“No it doesn’t but he is Alpha Redmen’s son. There’s no reason, outside of choice, that he shouldn’t be receiving the proper medical care he needs. Besides, the reason I inherited the pack over my older brothers is because I have a sixth sense about these things. I knew when I met you that Alpha Tanner wasn’t treating you right. I was eighteen, you sixteen. We both felt the bond immediately yet you were so afraid to even look at me. I don’t think either of us understood how much you had been through until we moved you into the pack house and you’ve never wanted to talk about it. Unlike my siblings, who only took a week toplete the mating ceremony and band, we took our time. I understood that you needed to learn and grow, to mature into the wonderful luna you are today. That you have been for thest fifteen years . ”

Lilly can’t help but smile at the memories of how patient and kind I was towards her, the loving bond we took our time to develop. It’s because of her that I have very strict controls on physical punishment towards both kids and adults in the pack.

There’s no tolerance for mental, physical, or sexual abuse of any type within my pack. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, and I’m not so blind that I would deny the possibility of it existing. It simply means when I find evidence of a wolf engaging in such an act they are reported to the council and exiled from the pack after an investigation ispleted. If I catch a wolf in the act of assaulting a pup, a rare thing to happen but not impossible, I will strip even an adult wolf down to their bare bottom andy into them with a thick leather belt. Then they are sent to the holding cells while they wait for the council. Rape is simr to assault. Everyone in my pack is taught that false allegations of rape or assault earns just as steep a punishment asmitting the act itself.

“So what’s your n at this point ? If you believe that the high anxiety is due to an abusive past then he would need to be reported to the council. Severe asthma on its own is a ….”

I click my tongue interrupting Lilly before she could finish her sentence as the young man begins to stir, clenching my shirt into his fist showing me, the pain he’s still in. I switch over to the link to finish the conversation.