— Meaghan was in a car accident when she was 17 years old. It was prom night, and Meaghan was going with her best friend, a boy by the name of Jason McNeill. They were in a limo on the way to prom when a car slammed into the back of the limo. The car was driven by a drunk teenager and a bunch of his friends, who were also headed to another school’s prom. Jason was ejected from the limo and died on the side of the road. Four teenagers in the other car were also ejected from their car. Three of them died on the road. The driver of the other car and Meaghan were the only survivors. Meaghan’s hips were crushed in the accident, and her right leg was broken in seven places. The doctors didn’t think she would ever walk again. She went through a 13 hour surgery to repair the damage to her hips and leg. Still, she made it to the trial for the other driver. He was sentenced to a life term without parole, partly due to the testimony that Meaghan gave about the consequences of the accident for her and Jason. Then she went back to the hospital to work on rehab. She was determined to walk the stage for her high school graduation the next year. — There were several people who became instrumental in Meaghan’s life after the death of her father. One of them was her father’s best friend, Michael Kincaid. The other was her mother’s best friend, Melissa Fairhaven. Both were at the house every day to help care for Meaghan and Mikhail while their mother grieved. But it was Michael who took care to a dark and disturbing place. He started molesting Meaghan when he could get her alone. The molestation continued for three years, until her mother walked in on him touching Meaghan and forcing the child to perform oral sex on him. Meaghan was nine years old. Michael stopped Meaghan as soon as Niecia walked in, but it was too late. He tried to say that it was Meaghan’s idea, but Niecia wasn’t having any of that. She sent Meaghan downstairs, and then beat Michael to a near pulp. The beating was so bad that an ambulance had to be called to take him to the hospital. Michael refused to press charges, but Niecia did press charges. Michael was sentenced to seven years in the state prison, while Meaghan started her recovery in therapy with a very talented therapist. — Meaghan was in therapy until she went off to college. She suffered from severe PTSD because of the abuse that she suffered. That was when Meaghan decided she wanted to go into psychology and psychiatry. She wanted to help other children like herself. Children who were traumatized and could use new methods to deal with the trauma. For a couple years, she tried to live a normal life without therapy, but when the PTSD started getting worse, she decided to find a new therapist to help her work through the issues she was dealing with. Panic attacks were the main symptom of her illness. Although she also suffered from social phobias and social anxiety. At times she battled with depression because of the other symptoms. She felt withdrawn and unable to focus, but somehow she struggled through her classes and maintained her grades. She credits amazing therapists and doctors for that. She’s been able to continue her education, and even go to Oxford for a semester, because of her doctors and therapists working with her long distance. — Finding Kyle changed Meaghan’s life completely. While she still suffered from PTSD and related illnesses, she was able to rely on his strength and love to get her through the hard times. He was always there to hold her and reassure her. He offered a safe space for her to escape to when things got to be too overwhelming. As her mate, he’s also able to soothe her at a soul level. If Kyle is with her when she has a panic attack, he’s able to slow her down, help her breathe, and help her focus on him so that she can come out of the attack. It’s not a cure all, but it is significant in helping Meaghan maintain a normal life. Her social phobias and anxiety are also lessened when Kyle is with her. Having that familiar and comforting presence at her side is enough to allow her to socialize in large groups without too many problems. Kyle is even able to step into Meaghan’s dreams to help her change them when she’s having nightmares. That has helped her heal in ways that she couldn’t have expected. Being able to change what happened to her, to take control and have some power, has given her a sense of control over her everyday life. — Finding out that Kyle is her half brother hasn’t changed anything about the way Meaghan feels about him, or their relationship. Their race doesn’t hold sibling relationships to the same taboos as the human world. Sometimes souls pick someone close to them to bond with. It’s something spiritual and supernatural that the person has no control over. It has been shocking to discover that Kyle is her half brother, and the circumstances around both his birth and their mother giving him up for adoption. Still, there is no verifiable paper trail that could lead from their mother back to Kyle, that would prevent them from being married in the eyes of U.S. law. There have yet to be discussions about children in the future, but Meaghan wants a family with Kyle eventually. Even though it’s going to mean complications for her because of the car accident. There shouldn’t be any genetic complications due to their race. Life will go however the cosmos has planned, but Meaghan expects great things for both herself and Kyle, separately and together. — Niecia always called Meaghan her “little princess” because Meaghan is a princess. The queen of their people bestowed the honor of naming Niecia’s daughter a princess upon her birth because of a favor that Niecia did for the queen long ago. One day, when the queen passes, Meaghan will take over that role. Until then, she’s got all the rights and privileges of a princess, including an almost inexhaustible income, housing wherever she wants, and travel around the world by whatever means she desires. Her title also gives her access to some of the other races on Earth that are not human. Races that her people have treaties with or work with towards a common goal of saving this planet. Although they do not have treaties with all the alien races on the planet. There are some that are just too new for Meaghan’s people to know about at this point. — One of the quirks of Meaghan’s race is that they metabolize drugs and medicines differently than humans. Where it would take hours for some drugs to go through the human body, it only takes a matter of minutes for it to go through Meaghan’s body. It’s made treating her PTSD and associated illnesses challenging. Special drug combinations have been needed to keep her illnesses under control. It also means that sometimes panic attacks last for longer than they should because the drugs go through her system before the panic attack can be controlled, so multiple doses are needed at relatively quick intervals. That’s also why, when her people are infected with illnesses like the flu, that it’s so deadly. The virus is metabolized faster than treatment can be administered. And, once the treatment is administered, the drugs don’t stay in the body long enough to counteract the virus. There are very few human illnesses that affect Meaghan’s people, but the flu is one of them, and it is quite often fatal.
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