Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“What would it have changed? You have a lot to process right now. Children will happen in their due time.” He made his choices appear so sensible, his voice easy, and he snuggled me closer. “Every daughter we have will be mated regardless. That is the nature of our kind. These men will be excellent mates. Our sons may have a difficult time finding their own companions though.”
An angle I had not yet considered. “This isn’t shocking to you. Not after you’ve had ten years keeping my song a secret from those same men. Of course my daughters might be of value. Of course you would want their mates to take exceptional care of them. That is why you are supporting me.”
Grim, he measured my expression. “You are oversimplifying a complicated topic. Our unborn daughters are not my current concern. My focus is entirely on you.”
“I have come out into a world that isn’t at all what I thought it would be. Everything is so complicated, and a great deal of it is dangerous. I love children.” And I did—I always had. “And I want to help them. But this…?”
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, breathing in the scent of my hair. “You can help them by being a good teacher.”
That kind of help would be nothing but a bandage on a festering wound. “The changes I want made within the academy… you will not concede to them. You will have your reasons, and maybe they might even be sound. But even if you gave me what I want, it will not change the cycle of our creation, training, or nature. If you were me, if you could enact real change in a way that would not cause violence, you would do it.”
His darker side had come out to play, the one that had ripped my handmade dress so he might get to the soft flesh underneath. Except now, it was my morals he tore through, tucking me tight to him, no matter who watched. “There is no guarantee those males will not try to kill one another to see who will have the first-born daughter. I was prepared to kill any of my old friends for you.”
It was so strange to think one of those men staring right at us might have had me, that even now they might covet and resent. Each of them was beautiful to look at, but were they kind? Would they have put me before a reflection and showed me what the pain of opening produced. Would they have read the journals and practiced sexual arts to make sure each knotting was thrilling?
What evils had they done to bloody their hands? I was not ignorant enough to think that each did not carry their own ugliness. They would have to, and two of them were very, very old. I could only image the things they had done.
There was something very comforting about being wrapped in his strength. I didn’t resist it but leaned into him, my ear to his chest as I said, “It is demoralizing that this is the price it would cost to urge males to treat us with dignity. Ironic that they would only do it to satisfy their own urges, not because their unborn mates deserve better.”
My openness to accepting his comfort earned me a beautiful, rumbling purr. “Better is debatable, my love. What you think is best are freedoms I would love to provide you with but, in the world as it is, are ultimately dangerous. Someday, I will be able to give you everything you want, if you would just be patient with me.”
The truth was, bonded, I had no one else in the world to rely on. That knowledge in the female mind, the tiny seed that made even the most incompatible mates somewhat tolerable.
I craved comfort; I always had, and I would drink it down even if given by such a man. That did not make me a bad person; it made me a broken one. “You suggested that we take this one day at a time. Today, I found out selling my daughters is the price for the smallest modicum of female freedom. That we will not be given respect simply because we deserve it. We are your slaves.”
“You are not my slave.”
Of course I was. He could do whatever he wished to me, and I could not prevent it. “The fact that I am considering having a child despite strong feelings to the contrary is a clear sign the world is defective, and our kind may not deserve the existence we have been given. Males have learned nothing from the humans.”
Catching my chin, he stole my attention away from the men and made me meet his eyes. “You are not my slave.”