A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Chapter Forty-Three

An undetermined amount of time later

I was floating. Darkness was surrounding me, inside me. I didn't know where I was or why I was in the darkness. Everything was so foggy and I couldn't remember what happened. I didn't feel in danger, I didn't feel like the darkness was suffocating me. I was just lost.

"I wished it wouldn't have come to this." Mene's voice echoed around me and the darkness faded and I found myself standing in a familiar throne room. "I wished you would have stayed far away from that territory." Mene gave a heavy sigh and I looked up at her. She looked...sad. "I wish I was not seeing you in front of me right now. They savaged you, hemi-lykos." She sighed again and I could feel her gaze on me. "But it is not your time, the fates weep over your life's cord but they will not cut it." The words washed over me and I closed my eyes.

That was right. I had been punished.

My back had been on fire, the pain of it consumed me. A punishment for running with Maeve. I swallowed hard. It had been so painful. It had hurt so bad.

Mene let out a heavy breath, "I will send you back but I must take your female." She whispered it and a tugging happened in my stomach and I blinked rapidly at her.

"What?" She had to take what from me? I felt like I hadn't heard her correctly. "You have to take what?" I looked at her and she slowly shook her head.

"Your little female, your daughter resting within you. I need to take her back." The words hit me like a punch to the chest. A daughter? I was... I had a baby inside me?

"Don't take her." I breathed it out, clutching at my stomach tightly. I had a daughter. I had a little life growing inside me, I wanted to keep her.

"If you never returned, you could have." Mene shook her head again and leaned back in her throne. "If you never crossed that territory line, you would have had her. She could have stayed but you are back and now I must take her." She lifted her hand and that tugging in my stomach happened again, a heated moving through me. I felt like there was a little flutter of life inside of it, struggling to stay within me.

"No. Please don't!" I held my hands to my stomach, pressing on it tightly. "Let me keep her!" I wanted her. I wanted her to stay right where she was. I wanted to feel her growing inside me. I wanted to keep her.

"You can't, it has already been written." At her words I felt icy cold and I hit my knees in front of her throne.

"Please! I will do anything! Let me keep her!" I wasn't allowed near Maeve, I wasn't allowed to have anything of my own. I wanted to keep her, that little life that rested inside me. I wanted to have her to myself, something for me that would be something I could leave in this world, the one mark I could leave that said 'I was here'.

"I have cursed the Old Ways." Mene's voice was low. "No child is to be born into them. She cannot be born. It has been written." She slowly shook her head, the veil swaying as the shadows clung to it, tugging at it slightly. "She cannot be born." She stressed it and slowly closed her hand into a fist and the tugging turned to pain.

I sobbed, "I'll do anything! Let me keep her. I just want her, I just want to have her! Please, can't you show mercy, just this once?" I looked at her through tear filled eyes and she tilted her head.

"Mercy..." She said it slowly before giving a deep and heavy sigh. "My mercy to you. You can let me take the little female and go back or you can keep her. She will live within you, she will thrive, she will grow." I swallowed against the lump in my throat, a smile breaking through but she lifted a finger. "But when that Alpha finds out you are pregnant, I will take you both. Your life cord will be cut in an instant and you will stand before me to be judged." Her voice was low and I swallowed hard, my eyes darting back and forth.