A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Two weeks later

There were times in your life when you felt like you were on the edge of something substantial happening but you couldn't quite figure out where it would come from or how it would happen.

The time I spent with Menza and Maeve in Oblitus felt like that. I stayed true to my word, I never pressured her, never pushed for more, never let her know just what I felt because I wanted her decisions to be influenced by what she wanted, not what she believed I needed. I wanted it to be her decision, something not influenced by me or anyone else.

It was hard. I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted to tell her that I loved it when some of her curls would escape and fall into her face or halo her head. I wanted to tell her that I loved it when she would smile at Maeve and call her my love. I wanted to tell her I loved her, so much it hurt sometimes, but I didn't. I swallowed the words, shame and regret filling me to the brim and at times overflowing.

I didn't deserve to love her at all. That was a truth that was ingrained into my bones. I didn't deserve her, not after what I had done and allowed to happen. I wanted to though but I knew there was a very very big chance I never would but I still wanted it. So I swallowed it all down, kept it quiet and tried hard to not let it influence anything.

I helped her around her house, made sure the doctor's words were being followed to the letter, and perhaps a bit more. I didn't like seeing her move anything or straining herself to get something from her cupboards. I couldn't even begin to think of the pregnancy without breaking out in cold sweats. A little female was growing in Menza's belly, she was growing well, a big baby for being twenty-seven weeks. It was a good thing, the doctor said it again and again but I couldn't find any joy in that. I wanted the pregnancy to be over with, I wanted it to be done so Menza was no longer in danger but we still had nine weeks to go.

I hated that.

I hated it with every bit of my being. The panic of thinking what would happen in those nine weeks was enough to make me want to throw up. I wanted to go back to Sublatus and kill Stenton simply to protect Menza. I didn't care if it resulted in me being tossed in the Void, as long as she was okay it would be worth it but then there was the other half. Another female, pregnant with my child, who adored that little female she was growing, that Mene could take away for no reason.

I couldn't think about the birth or anything to do with the labour. All I could think was Menza was going to end up like Chrissie. I felt it deep in my stomach and it gnawed at me constantly when I went back to the guest house for the night. I would stare at the ceiling and all I could think of was Chrissie's labour. How pale she had been, all that blood, and then her dying. That cracking pain slicing me down the middle as half of my soul stopped breathing and passed to Mene. I couldn't stop my brain from replacing Chrissie with Menza. Another female laying on a birthing bed, dying, bleeding out, another baby left in this world without her mother.

It was enough to make me feel sick. I was at fault for it, all of it. And I knew if Menza died, if the same thing happened, it would be on me. I just didn't know how I would survive that a second time. I loved Menza, I did and the more time I spent with her, the stronger the feelings grew. They reemerged from where I buried them, they grew fast and almost furiously, as if angry I had denied them for so long.

Chrissie had been gone over a year and a part of me felt like I was replacing her but I brushed it off because there was no replacing her. She was Maeve's mother, she had been my mate and the love of my life. That wouldn't change but loving Menza wasn't replacing her. It wasn't and I knew that. There was nothing to feel guilty over. Even my wolf knew that. He loved Menza almost more than I did. The pregnancy didn't scare him nearly as much as it did me and I had to struggle with him at time to not shift and let him loose. He wanted to be there, to curl himself around Menza, to rest his head on that belly of hers to feel our pup grow.