[[OLD]] A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Chapter Sixty-One

I stared down my body with a scowl, my skirt's band was pulled far too tight around my belly. I had noticed it was getting bigger but now I couldn't comfortably wear my skirts unless they had a looser band but I didn't have a lot of them. I shifted the band up a bit more, releasing the pressure from around my belly but it pulled up the hem of my skirt in the front. I huffed slightly, apprehension filling me. I didn't like that it was getting more noticeable. I wore loose shirts that covered my belly, hiding it from view but the fact that the skirts only rested comfortably above my slightly bigger tummy, was a problem.

I sat down on the bed and clasped my hands, staring at the floor. I wondered when Simon would come. It had been a month since I had been at Duffy's and after his last visit, he promised me that he would come back to get me. He had even included Duffy into the discussion, which had surprised me, but then again the two of them had ranted about Alpha Stenton and the ranks of Sublatus, as I learned it was called, for hours. Simon told me he was half in love with the older shifter when he had gotten ready to leave and Duffy had only cackled at that.

However she had been more than open to helping Simon and I run away. She even said she could help disguise it as her taking me for a drive, except she would take me to where Simon was and then let me go. I was thankful for that, for her helping. I had said as much but she had simply sighed and told me that there was no way in hell that she letting me go back to 'that piece of shit fucking pack'.

I was still torn over that. It was the place I had grown in but the longer I was away from it, the more I realized something was... it was wrong. The shifters in Fortis had treated me with gentleness and care and so did the shifters in Vis. They were friendly, they were kind, and they treated me like I was a person who had worth and the contrast of the difference was sobering. With Fortis, it had been easy to push it off as a one off of pity but with Vis... it made is difficult to rationalize it away because that was now two packs who acted like that and it left Sublatus feeling... off. Even the atmosphere in Fortis and Vis were completely different than when I was back home.

Duffy has explained to me it was because Sublatus was an Old Way pack, a different culture that put females as subservient to males and had a strict hierarchy. She explained that Vis and by proxy, Fortis, were new way, a more egalitarian structure with a looser hierarchy. She said it made for a more relaxed pack where females weren't treated as property that were fair game if they didn't have protectors or escorts around the territory. Which was just odd for me.

The treatment I got was so different and strange I felt like I couldn't trust it but Duffy told me again and again, that the treatment I was getting would continue because the shifters in the pack didn't require a male to give me worth, that I had worth simply for existing as I was. It was hard to argue with that, to defend how I was raised. The longer I stayed in Vis, the more apparent it became and Duffy was constantly reminding me that my treatment in Sublatus, what the Alpha did, had been so beyond wrong that she was surprised the Hunters hadn't stepped it. Which had concerned me because that was just how life was in the pack.

It was strange to realize how odd the life was, how almost stunted it made you feel. I was able to walk around the pack with Duffy and no males would approach me in any predatory way, they would call out greetings and ask me what I needed or if I required help but no one really approached us with any ill intentions. The females were allowed to go wherever they wanted, they didn't have to tell their males or ask anyone for permission. It was just so strange to see and experience.

I knew I would have to get used to it. Simon and I were going to leave and the thought had me putting a hand on the small swell of my stomach. We were going to leave to make sure my daughter and I survived, so that we could be safe. I was anxious about it, so very anxious, but I also knew it needed to happen. If I wanted my little female to be born, I needed to put aside my own comfort with staying where it was familiar and go where it would be safe.