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

Chapter Forty-Six

I looked at her, laying on the porch, sobbing like her life depended on it and anger rose up sharply in me but something that felt like guilt and shame rose up inside me as well. "Stop that." I couldn't see her face and I could only see her form and she looked so disturbingly small that I hated to look at it. She was curled up, holding her stomach like she was nothing but a child. Her neck looked even thinner than I remembered and it unsettled me. "You have no reason to cry." I worked my jaw side to side, resisting the urge to pace. "Shut up!" I snapped it out and she immediately went silent, the sobs stopping but her form still shook like she was crying.

"You have no reason to cry. Get up." I gave a low growl as she moved achingly slow, her shoulders shaking and her head tucked down, that tiny, thin neck of hers showed predominantly at me. My wolf whined with unease, there was something disturbing about the look of it. She slowly, painfully slow, got to her feet. Her back was hunched and she had an arm wrapped around her stomach as he used the other to clutch at her skirt. "You think your tears are going to do anything?" The anger rose up, grabbing my throat in a tight grip. "You think it will make me take pity on you?" My voice rose and her shoulders shook more, her shoulders rising as if she were tying to tuck herself between them to protect herself.

"You stole my daughter!" I shouted it at her and she jolted and her head moved in the tiniest of nods. "Two months! And you curl up on my porch and cry? How fucking pathetic are you? You think I'm swayed by tears?" Anger coated each word and she shook her head the tiniest bit. "That's fucking right. I don't give two shits if you cry yourself a river and then drown yourself in it!" She flinched under the words and that feeling of guilt rose up.

"Look me in the eye. Look me in the eye and I want you to tell me what the fuck you did to my daughter." Each words came out of my throat heated and it left me feeling raw and vulnerable. She had done something to Maeve. She wasn't a happy girl anymore. She seemed too sombre, too quiet. "Look at me!" My hands clenched into fists and she jolted before she slowly raised her head. Her eyes were on the boards of the porch but the look of her had that shame viciously twisting my insides and it hit me like a punch to the chest.

Pain carved deep lines at the corner of her mouth and her eyes. Her colouring was all off and her face wasn't the rounded one I was used to, it looked gaunt, far too gaunt. Even the clothes she was wearing seemed to hang off her slightly. And she looked like she was so frail that a stiff shake would make her collapse. Her eyes looked almost sunken and there were deep bags under her eyes.

Something deep inside me rang hard and clear that this was not right, the look of her wasn't right, that something was incredibly wrong. So very very wrong. She swallowed hard and then swallowed again before she turned and threw up on the porch. She heaved and wretched almost violently and I blinked rapidly as I watched her. Something wasn't right with her. I tried to think about how she looked in Altia but I couldn't remember. I hated how I was feeling. I hated that the shame and guilt were moving from my stomach to my chest and I hated the fact I wanted to reach out and touch her and ask her if she was okay.

Regan had been fucking rough with her, that shove he gave her had been unnecessary as was the hand he put on her. She was my property, my possession, he had no right to touch her. "What did you do?"

"I-I-I'm so-sorry." Her teeth clattered together almost violently as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I-I-I'll cl-clean it-it up." The stammer and stutter in her voice was almost brutal and I worked my jaw. She was clearly trying to get me to pity her, to take pity on her condition and that finally broke through that guilty feeling and allowed the anger to rise up.

"I don't want you in the fucking house!" I snapped it out and she jolted, her head falling forward, her neck baring and it still felt so fucking wrong to see it on her. "Stay out here!" I stepped back into the house and slammed the door, my heart pounding hard in my chest. I pressed my forehead to the door and closed my eyes, trying to breathe regularly and cursed low when she started crying again. Gut wrenching sobs that I could hear through the door.