AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Each of the ranked women before me would implant a female embryo in their womb, and together, we would do our best to manipulate the males into treating us with respect.
Force them to view us as more than chattel.
We’d show them we were more thanpreciousmates kept in pretty cages. That we were capable. That we could be unflinching. That we were willing to do something terrible in an effort to make the world a little less dark for our sisters and children.
Truth be told, I envied Miranda and her cronies for their age and experience. Those women had lived. Possessed years to consider motherhood—to consider thisstrategy for decades, maybe centuries, that I had been roped into after only days. Each of them aware of exactly how the world worked outside the academy.
Functioning from a place of almost-perfect ignorance, too young, there was a very real chance I would disappoint my child.
I certainly lacked real-world experience.
Inviting a daughter into this existence for dubious reasons did not make me a great example of motherhood. Demanding every female hybrid Miranda could reach to do the same marked me as worse.
My desire to see my sisters rightly educated might condemn an entire generation of little girls to hell.
And already, I was terrified.
And excited.
And oddly hopeful.
I would not suffer this alone. Maeve was right. Hybrid women had to do this together.
The thought of new life, of hybrid life just like me, in my arms? I never so much as let myself daydream on the topic. But now? I wondered what she’d look like. How she would smell snuggled close to me. If she would coo and nuzzle at my breast.
And I shivered.
Would she love me as I had loved my human mother?
I already loved her—the simple idea of her—more than I might ever be able to bear. And would most likely murder Cyderial should he so much as think of taking her away.
A single thought of being parted from my child, and a storm of imagined violence churned within me, sweeping aside the gentler parts of my psyche. The vorec in me stomped back and forth, eager to have her way. Eager to disembowel anyone foolish enough to dare harm my child.
To indulge her would be to invite life to grow within me.
She whispered to me secrets, tempted me to allow my baser urges to rule.
I conceded.
Immediately, pressure began to build in my chest, sweat prickling over my brow to cool in the evening breeze. Low noise came next. Not a thrum, no pulsating drum to threaten all nearby. A lowsong.
My song.
Loud enough even I could hear its beauty.
A shiver shook me. Bones grew loose, tendons relaxing as I rolled my shoulders and hummed quietly to myself.
With a rapt audience, absolute attention from both men and women, I let all in that courtyard know I was true to my word.
The strangest sense ofknowingcame over me.
Iknewmy daughter’s life was sparking, waking….
A cramp undulated about my inflated belly, catching my breath, visible to all who stared.
Sniffing the air, lips parting as if they might taste, the women watched me as if mesmerized.
As if I were truly beautiful while half-mad with my strange humming, a few of them began to offer their own song. Like this,I could hear them sing. Understood what the men found so enticing.
