Jade Fern Grove You assume I'm fine, but what would you do if I

Mahler turned away and Wylla followed in resentful silence. Her mind attempted to weave justifications for him, and every one of them she shot through with the flaming arrow of her hurt feelings and loneliness. Months ago, she had laid in his embrace in a high place on the mountain and thought that he might ask her to be his everlasting, and their next litter would be raised with all the love and attention their first litter had craved, and there would be no competition from ghosts of Wylla's past.

But she had been a fool to think she could ever deserve something like that, or that he would ever rise to the occasion, and now she stared at his backside and wondered if every road for them would inevitably have led to here. Maybe it would have taken longer. There could have been more sparks of happiness hidden in their miasma of accusations and expectations, or there could have been nothing.

She shook the thoughts from her head and focused on the simmering remnants of her anger, pouring everything into it and not letting go of it, for she could never again allow herself to be weak enough to beg or plead or reason with any man. She looked forward to seeing her babies, and dreaded knowing that they would not come with her, and wondering if it was because they truly did prefer their father over her, despite everything he had done, and everything she had done.