It was especially striking with the girls. I saw the adoration in their eyes as they watched their male breeders go about their day. Females raised this way, surrounded by loving caring family, would never put men into thepounds. No wonder the resistance was growing.


    “How do they feed the children?” I asked out loud and unintentionally. I jumped when the men in the shop looked at me


    A man with a tiny girl smiled at me as he answered.


    “Her female breederes to us at regr intervals,” he said, stroking his small daughter’s head. “She knows when the young will need to feed. We take her with us outside and let her get stronger. This will be a powerful female one day soon.”


    The little girl on the man’s chest just gazed around at him and his Brothers. I had no doubt he did not mind caring for her and she did not mind his attention. Her memories would be mainly those of her female breeder, but all her experience would be the love of her male breeder. I imagined it bnced the girls born here.


    Men cared for the children almost exclusively, I was told. Women were not good with children. After the birth men were the predominate parent in their child’s life. Paterian women were a good food source, but past that took a limited role. The menughed saying it was hard enough to get them to feed the young, much less anything else.


    I looked at Rose and she was as shocked as me. We would never have guessed that. Everything here was different from what we expected.


    The mening and going thinned out some and the shopkeepers settled down to work on the day’s orders.


    “Take a break when you need it,” Armant’s Brother, Reil, told us. “Drink from the jug there when you wish. Don’t let the task overwhelm you, it will still be there when you return.”


    “It always is,” another Brotherughed.N?velDrama.Org holds this content.


    We sewed in silence at first, but the men were very friendly. Armant and his Brothers liked to talk to pass the time. They were pleasantly surprised when I spoke to them freely. They’d seen ves in their oldpound, but never spoken to a human.


    “It is wrong what those men do,” Reil said, as he sat making a new shirt for a man. “We were so uneducated then, but now we know. It offends us men like that are in our camp.”


    I stopped his rant before he really got started.


    “No one understands us,” I said quickly. “Rose and I do not hate the men who used to own us. We fell in love with them and they freed us. The way they are being treated isn’t right!”


    No one stopped working, because there just wasn’t time to, but the men were fascinated by the conversation. They believed we had been tricked and told us as much. The evil hold that the vers had over us must be broken.


    The rest of the morning was the same conversation. Armant and his Brothers hated very and could not understand our fascination with our families. Armant’s family talked about the “training” our families had given us. It was designed to make us entirely dependent on our owners.


    “Do you feel safe here?” Armant asked, gesturing to the small, but well lit, cave we were in. “Do you think we may harm you?”


    I looked at Rose and she looked at me. We were both trying very hard to do what we had been told to do, but it was difficult. Rose was staring at the cloth in her hands and silent as a stone. I was literally forcing myself to interact.


    Armant was right. In the back of my mind I feared these men. I only felt safe with Damien and his Brothers.


    I tried to impart to Armant’s family that our families had changed. Neither Basin nor Damien wanted to own a ve anymore. They wanted a Sister that loved them.


    Armant’s family listened to my argument and seemed to relent slightly. It was good that Damien and Basin were acting better, but it didn’t excuse past crimes. Armant and his Brothers certainly believed Rose and I needed to be away from the men who trained us.


    Hannah and Ra arrived at the midday meal to say they and Kennedy had to go. Females were needed in a camp northwest of here that was suffering from racks. They wanted to be around for me, but this was just turning out to be a bad time. They were needed elsewhere and I would be quite safe here now.


    I worried about Nu-reeh catching my daughters. She had to know they were involved. It was clear to me she would not let them survive if she thought they were tied to the disappearing men.


    “Since freeing you, Mama,” Hannah told me, “Kennedy and I are on the Most Wanted posters all over the. We’re tied to the resistance now for good. nning the escape of three families earned me my first beads. You don’t have to worry when we go ces, we only travel to other rebel camps.”


    I saw several bright beads sparkle in her fur and smiled wanly. It didn’t really make me feel better, but neither girl noticed as they kissed me goodbye before taking off.


    After lunch Rose and I went to the main transport storage area. Arik and his Brothers were waiting for us there. They took us outside in the daylight and it was as beautiful as it had been the day before.


    Sun shone down on the forest and small animals skittered in the branches of the tall trees. Again that smell of jasmine was wafted on the breeze. I imagined that Damien and his Brothers had enjoyeding out here and hunting. It was probably really fun and I wished I could have joined them.


    Not that they would have taken me, even if we were together, a tiny voice whispered in the back of my mind.


    Damien and his Brothers would never let me hunt with them here. There were too many unknowns and they thought I was too weak. I would be sequestered in their quarters, hidden away from danger.


    Arik and his Brothers blithely pointed out trees and nts to us. Many things out here had a use: food, clothing, healing. If it could be harvested for something, the men did it.


    The boundary of the defense system was pointed out by Arik’s Brother Calen. He mentioned it right as we sailed past it.


    “Racks are the biggest danger here,” Calen said arming one of the transport’s cannons and swinging it back and forth. “They don’t usually attack this close to the camp, because the women are always around.”


    I didn’t feel all thatforted surrounded by these fivenky guys. With Damien and his Brothers I would feel absolutely at ease. I felt like Damien and his Brothers could protect me from anything.


    I shook my head at my own logic. My men could easily protect me against threats they engineered themselves. When it came to real threats, they were no better than these guys, for all I knew.


    It felt as though I suddenly had two warring parties in my head. For the first time ever, I doubted Damien and his Brothers. They were stronger than me, but they were as naive as I was in this new ce. They wouldn’t know the dangers or the defenses any better than me. Arik and his Brothers, for their seeming physical weakness, knew exactly how to protect themselves. Odds are, left out here alone, Arik’s family would probably fare much better, as opposed to the men I trusted so wholeheartedly. It made me feel unnerved and insecure.


    There was a huge pile of vines ahead of us and I yelped when the transport lowered through them. It was another illusion. Beneath the false visual floor was a massive field with many men already working. They talked to one another as they worked.