Forgiveness is not a switch.
It's not something you just flip one morning because your heart tells you it's time.
If anything, it feels like dragging your soul across shattered glass—hoping that somehow, on the other side, the bleeding stops.
But my wolf didn't care about pain.
She wanted him.
She howled for him when I tried to sleep. She stood restless at the edge of my skin whenever I passed the southern ridge where he trained. She tugged at me each time his scent brushed the wind.
**He's still our mate.**
**He still loves us.**
But my human heart?
It remembered every cold stare.
Every lie of omission.
Every time I'd looked in his eyes and wondered if I was no longer enough.
I sat outside my cottage that night, wrapped in one of Elisa's old wool shawls, staring up at the moon. It wasn't full yet, but close. Its soft glow shimmered across the grass like it was trying to soothe me.
It didn't help much.
