Chapter 15
Spring came early that year.
The snow melted into the soil, and with it, the last traces of blood were washed away. Grass peeked through the earth like hope finally rooting itself. The forest began to sing again—birds, rustling leaves, life. Real life.
And just as nature started over, so did we.
We worked from sunrise to dusk. What was once just a safe camp slowly transformed into a real village. New cabins rose from the earth, shaped by the very hands that once trembled behind bars. Wolves who had once been starved and silenced now built homes, planted crops, laughed without fear.
I became something I never thought I’d be again—a leader. Not because I wanted power, but because they trusted me. They came to me when their nightmares returned. When the grief felt too heavy. When the silence of freedom was too loud to bear.
And I helped. Because I knew.
He was never far from me. Each day, we walked the boundary together, making sure no one could sneak in. He trained the young wolves, the ones just coming into their power. He taught them to shift without fear, to use their strength without cruelty.
One afternoon, we stood on the hill overlooking our new home.
Children were chasing each other between the trees. A garden was taking root by the edge of the cabins. Smoke drifted up from chimneys. Laughter floated through the air.
It was nothing like the world we came from.
“You did this,” I told him, my voice soft.
He shook his head. “We did.”
I looked at him, sunlight catching in his eyes. There was peace in him now—stillness where rage used to live. He wasn’t just the warrior who returned to save me. He was the man I once loved. The man I had waited for, even when I wasn’t sure he’d return.
“I think I’m falling for you all over again,” I whispered.
He turned, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Then I better make it official.”
I blinked. “What?”
He dropped to one knee.
I gasped.
From his coat, he pulled a thin band of braided silver—a simple ring, shaped like a promise.
“I left because I wasn’t enough,” he said. “I came back because I finally became the man who deserves to stand beside you. Not just as your protector. Not as your mate. But as your partner. Will you build this future with me—not as survivors, but as equals?”
My heart swelled so full I thought it might burst.
Tears blurred my vision as I nodded, then laughed through the tears. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”
He slipped the ring on my finger, his hands shaking slightly.
I pulled him up and into a kiss—one not born of desperation or pain, but of something pure. Of beginning.
When we pulled apart, the village below was clapping, cheering. Someone must’ve seen. It didn’t matter.
For once, the world was watching us for the right reasons.
That night, the stars above seemed closer, brighter. And as I curled into him beneath the blankets, his arms wrapped around me, I finally let go of the last piece of the girl who once wore chains.
Because she had found her ending.
And it was only the beginning.