A new day and a new way

The forest passed above me in broken glimpses, familiar branches slipping between the grey sky and the dark fringe of my hair as Scar’s sled carried me from the only home I had ever known. I had fought him with every ounce of strength I possessed, raging and resisting until there was nothing left to give, yet none of it had changed the course of his will. Now there was only the creaking of wood, the whisper of the passing forest, and the dreadful knowledge that the man I loved was the one carrying me away from it.

The brand burned upon my flesh, a deep ache reaching far beyond the wounded skin of my ass. He had placed his mark upon me as he might mark a possession, something claimed, something that belonged to him, and I had been given no choice. I had always believed there were things no man could take from me. My freedom was one of them. Carried from my forest, I was no longer certain of anything.

How could I love a man who had done this to me?

The question haunted me more cruelly than the ropes, for I could not fight it or drive it away with a blade. I could hate what he had done—the force of his will, the certainty with which he had decided my choices were over, the ease with which he had made my body submit when my spirit would not. Yet when I searched myself for hatred of the man, I found instead all that had drawn me to him: his quiet patience, his strength, the warmth of our home, and the moments when he had taught me without demanding I become anyone but myself. Those memories remained untouched by the violence that followed them.

I wished I could tear them from my mind and see only a stranger, some brutal man who believed a collar and a brand could settle the matter of my heart. It would have been easier to hate a stranger. But Scar was not one. I knew his footsteps, the quiet of his presence beside a fire, the steadiness of his hands. I knew the man who had made room for me beside him, and I could not understand how he had become the one who took my freedom away.

Shame crept over me, cold and unwelcome. I had been stripped of my weapons, my clothing, my home, and the right to decide my own course. My body bore his mark, my throat was encased in his steel and I was being carried through the forest as though I were another piece of his gear. I was Melete, daughter of the forest, Panther by choice and nature, a woman who had never bent her knee merely because a man commanded it. Yet here I lay, unable to rise, while the man I loved decided where I would go and what I would endure.

I turned my face toward the furs, unable to bear the thought of meeting his eyes. I did not want him to mistake my silence for acceptance or my exhaustion for obedience. Still, some wounded part of me wanted him to reach for me with the gentleness I remembered, to speak my name in that quiet voice that had once made me pause when every instinct urged me to run. After everything he had done, I still wanted comfort from the hands that had hurt me.

That was what I could not forgive in myself.

I had always known how to survive alone. I knew how to hunt, hide, and read danger in the smallest disturbance of the forest. I had lived without a man’s protection or permission, never allowing anyone to convince me that my life was theirs to direct. Yet I had allowed Scar close. I had made room for him where no other man had entered and begun to imagine a life beside him without losing myself. I had thought that was what we were learning to do. Now I wondered whether I had mistaken his patience for understanding and his love for something that would leave no room for me to choose.

The sled lurched over uneven ground, and I clenched my jaw. Beyond the trees lay the world he had chosen for me, a world of men, laws, expectations, and claims upon women. Behind me lay my forest and the home where I had believed I might share my life with him without surrendering the wildness that made me who I was. I did not know whether I would ever see it again, or whether there was any place left for the woman I had been within the life he had decided would be mine.

But I knew this much: I still loved him.

I hated that truth, hated that it survived where my certainty had faltered. Yet love was not surrender, and it was not forgiveness. Scar had decided that I would go with him, wear his collar, and live without the freedom I had once claimed. But only I could decide what I would feel, what I would believe, while HE could and would decide what the woman he had taken from the forest would become.

For now, I lay still and let the trees pass overhead, carrying my grief in silence. I would not offer him my tears that silently fell as a plea, nor pretend the hurt was less than it was. I had no weapon, no path of escape, and no answer for the ache in my chest. All I possessed was the life still beating inside me, and a love I did not yet know how to lay down.

The forest was falling behind us. My heart, damn it, had not yet learned how to follow.