#CHAPTER 22 If Only

Even if I could endure the torment, it was impossible to stay here any longer. We had been out for too long, and once the sunlight moved through the trees to beam through the high branches at an angle, the reality of the passage of time returned to us. We needed to go. I wanted to comfort him as we parted, even though the rational half of my mind coldly informed me there was no room for comfort here. He had made his choice. He would continue to search for his mate so he could pursue his vengeance, and I... wasn't a part of that anymore, if I ever had been. He believed I had saved him here in this very forest all that time ago, but there was no room for me in the future at his side. Everything was for the sake of his vengeance. All that hatred, pain, darkness, all those terrible wounds in his heart and mind would never be soothed if he abandoned this path. Or so he had made it seem. If only I were your mate, I had whispered to him, but I wasn't. Eventually, he would find