Rejected by my Mate, Chosen by his Enemy
She did it slow, and wobbling, and entirely on her own, out from under the pull of the blood and across the last stretch of sand, and she put her small hand in mine and pressed her wet face into my wrist, and she chose me.
A baby, given for the first time in her stolen little life a real choice between the one who owned her and the one who freed her, chose the one who freed her.
She chose freely.
And the whole thesis I had bled a war to prove, that a freely chosen bond is stronger than any leash, came true in my hands in the body of a crawling child.
The birth-blood link snapped.