Page 27 of Bear Naked Truth
He pulled a journal from the top of the stack. The leather was soft with age, dyed a deep wine red, its spine stitched together with red thread like a wound someone had tried to sew closed. The weight of it felt wrong in his hand. Heavy in a way that had nothing to do with paper.
He opened it.
The handwriting was elegant. Looped. Precise in a way that felt obsessive. But it wasn’t ink—not exactly. The words shimmered faintly, like oil-slick rainbows on wet pavement. Enchanted.
His bear stirred immediately, uneasy. Dorian squinted at the writing, trying to catch a rhythm. There were notes about ritual geometry, circle casting, emotional tethering. Someone had been documenting magical theory… and memory.
Then a name leapt off the page:Hollis.
Dorian froze.
He’d only heard that name once. Whispers at the Everglen Market. Hazel had said it absently, flicking petals off her sleeve like prophecy was casual.“Some griefs echo. Even Hollis didn’t linger this long.”
And now here it was. In his uncle’s journal.
He turned the page.
Pain exploded in his palm.
Like fire, but worse. Like cold lightning and betrayal at the same time. He gasped, the sound torn from his throat, and dropped the journal. It hit the attic floor with a thud that echoed like a gunshot, pages fanning out.
The entire room pulsed—floorboards flexing, air thickening, shadows flaring just at the edge of vision.
“Dammit,” he hissed as he dropped the journal, clutching his hand to his chest. His vision blurred, breath coming fast.
The house shifted. Heard him. Reacted. He heard footsteps racing up to him. Thudding up the stairs like thunder, like fury wrapped in wool and knit sweaters.
“Dorian!”
Autumn’s voice. Sharp, cracked with panic. No hesitation. Just his name, flung through the air like a rope to catch him.
She burst through the door, boots skidding slightly on the old boards, her eyes wide and already locked on him.
She bolted toward him, skidding on the wooden planks. “What happened?”
He tried to speak, but the pain crawled up his wrist now, tendrils of heat curling beneath the skin like branded roots.
“Let me see,” she said, kneeling beside him.
He opened his palm slowly.
The flesh across his hand was red and angry, already swelling. A burn. Not deep, but fierce—magical. Angry.Personal.
Autumn didn’t hesitate. She reached into the satchel slung over her shoulder—she always had it, always ready—and pulled out a small vial and a polished stone.
“This’ll sting,” she murmured.
“Already stings,” he rasped, voice hoarse.
She poured a few drops of oil onto her fingers and pressed them gently into his skin. Her touch was cool, sure. The pain dulled immediately—not gone, but quieted like a reprimanded child.
Her hands lingered a little too long.
Dorian breathed easier. “Thanks.”
“You touched something you shouldn’t have,” she said, still focused on his hand.
He watched her. “Story of my life lately.”
