Page 28 of Bear Naked Truth
She didn’t smile. Instead, she reached for the journal, her fingertips barely brushing the edge.
“Don’t,” he warned.
She nodded. “Not without preparation.”
Her lips parted, breath catching. “That’s not just magic. That’s bound memory. Someone didn’t want this read.”
“Someone like Alaric?”
“Someone like Hollis,” she whispered. Her voice was suddenly distant, haunted.
He swallowed hard. “You knew.”
“I heard you yell,” she said, but her eyes told another story. “The house… it pulled me.”
Dorian studied her.
Her hair was still mussed from earlier, her cheeks flushed from running up the stairs, but her focus never wavered. She was already halfway inside the mystery, even while she stood grounded in the present.
They sat in silence for a long beat, the attic swallowing sound like a secret.
Then Dorian said, “He was hiding something. My uncle.”
“I think they all were,” she whispered. “Evelyn, Alaric… maybe even the Hollow Man.”
He turned his hand slowly, testing the movement. The skin was tight, but healing already. His shifter body always recovered fast—but this? This hadscarwritten all over it.
“He knew about the ritual,” Dorian said. “Knew how dangerous it was.”
“And he did it anyway.”
“For love?” Dorian’s voice twisted. “Or power?”
Autumn finally looked up at him.
Her eyes weren’t frightened. Not anymore. Just sharp. Knowing.
“I don’t think they’re separate, for some people,” she said. “And that’s what makes it dangerous.”
He swallowed.
The journal sat open between them, unreadable but humming with leftover magic.
“I’m tied to this, Autumn,” he said quietly. “My blood, my name. I can feel it in my chest.”
She nodded. “I know.”
When she glanced up and caught him staring, she frowned. “You’re not gonna pass out, are you?”
“No. Just…” He let the rest hang in the air.
Just falling a little more every minute.
15
AUTUMN
Autumn needed out of the house.
