Page 53 of Bear Naked Truth
Autumn’s chest ached. She bowed her head slightly. “Yes,” she said. “And he betrayed it.”
The air thickened around her. Not like a threat, but like grief crowding in too close.
“He said I would be safe here. That no one would know. That love could survive a lie.”
Images tumbled into her mind unbidden—two men building a life in secret. Stone by stone, this very house. One full of charm and charmers, laughter tucked into the corners, hope laid into the foundation. Hollis Blackthorne and Theodore Hawthorne. Soul-bound. Hidden. Lovers before the world was ready.
Until it wasn’t enough.
UntilEvelyn.
Autumn had read it between the lines—Theodore’s decision to marry the governor’s daughter, Evelyn Vane, the one with the dowry and the family name. A union meant to protect the Hawthorne bloodline. To cement his position. But also, maybe, to bury a truth he couldn’t live with out loud.
He tried to keep both.
And lost everything.
Hollis hadn’t just died. He’d been sacrificed. Not in body, but in bond.
The spell that burned in the soil around her had been meant to untether fate. To sever what had been divinely stitched. Theodore had stood in this clearing with another man’s heart in his hands and whispered a lie into the roots of the inn.
He'd sworn he could love two people.
But only one had been condemned to silence.
Autumn trembled.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice cracking open like the pages of a too-old book.
“Truth.”
Just one word. But it echoed through her like judgment.
She lowered herself to the earth, knees brushing the cold moss at the circle’s center. The ground felt oddly warm beneath her palms. Her fingers curled around the flask of tea Dorian had packed her that morning—still full, untouched. The steam had long since faded, but the weight of it reminded her of comfort. Of something waiting.
“What kind of truth?” she whispered.
The wind curled close, brushing her jaw.
“The kind that cannot hide. The kind that must be spoken aloud.”
She stiffened.
“You mean…” Her throat closed. “You want me to say it.”
“You love him. But you have not told him. You are trying to rewrite my story.”
Her stomach turned. Tears pricked at the edges of her vision.
“I’m not you,” she said, fiercer than before. “And Dorian is not Theodore.”
The trees around her swayed, branches shivering with something colder than wind.
“Then prove it.”
Autumn stared at the earth, at the forgotten bones of someone else’s heartbreak trying to bury itself in her future.
“Severing the tie,” she whispered, the words heavy, “means surrendering mine.”
