Page 71 of Bear Naked Truth
“You don’t belong in her, Hollis. She is not your vessel. She is not your ghost.”
He leaned forward, forehead pressed to hers. “I love you,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Autumn, Ilove you.You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
Crack.
Like lightning splitting through ice, a sound split the air.
The sigils flared. A scream rose from the walls—one voice, layered with centuries of sorrow—and wasrippedaway, pulled upward in a gust of wind that blew the doors open and slammed every window shut at once.
Autumn gasped, chest seizing, then collapsed into him, panting.
The moonstone at her neck glowed a soft, pulsing blue.
Still. And whole.
The shadows were gone.
Truly.
No lingering presence. No crawling cold.
Just the room, battered and quiet, and the scent of ash and old roses.
Autumn trembled in his arms, her voice barely audible.
“Is it… over?”
He nodded slowly, pressing a kiss to her hair.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “He’s gone.”
She looked up at him, eyes rimmed red but clear.
“I heard him,” she whispered. “Right before he left. He said… ‘thank you.’”
Dorian closed his eyes.
“I think he meant it.”
They stayed there, knelt in the ruins of the parlor, breath syncing, hands clasped.
Love had survived.
Grief had finally let go.
And Briar Hollow?
It was quiet for the first time in centuries.
37
AUTUMN
The house was still.
Not silent, exactly, but the kind of stillness that followed something sacred. Somethingsurvived.
The storm inside her had finally passed.
