Chapter 4
Holt
The firelight on her hair, lips parted in a question, eyes searching my face like she wasn’t sure whether to let me go or ask me to stay.
The image of her follows me down the steps, across the yard, and out into the night.
It took every scrap of my willpower to walk out, when all I wanted to do was take her into my arms and stay there forever.
The biting cold is a relief. I yank off my wet shirt and feel the snow turn to steam on my bare torso.
My beast is restless, pacing under my skin. It wants her close—wants her scent in my nostrils, her soft curves in my hands. It wants to drag her to my lair and claim her.
I clench my fists, breathe deeply.
Not happening.
She’s human. Too sweet, too breakable for a beast like me.
I picture her in the stable—hair slipping out from her hood, fingers fumbling with the latch. The way her face lit up when the ponies nudged her palm for sugar.
And the stupid urge I had to fix her hair, make her hood sit right.
The wind stings my face. The forest groans around me, alive and ancient, every sound a challenge to hold my shape.
Stay in control.
The last time I let myself feel like this, I ran. Left her behind.
I told myself it was for the best. Told myself to stay away from her if I wanted to keep her safe.
Turns out I’m not great at staying away.
The change pulls at me, deep and insistent.
I step away from the path, into the trees.
“Fine,” I breathe. “Have it your way.”
Bone and sinew crack and crunch. My skin burns as fur breaks through.
The shift tears through in one massive surge. The ground shakes, the world explodes into scent and sound.
The beast reclaims its shape at last, the roar bursting out of me before I can stop it.
Mine! it bellows.
Then I’m running.
Snow churns under my paws, the forest a blur of motion and white. Every breath is ice and heat at once.
I run harder, faster, until thought burns away and only instinct remains.
The ridge rises beneath me; my body eats the distance like it’s nothing. Trees stream past on either side, trunks dark, branches heavy with white. Every part of me is made for this—this speed, this cold, this clear, clean purpose.
When I’m like this, I don’t have to explain why I left her.
I don’t have to remember the way her mouth felt under mine.
I don’t have to think about how her hands shook when she tried to hide it.
I just run.
My cabin sits on the upper ridge, half tucked into the trees, roof blanketed in white. Smoke threads lazily from the chimney—the fire I banked earlier still holding on.
I slow as I approach. A couple of big strides turn into a heavy walk. The bear breathes hard, inhaling resin and ash and the familiar scent of home.
It doesn’t want to go inside. It wants to race back down the ridge, break down Lila’s door and claim her all night long.
Too bad.
I shoulder through the door, hinges groaning.
The fire in the stone hearth glows low and orange, throwing light across the room—the old couch, scarred table, boots dumped by the wall. My life, as bare and simple as I’ve wanted to keep it.
The change comes back over me as soon as I’m over the threshold. Bones pull inward; fur recedes; the room tilts up as my weight shifts off four limbs and onto two.
I’m standing naked on the worn rug, breath sawing in and out, steam curling faintly off my skin.
It should feel like home. It doesn’t.
The emptiness of the cabin presses around me. This place has always been sanctuary—a spot to hide out the worst of winter, and spare the world from what lives under my skin.
Tonight it just feels small.
I drag on sweats and a clean thermal. The fire throws enough glow to see by. I move to the window, bare feet thudding across old boards.
From here I can just make out the opposite ridge. The line of trees. The faint star of a porch light that wasn’t burning yesterday.
She’s over there.
Inside that light.
Five years of distance collapsed to a few snowy yards.
I rest my hand on the cold glass and let my forehead touch it for a second.
The bond never really went away. I’d managed to dull it, bury it under work and routine and emptiness.
But it was always there, roaring back the second she said my name.
Lila.
I close my eyes and the years slide backward.
Her in that diner uniform, laughing at some stupid joke of mine. Her sitting on the hood of my truck, kicking her heels against the metal, talking about getting out of this town like it was as easy as getting in the car and driving.
Her looking up at me that night on the old logging road, eyes vulnerable, lips pursed.
I’d meant to walk her home. That was all.
Then she slipped her small hand into mine, and every good intention burned away.
I drew her into a secret clearing among the fir trees. Her hair damp from the lake, moonlight on her skin. She was so young, barely eighteen, but there was nothing unsure in her eyes. She looked at me like she already knew what I was, and it didn’t scare her.
Her scent filled my nostrils—honey sweet and ripe. Calling to every instinct I had no business letting loose. I remember how close she stood, trembling, waiting for me to close the distance.
I did.
One heartbeat, and our mouths were touching. My hands cupped her face; she leaned into it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Then everything went wrong.
The beast started to emerge.
I can still feel it. The lurch inside my chest. The way the bear surged up too fast, too hard, pounding against my ribs like it wanted to tear through.
For a split second it didn’t matter that she was human, that she was young, that she was off limits to a beast like me.
All that mattered was how right she felt in my arms.
I pulled back because the alternative was changing right there, with my mouth still on hers.
But I remember the look on her face when I stepped away.
Shock.
Confusion.
Horror?
I ran like a coward, all the way into the trees, all the way into my other skin.
I stayed away after that, told myself I was doing the noble thing. She deserved better than a man who could barely hold himself together. Better than a beast who spends half his life battling with himself.
So, I stayed here. Worked. Helped my sisters out when they needed it. Fixed what needed fixing. Slept through the worst months and kept my distance.
And thought of her more often than I wanted to admit.
I exhale, breath fogging the glass. The bear stirs under my skin again, restless, unwilling to accept the version of the story where walking away was kindness.
It never saw it that way.
To the bear, she was simply mine.
I left. That’s all it remembers.
“Don’t start,” I say quietly.
It answers with a low, unhappy growl.
Out beyond the window, snow keeps falling. The world looks peaceful.
Nothing about tonight is.
Her scent is still hanging on in my head—honeysuckle, cocoa, the sharp, brittle edge of fear she tried to hide when she was out there calling the cat. It threads through my thoughts until everything else smells wrong.
My hands grip the sill.
I told myself for five years that if fate ever put her back in front of me, I’d do better. That I’d be stronger. That I could stand there and look at her like she was any other girl from this town and not the one my beast claimed the first time she smiled at me.
Then I saw her in the snow—all grown up, and as stubborn as ever—and the first thing in my head was not “keep her safe” or “stay away.”
It was one word, deep and honest:
Mine.
I hate that it’s still there.
I hate that it still feels true.
I step back from the window. The fire cracks softly behind me. A log sags, spits sparks, shifts its weight.
“She’s here,” I say into the empty room. Hearing it out loud doesn’t make it any easier to believe. “After all this time.”
The bear’s answer is simple, a deep thrum in my chest.
She never stopped being here—in me.
I sink down onto the couch, elbows on my knees, hands loosely clasped. My body is tired from the shift, from the run, from fighting myself in about six different directions.
Regret sits heavy in my gut. It always has, but tonight it’s got a new edge to it. Hope, maybe.
It would be easy to say I’ll win her back.
Easy to imagine walking up to that cabin tomorrow, looking her in the eye, and telling her everything I should’ve said years ago.
It’s harder to admit the truth.
She’s human.
I’m not, not in the ways that matter.
She doesn’t know what I am.
She doesn’t know why I left.
All she knows is that I broke something between us, clean in two.
I scrub my hands over my face.
“I don’t get to want this,” I tell the room.
My beast doesn’t care. Its fur prickles my skin.
Mine, it growls.
I grip the edge of the coffee table until the wood creaks. “Not happening,” I grind out.
The beast answers with a rumble of disagreement.
It remembers everything, of course—the way she’d trembled for me, trusted me, wanted me before I broke her heart.
It knows her virgin scent—how she’s remained untouched these five long years, almost like she was saving herself for me.
Snow lashes the window, the fire spits. I lean back and close my eyes, and let her fill my head—her warmth, her stubbornness, the soft sound of her laugh.
Wanting her never stopped.
It only went quiet for a while.
And tonight, with her scent still hanging in the air, I know one thing for sure:
I found her again. And this time, I’m not losing her.