Chapter 4
There is nothing more humiliating than convalescence. Except, perhaps, convalescence in the body of a beast, with one’s dignity shackled by a splinted paw and the relentless gaze of a girl who refused to blink.
I should have been Magnus, terror of the pines, prince of claw and fang.
Instead, I lay stretched across the hearth rug like some great overgrown hound, my bandages blooming pale and useless against my fur.
The snow outside hissed at the windows, reminding me of all I was not: untamed, free, unbroken.
“Hold still,” Rose ordered, dabbing my wound with a cloth that stung more than any hunter’s arrow. Her hair was a wild halo, her hands arrow-straight. “If you’d stop thrashing, this would hurt less.”
I bared my teeth in what I thought was a fearsome snarl. She only arched a brow. “Yes, Bear? Going to bite me? Or just sulk like last night when I wouldn’t let you have the rabbit stew?”
Derrick—the man inside me, chained somewhere beneath all this muscle and fur—groaned. She’s mocking us.
Shut up, Magnus growled back. I’ll mock her when she’s not holding a knife near our paw.
She’s winning, Derrick murmured, maddeningly amused. Look—she doesn’t even flinch. She never did, not even when she first saw me.
Every time her fingers brushed my fur, heat followed, sinking deeper than the wound itself. It wasn’t only the fire warming me; it was her. The sting of the salve burned, but the glide of her hand made my muscles slacken, and traitorously greedy for more.
Magnus rumbled, low and hungry. She smells like the woods after rain. Let her come closer.
Derrick’s laugh stirred in the back of my mind, soft and dangerous. Careful. If she leans any nearer, I might forget we’re supposed to be beasts.
I closed my eyes, hating and craving the way her presence set me alight. For the first time in years, I feared not hunters, not curses, only the girl whose touch stripped away the monster and called the man to the surface.
Rose's sister, who I learned was her twin, Snow, was another matter. She hovered at a distance, fingers forever dancing on her sewing needle, her pale, unsettling eyes darting back and forward like a doe’s.
At first, she wouldn’t come near me. But each day, her steps closed more of the gap, her silence became more courageous.
The night she crept close enough to brush my pelt, I nearly startled to my feet.
“You’re softer than I expected,” she’d whispered, then turned scarlet.
Rose giggled. “Told you.”
That became our rhythm. Rose pushed, Snow watched, and Magnus and I fought our battles not in the forest but in this cramped cottage, where every glance and every touch stripped me of my distance.
Once my paw was a little better, Rose sparred with me daily.
“Up, Bear,” she’d command, tossing a stick across the yard, and I would lumber after it with a snort to amuse her.
Just to hear her laugh. Even though it didn't snow, clouds still hung low and thick in the winter sky, and I worried she would get too cold, but then she'd call, “Faster!” and clap when I obeyed, laugh when I didn’t, the sound of it making me forget what I had worried about.
When she dared to try wrestling me—me, Magnus, with paws the size of her head—I let her push me back a step, then two, feigning defeat while Derrick inside roared with laughter.
You’re letting her win.
Better than breaking her ribs, Magnus retorted.
Admit it—you like it.
Shut. Up.
But I did like it. I liked the way her laughter vibrated against me when she fell into my side, the heat of her body seeping through my fur as she shoved with all her strength.
I liked the way her hair brushed my muzzle when she leaned too close, how her breath tickled my ear when she whispered her mock commands.
Every tumble left her tangled over me, flushed and breathless, and gods help me, I craved every second of it.
Snow always watched from a distance, most often from the porch, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes narrowed with a suspicion that slowly softened by degrees.
Then one day Rose muttered, “You have man eyes,” making me freeze mid-gnaw on a chicken bone.
Her words rang through both parts of me. Magnus bristled. Derrick shivered, fully awake. For one long moment, the bear receded, and the man inside surged forward like a tide pressing against the bars of his cage.
She sees us, Derrick whispered.
Not yet, Magnus snarled. It's not safe.
But Rose's gaze didn’t falter.
As if she had heard her sister, the next day, Snow inched closer. Close enough to lay a strand of red yarn across my paw and say, almost kindly, “You can’t help being what you are, can you?”
Not daring to move, because I didn't want to frighten the fragile truth between Snow and me, I allowed her to wrap the yarn around my paw. Holding still, I watched her slowly unspool it until it became a red ball.
It was Rose, though, who stormed every single one of my defenses. She wrapped me in her chatter and laughter and smuggled me into her nightly games of naming.
“Gregor? Too plain. Beowulf? Too wolfy. King Arthur?” she teased, scratching behind my ears until my back arched despite myself. “Oh, come on—you like that one.”
I grumbled. She grinned.
She’s naming us, Derrick whispered, the echo of a smile in his voice.
She’s taming us, Magnus admitted grudgingly.
Every mock battle, every story told by firelight, every time her cheek pressed into my shoulder as she drifted into a light slumber, she chipped away at the beast. And in those moments, when her warmth bled through fur to bone, Derrick pressed closer, clawing his way back into the light.
It was a strange war I fought—Magnus yielded ground inch by inch, while Derrick rose stronger each day. And me, trapped between them, half longing for claws, half yearning for hands.
The girls laughed, Mother sharpened her knives, and somewhere beneath it all, a long-dormant heart began to stir as a man began to remember what it meant to live.
One morning, I woke to the sound of Snow singing, sharp and bright like a bird. My wound had knit itself into something tolerable, no longer the raw torment it had been. I stretched the paw experimentally. The bear was content, but the man felt restless.
I didn't see Rose, so I lumbered through the kitchen, sending Snow’s bowl of flour crashing to the floor. She clutched her chest like I’d stolen her heart clear from her ribs. “You’ll kill me before the wolves do,” she snapped, cheeks turned scarlet from the sudden fright.
Rose was already outside, testing her bow.
A rare ray of winter light broke through the cloud cover and caught her hair, and it shone like wildfire.
She didn’t even flinch at my approach. She tossed me a grin over her shoulder, wicked and fearless.
“You’re coming?” she asked. As if she’d known I would.
I rumbled, and Derrick whispered from deep inside me: Say yes. Gods, just say it.
She led me into the trees; every one of her steps was silent, sure. The forest itself bent toward her like a congregation. The woods in late winter were a cathedral of silence and bones; the snow thinned to reveal old secrets: boot prints, hare trails, and the black scat of wolves.
At some point, Rose signed once, two fingers to her lips, and crept forward.
We moved as one. My senses were sharpened and honed, slicing through the cold.
Birds huddled in their hollows, and the world held its breath as if sensing the two hunters.
Rose’s hands were sure as she checked her traps and set new snares—gods, she was clever, this girl—she inspected everything with the caution of a soldier, never careless, never slow.
Her grace, the way she just fit into these woods like a wild creature, made Derrick stir inside me.
The man was becoming more and more aware of himself, beginning to fight against the beast that trapped his form.
She intrigued him as much as she did Magnus, and with that, we were starting to become one.
A sudden tickle in my nose made me sneeze. Rose spun, bow at the ready, glaring as if I’d just scared off her prey. Her voice came sharp as flint.
“Hush, Bear! You’ll have us starving.”
I wanted to laugh—it was absurd, me, terrifying half the forest—and yet Magnus bristled in me, playing the predator for her benefit. She only smirked, reached back, and scratched the top of my head like I was some oversized hound. And to both our astonishments, we liked it.
We walked for another hour, following the meager light that was braving a path through low clouds and gnarled branches. The day was heavy as a secret—clouds were pressing low, the promise of spring hung barely touchable in the air.
Then, out of nowhere, my senses prickled, a warning came carried by the wind: fur, wet and wild, and not my own.
Rose sensed it, too. She stilled, keeping her bow ready, her eyes narrowed as her head moved from side to side.
Her competence stirred something dangerous in me—human emotions, a mix of pride, longing, and awe.
The foul scent pricked my nose again, making me focus. Wolves—the epitome of hunger on four legs. I eased forward, forcing myself between Rose and the shadows. She ignored the warning, the madwoman, and drew her bow.
Tell her to run, Derrick hissed.
She won’t, Magnus replied, grim. She’s too bold.
Then make her, Derrick snarled. She’ll get herself killed.
And yet… Magnus rumbled, admiration slipping in. Look at her hands. Steady as any soldier.
The brush erupted. Wolves poured out, their teeth flashing. Without losing a second, Rose loosed her arrow like a queen casting judgment, and for one glorious second, I forgot to breathe.
Then they were on us.
The bear took me. Magnus surged forward, an avalanche of fur and fury. One wolf met my jaws mid-leap and screamed as I drove it into the snow. Pain shot up my injured leg as another sank in its teeth, but I spun and crushed him beneath my paw. Blood sprayed warm across the drifts.
Rose’s arrow sang past my ear, thunking into another wolf’s hide. She drew again, too brave, too damn magnificent.
Fool girl! Magnus snarled.
Glorious, Derrick whispered, half-mad with pride. Gods, I love her.
The pack broke. I tore into their leader until the forest, untouched by the brutal act that had just taken place, fell silent.
And then, Rose laughed. Wild, unbroken, beautiful. She dropped to her knees in the slush, her cheeks flushed, her eyes blazing. “You’re bloody glorious!” she shouted. “Did you see their faces?”
I should have been offended. I should have counseled her on reckless behavior. Instead, something inside me cracked. I pressed my head to her chest, desperate to confirm she was whole. Her arms came around me instantly, without fear, without hesitation.
She’s holding us, Derrick groaned, every part of him yearning for more. Let me out. Let me hold her back. Please.
Magnus bristled. She belongs with neither beast nor man. Don’t forget what we are.
I can’t not want her.
Her heartbeat thundered against my ear, fast as my own, and I let myself sink into the heat of her, the scent of her, smoke and snow and something softer I had no name for. My fur drank in her warmth, but my mind betrayed me: I felt hands instead of paws, flesh instead of hide.
She kissed my brow, reckless as ever. Fire streaked through me, fur giving way in my mind’s eye to flesh, to hands that remembered the shape of her waist, her face. For one unbearable instant, I was Derrick again, standing in the ruin of wolves, aching to crush her to me and to never let go.
She whispered against my ear, “My hero.”
It destroyed me.
By the time we limped back to the cabin, my body was whole enough, but my heart was wrecked. Snow’s wide eyes darted between us, searching for wounds, but Rose only laughed, tossing her mane and the furs she scavenged from the dead wolves. “He saved me. And I saved him.”
She poked my shoulder like I was a dog who’d done a neat trick. “You’re a good bear.”
I closed my eyes, but Derrick inside me whispered what the bear could not: I would give anything to be a man again.