Chapter 6
Hunger gnawed at my belly and the inside of my skull alike.
Ever since the curse, hunger of one kind or another had been my constant companion—call it the curse of being both man and beast, never sated, always scraping inside for something lost, something just half-remembered: a father’s voice, a girl’s touch, a kingdom’s throne.
But now my hunger was sharpened by fear.
Not fear for myself, I’d survived blizzards, trolls, even my own reflection.
No, I was haunted by a darker thing: the dread that I’d bring ruin to the only two girls who had ever looked me in the eye and chosen mercy over malice.
This time, it was the hunger to end Grimbalt once and for all.
Three times now I’d limped out before dawn, my thoughts boiling with revenge, and searched for the tracks and tang of that wretched dwarf.
I stalked him because the alternative was to wait—wait for him to find our cottage, wait for him to slip through the door the way cruelty always did.
He hated me with a precision I’d come to admire, in a grim way.
For years, the forest was wide enough for predator and prey, but now the air smelled of endings.
Every branch I snapped sounded like a warning.
I trailed Grimbalt’s tracks for miles, over rime and slush, through a corridor of pines so dense it seemed like a dream pressed between pages.
Sometimes I found the splintery marks of his axe in saplings, the greasy smears of his fingers in the snow.
Always, I lost him in the bogs, where the earth sucked footprints down and the mist clogged every sense.
I kept going anyway, even though the pain in my body had begun to fade, the restlessness had not.
I knew if I ever stopped moving, he’d be one step closer to them.
I kept thinking of Rose. The way she laughed when I looked ridiculous, the way her hands had not shaken, even when dabbing blood from my wounds.
I thought of her careful, secret glances, as if she let herself wonder just for a moment what I was, what I could be.
Fool, Derrick, I’d say to myself, her world is her mother, her hearth, and her sister.
Nothing else. But memory gnaws louder than hunger when the only thing it has left is hope.
Sometimes, the beast in me whispered that I should just go. Leave them to their lives, vanish into the wild, risk nothing. It was so tempting. But the man in me rebelled. There are debts in this world, and love is always one you pay with everything you have, every time.
One morning, the first real sunlight in months cut through the trees like a sword and caught me unaware.
Warmth split the air, dripped through the boughs, turned the snow at my feet slushy and alive with scents.
I had been a bear for so long I’d nearly forgotten myself, even the feel of my own skin.
I had become so comfortable living in the shadows as Magnus that when the burning hit, it was a complete surprise.
Like every time before, it was worse than any fever I’d ever suffered, and because it had been so long since I’d stood in full sunlight, I had almost forgotten the sun's power to turn me back to a man.
It radiated out from my spine, turning every nerve into copper wire, undoing the architecture of Magnus strand by strand.
My claws shrank, my jaw unhinged, fur sloughed from me in clumps.
The world reeled. My body folded in on itself, joints popped, bones reshaped beneath my skin.
Every change was a miniature death. By the time it ended, I was curled naked and shivering.
The first breath as Derrick was always raw and clean, as if swallowing a mouthful of lightning.
The forest—my home for so long—felt suddenly unfamiliar.
The wind cut harder. Every sound was bright and sharp, unbuffered.
My hands—my fingers—looked like broken twigs, covered in old scars and new bruises.
I staggered upright and found a stream, where I washed off what I could.
My body shone canvas-pale, streaked with mud and blood and the long, red memory of battles lost. I dipped my face into the water, watched the ripples fracture my reflection into a mosaic of regrets.
I tried to imagine what Rose would see if she found me like this.
Would she see the prince, or just a shattered man with mud in his teeth and sorrow coiled up inside every joint?
I was still crouched there, hands braced on the banks, when a twig snapped. Not bear-silent, not even wolf-cautious. Just a sharp step, and then a voice, hard as a thrown stone.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Rose Red.
My heart stuttered. I tried to clamber to my feet, slipped, and dropped to one knee in the shallows.
Cold water soaked me to the bone, but it wasn’t the river that froze me; it was her.
She stood on the bank, bow drawn, arrow trained directly at my heart.
Such a formidable sight, so beautiful it nearly blinded me.
“Why are you naked in my woods?” she demanded.
Of course. Of course she’d catch me like this. Not in fur, not with claws, not with any of the strength I’d hidden behind. Not even my dignity. Just skin and bone and shame, laid bare. I almost laughed from the bitter irony.
I opened my mouth. Words scraped my throat like rust. The only sound I managed was her name. “Rose.”
Her grip trembled, but not her eyes. Those stayed locked on me, fierce as ever. “How do you know my name?” Her gaze flicked down, then up again, cheeks flaming redder than her hair. “If you’re some kind of… pervert, I warn you—my aim is true.”
I almost choked on the words. “I—I know. It’s me.”
“Me who?”
Not like this, I thought. Not half-drowned and shivering, not empty-handed and ashamed. But there was no hiding. “Me, your… bear.”
Her disbelief was a blade. It cut across her face in sharp, deep lines. “No. You can’t be. Bear is—he’s…” She looked me over once, twice, her lip curled in confusion. “You’re not him.” And again, because she was Rose, stubborn to the marrow, “You’re not him.”
She drew the bow tighter, her shoulders squared. “Don’t move. Don’t lie, either. Are you a shapeshifter? A sorcerer?”
I shook my head, water still dripping from my hair and body. “Not a good one,” I rasped.
A sound burst from her then—half laugh, half snort—quick and unwilling, but there. It tore at me in the best way. I had come to love her laughter, crave it. Just like I had been craving for her to see me for what I was. A man. Not a beast.
For a moment, we just stared. Both trembling. Me with need; her with something I couldn’t name.
“My name is Derrick,” I said finally, proud that my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “I’m your bear.”
The forest hushed around us; the only sound came from the water, as it was rushing too fast to freeze. Slowly, so slowly, she lowered the bow.
“Derrick,” she repeated, as if tasting the name, rolling it on her tongue until it fit. “You’re… my bear?”
I let everything show, every raw edge, every hidden ache. Let her see me. Truly see me.
She stepped closer. The bow slipped from her hands. Ice-blue eyes caught mine, searing and steady. No fear. Only hunger. Recognition.
Then she was kneeling at the stream’s edge, reaching out, her hand hovered before she dared to touch. Tentative at first, then firmer. Her fingers slid against my cheek. Her palm was hot where I was frozen, and I leaned into it like a starving man.
Her breath broke. “It’s really you.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Her eyes darted over me again, caught on the obvious. “You’re naked.” Accusing.
I grinned helplessly. “Not… by choice.”
Her laugh rang bright and startled, the kind that stripped years of grief. In that instant, I thought: if the world ended now, I’d die happy.
She shrugged off her cloak and flung it around my shoulders, awkward but fiercely protective, her fingers lingered at the nape of my neck.
My whole body shuddered under her touch.
I wanted to protest; she needed the cape more than I did.
The cold bit her worse than it ever could my half-healed body, but the words tangled in my throat.
Because she was so close. Because her breath ghosted against my cheek, and I knew if I spoke, I’d tell her everything I wasn’t ready to say, that I had thought of her every hour I’d spent trapped in fur, that I’d dreamed of this touch long before I earned it, that the cloak wasn’t the gift—it was her.
Instead, I swallowed the ache and held still, letting her warmth settle around me like a claim I’d never deserve.
“They say the woods are full of monsters,” she murmured, close enough I felt the words on my lips. “But they never warned us of bears who could turn into men.”
“I’m still myself,” I said, steady now, steady for her. “If you’ll have me.”
Her brow touched mine. Her breath warmed my mouth. “I want you as you are.”
After a moment, her hand tightened around mine. “What happened to you?” she whispered. “How did you become… this?”
I dragged in a breath of river-air into my chest. “A wizard,” I rasped.
“Alarion the Wise, they called him. Though wise is not the word I’d use.
” My voice cracked, and I forced it to steady.
“He came to my father’s house. Said my father stole his wife.
It wasn’t true; my father was only protecting her. From a man far worse. A Bluebeard.”
Her brow furrowed, and her thumb brushed my jaw. “Bluebeard,” she echoed, like tasting a poison.
“The wizard didn’t listen. His rage was already set. The curse took hold before I could stop it. I… turned. Into the beast you know. And my father, our household—everyone—” My throat closed. I swallowed hard, forcing it out. “They turned to stone.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t flinch away. She stayed close, so close I could count the snowflakes melting on her lashes. “Stone,” she whispered. “Gods above.”