more, until the falling temperature rouses me into wakefulness.
In the thin morning light, I add logs to the stove as quietly as I can and tear a worn-out sheet into large squares. The woman opens her eyes as I’m folding them into a neat pile.
“For the baby,” I explain.
My whisper wakes the child, and even before his eyes open, he starts to cry. The sound shoots into my brain and straight down to my heart. The woman sitting on my bed looks tired and rumpled and suddenly so much like Ethelle did after a long night, and without thinking, I reach for the baby and lift him out of her arms.
“No!”
I freeze, looking down into the woman’s shocked face. The baby squirms against me, strong and warm. Slowly, I lay the child down beside her, and pass her a cloth and step back.
The baby’s bright blue eyes are staring at my unfamiliar face. He reminds me of my own sons and daughters. I remember them all as clear as morning, though more than ninety years has passed. My wife died fifty years ago; my last child died nearly fifteen years ago. The pain of all that loss makes me wonder why I took a human wife in the first place. The loneliness has lay upon me like a curse ever since. Female bear shifters are so rare that I’ve never even seen one. I thought perhaps one of my daughters might be a skinbearer, and a mate for some other lonely bear, but they were all mortal like their mother.
As the woman changes the baby, he grabs his feet and gurgles, still gazing at me. The woman smiles and strokes her finger down his nose. The pain and longing in my heart doubles.
“What’s his name?” I ask huskily.
“Finley. He’s five months old.”
“And your name?”
She hesitates, moistening her lips. Pretty lips, pink and full, and with an intelligence to them, as if she never speaks a word she’s not thought carefully about. “Carys.”
She whispers it like cold wind through the trees. Her small hands tuck a fold of fabric around the baby’s middle. Too tender to be cast out and hated. Too young to have done anything to be hated for. So precious, and she was cast out like trash.
“Did the father not want you?” I growl, hot jealousy and anger burning in my chest. If I had a mate I could grow old with, I’d tear the world apart rather than let her out of my sight.
Carys’ eyes fill with confusion. “I think the wolves got him.”
Those cursed wolves. If I see them again, I’ll break all their necks and skin their hides from their backs.
Carys picks up a damp cloth and dabs at her forehead, which has bled again in the night. The scent of her blood twines through my senses. Suddenly, without warning, the bear within me roars. Her.
He wants her.
I grasp the windowsill. No, you fool. She’s just another human.
I snarl and curse under my breath as the bear roars again. I need to get out of here before she sees the beast in my face.
I pull my cloak on and head out into the snow. My chest feels tight, and I walk hard until the tightness becomes an ache so strong that I can barely breathe. With a howl of anguish, I throw off my cloak and turn my face to the sky. The bear swells within me. Bones pop. Muscles bulge. Fur ripples down my chest and arms. I howl again, and the howl becomes a roar as I fall onto all fours.
The scents of the forest invade my nose. I smell the wolf pack and their lingering residue of dirty fur and piss. Foul little scavengers on my mountain. I run through the snow in a large circle around the cabin, far enough away that the woman won’t see me among the trees, but I can sense her. I can smell her, too. Sweet and delicate like summer fruit, and something else. Something I have to deny myself, because I won’t go through all that pain again, even for a moment of sweetness.
She stays that night, and then the next. Her head aches and she’s weakened from cold and fear. It’s torture to keep catching her scent and seeing her body as she tenderly holds the baby. I imagine crushing her lips to mine and taking her into my bed. I stare at my huge, rough hands, remembering how she felt in my arms.