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Because just like he said that night I ran away and left him—holding his knife, alone in the darkness—this bear whose hide I wear now, this bear was meant—

(—for me.)

The final puzzle-piece, gut-feeling intuition made explicit. Bears are predators, omnivores, opportunists, pure and simple; they don’t tend to think strategically, if they think at all. And in the wild, just like everywhere else, the only animals who lay traps for other animals . . . are humans.

Giving that kid the key, making him wait. Making me wait, and brood, and convince myself I wasn’t thinking about Karl at all—even though I rarely thought of anything but—for seven long years. Then sending it to me, and sending me up here, where the trail was strongest—where my memories would finally rise up, break their floodgates forever, knock me down and drag me under like a dark, sweet, dreadful tide—

(Bastard, you bastard, you)

—but that’s no good. Gotta stop that, right fucking now, before the final phase of Karl’s plan kicks into gear. Before he provokes me into battle.

(Fuckin’ “battle.”)

Yeah, that’d be about his style, that racist son of a racist bitch. I mean, what’s the definition of Valhalla—Viking heaven—if it isn’t getting to fight the same worthy opponent . . .

(and that’d be me)

. . . over and over, world without end, amen?

Which is why, to be frank, I’d be a hell of a lot more worried about these burns of mine if I couldn’t already feel them healing.

So I stand here trying to rip the shirt off, before my own inner Grizzly has a chance to really sink its hooks in me—but Goddamn it all, I just can’t. Feel it sealing fast, the claws clicking in and binding to my fingers. Feel my broken knuckle ache and blaze, a white-hot arthritis-flower just about to bloom, like it’s going to rain and never stop. Feel my mind getting bear-slow, bear-petty. Bear-

(angry)

Yeah. ’Cause my blood’s up, and I’m panting, and that bear—

(My bear?)

—if I didn’t suspect it was physically impossible, I’d say that bear was fuckin’ well smirking at me.

And: Ah, but Lee, that treacherous little inner voice whispers teasingly, soft as rot—if you really didn’t want to wear it, then you never should’ve put it on. You know what I’m sayin’?

I mean, if the shirt fits . . .

(Oh, fuck you, you fucker.)

Lowering my head, lips peeling back over teeth, all sharp and white—sharper, whiter. Feeling blood in my head, my face, my heart. Feeling my cock jump, bone-harden, and my pulse pound like a war-drum. And wondering, with what might be my very last—intelligible—thought: Is this how they felt, the berserkgangrs? When they chewed the edges of their shields flat and bloody, then tore off their mail to reveal the fur beneath? When they threw their swords aside and ran into the fray, like they were finally going home after a long, long journey in the upright, lying, divided world of men—biting, clawing, changing, gratefully—as they went?

History in motion, good Swedish stock. “A part of my heritage.”

(The very best part, to be exact.)

I feel my jaw seize up, shallowing—my words deform, as a groove carves itself down the center of my tongue. And snarl, with my last human breath:

“Well, fine. You want me back this bad, huh? C’mon on ahead, motherfucker. C’mon and—”

(—take me.)

Hidebound

. . . he howled fearfully:

Said he was a wolf: Only the difference

Was, a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside,

His on the inside: Bade them take their swords,