Page 1 of Rose's Untamed Bear

She touched me, and the beast inside me opened its eyes and chose her.

ROSE: My life was simple. A cottage in the woods. Warm hearth. Quiet days spent with my mother and sister.

Then the bear came.

Huge, wounded, and wild. I should’ve been terrified, but I wasn’t. Because when he looked at me, I saw a man behind the beast. A soul trapped in fur and fury.

One day, when he changed before my eyes, into a warrior with blood on his hands and fire in his gaze, I knew the truth.

This wasn’t fate.

It was a curse.

And somehow, I’m the key to breaking it.

He says I'm HIS. The thought should have me trembling in fear. But what terrifies me more is how much I want him to be right.

DERRICK: Grimbald cursed me out of spite, forcing me to wear the skin of a beast for crimes I did not commit.

For years, I lived alone. Forgotten. Savage. Waiting for madness to take me.

Then she appeared.

A girl with fire in her hair and kindness in her voice.

Her touch calms the storm inside me. Her scent drives me to my knees.

I told myself I wouldn’t love again.

But Rose isn’t just anyone.

She was made for me, and now I will prove to her that she is MINE.

Even if I have to tear the gnome’s magic apart with my bare hands.

Coming this October: curvy heroines, alpha monsters, and fairy-tale chaos collide in a whirlwind of dirty declarations, magical matings, and heart-thumping happily ever afters. For readers who like their fairy tales filthy, heartfelt, and unforgettably fun.

PROLOGUE

Long ago, before the Fabled Woods grew thick with shadow, there lived a woman named Serilda, fair as moonlight on fresh snow. So radiant was she that even the King himself loved her and would have made her his queen.

But she was young, young and proud. She believed in love, not in a union of safety. The King was her senior twice over, with a son older than she, and though he offered her a crown, she declined him.

Instead, another came, a man clothed in velvet night, his words like spun gold. He called himself Alarion the Wise, a sorcerer whose hand bent fire and stone to his will. With promises of a world remade for her, he lured Serilda from the King’s side, and she followed him into a life of wonder.

She thought herself in love, and he seemed just as bewitched with her. He gave her jewels, fine gowns, and a mansion filled with endless rooms and marvels. He let her wander freely through its halls, forbidding her but one thing:never open the locked door at the end of the corridor.

With each passing day, Serilda’s curiosity grew. Why should she be denied? What secret was worth more than trust? At last, when Alarion left on a journey and the mansion lay silent, she thought herself safe. She took the forbidden key, pressed it into the lock, and opened the door.

What she found ended the dream forever.

Behind it lay a chamber bathed in red. Gowns stiff with blood, tokens of brides before her sacrificed to feed Alarion’s dark arts, hung on the walls like trophies. Ten, eleven, twenty before she stopped counting. He was no wise man, but a Bluebeard Bridegroom, devourer of innocence, keeper of bones.

Horrified, Serilda fled back into Fabled Woods, running to the only man she thought could protect her now—King Rodrick. He took her in gladly, even though she was carrying Alarion's child. He promised her safety and welcomed her back without bitterness. For a fleeting moment, she believed she was saved.

But that night, Alarion came, bent on revenge and furious over her disobedience. His fury cracked the heavens. Serilda escaped into the trees with her life, but the King, his castle, his servants, and his son were not so fortunate. With a single curse, Alarion turned them all into statues of cold stone, frozen where they stood, pouring all their life essence into a red crystal that began to pulse with the heartbeat of a stolen kingdom. All but Prince Derrick, whom he cursed to hunt the woods as a beast for all eternity.

Filled with guilt and fear, Serilda fled deeper into the woods, stumbling until she found an abandoned hunter’s cabin, its timbers gray with age, its hearth long cold. Desperate, she fell to her knees and prayed not to gods nor spells, but to the ancient Woods themselves. Perhaps out of pity, or perhaps because theforest already had plans of its own, a hush fell over the glade. From that day on, Alarion never set foot near the cabin, as if the trees themselves turned him aside.