Page 25 of Rose's Untamed Bear

Piles of coins, heaped like rivers of gold. Chalices crusted with gems. Chains and crowns, enough wealth to drown kingdoms. It glowed in the torchlight, blinding and unreal.

Rose gasped loudly. The sound was muffled by the dirt around us. “It’s… it’s more than I’ve ever seen.”

And there, on a pedestal of rock in the very heart of the chamber, sat the crystal. A blood-red heart, glowing faintly and pulsing as if it had its own heartbeat.

I reached out with trembling fingers and lifted it into my palm. Heat shivered through me, alive and fierce. The curse’s lock. The key to freeing my father. My people.

"Oh my God, is this it?" Rose asked, staring in awe at the heart.

I could only nod. Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Derrick. I’m so happy for you."

Then her eyes wandered all around the treasure, "Did Alarion do all this?"

“His greed did,” I replied. “It shriveled him, turned him small, mean, hollow. A man can live without love for a time. But without mercy?” I shook my head. “He withered.”

"I don't think he was a good man before all this happened." She said sadly.

"No," I agreed. "He was a Bluebeard. One of the worst. Your mother was lucky to escape."

"I'm sorry he did this to you and your family."

"Now it will all be alright again. And without it… we might have never met."

That seemed to cheer her up some. I could tell it took a small effort on her part to shake off her misplaced guilt, but she clasped my hand around the crystal, and her face lit with joy. “Tomorrow, we can free them. All of them. Is it far?”

“Two days’ walk.” I brushed a thumb over her knuckles, torn between hope and dread. “I can take you back to your mother and Snow, and send for you when it’s done?—”

“Oh no,” she cut me off, her chin lifting. “I’ll be with you.”

My heart stuttered. Her words held no hesitation, no doubt. So much my Rose.

And then, softer, almost shy, she whispered, “If you’ll have me.”

I cupped her face in my hands, bending close so she could see every truth in me. “Have you?” My voice broke. “Rose, I already do. I always will.”

Her breath caught, and her lips trembled against mine as I pressed a kiss to them, fierce, certain, sealing the promise.

“I love you,” she whispered into my mouth.

“I love you,” I answered, almost roughly, because she had a talent for choking my throat by just looking at me. In the darkness of the vault, surrounded by stolen kingdoms and cursed wealth, the only treasure I saw was her.

The vault even provided a small natural chimney that was large enough to allow the smoke from a small fire to escape. Derrick quickly built one while I spread out the blankets I’d brought and set out honey and bread. He took one of the golden pitchers, promising to fetch water, while I wandered through the incredible trove, hoping to spot something practical. Everywhere I turned, something glimmered back at me—gems, chalices, and strange relics carved from ivory or bone, coins punched with ancient faces too faded for any mint, and in the dimmest part of the cave, a heap of what looked like the battered remnants of a crown, perhaps three or four melted together into a demented, many-pronged beast. It was all too much, and almost none of it was immediately practical, except for the gold plates, thick, heavy, but flat enough, and the goblets, which were so encrusted with stones that it almost seemed a crime to pourwater into them. I found a bottle which, by some miracle, had not shattered under the centuries’ weight. I opened it, sniffed—the smell indicated a sort of liquid between wine and resin, mingled with the sharp ghost of fire—and set it aside, thinking it would serve as lamp oil, or maybe medicine if things got dire.

But what struck me most, tucked behind a pile of chalices, was a stack of bolts of cloth. Not silk, but something rougher, shot through with metallic threads so that even in the low light each fold caught fire. I ran it between my fingers; it was coarse, yes, but sturdy, and if I layered it with the softer blankets, it could serve for a bed. I set to work immediately: rolling out the bolts, improvising a nest in a shadowy corner that looked least likely to attract magical vermin, and using the plates and cups as weights to keep the fabric from sliding on the stone. My hands moved quickly, almost feverishly, as if action alone could shield me from the mind-melting reality of what surrounded us.

By the time Derrick came back, I had re-fed the fire, arranged thebed, and even found an iron poker—shaped like a snake, grotesquely realistic—that could serve as a makeshift weapon and fire prodder both. He paused in the passage, arms full of dried wood and a tangle of roots, and the golden pitcher dangling from his fingers. He stared at the space I’d made. For a moment, he said nothing, just looked from the golden cups to the little nest of cloth, and then back at me with an expression so vulnerable it made my chest squeeze tight.

“Rose,” he said finally, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe me. “You’re amazing.”

I felt my face go so hot it nearly steamed. “It’s nothing,” I mumbled, hastily spreading the last bolt over the others. “Just… making it a little less like a dragon’s grave and more like a home, I suppose.” I didn’t dare meet his eyes, not with the way he waslooking at me, and the silence that followed was both awkward and warm. I took some of the kindling from his arms and busied myself with the fire, and only as I watched the resinous roots crackle and pop as they fed the hungry flames did I realize how hollow my stomach was.

Derrick set the rest of his load down, lifted the pitcher, and filled the cups with the clearest water I’d ever seen. He handed me one, and though it felt criminal to drink from a goblet rimmed in rubies, I took it and sipped. The cold water was so pure and sharp, it made my teeth ache. We sat side by side, knees almost touching in the little golden pool of firelight, and for the first time since we’d entered the cave, I felt a little bit safe. We ate the honey and bread, washed down with the water, and it felt like we were having the greatest feast ever.

But the weight of the hoard pressed in on me. I looked around, taking in the endless piles, and finally voiced the question that had been gnawing at me since we’d first crossed the warded threshold. “What are you going to do with all this? You’ll never haul it all out. I don’t think ten armies could carry it.”

He didn’t answer right away, just took a long pull from his own cup. Then he said in a voice so low I almost missed it, “Me? Nothing. None of this is mine. You and Snow—you’re Alarion’s daughters, whether you like it or not. This is yours. I only ask to be allowed to keep the heart.”

I almost spat my water. “Snow and me?” I stared so hard my eyes watered, counting up the coins and cups and cloth bolts and knowing, in my bones, that even a handful of gems from this place would keep a villager fed for a hundred years. “That… this is too much. Derrick, we—” I lost the words, tried to find my tongue, failed, and shook my head instead. “We don’t… whowould need all this? What are we supposed to do, start our own kingdom?”