Page 24 of Shared by the Werebears (Hidden Hollow #5)

GOLDIE

W e were almost out of the woods. Literally. Somehow the trip back from the Blighted Forest hadn’t taken nearly as long as the trip to reach it.

The branches and trees around us were thinning. We were nearly home—nearly safe. I could see the softly glowing lights of Hidden Hollow just up ahead and the faint shimmer of the magic bubble that surrounds it.

My heart was full and aching with everything we’d just been through in the Blighted Forest. Finn and Ronan and I had grown closer and now I knew that Finn would stay with me, no matter what.

Ronan, I wasn’t so sure about. But at any rate, Locasta had granted us the bitter berries, so we had a chance now to break the curse. A sliver of hope.

But hope, it turns out, is a slippery thing.

Because one second I was walking and the next the forest floor crumbled under my feet and I tumbled downward, moss and roots ripping away from the earth as it gave out under me. I slipped down what felt like a moss-covered slide, a shriek ripping from my throat as I went .

“Goldie! Goldie!” I heard both my guys shouting.

I landed hard but not painfully, breath whooshing from my lungs as I hit something soft—like an overgrown velvet footstool. It was a moss-covered outcropping—hard enough to stop my momentum but soft enough that it didn’t hurt me. I lay there panting for a moment before rolling away.

It was a good thing I got out of the way. A moment later, both Finn and Ronan slid down after me in a blur of panic and brawn, crashing against each other in their hurry to get to me.

“Are you hurt?” Ronan’s hands were already running over my arms and legs, checking for breaks. Finn knelt beside me, cupping my face, eyes wide with concern.

“Are you okay, baby?” he murmured.

“I’m okay,” I gasped, still catching my breath. “But… look.”

We had fallen into an underground cavern—no, not a cavern. A sanctum .

Smooth stone walls glittered faintly with veins of crystal.

Strange vines, silver and humming, crawled across their surfaces like living script.

In the center of the chamber stood a raised pedestal carved from milky white moonstone.

Resting atop its broad surface were five objects, each glowing with the faint sheen of magic.

“What is this place?” Ronan growled, looking around. “I don’t trust it.”

“You don’t trust anyone or anything,” Finn pointed out. He frowned. “But in this case, I agree with you. There’s something weird going on here.”

“There definitely is—something weird and magical ,” I told them. “Look.”

I pointed at the back wall, behind the large moonstone pedestal. There were silver, glowing letters there, written in some script I couldn’t read.

“What does it say?” Ronan asked, frowning .

“Some form of Elvish, maybe.” Finn shrugged. “I don’t know—I can’t read it.”

I was about to say that I couldn’t read it either…and then the writing on the wall shifted.

The crystal wall behind the pedestal shimmered and rippled like water, forming words that glowed golden-bright.

“One gift to take where shadows dwell,

Each holds a truth too deep to tell.

Choose with touch and not just sight ? —

For some bring bliss, and some bring blight.”

We all stared.

“Well what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Ronan growled.

“I don’t kn—” I began.

But just then something tiny and sparkling zipped out from a crack near the pedestal, wings fluttering like a hummingbird’s.

It hovered in front of us and I saw it was a kind of dragonfly with a bright green human head.

It stared at us, all four of its arms crossed, and its teeny face glowing with gleeful judgment.

“Well, well, well,” it said in a voice like the tinkling of wind chimes. “A horny Succubus and two very confused bear-boys. Haven’t seen this trio before.”

“What…er, who are you?” I asked, blinking.

The creature preened in mid-air.

“Call me Whimsy. Keeper of the Vault of Dreams, former companion to the Priestesses of the Veil, and Judge of Supplicants. You three are clearly idiots, so I’m here to help.”

“Oh good,” Ronan muttered. “A smartass lightning bug.”

Whimsy glared at him.

“I am not a lightning bug, bear-boy! I am a flitterling —the last of my kind. So show some respect. ”

“To a creature I could squash with my thumb? I don’t think so,” Ronan grunted.

“Ronan!” Finn and I said at the same time.

“Let him talk—we might learn something,” Finn added and I nodded in agreement.

“Thank you.” Whimsy made an elaborate mid-air bow that involved all four of his stick-thin arms. “Now, since at least two of you have manners, I will continue. You are presently in the Vault of Dreams, which makes you Supplicants.”

“Um, we didn’t exactly come here on purpose,” I said. “I slipped into a hole in the forest floor and slid down here by accident.”

“That is immaterial.” Whimsy waved his many arms in dismissal. “What’s important is that you get to choose a magical artifact—only one between the three of you, mind—so you must agree on which to pick.”

“Okay but how do we know which one to choose?” I looked up at the glowing golden words on the wall once more. The line about “Some bring bliss and some bring blight” seemed ominous.

Whimsy gave a mighty sigh which shook his entire, teeny-tiny body.

“Very well. Since you’re such special snowflakes, I’ll show you what each can do. Demonstrations are free of charge. You’re welcome,” he added loftily.

The words on the wall behind him rippled again, and an illusion unfolded in the air, light and sound blooming in a swirl of magic. Now the letters read:

Item 1: The Mirror of Truth

Whimsy zipped over to the nearest item lying on the moonstone pedestal—a flat, polished black glass oval about as big as a bathroom mirror you might hang over the sink. It was framed in long, curving silver thorns .

“This is The Mirror of Truth,” he squeaked. “It doesn’t show your reflection. It shows your regrets. But if you look long enough—and hard enough—it can also help you heal them.”

Without waiting, the Mirror began to emit a soft blue glow, and Ronan, as if pulled by an invisible string, stepped forward.

“Ronan, wait!” I exclaimed and Finn jumped forward to grab him by the arm but it was too late—he was already leaning over the mirror, looking in.

The wall behind the pedestal lit with a flickering vision. Finn and I stared— it seemed to be showing us what Ronan was seeing in the black glass.

We saw a slightly younger Ronan—taller than the others in his Werebear Clan, standing between Finn and another male Shifter with wild black hair that was silver at the temples, who must be Thorne.

The three of them changed, Shifting into their Fur Forms, and soon there was a black bear, a brown bear, and a massive grizzly—which again, must be Thorne—roaming through the forest, obviously hunting.

“Oh,” Finn breathed. “That’s us on the last day we were all together—the last time we hunted as a Clan before the curse!”

As we watched, a gorgeous stag came into view. There was obviously something magic about it—its coat was pure white and its horns and hooves gleamed like mother-of-pearl.

“It’s beautiful!” I whispered.

But the stag didn’t last long. The three bears saw it and began to chase—running through The Blighted Wood as they hunted. At last they had it cornered in a kind of cul-de-sac made of trees.

I bit my lip as the bears launched their attack and the stag collapsed under their claws and teeth. Its red blood pumped out, staining the spotless white of its coat and the forest floor.

And then Locasta came.

Ronan flinched. We saw the moment he realized what the three of them had done.

But the vision didn’t stop there .

It showed him kneeling in front of the buck’s ruined and broken body, sobbing. It showed him carrying Finn—barely conscious—on his back for miles as Thorne—their former leader—stumbled away into the forest, stuck in his Bear form forever.

It was terrible to watch first-hand. Even though I knew the story, I now fully understood how it had affected Ronan. He felt responsible, even though it had been Thorne leading the charge. He took all the guilt for what had happened to their Clan on himself.

I thought it must be over but then the mirror shifted and started showing something new—the three of us together in the Clearing of Echoes.

The way we touched each other…the pleasure we shared.

And afterwards, the way we’d curled together on the soft moss, the three of us drowsy and spent and contented just to be touching.

Just watching made me throb with need all over again but then I frowned.

I remembered that warmth of Ronan’s big body, bracketing mine along with Finn’s, but I hadn’t realized it meant so much to him…

or that it was such a source of guilt. He really did feel bad about sharing me with his Clan mate…

and yet I knew he wanted to do it again.

Watching the reenactment of our sexual encounter filled him with desire—I could feel it.

This shouldn’t be so hard for him, I thought. Especially when Finn and I wanted it too. We were all consenting adults here—why should we be bound by rules and regulations made by people in the past, who had no idea what our lives were like? Who had no clue about what we needed and who we loved?

The vision ended and the mirror pulsed with a soft, forgiving light that bathed Ronan’s face. The big Shifter stepped back, his eyes wounded.

“I didn’t want to see all that,” he muttered. “Hell, I didn’t want to live all that.”

“But you needed to,” Whimsy said, not unkindly, his iridescent wings whirring. “The mirror has done its job—do you not feel eased of your guilt? ”

“Actually…maybe I do.” Ronan swiped a hand across his eyes, which were suspiciously red. “We didn’t know that stag was a blessed creature when we hunted it.”

“We were in our Fur Forms—our Bears don’t think very clearly. Not in the human way, at least,” Finn explained.