The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [90]
Chala put a hand to the back of his neck to reassure him. She did not mind.
“Here, alone, for years on end?” said Richon.
“Ah, but she will not be without magic,” said the wild man.
Richon stared.
And Chala, for the first time, felt hope in her heart.
“I will give her my magic,” said the wild man. “Mine alone is old enough to work past the scar of the unmagic in her. And to enable her to have a child again, when the time comes.”
“A child?” said Richon, eyes wide.
It was then that Chala saw the pain he had concealed for so long, so as to avoid adding to hers. How much he had wanted the child that she could not give him. The scar in her had not only walled off her magic, but had made her unable to engender any life, for magic is life.
“Come to me,” said the wild man.
Chala approached him. She had never felt so light, and so afraid. She had had a child before and Richon had not. She knew the love a child would bring into their lives as well as the pain.
The wild man put his hands on her.
She felt the rush of magic into her, sweet and hot, like love itself.
Then the magic was hers and the wild man was falling away from her.
Richon’s smile—when she touched him and he felt her magic—was all the reward she could have asked for.
Together they found rocks under which to bury the wild man’s body. He would be remembered, in legends and in their own minds.
But life went on, and so did magic.
About the Author
METTE IVIE HARRISON has a PhD in Germanic literature and is the author of THE PRINCESS AND THE HOUND; MIRA, MIRROR; and THE MONSTER IN ME.
Of THE PRINCESS AND THE BEAR, she says, “I never thought there would be a sequel to THE PRINCESS AND THE HOUND, but when I read through the galleys, I realized that there was another book waiting in the story of the bear and the hound. In some ways, you might think of it more as a parallel novel than as a sequel, because it stands on its own as a new story. But who knows? Maybe I’ll look at these galleys and find another story demanding to be told.”
She lives with her family in Utah.
You can visit her online at www.metteivieharrison.com.
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Also by Mette Ivie Harrison
The Princess and the Hound
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Larry Rostant
Jacket design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
THE PRINCESS AND THE BEAR. Copyright © 2009 by Mette Ivie Harrison. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition April 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-191057-9
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine