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23

BEAR

Bear began to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach about halfway through the negotiations. He tried to ignore it at first—the talks were going well. The Karpsians seemed very willing to deal with him and eager to bargain with the Kindred.

But the feeling grew and grew until he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“Gentlemen, please excuse me,” he said, at the next pause in the conversation. “But I fear I must take a short break.”

There was a moment of surprised silence—Bear knew from studying their culture that the Karpsians considered interruptions to official proceedings to be extremely rude. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

He excused himself from the large oval table he was sitting at with the Karpsian diplomats and stepped outside of the richly appointed conference room they’d been holding the negotiations in. He still had no idea what was going on but just then the communications device the Karpsians had provided him with gave a low, warning chime.

Bear pulled it out of his pocket and frowned at it. He was still learning to use it, though he had managed to put Aleena’s number into it that morning before they had parted for the day.

The minute he thought of his new wife, he became convinced that the feeling of wrongness had something to do with her. He looked at the device and saw that the screen at the front which displayed numbers had turned into a kind of grid. No—it was a map, he realized. And it had a small red dot in the center of it.

“Here, you—can you tell me what this means?” he asked, going over to one of the Karpsian guards who was standing at attention at the side of the conference room door.

The guard looked surprised at being asked but he glanced down at the device in Bear’s hand obligingly.

“Hmm—it looks like an alert that a female who is under your control is out in a dangerous part of the city,” he said after a moment.

“What? Are you serious?” Bear demanded. “Are you saying my wife might be in danger? But how would my device know that?”

“I’m afraid so.” The guard nodded. “Once you put a dependant female’s number into your device, an automatic alarm system is set up which warns you if she starts getting into mischief.” He frowned at the map on the device again. “That’s a pretty dicey part of the city—do you know what she might be doing there?”

“No—she was supposed to go to the Healing House!” Bear was beginning to get an even worse feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t help imagining Aleena alone in a bad part of the city, being stalked—maybe even attacked. The Karpsians were horrible to their women. She wouldn’t be safe anywhere!

“Well, that’s not very far from the Healing House, but it’s not exactly close either,” the guard said, still looking at the screen. “If you’re worried about her, you might want to check on her.” He shrugged. “Or if you plan to disavow her, just leave her there and don’t bother.”

“Leave her there? Of course I’m not going to leave her there!” Bear growled. “The fuck is wrong with you, man? I’m going to get her!”

“But Ambassador—the negotiations—” the guard started to protest.

“Fuck the negotiations—my wife is in danger!”

The moment he said it, Bear knew it was true. The twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach let him know it. He had been a doctor long enough to trust his instincts implicitly—he’d had that same sensation when his first wife, Zelia, was first diagnosed with her deadly illness. And he had it now when he thought about Aleena and pictured her all alone in the big city.

Or maybe not alone, he thought and fear sliced into his guts like an icy blade. He had to go to her—get to her before it was too late!

He just prayed to the Goddess he could make it on time.