Page 7

7

BEAR

“Well this is it—I hope you like it,” Bear said, as they stepped into the palatial mansion he had rented to live in. It was probably bigger than what they needed, but he had wanted to make a statement about how the Kindred could afford to deal with the Karpsian Sigma government even in the highest capacity.

Aleena looked around, her pale purple eyes growing wider and wider. As they had been driving in the hovercoach, she had mentioned that they were getting into the richer and more exclusive part of the city but she seemed surprised that she was actually going to live here.

“This area is even nicer than the neighborhood where my father’s house is located,” she’d remarked. “ Much nicer.”

“Is it?” Bear asked. “What about the place you live now? Or where you lived before we got Joined, anyway,” he added. He was curious about her and wanted to know her situation.

“Oh, I lived with my mother,” she explained. “She’s in a very modest dwelling that my father bought her after he disavowed her.”

“So men do that…they buy their wife a house after they disavow them?” Bear asked, feeling slightly relieved since that was what he was planning to do for Aleena.

She shook her head.

“Not always. Everyone always said that my father was too kind to my mother. After disavowing her, a husband has no further obligation to his wife. But he even sent her a monthly allowance for a time.”

“For a time?” Bear frowned. “You mean he doesn’t anymore?”

She shook her head and looked away.

“Not for some years now. Things have been…difficult at home. I wanted to get a job but there aren’t many occupations a female can do and…and still remain respectable, if you know what I mean.”

She looked up at him quickly and then away again, biting her lower lip.

“I think I know,” Bear murmured. Karpsian Sigma clearly was one of those places where women were expected to stay home and care for the house and have children. The problem with such a society was that a female had almost no way to make a living if their husband died or left them—or simply stopped supporting them, as seemed to be the case with Aleena and her mother.

Sir Greggor must have paid the equivalent of child and spousal support after he disavowed Aleena’s mother but he had stopped that, leaving them little to nothing to live on, Bear guessed.

“Why did your father stop sending you money?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I think maybe my stepmother found out that he was sending it. It wasn’t that much—just enough to get by. But she gets angry when my father doesn’t concentrate all his wealth and attention on her and my half-sister.”

Then she seemed to think she had said the wrong thing because she quickly changed the subject.

“You know, this neighborhood is so exclusive I’ve only been here once before?” she said, gesturing out the tinted window of the hovercoach at the grand houses passing by. “It was a long time ago when I was little. One of the girls in my class was very rich and she invited me to her nameday party. It was so exciting!”

“I hope you’ll like the house I picked out,” Bear had said, truly meaning it.

And now, watching her as they stepped into the mansion and looked around, it seemed that she did like it very much. The thought gave him a warm glow of satisfaction.

“It’s lovely,” Aleena breathed, looking around her at the dark blue inlaid floors and the vast spiral staircase that swooped upwards to the top of the house. “Can we explore it?” she asked, looking up at Bear hopefully. “I mean, unless you have other things you, er, want to do,” she added, looking suddenly apprehensive.

“Other things?” He frowned, uncertain of what she meant.

“I mean if…if you’re going to change the color of my eyes right away,” she said, almost in a whisper and her eyes darted nervously to the crotch of his uniform trousers and then away again.

There was that peculiar phrase again about changing the color of her eyes. It must be some kind of euphemism for deflowering, Bear thought. He realized that the poor girl thought he was going to throw her down and have his way with her right that minute! As if any Kindred would treat a female in that way.

The very thought made him angry—he didn’t want her to be frightened of him.

“For now let’s just explore the house together,” he said, holding out a hand to her. “I didn’t get a chance to look at it much when I rented it. I was in a hurry to get to our ceremony.”

“All right.” She gave him a relieved smile and slipped her much smaller hand into his. Bear felt his heart squeeze at the trusting gesture. He wanted to assure her that he wouldn’t hurt her or take what she wasn’t ready to give, but he thought it might be better to get to know each other first and exploring the house together seemed a good way to do that.

Hand-in-hand, they wandered from one luxurious room to another. The mansion had come already furnished though Bear wasn’t sure that most of the furniture would hold him. It was built for the Karpsians, which were much smaller people than the Kindred.

Aleena’s favorite room seemed to be the Sun Room—an enormous, two-story area with a domed glass ceiling that let in the reddish-orange rays of the Karpsian sun. It was like a solarium—carpeted in soft purple moss with trees and flowers growing around the perimeter. Before entering the room, they had to take off their shoes—or in Bear’s case boots—so as not to damage the delicate flora. It reminded him of the Sacred Grove where he and his mate, Zelia had been wed.

He couldn’t help wondering if his mate would think he was breaking his vow if she could see him now. But he hadn’t sealed the Joining with sex and he didn’t intend to. The fact that the Karpsians felt so strongly that a woman’s purity was tied to her worth was reason enough not to take the only thing of value that Aleena had. Not to mention it would definitely be breaking his vow.

“This is so beautiful—like having a park right inside the house.” Aleena sighed, drawing his attention back to the present and away from the guilt he was feeling.

Bear looked up to see that she was standing in the center of the room. The rays of the Karpsian Sigma sun were bathing her in radiance, picking up the lovely copper color of her hair and making her eyes sparkle like jewels. Truly, her beauty took his breath away!

He felt his heart stop in his chest for a moment before it resumed beating. Goddess damn it—he wished she wasn’t so fucking gorgeous! It almost might have been easier if he had joined with her half-sister instead. He wouldn’t have felt bad about disavowing a female as awful as Faleesha, who he also found extremely unattractive—not just because she was skinny but because of her terrible attitude and personality.

“You look like a goddess,” he said, when he finally found his voice. “Standing there with the sun’s rays falling on you—you’re beautiful, Aleena.”

“Oh!” She put a hand to her mouth and her bronze cheeks went red, as though he’d embarrassed her. “That’s so kind of you, my Lord Husband,” she murmured, looking up at him from under her thick lashes.

“You don’t have to call me that, you know,” Bear told her.

Aleena looked instantly contrite.

“I’m so sorry! Would you rather that I call you by your title, Ambassador Bearick?” she asked quickly.

“No, of course not. Just call me ‘Bear,’” he told her.

Her eyes went wide.

“You want me to call you by your name? But…that’s very disrespectful!”

Bear frowned. Did the Karpsians really believe that a married woman couldn’t call her husband by his name?

“I don’t like being called ‘my Lord’ all the time, though,” he objected. “It makes it sound like you’re worshiping me—or that I own you.”

“But you do own me. You took possession of me body and soul when you placed the bands upon my nipples,” she reminded him. “And a wife must worship her husband—he is the authority over her as the Goddess of Mercy is the authority over him.”

Bear shook his head, trying not to think of how much he had enjoyed that part of the ceremony. Holding her full, firm breasts in his hands and teasing her ripe nipples had been a pleasure.

“That’s not the way it is in my culture,” he told her. “We Kindred believe that males and females are equals.”

“Equals?” She looked half scandalized and half intrigued. “But…how do you decide what to do and where to go and how to spend the household budget?”

Bear shrugged.

“We decide together. And if we can’t agree on something, we compromise.”

Aleena shook her head.

“Forgive me, but that sounds very strange to me. For us there is no compromise—the man of the house makes the decisions and the woman abides by them.”

“But how is that fair for the female?” Bear objected. “If she has no say in anything? There should always be a middle ground—a compromise.”

She shook her head again.

“I’m sorry but I’m not even sure what a compromise between a man and a woman would look like.”

Bear had an idea.

“I tell you what—how about we make a compromise right now?” he asked. “You can call me ‘my Lord Husband’ when we’re out in public together but when we’re in private—just the two of us—you can call me ‘Bear’ like my friends do.”

Aleena gave him a tentative smile.

“I think I like that. Bearrr…” She rolled the R at the end, making it sound exotic. “Does it mean anything?” she asked. “My name, Aleena, means ‘one who is longed for’ because my mother tried for over a year to conceive me.”

“My full name, ‘Bearick’ means ‘strong’ in my native language but the shortened version, Bear, is also the name of a large, predatory animal that lives on Earth, which is the planet the Kindred of the Mother Ship are currently protecting,” he explained. “Some of my friends have said I look a little like a black bear—because I’m big and my hair gets shaggy when I don’t have it combed down.” He pointed at his hair—which could get rather out of hand when it wasn’t tied back neatly as it was now.

“I will help you tame it—if you like,” Aleena offered shyly. “I’m very good with hair—my mother taught me.”

“That would be very kind of you,” Bear murmured, trying not to imagine those soft little fingers running through his hair. But probably she was just offering to be nice and nothing would come of it.

“Come—we should go have a look at the cooking area.” She came to him and held out her hand trustingly. “Do I need to go to the market and shop for food, or is there something I can use tonight to make you dinner, my Lord…I mean, Bear ,” she corrected herself quickly.

“I think the agent I dealt with said they would stock a few things for us, but I don’t know much about your cuisine,” Bear said, enfolding her small hand in his again.

He found that he liked holding her hand. He had always been a tactile male—he enjoyed touching his partner, holding and caressing her. The past five years since Zelia’s passing, it was as though that part of himself had gone through a drought. Now, just feeling Aleena’s small fingers entwining with his was like rain on a field of thirsty crops.

Stop thinking like that, he warned himself. She’s not yours to keep and you know it!

But he didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, he pulled her gently with him as they left the lovely Sun Room and headed for the food prep area.