Leaning forward, she laid her cheek on his neck. “It doesn’t change things,” she said. “You’re my tuvaaqan, my soul mate.” She’d never had a chance to use that Inupiaq word before. She tasted it on her tongue as she said it. “We’re a team. Right?”
He nuzzled her hand with his cold nose. “We are a team, tuvaaqan,” he affirmed. “I love that I can share this with you. I have never shared this with anyone. Thank you.”
She threw her arms around his wide, furry neck. “You know, there’s something else we’ve never shared, husband,” she said very softly, and her heart beat faster. “We never had a proper wedding night.”
In the dark bedroom, Cassie unzipped her parka and pulled off her gaiters and mukluks. She heard Bear slough his bear fur in the familiar rush of wind. He was a man now, she knew. She grinned in the darkness. She had expected to be nervous, but she wasn’t. This was Bear.
She slid off her Gore-Tex pants and pulled off three layers of socks.
She stripped off her wool sweater.
She removed her flannel shirt.
“How many layers do you wear?” Bear asked in his human voice.
“Some of us don’t have blubber,” she said, and took off her wool pants, her long johns, and her silkweights.
“Do you want to call me when you are done?”
“Cute,” she said. She located him by listening to his breathing. She managed not to stub her toes on the wardrobe or the washbasin. Standing in front of him, she reached her fingers up to touch the bones of his cheek. She laid her hand on the side of his face and felt his eyelashes brush her skin. He blinked, and it felt like the brush of butterfly wings. Now she felt a twinge of nerves. For the first time, she was grateful for Bear’s insistence on darkness. She could be bold in the dark. She could be beautiful in the dark.
“Are you certain this is what you want?” Bear asked.
It was so like Bear to ask. She felt her nervousness dissolve like sugar in water, and she smiled at him in the darkness. “Yes,” she said simply.
She slid her arms around him. Her cheek against his chest, she felt his heart beat. It was as steady and as gentle as waves in the ocean. She felt the curve of his shoulder blades as his arms surrounded her. His hands covered half her back, cradling her. She burrowed against his bare chest. Leaning down, he kissed her neck.
Her skin tingled as he kissed her, and all thoughts ran out of her head. She felt the chill of the ice room, the warmth of his breath, and the touch of his hands. It was all that existed in the world.
Around them, the ice was silent.
CHAPTER 14
Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N
Longitude indeterminate
Altitude 15 ft.
Cassie clutched the exquisitely carved ice toilet. Dammit, not again. For more than three months now, she’d endured random waves of nausea. Every time she thought she was well again, it reared its ugly… Uh-oh. She gritted her teeth as her stomach rose into her throat, tasting like rotten peanuts. Sweat pricked her forehead.
Bear padded into the bathroom. “Cassie, are you all right?”
She spat into the toilet. Her throat burned. “Ow.”
Cassie leaned her head against the rim of the crystalline bowl. It was smooth and cool. “I’m never eating again,” she said. Clearly, she’d had too many magical feasts. She had a potbelly now that pressed against the elastic waist of her pants.
Bear touched her damp hair with his nose. “Breathe deeply. Fighting it will only make it worse.” She felt his hot breath on her scalp. It made her itch.
“Stop hovering.” Like shooing a fly, she swatted the air in front of him.
“It will pass soon.”
“It better.” Oh, too much motion—her insides flopped, and she felt for the toilet. Her stomach squeezed as if it were ejecting a lung. Empty, she collapsed backward. “Can’t you magic me? Transform my sick molecules?”
“I do not wish to interfere,” he said. “Your body is reacting naturally.”
“Reacting normally for botulism.”
Bear blinked his glassy black eyes at her. “You are joking. You must know the cause of this—your daily nausea, your changing shape.”
Cassie clung to the ice rim of the toilet. When he put it that way… But no, she’d been careful. She’d been smart. “I can’t be. It’s not possible.”
“Because of the chemical imbalance?” Lying down, he curled around her like a giant cat and laid his head on her lap, as if to reassure her. “I know. I fixed it. All is well now.”
“You fixed it?” Cassie felt dizzy. She was… no. She tried to remember her last period and couldn’t.
“It was simple. All I needed to do was adjust the hormone levels,” he said, clear pride in his voice. “It was no harder than keeping your body warm or protecting you in the Arctic water.”
Cassie threw herself forward and vomited with all her strength, as if she could expel the fetus inside her. Bile scratched her throat, and she sank backward again, diaphragm sore from pushing. She dug her fingernails into her curved stomach. She sucked in, but it would not flatten. It was as firm as a muscle.
He’d retreated from her as she’d vomited, and he now stood beside her, casting a massive shadow over her. “Are you… You are not happy?”
“How could you do this to me?” He had deliberately altered her molecules to impregnate her without asking her, without telling her. “That ‘chemical imbalance’ was deliberate. I’m on the pill.”
“Deliberate? You caused…? But how…,” he said. He swung his head low, an agitated polar bear. “You were willing. I asked if you were certain. You said you were. I thought you understood.” She felt like she was drowning. His words drowned her. “You knew from the beginning: I must have children. This was the reason I sought a wife. There must be more munaqsri. This child—a future munaqsri—is desperately needed.”
“I thought you…” She felt as if her insides were shaking so hard that they’d fly apart. “I thought you loved me. For me. Not for…”
“I do love you,” he said. “You are my tuvaaqan, my wife, the mother of my—”
“You used me,” she said. “You didn’t even ask me. You just… ‘fixed’ me.” She had trusted him. She had believed they were a team.
He padded closer to her. “We are going to have a baby,” he said. “We are going to bring life into the world. Do you not see how wonderful it is?”
“Just… leave me alone.” Cassie pushed his chest, hands sinking into fur, and he backed out of the bathroom. She shut the door in his face and locked it. Back against the door, she slid to the floor. Her nausea threatened like a tidal wave. She wanted to rip her internal organs out of her. Heart included.
Through the door, he said, “I love you.”
She retched on the floor and then cried.
He had to reverse what he had done. It was that simple. He could manipulate her molecules; he could fix this. Ice crunched under Cassie’s mukluks as she walked through the topiary garden. If he could fix a “chemical imbalance” and keep her warm in the Arctic, he could put everything back the way it had been.
She found him between the rosebushes. Facing the permanent sun, he did not turn as she came up behind him. She swallowed a lump in her throat. He could do it, yes. But would he? She didn’t know. She felt as if he had turned into a stranger, hidden behind black eyes and cream fur. Looking down, she studied the roses. Amber and violet in the low sun, each petal and leaf twinkled with Bear’s reflection.
“You shot at me,” he said. “Do you remember? You shot at me with your tranquilizer gun, and I still married you. Did you ever wonder why?”