Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“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.