“Don’t kick me,” he said into his pillow.

She smiled and reached over in the darkness to touch his human shoulder. “It’s going to work,” she said. “That cub’s birth proved it.” She had a place here, not just as Bear’s wife. She had a future.

“Yes,” he said. She felt him shift. He was facing her now, she guessed.

“We’re a team now,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

She reached out again, and her fingers touched his smooth cheek. She wondered briefly what he’d look like in the light. Not that it mattered. He was her Bear. Cassie shifted closer.

He stilled, like a polar bear by a hole in the ice, but she was hyperaware of how human he was right now. She felt him waiting. He said nothing. Cassie tilted her head up, and in the darkness, she kissed him. Not moving his body, as if afraid she’d flee, he kissed her back, soft and sweet.

CHAPTER 13

Latitude 83° 35’ 43” N

Longitude 123° 29’ 10” E

Altitude 4 ft.

As light returned to the southern Arctic, Cassie and Bear spent more and more time out on the ice. Every day under the blue-purple-pink sky, they patrolled the snowbanks of Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Greenland, and Norway. Every evening under the eyes of Bear’s ice carvings, Cassie refined her maps and plotted their route for the next day. And every night in the dark, she kissed her husband until she fell asleep, curled in his arms. She’d never been happier.

One afternoon, when they were north of the Laptev Sea, Bear said, “I feel a call.”

Fumbling for her notes, Cassie opened her mouth to ask which direction.

“Hold tight,” he said. “There’s little time.”

Flattening herself, she held on to his broad neck as he sprang into superspeed. Ahead, she saw blue blackness—ocean water. He lunged forward into the black waves. Under the waves, water soaked into her parka. It seeped through her face mask and around her hood. But instead of cold, the water was as soft as air. She grinned. She loved Bear’s magic.

On Bear’s back, she burst out of the water. He paddled toward shore. Head and shoulders in air, Cassie clung to his wet fur. On the other side, he scrambled onto the ice and ran.

She heard the thrum of a helicopter.

Up ahead, in the distance, on ice stirred by the wind from a helicopter, a lone bear ran toward a ridge of ice. The bear’s flank was streaked in red.

“Hold on!” Bear called. “We can’t be seen!”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and Bear impossibly increased speed. Around them, the world streaked into a blur of white and blue.

It slowed for only a fraction of a second. She saw a flash of red on creamy white as Bear sank his teeth into the throat of the wounded bear. Bear yanked, and Cassie saw a streak of silver—and then Bear was running again.

Behind them, the bear crumpled, and the helicopter landed, kicking snow into the air. She saw it all in a fraction of an instant before they rocketed away.

“Bear, the poacher!” Cassie yelled. “Stop him!”

Bear vanished in between ice blocks. He didn’t slow until they were miles north. When he did stop, he swallowed the streak of silver—the dead bear’s soul—whole.

Cassie shouted, “That bear didn’t have to die! We could have scared the poacher off, and you could have healed him, magicked his cells.” It was a waste. That beautiful polar bear… How could Bear have done that? Let that bear, one of his bears, die!

“Yes,” he said.

She choked down words she’d been going to say. Yes, he could have saved the bear. “You’re the Angel of Death for polar bears.”

“It is necessary. If I do not claim the soul, a munaqsri from another species will. If no munaqsri does, the soul will be lost. Without souls to give the newborns, the species will become extinct.”

He had prevented her from having hypothermia; he could have healed that bear. He could heal all the bears, all the time. But then where would the souls for the newborns come from? Those bears would be stillborn. She shook her head. All the implications…

“You knew my responsibilities.”

But it was the first time she had witnessed this part of it.

“Cassie?” he said, concern in his voice. “Does this change things?”

He had such enormous power. Did that change things? She took a breath. It was his job. He existed to transport these souls, not to choose who lived and who died. That’s what she had bought into—the continuation of the species, not the saving of individuals. Really, was it so much different from what a researcher did, studying without interfering?

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.