Chapter 2

Asher.

Asher sat at his desk with his head in his hands. He was missing something but couldn’t see what. This morning, two children had gone missing while playing on their kin's land and that brought the total up to seven missing in the last six months. There had to be a pattern here.

He glanced over at the stack of letters from other clan leaders and reread the top one. It was the same in other parts of the continent as well. People were disappearing and none of the kin could figure out why this was happening.

There were talks of having a Kara summit which would bring all of the kin leaders on the continent together and discuss the disappearances. He knew too well what a feat that would be. Just the logistics of getting everyone in one place would be a nightmare. Between the plane rides, boats, and those coming on foot or in a car, it would take weeks to coordinate and that was if they could find a place suitable for everyone to come together.

Kins that were already in mainland territory wouldn’t have quite as many issues, but for a kin like his in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska, this would cause some problems. It would also leave any kin vulnerable, because the main job of a Kara was keeping all of the kin under him safe. If people were being taken when they were there, what would happen to an unsuspecting kin while their Kara was away for a summit?

He ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled, closing his eyes again. There was no other option. They had to get to the bottom of this. He would have to call some of the other Karas he knew and get their thoughts on this, but he didn't see how it could be done without putting his people's safety at risk, and that simply wasn't an option.

A knock on his door told him he was no longer alone.

“Any news?” His father asked.

“None. We can’t find any connections between the people who are missing. We are looking for a place for a Kara summit now.

“Is it that serious?” The older man asked cautiously. He knew firsthand what it meant to be Kara, and be responsible for those in his kin as he had only retired from his role and handed his position down to his son two years ago.

“Just in the combined Americas, the numbers are over 150 missing, and that is from the kins we can get ahold of. Who knows how many more of the secluded kins are missing, not to mention the kinless.” Asher tossed the papers across his desk to his father.

Erik took a minute to flip through the letters and growled deeply. “We will find them, but right now, we have to go.”

Asher’s head snapped to attention. Clarissa. That was today. At least it would be one less thing for him to worry about when this was all over. Standing up and securing the letters in his desk, he went to the door of his office.

“Let me get changed and I will head down to the van,” he told his father.

Erik walked out of the small office and Asher picked up his Nokia to call his second in command.

“Nolan, I need you to come handle things at the house for me. We are leaving in 10 minutes to take Clarissa, and we will be gone most of the day.”

“Jesus, is it that long of a drive?

“Four hours each way, and that is if the weather agrees with us and doesn’t decide to change at the last minute.”

“Any news on the girls?” Asher tensed. He had no answers yet, and everyone would be wanting them, especially the parents of the two missing children.

“Not yet, see if you can hold off talking to the parents until I get back. Damn it! This is the worst time for me to leave.”

“I’ll bring Mika over and we will see if there is anything we can put together while you’re out.”

Mika was Nolan’s right hand, and between the three of them, they were usually able to keep a decent enough peace on their reserve.

“Sounds good. All the notes are on my desk. I will call and check in when we get there. And Nolan, we don’t know if someone’s helping them so make sure not to let anyone else know what you are working on. I don’t need them having any more ammo than they already do.”

“Got it.” Nolan hung up. Asher didn’t need any further communication than that. He knew the two of them would hold things together while he was away.

As he walked up to his room to change into the suit he had laid out the night before he finally allowed his thoughts to turn to Clarissa. There was no doubt he loved her, he always had, but they could never be together.

While relationships with humans weren’t forbidden, they were extremely difficult. Every shifter species he knew of bonded in pairs for life, but because humans had no animal urges, it was almost impossible for the shifter to sense that they were compatible as a pair. If their animal side rejected the potential bond, the shifter would be in constant inner turmoil with the other half of their personality.

None of that scratched the surface of the main problem with bonding with humans, which was that unless their animal side accepted the pair bond, they would never be able to reproduce. Since humans could not accept the pair bond, they could never have offspring, and that was one of their animal half’s base instincts.

Clarissa could never have children anyway. The trauma to her body would be unmanageable. One of his responsibilities as Kara was to further the line of leadership, and that could never be her future.

In truth, it pained him to push her away as he had the last five years, but he had no choice. It was too hard being around her. Annoyed at himself, he realized that he knew very little about the man she was going to marry, only that it was a human from the States who would take her south where her condition wouldn’t be as dangerous.

His mother had set up the match, and had not even given him a name when he asked, not that he had too much free time to dig into anything right now. All he knew was that the man was a wealthy enough businessman, and would make sure she was cared for.

Was that all she deserved? A caretaker? He slid on the pants to his dark grey suit as he thought that if he could, he would give her the world. He had hoped fate would allow them to become a bonded pair, but after she turned twenty this year, his hopes had been dashed. If they were compatible, his animal would have been able to sense it by then.

Buttoning his shirt cuffs, he allowed his mind to drift and picture her coming down the aisle to him. She may not have the standard beauty of many of the females in his clan, with her dark features and pale skin, but to him, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a unique blend of shy and completely fierce.

He couldn’t blame her for being shy, his parents had practically kept her separate from their entire world. The ferocity came from her disability, or more specifically her need to live a normal life despite it. He had watched for years as she did what she had to do to maintain what little independence she had.

He laced up his dress shoes as he acknowledged it was safer for her to believe the world was normal. She had been through enough shock and trauma in her life, to add now that she was living with an entire kin of shifters would cause too much panic.

She had even been given excuses to keep her inside to make sure she didn’t see a random leopard wandering on kin property and distress her further. Straightening his tie, he remembered what his mother had said about her illness. Too much stress could overwhelm her body and kill her; seeing a twelve-foot-long snow leopard sauntering outside her front door could do just that.

He knew that his kin weren’t among the largest in the shifter world, but they were a fair bit larger than their animal counterparts and that could cause quite a shock.

Grabbing his jacket, he started outside, and felt as if his heart stopped when he saw her by the van. Did she even understand how beautiful she looked today?