Katrina painted. It was all she could manage to do. Grooming — hell, bathing — had been neglected in favor of taking her emotions out on canvas. And she’d never been more prolific, even if the style wasn’t what she normally produced.

It had been days since Alex had left her alone in his apartment, wondering what the hell had just happened, but her anger hadn’t dissipated. She allowed it to flow through her into her painting.

“How dare he?” she ranted, slapping dark colors onto the canvas in haphazard strokes.

“How dare he treat me like that?” she raved, mashing her brush against the canvas so hard she was surprised when it didn’t poke right through.

“How dare he cheat on his poor fiancée?” she seethed, spattering dark red splotches with a vicious flick of her wrist.

It felt good to be angry — so much better than the pain lurking beneath the rage. All of her other senses were neglected to give all her focus on the imagery before her, so she didn’t hear her mother enter the studio.

“Katrina Lynn!”

Kat jumped and spun around, dribbling paint on the studio floor from her fully loaded brush. “Mother! You startled me.”

“That was the fifth time I called your name, dear. Are you okay?”

Stella Hamilton was a perfect mate of a Tier. Her stylish fashion sense and svelte frame made her the envy of most of her friends, but her genuinely caring nature made them all love her anyway. The cream Armani pant suit she wore made it clear why she remained in the doorway instead of entering Kat’s studio.

“Sorry, I was just caught up,” Kat said, laying the brush down.

She didn’t dare tell her mother the truth — or anyone, actually. Alex’s cold rejection, coupled with her naive stupidity, had humiliated her beyond words. Kat dragged the back of her hand across her brow to brush away some errant hair and felt the sticky coolness of wet paint on her forehead. Great.

Looking behind her daughter, Stella studied the painting. “It’s, um…really coming along.”

The painting featured a stag attacking a terrified hunter. The man’s bow lay broken beneath him and he had one arm raised to fend off the brutal pummeling he was receiving from the stag’s hooves. Strangely enough, the hunter resembled someone she knew…and hated.

If even a shred of Kat’s former sense of humor had remained, she would have laughed at her mother’s uncertain reaction. Stella despised violence of any kind, which was completely understandable after suffering through the wars growing up, but she was also fiercely supportive. She’d never admit to not loving something Katrina had made.

“Can you take a break for a bit, dear? Your father and I would like to speak with you downstairs.”

Her normally poised mother seemed agitated. She had trouble meeting Kat’s eyes, and her fingernails kept growing and shortening — not much, just a little. It was a bad habit that Stella only showed in times of stress.

“Sure, just let me change out of this smock. Is everything okay, Mother?”

“Oh, yes. We’ll be in the family room. I thought we could have tea.”

Katrina paused in tidying her brushes and glanced at Stella in confusion. “We never have tea.”

“Well, I thought we could start,” her mother said in a clipped tone. “Come downstairs as soon as you can.”

As she cleaned up and changed out of her spattered smock, an inexplicable sense of dread built inside Kat. Her mother seemed unusually stressed. Something was up, that much she was sure of, but she had no idea what. Unless…

What if they found out what I did?

Panic rose in her throat as she trudged downstairs, but then discounted the terrifying idea. If her father had discovered her liaison, he wouldn’t be sitting down for tea — more likely, he’d be tearing up the house in a rage.

Kat took a deep, bracing breath and entered the family room. Her father sat in a burgundy leather wingback chair, her mother sat on a small antique love seat, and the coffee table in front of them was loaded down with an array of finger sandwiches and cakes. Her mother must have called a bakery to deliver.

For the three of them. Something was definitely up.

Kat took a seat on the couch facing her mother, her father to her left. “Okay, what’s wrong? Is one of you sick? Are you both sick? Am I sick? Just tell me.”

“No one’s sick, Katrina.” Tier Hamilton gave her his most reassuring smile, which only comforted her a little. “It’s just time we had a talk. About the history of our clan, and the state of our clan today. There are some things you need to know.”

Kat sat back, mystified. She’d studied clan history in school, of course, but her father had never wanted to talk about clan business with her before. She couldn’t deny her curiosity.

“You’ve been blessed to have grown up in a time of peace, my daughter,” he started. “Clans living in relative harmony is normal to you. But to your mother and myself, it’s a miracle. Until twenty years ago, ‘normal’ meant war. It was all we ever knew. All our parents, and grandparents knew, going back generations. So much hatred, so much fighting, so much death. So very much death.”

His voice faltered for a moment, and his wife laid a comforting hand on his arm. She radiated pride when she said, “But your father changed all that, Katrina.”

Kat started in surprise. She knew the war had ended when she was a baby, and of course her father was the leader of the Hamilton Clan, but she had never heard it put like that — that he, himself, had ended the war.

“You, Father? How did you do it?”

His father smiled at her, a smile that seemed filled with pride and happiness, yet mixed with some unknowable sadness.

“Before I explain how, I must explain why. I didn’t always hate war, Katrina. No, what I hated was Clan Fairchild. I hated them with an intensity I hope you never experience. The only thing I felt as strongly as that hatred was love. Love for your mother, love for you, and love for my father. I’m so sorry you never knew him. He was the greatest man…the greatest bear, I’ve ever known.”

Tier Hamilton swallowed hard and continued. “Now it seems wrong that I could hate so much when I also loved so much, but my love fed my hatred. Clan Fairchild threatened those I loved, so I hated them. Until one day…one day love became all that mattered.”

Kat had never heard her father open up like this. He’d always been a gruff disciplinarian. She never once doubted his love for her, but he wasn’t prone to emotional speeches. Her anxiety meter inched ever upward.

“It was a bloody battle that day, but no bloodier than others I’d experienced. That day was special because two equally great warriors met in battle. Neither was stronger than the other, and that was their doom. Tier Hamilton, my father, went against Tier Fairchild, and neither won. Both lost. Both died.”

Tier Hamilton was silent for a long moment, staring into space. The painful memories of that day so long ago flashed in his eyes. Katrina started to speak, but her mother stopped her with a small shake of her head. It didn’t take long for him to continue.

“I watched my father die. He was only a feet away from me, but too far for me to save. When I got to him, he was already dead. I have never known sadness like that. The grief was all-consuming. I screamed with it, screamed my pain and horror at the sky, and my grief had an echo.”

The man’s eyes filled with unspilled tears, but he looked at his daughter with a steady gaze. “Across my father’s body, I saw another fallen bear. Tier Fairchild, and keening over him was his son. I knew, looking at that bear, hearing his own roar of anguish, that his pain was no less than mine. He’d just lost a father he loved as much as I loved mine. Our eyes met, Katrina, and we didn’t fly at each other. We didn’t try to avenge our fathers on each other’s flesh. We wept together instead. And then we drew up a treaty.”

Tears streamed freely down her father’s face now. Katrina sat astonished, and had to swallow hard before she could find her voice.

“I’m so sorry, Father. I had no idea. I knew grandfather died when I was a baby, of course, but… I had no idea.”

Her father nodded. “That’s because we never told you. And there’s something else we never told you. The treaty had to be strong. It had to be something both clans would honor. We had to agree to something…immense.”

A shiver whispered across Kat’s skin. The foreboding she’d felt earlier grew quickly into alarm. She wanted to ask, but she knew deep in her heart she really didn’t want to know. No sense in delaying the inevitable.

“W-what… What did you agree to, Father?”

Her mother looked at her with eyes full of hope and regret. “It was the only way, Katrina. And we know you’ll agree. When you understand what it means for all of us, we know you’ll agree.”

“Okay, you’re starting to freak me out,” Kat said, her gaze ping-ponging between her parents. “What is it? Just tell me.”

“We agreed…” Her father cleared his throat and started again. “We agreed that, upon her twenty-first birthday, my daughter, Katrina Hamilton, would marry the eldest son of the newly instated Tier Fairchild.”

A long silence followed his statement, then Katrina burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s too funny, Father! You almost got me! Is there a hidden camera somewhere?”

Kat glanced around the room, but didn’t see anything out of place, and no one jumped out from behind the drapes to shout “Surprise!” When she caught her mother’s pitying expression, disbelief clutched her heart.

“You can’t be serious,” she breathed as she looked between them. Their expressions said they were deadly serious. “That’s ridiculous! This isn’t medieval times. You can’t simply marry me off to some stranger. He could be a monster, or a moron…or both! You can’t possibly expect me…” Her voice trailed off. No words seemed strong enough.

“He’s not a monster,” Tier Hamilton explained quietly, almost apologetically. “I wouldn’t do that. He’s a good man, a good bear. He’s a fine businessman, a fine…person.”

The reality of the situation settled like a concrete block on Kat’s heart. “I can’t believe you never told me. What’s wrong with you?”

Her parents flinched, then looked at each other with deep sadness. Her mother was the first to meet Kat’s eye.

“It was my idea, Katrina. I didn’t want you growing up with this hanging over your head. I wanted you to have as normal a life as possible, without having to worry about the future.”

“That’s why we couldn’t permit you to date,” her father added. “We couldn’t risk letting your reputation be damaged in any way.”

Katrina sat motionless and utterly speechless, shocked at the explanation for her romance-free life she never would have imagined.

Stella picked up the plate of cakes and held it out to her. “Have a bite, dear. We have a lot to discuss. Your birthday’s only two days away.”

“I won’t do it,” she whispered.

How could she? How could they? Two days? Impossible!

Her mother sighed and set down the plate. “You must, Katrina. If you don’t, we will go back to war and thousands will die. I’m sorry, but this is the only way.”

Kat jumped up from her seat, unsure why until the words tumbled out of her mouth. “I have to go. I have to…think!”

Her father stared down at his hands, unable to meet her furious gaze. Her mother was braver.

“Go for a run, dear. Think. I know you’ll come to the right — the only — conclusion.”

Kat was out the door in a flash. She ignored the tearing seams and shredding fabric of her clothes as she shifted and ran into the woods at full speed. And she ran. Ran from her parents, ran from the obligations they’d just heaped on her, ran from her life. As long as she ran, she wouldn’t have to think.

Yet she did.

For her entire life, Kat had been lectured about duty. Duty to her family, duty to her clan. But didn’t her family have a duty to her? To protect her?

She tried to imagine the horrors which would compel a man to promise away his only child. She’d learned enough in school and heard enough from friends’ parents to know the wars had been hell. They’d spoken of entire families being wiped out, friends going missing, countless homeless orphans. Their new lives were utopia, by comparison.

As much as her body screamed to refuse — to fight, to run — she couldn’t simply turn her back on her clan. What kind of person would she be if she only thought of her own selfish desires and left them to fates quite possibly worse than death? Her happiness wasn’t worth more than a single one of their lives.

No, her mother was right. It was the only way. She’d marry a stranger, but she would never give herself to him. She wouldn’t love him, wouldn’t bear his cubs, wouldn’t live with him, if she could help it. They would be married in name only, and if he didn’t like it, he could jump off a high cliff. She’d continue to travel, study, paint. She’d live her life as a single woman…forever.

Alex’s face flashed in her mind, but she pushed it away. It was better this way. She was better off closing her heart…forever.