Page 88 of Bearly Out Loud

Dojin shifted back.

Naked. Bleeding from the shoulder—the gash was deep, already closing but still wet. Shaking with adrenaline that had nowhere left to go. His eyes were full gold—no amber, no brown, solid gold from lid to lid—and they found Nari in four steps.

She was on the floor. Suki knelt beside her, pressing a silk scarf to the claw wounds on her back—three parallel gashes, deep, bleeding steadily through the ruined fabric of her jacket. Hana sat beside them, tears running silently down her face, her hand gripping Nari’s arm. James stood over all three, phone to his ear, already speaking to the district attorney in the flat voice he used when fury had to wait its turn.

Nari’s face was white. Her jaw was clenched against the pain. But she looked up at him and her mouth moved.

“You’re naked in a hotel lobby.”

Her voice was thin. Shaking. Threaded with pain. But she was making a joke and that meant she was alive and he—finally,finally—pulled back from the red edge.

“You shielded Hana.” His voice didn’t sound right. Deeper. Rougher. Still raw, still vibrating under his skin, still processingthe reality that his mate had thrown herself between a rogue grizzly and his sister.

“Someone had to.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“You’re naked.”

“Nari.”

“Dojin. I’m okay.” Her hand found his knee. Her grip was weak. “I’m okay. Look at me. I’m okay.”

He dropped to the marble beside her. His hands—those hands that kneaded bread dough and built beehive frames and held teacups without breaking them—hovered over her back, trembling, afraid to touch, afraid to add pressure to the wounds that were still bleeding through Suki’s silk. Hana, still crying, pulled off her jacket and laid it across his shoulders. It covered approximately one-third of him. He didn’t notice.

Suki pressed the scarf. Held pressure. Looked at Dojin with eyes that had watched her husband build a legacy, watched a thief steal it, and were now watching a bear kneel naked on a hotel floor because her granddaughter had protected his family.

Five words: “She chose your sister. Good.”

The lobby doors banged open.

Takumi.

He stood in the entrance—designer jacket, statement sneakers, phone in one hand—and surveyed the scene. The shattered glass doors. The cracked marble. The destroyed restaurant visible through the collapsed wall. Reo’s security team restraining a grizzly bear on the floor. Nari bleeding. Dojin naked. Hana crying. Suki holding a blood-soaked silk scarf, calm as stone, as though she had seen worse and chosen not to discuss it.

Seventeen seconds of silence.

“I was gone for TWENTY MINUTES.”

Reo appeared from behind a toppled luggage cart. Human form. He had found a tablecloth—white, pressed, the hotel’s good linen—and knotted it around his waist with the efficiency of someone who had worn worse in worse circumstances.

“Situation contained.”

Takumi stared at the tablecloth. “You’re wearing a tablecloth.”

“It’s Egyptian cotton. There are worse options.”

Takumi opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I need a drink. Multiple drinks. An entire bar.” He crossed the destroyed lobby, knelt beside Nari, and took her hand. “Hey. You alive?”

“Don’t make me laugh. It pulls the wounds.”

“I’m not being funny.”

“Your face is being funny. You look like you walked into your own surprise party and the surprise was bears.”

“That isexactlywhat happened.”

Nari’s laugh was small and ended in a wince. Takumi held her hand tighter.