by Nalini Singh
Attie took a minute to set up the next scan before she sighed and came to sit in her computer chair, turning it so she faced Kaia. "You know what I think of Hugo."
"I agree he's not the most reliable person." Hugo wasn't the friend you'd call if you needed someone around at a particular time. "But he's always been very clever with comms."
"Yes," Atalina agreed. "He's capable of having hacked into the information exactly as he said, but . . . Kaia, I know you adore Hugo, but why would he make the effort? He's one of the most self-centered people I've had the misfortune to meet."
"He is not." Kaia folded her arms. "He spent hours searching for the exact spice I wanted that time he went to the markets in Mumbai. And he built three different mazes for Hex." Those were just two recent examples of his generosity--Hugo had been there for her since they'd first met as children.
Even while traveling with her parents, Kaia had commed with Hugo regularly.
Atalina rubbed her hand over the hard curve of her belly. "You're right--he's different with you. You bring out the best in him." She got up, stretched out her back. "Which is why I do think about the dossier." A lingering glance at Bowen. "Hugo might be a poker-addicted screwup, but he's never involved you in anything questionable."
Though Atalina wasn't the most empathic of people, her brain more scientifically wired, she met Kaia's gaze and said, "I can't tell you if you can trust a word out of Bowen's mouth, Cookie." The old childhood nickname fell easily from her lips. "What I can tell you is that any decision you make, you need to make quickly."
Because the countdown in Bowen's brain wouldn't pause to give her time to sort through her confusion. "I hate this." It came out harsh, rough. "Why now? Why him?"
Atalina smiled softly at her, not misunderstanding her questions. "Even I know we don't get to choose." Smile fading, she said, "But take care of that soft heart of yours, Kaia. Right now, Bowen can guarantee you nothing but fourteen more days."
Hearing the ring of a tinny bell, Kaia went over and rescued Hex from the maze. His little heart was thumping, but she knew it wasn't in fear. He was a stubborn mouse determined to figure out the maze.
As stubborn as the man who'd thrown Kaia's world into chaos.
After taking a minute to pet Hex, she slipped him into a pocket of her dress . . . and returned to stand near Bowen.
Chapter 21
"I feel like I died in there. I'm a ghost now."
"No, you're a new Cassius. But you're still my best friend."
--Cassius Drake (13) and Bowen Knight (13)
BOWEN SNAPPED AWAKE in the scanning chair when Kaia shook his shoulder, and though he'd planned to call Malachai, Cassius, and Lily, he barely managed to make it to his room before his body shut down again. His last thought wasn't that he might never wake again should the chip or compound suffer a catastrophic failure, but that he wished he had Kaia's curves snug against him.
The next time he woke it was to find he'd slept for fifteen hours. The part of him used to getting up at four a.m. and working eighteen-hour days was aghast, but he knew there wasn't much he could do about the whole coma-and-implant situation. His body had suffered a terrible insult and it'd take time to return to full speed.
The one thing he could do was make those calls.
First, however, he had a shower and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a dark brown shirt with epaulets on the shoulders.
Shoving a hand through his hair, he ignored the gnawing in his stomach as he walked out of the bathroom. Food could--"Kaia." A strange and painful warmth bloomed inside his chest at seeing the covered tray beside his bed; it had appeared while he'd been in the shower.
Lifting the cover, he found a glass of orange juice, a banana sliced over a small bowl of cereal, and a shallow glass dish full of walnuts. Snacks to tide him over until he made it to the kitchen. She must've been keeping an eye on the feed from the data panel, been alerted when his readings altered. Even the cold, hard security chief part of him was disarmed by what she'd done with the information: taken care of him.
He ate and drank all of it before going to the panel and attempting to contact Malachai. The call went through but it was audio only--and even then, the connection was spotty. Bowen had the feeling it wasn't because of the station's location, not when his phone had a better connection. The BlackSea security chief must be in a place that interfered with a clean line.
"Malachai," he said. "I'm sure you know by now that I've arisen from the dead."
". . . news." Malachai's voice came through only in pieces. ". . . talk . . . back."
Bo tried to clean up the comm signal by boosting it on his end. "You hear me?"
"Yes, but it'll probably break again soon." The other man's tone was difficult to read.
"Dangerous allegations are being made against the Alliance," Bowen said, cutting right to the chase. "I need to know the details so I can hunt down the truth."
Malachai's next words had Bo's shoulders tensing. "You didn't tell me the Alliance wants to set up its own shipping line through BlackSea-controlled regions."
"New relationship," he replied. "Seemed bad form to bring that up when we'd barely begun talking." The line crackled again. "Why did you let Dr. Kahananui bring me on the station if you distrust the Alliance?"
"The information came to light after the initial arrangements had been made. If I pulled the plug prior to a full investigation, I killed you."
It was exactly the decision Bo would have made. "When was Hugo taken?"
"Three weeks ago. One week after I contacted your sister about the experiment, and two days before we brought you down."
More static on the line.
"Will you send through the suspicious Fleet movements so I can track them on our end?"
". . . the city." Heavy static. ". . . tomorrow."
The line went dead a second later and wouldn't reconnect.
Bo thought about trying to touch base with Miane Leveque instead but discarded that option after a moment's thought. It was Malachai who'd be in charge of this investigation, and it was Malachai with whom Bo had a relationship. He'd find out tomorrow if the other man intended to share the Fleet data--and it'd tell him how bad this was, whether BlackSea had already made its call for or against humanity.
He used his phone for the next call; if he'd been a security chief with a possible threat in his territory, he'd damn well have made sure to tap this comm line so he could monitor any calls that threat might make.
Cassius's grin cracked the pale gold skin of his angular face when he laid eyes on Bowen. "Damn it, you asshole. Took you long enough to get in touch."
"I keep falling asleep," Bo admitted. "Which is why I'm going to talk fast now. I tried to loop Lily in but her line is busy, so you'll have to fill her in." Not bothering to pull any punches, he told his second-in-command about BlackSea's belief of Alliance Fleet involvement in the vanishings; Malachai's cool responses had made it clear Kaia wasn't the only one who thought Bo and his people might have something to do with stealing and harming BlackSea changelings.
"Well, fuck." Cassius put his hands on his hips, his strikingly clear gray eyes as piercing as a wolf's. "Do we need to get you out of there?"
"No--I have to see this experiment through."
"You really think they'd give us a solution if they think we're killing their people?"
"The allegations came to light after they'd already offered us the experimental treatment, and Malachai is suspicious but not rushing to conclusions." The timing of Hugo's abduction, so close to the start of the experiment, niggled at Bo. "Dr. Kahananui, she's too much the scientist to allow politics to mess with her work--I think the questions about whether to give us any solution will come after the experiment is complete. We have to figure out the truth before then."
Cassius nodded. "Yeah, I follow." His hair glinted in the sunlight that hit him, the strands so closely buzzcut to his skull that you could barely tell they were blond. "What do you want me to do?"
<
br /> That was the thing with Cassius--he'd follow Bowen's lead without hesitation. It made him the best lieutenant Bo would ever have, but they both knew Cassius couldn't take hold of the reins should Bo fall.
"I'm a damn good soldier," he'd once said to Bo. "But I'm not a general."
For succession, Bo had looked initially to his third-in-command, but while Heenali was an independent thinker, she was also angry on the innermost level. "Fleet is under Heenali's control," he said, the words crushed stones coming out of his throat. "I need you and Lily to get into Heenali's comms and into all records of Fleet movements."
"I'll feel like a fucking asshole doing it," Cassius said, "but it has to be done." Spoken in the flat tone of a soldier.
Bo felt worse than an asshole; he owed Heenali his life many times over. "We do this, we find nothing, it goes no further than the three of us and we can protect her against any accusations." Bo would never sacrifice one of his people for political expediency.
Cassius's eyes held his. "We all know Heenali hates the Psy, but she's never said anything against changelings."
"Hate" was too mild a word for Heenali's repugnance of the psychic race. The major reason Bowen had never been able to point to her as his official successor was that her psychological scars made her hatred of the Psy so violent that it turned into a critical weakness. She couldn't think rationally enough to forge the political alliances necessary to position humanity for the future.
Cassius's own thinking wasn't far from Heenali's--but regardless of his animosity toward the Psy, he had always backed Bo's decisions. In a drunken state during a dark time, he'd told Bo that he had to back him because it kept Cassius from acting on his most savage instincts and becoming a monster.
If Cassius did ever become monstrous, the Psy had no one to blame but themselves.
Prior to the attack that had forever changed both their lives, the other man had been shy and laid-back, more inclined to smile than not. That Cassius had died a lifetime ago, and Bo knew he'd never return; Cassius had had to become a new person to stay sane.
"That's exactly why I can't figure this out," Bo said, folding his arms across his chest. "The vanishings have been linked conclusively to the Consortium, and the Consortium includes Psy."
"Right. Heenali wouldn't touch those fuckers with a ten-foot pole while wearing a hazmat suit." Cassius's expressionless soldier mode gave way to a frown that barely moved his facial muscles. "I can't see it, Bo."
"Neither can I, but we have to look." A harsh exhale. "It might be someone under her who's fallen for Consortium lies or promises of wealth." Bo trusted his knights without question, but the Alliance was a large organization and plenty of its members had fucked-up psyches as a result of run-ins with Psy.
Those run-ins had led them to the Alliance, but every so often, Bo would hear whispers that he was breaching the stated goals of the Alliance by doing business with "outsiders." The rumblings were generally very small; the vast majority of the Alliance membership understood that humanity couldn't thrive in isolation. It had to find a way to stand on equal ground with changelings and Psy--and to do that, they needed to build bonds with myriad groups across the world.
But if one of those disgruntled people had ended up with enough power to cause trouble . . . "Ask Lily to tag every possible suspect order or route with the name of the person who gave the order."
"I'll make sure Heenali doesn't find out we're looking into her," Cassius promised. "You know what it'd do to her."
"Yes." Heenali Roy had no other family--the knights were her brothers and sisters. "Protect her as much as you can, Cassius. I'm trying to get BlackSea to share the suspicious Fleet movements they've detected so you have specifics to work with."
Chest tight, Bo then made another difficult decision. "Tell Lily to hack communications if she has to, but I need you to make sure none of our people are talking to unexpected contacts."
Cassius's expression went impossibly flatter. "You're not putting Lily in such a tough spot on the basis of rumors of Fleet movements alone."
"Malachai knows about our proposed shipping line." Bo hadn't mentioned it right off the bat because he'd needed time to process the implications of BlackSea's security chief having that information.
"Jesus fucking Christ." White lines bracketed Cassius's mouth. "No one outside of the knights knows about that."
"No." It was a long-term ambition intended to bolster the Alliance's economic power while making it possible for humans to do business without dealing with Psy.
The latter would no longer be relevant if they got the implants to work, but in the current climate--where ninety-nine percent of human minds were vulnerable to telepathic coercion--business dealings with Psy remained fraught with the possibility of psychic manipulation.
A human was always in a vulnerable position in a negotiation with a Psy because they had to rely on the Psy having enough honor not to attempt to influence the negotiation via psychic means.
"Whoever leaked that information either did it accidentally," Bo said, "or the BlackSea male who vanished was right in fingering us." And someone had taken Hugo out for it. "We have to look at all the knights." Saying that was like thrusting a dagger into his own heart.
Chapter 22
Kaia remains badly wounded inside. Food is the only language she finds safe, and so you must learn to understand what it means to her.
--BlackSea's senior healer to Natia and Eijiro Kahananui (2063)
ENDING THE CALL with Cassius without good-byes, Bowen made his way to the kitchen area, drawn by a compulsion toward a woman who remained unsure about his capacity for the ugliest kind of betrayal. And yet who made sure he was warm and had food when he woke.
Bowen had the feeling he'd never understand Kaia.
The skinny teenager with the black curls and the starburst birthmark high on his left cheekbone--Scott, that was his name--was topping up the bread tray when he arrived. "Can you really not swim in the deep?" the kid asked.
"Not unless I want to drown." The idea of exploring the blackness beyond the seaward wall in just his skin was an exhilarating one regardless. "You sound like you've never met a human before." The idea brought him up short. Most changeling packs and clans had humans in the group--but BlackSea had sequestered itself for a long time. Maybe they didn't have human clanmates.
"What are humans?" It was the glint in the boy's eyes that gave him away.
Apparently teens were likable assholes regardless of race.
"And what about you?" Bo asked, having scanned the entire kitchen area without spotting Kaia. "Some kind of a winged jumping sea frog?"
Scott bristled. "There's no such thing as a winged jumping sea frog!" Heavy eyebrows drawing together into a vee over the deep green of his eyes. "I'm a shark. A hammerhead."
"I bet every teenage boy I meet is going to be a shark."
"Scott, why are you telling lies during your lunch shift?" The tone was female and severe.
Cheeks going a hot pink, Scott ducked his head. "He thinks winged jumping sea frogs are real."
The woman who'd spoken, a gray-haired matron with a solid body, her gilt-colored hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail and a prominent beauty spot just below her right eye, raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure he believes you're a shark, too." Tumbling the boy's curls, she said, "Be proud of who you are, my love. For you are a being of patience and grace."
The boy's smile turned unexpectedly sweet. "I was just messing with him, Grandma." After turning to hug the older woman and get a kiss on the cheek, he limped off toward the back of the kitchen, where a middle-aged man appeared to be running things.
Definitely no Kaia, though. Could be her day off. Or she'd gone swimming, and if he waited long enough by the seaward wall, he'd see a brown-eyed siren swimming out of the black, her hair streaming behind her like living water. "Scott," he said when he realized the older woman was watching him, "what type of changeling is he?"
It was his turn to get a stern l
ook down an aquiline nose. "That's a very rude question, young man." Pursed lips. "If my grandchild wants to reveal himself to you, that's his choice--and if you ask me what I am, I'll clip you about the ears. Now, pass me a roll."
Set firmly in his place and reminded of his paternal grandmother--the indomitable Cece--Bowen did as ordered, then set about filling his plate while considering how best to track down Kaia. He told himself it was so he could find out if she knew anything further about the Alliance Fleet encroaching into BlackSea territory, but the truth was he just craved her.
He didn't feel like a man racing a clock counting down to oblivion when he was with her; he felt young, alive, more himself than he'd been his entire adult life. There were no shields with Kaia, no walls. He was Bowen and she was Kaia and what they had between them was a turbulent fire that threatened to burn them both.
Walking out into the atrium with his food and a mug of coffee, he nearly ran into a short and lithely muscular man with reddish blond hair. He'd been on edge ever since he left his room, expecting another reaction like that from the mustachioed man yesterday. But Hugo had apparently not shared his theories with all his clanmates because this one grinned at him.
"Good to see you up, dude." It was the heavily gritty voice that told him the other male's identity.
Bowen grinned back. "KJ. Thanks for not barging in while I was in the shower."
"No tentacles, only two arms, not even worth it to look." Laughter danced in his eyes. "Catch you later--I'm just grabbing my caffeine fix before I head over for my shift at the infirmary."
"Wait." Bowen angled his head as KJ went past. "The station has an infirmary?"
"Six hundred folks and guests--and a whole bunch of them full-time blackers who think racing sharks and diving with orca is a funtime activity." KJ threw up his hands as he walked backward toward the coffee station. "Infirmary's never empty is all I'm saying. I got job security for life."
The words caused a pang of homesickness deep within Bowen. The Alliance's head medic often muttered about his job security while patching up yet another injured soldier.
