by Nalini Singh
"Hey!" came the cry from several throats.
Rolling her eyes at the insult in their tones while Atalina laughed, she finally managed to get off Armand's lap. "How long are you idiots down here?"
"Only a couple of hours," Taji said around a mouthful of food another clanmate had delivered. Oleanna, meanwhile, was whispering in Tevesi's ear.
Bowen's hand curled around hers. A slight tug. A request. She went into his lap, frowned at the lines flaring out from his eyes, but she knew him well enough not to ask what was wrong in public. "So," she said to her cousins, "what's happening up above?"
Their stories were as wickedly amusing as always and she was sorry to disappear even for a minute when it was time to take the souffles from the oven, but Bowen came along to help her, which gave her time to brush her fingers over his cheekbone and say, "You're in pain?"
"No, but I was," he said after checking to ensure they were alone. "Dr. Kahananui says the models predicted the likelihood of pain during this stage of the process." He put a tray of the miniature souffles where she indicated. "It means we're on track."
Gut twisting, Kaia put down her own tray. "You're sure?"
He pulled another tray out of the oven. "I'd never lie to you, Siren." Leaning in, he kissed her. "It hurt like a bitch, but it's gone. As if my brain misfired for a second, like it didn't know quite how to direct the signals, then figured it out."
Tugging off her oven mitts, Kaia walked into his arms after he'd put down the final tray. She held him fiercely tight, holding off the future. She wanted to live a little longer in this impossible, extraordinary dream. Nuzzling the side of his face against her temple, he said, "Seraphina kissed Edison and I'm pretty sure he's still on fire."
Her lower lip trembled at how he was attempting to distract her, and inside her, the creature who was her other half slid along her skin. It wanted his touch, wanted him to swim with her in the sea. "You're making that up," she said, pulling back to look up into a face that held far too much life to be on the edge of oblivion.
"Cross my heart." That too-long hair sliding over his forehead, he took a kiss of his own that left her breathless. "Come on, Siren. The men want to spend time with you."
It was a party out there now, complete with dance music across the atrium's system, and Junji and KJ having a dance-off while KJ's wife egged him on. The mini souffles disappeared at the speed of light, were replaced by bowls of tortilla chips and dip, along with thick sandwiches, and plates of chocolate cookies from Kaia's emergency party stash.
"It's always like this," she murmured to Bowen while they danced and Armand flirted with a blushing Tansy, having backed her extremely willing friend up against the seaward wall. "Everywhere the five of them go, they attract people to them."
Bowen, his arms around her, bent to press his forehead to her own. "I'm not like them." His eyes were fathomless. "It takes me time."
"I know." Bowen was like water on rock, a slow, relentless, determined pressure. "I like your patience, Bowen Knight." Such an understatement when she adored each and every part of him.
His honor.
His commitment to the Alliance.
His courage in walking into the unknown.
The way he'd never, not once, hesitated in looking into the terrible darkness that might exist in the heart of his own organization.
And most of all . . . the way he looked at her. As if she were a dream come to life.
Her stomach clenched. Only a moment, she reminded herself. Only the now.
* * *
*
KAIA wasn't the least surprised when Edison found her an hour into the gathering and, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, gently walked her away from the crowd. Kaia was aware of Bowen watching them go, but he didn't interfere.
She and her second oldest cousin walked in silence to the connecting bridge between habitat one and habitat five, then stood there looking out at the water. Schools of wild fish swam beyond, their bodies giving off a faint luminous glow. A bigger body would swim past every so often, usually a clanmate from Ryujin.
They were drawn by the activity in the atrium and as soon as they spotted one of her cousins, nearly all headed for an entry pool. While Atalina was deeply respected and loved, her brothers were flat-out adored by clanmates as well as by Attie herself.
The boys even had the ability to make Malachai unbend.
Last time the five had taken their lone Rhys cousin for a night out at one of the bars on the closest inhabited island, all six had come back three sheets to the wind. Kaia had never before seen Malachai drunk, but that day, he'd scooped her up in his arms and swung her around in a zigzagging dance he'd insisted was a waltz.
Big as Mal was, she could do nothing but laugh and hang on until he got dizzy and decided "the waltz was fucking hard."
"Kaia, you know what I'm going to say." Edison's body was warm next to her own, his arm a heavily protective weight around her shoulders.
She wrapped one of her own arms around his back. "I can take care of myself." All her older cousins--Attie, Mal, Edison, and Armand--still saw her as the shattered, broken girl who'd come to them at seven years of age, but that had been a long time ago.
As an adult, Kaia had never wanted to live in a bubble.
Which, of course, was the irony of ironies. Because she did literally live in a bubble. But it was a bubble of her own choosing. A bubble she could leave at will. And oh, how well she lied even to herself. Big words didn't prove the measure of a woman. It was what she did that proved that.
"I'm such a fake," she whispered before Edison could respond. "Hiding down here and pretending I'm a big, tough, independent changeling." None of her family would ever say that, would ever confront her with her cowardice, but no matter the justifications she sold herself, Kaia knew.
Edison squeezed her closer. "I wouldn't mess with you."
She snuggled into the comfort of him. He'd been fifteen the day her world ended, and he'd hugged her then, too. His scent was familiar and of family and she could let down her walls with him. "I heard Sera laid one on you." It was easier to talk about that than the terrors that kept her swimming range limited to the areas around Ryujin and Lantia. Never beyond the patrolled borders.
He blew out a breath. "Where has she been all my life?"
"Right under your nose." It tickled both parts of her that one of her best friends might end up her sister-in-law. Because she'd never before heard that tone in Edison's voice when he spoke about a woman.
It happened that way at times with changelings. Two people who'd known each other all their lives suddenly realizing they were never meant to be just friends. Kaia had always thought it was when both reached a point in their lives where they were ready for one another.
Sera was younger than Edison, couldn't have handled his intensity even a couple of years ago. Now, however, her friend was well bedded into her role as assistant station commander and could go toe-to-toe with anyone. Including a certain Kahananui male.
"We'll get back to my future mate," he said in that quiet Edison way, "but first things first. Have you told him?"
She should've known better than to try to distract Edison. "I'll tell him once the experiment is complete." Not telling Bowen about the telepathy had truly been an oversight, but this was a conscious choice. "There's no point bringing it up now."
But she was talking to the cousin who, as a youth, had taught a fearless five-year-old Kaia to swim beyond the clan's boundaries, the cousin who'd helped her jump fences so they could escape out into the great blue. He'd always watched over her when they played outside the fences, but she'd felt so free, so wild and dangerous even though they were only meters from the safe zone for the minnows of BlackSea.
Kaia felt a keening pang for that small girl who'd swum without fear. Who hadn't understood the pain and death that awaited. That girl had lived.
"You have to tell him." Edison cupped her face. "You have to give him the freedom to make that choice while he
can make it." She knew then that he'd spoken to Atalina about her experiment, understood that Bowen might not make it out of this whole. "I trust your instincts when it comes to people, so I know he must be a good man; he deserves the truth."
"I don't want him to see me as permanently damaged goods."
Edison's face tightened at her shaken whisper. "If he doesn't see you for the gift that you are, then he doesn't deserve you. Don't sell yourself short, little sister."
When Kaia didn't answer, he said, "And what about you?" A kiss pressed to her forehead in that big-brother way of his that made her feel profoundly rooted. "You love so deeply, Kaia, that your heart breaks into a million pieces when you lose someone. How will you survive him if the experiment fails?"
Kaia laid her head against her cousin's chest, allowed herself to be enveloped in the warm comfort of his arms. "I don't know." It came out a broken sound. "I don't know if I will survive him."
Bo wasn't simply a lover.
He was Kaia's.
And she was his.
Chapter 47
Life cuts us. A million bloody slices.
--Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)
BO TUGGED KAIA away from the atrium an hour later to steal a kiss . . . and to try to erase the faint sadness that had lingered in the back of her eyes since she'd returned from speaking with Edison. "What's the matter?" he asked.
Huge brown eyes looked up at him. "I have a secret." It was a bald statement. "It's a bad one and I'm scared to tell you."
He didn't misread what she meant. "Nothing you say could ever change how I feel about you."
Swallowing hard, his tough Kaia with the marshmallow heart said, "Give me a little more time?"
"Take all the time you need," he whispered.
Her eyes shone wet for an instant but she blinked away the tears and they danced in their quiet, secret place as if time weren't racing forward toward an unknown future.
Her cousins were gone by the time they got back to the atrium.
"Damn it." Bo looked around, spotted a distinctly ruffled-looking Seraphina--her curls were a mess and she didn't appear to have much lipstick left. "How long ago did they leave?"
The assistant station commander blinked. "A couple of minutes maybe." Breathy voice, her hand pressed to her chest.
"Which exit pool?"
"Um"--Seraphina smiled dreamily--"I think he said three."
Dropping Kaia's hand, Bo began to run. "Back soon!" he yelled over his shoulder and, from the burst of laughter that washed over his senses, his siren knew exactly why he was running like a madman.
He was glad for his foolishness if it had made her forget the sadness.
His heart pounded, that mechanical piece of him keeping exact time as he dodged around the startled changelings in his path. And the coolly strategic part of him thought--this heart is better than my old one. It could last longer at higher rates of activity. It'd give him a physical advantage once he was back to full strength.
But it remained a heart. His heart. A human heart.
The mechanics didn't change the blood that ran through it, or the mind of the man in whose body it was integrated.
Now it pumped with smooth efficiency as he pelted down the bridge to habitat two, the sea flashing by on either side. A large being swam alongside him for a while, its eye appearing intensely curious. Before Ryujin, he'd have thought it impossible to read the gaze of a creature of the deep. Now he knew nosy fish who liked to poke about outside the window to his room and who he swore laughed when they startled him by appearing without warning. As for his current companion . . .
A fucking hammerhead shark! Who here was a shark? Or was it someone from the city above?
He ignored the extraneous thoughts as he crossed the bridge to habitat three and exploded into the habitat proper. Kaia and the Kahananui men were cousins, not siblings, but they all displayed a similar mischievous playfulness. Even Taji, the acknowledged grump of the group, had gleefully snuggled Seraphina, then informed Oleanna--with utmost solemnity--that he didn't stir out of bed for anything less than ten tentacles.
It solidified Bowen's suspicions about Kaia's animal, but he needed proof.
However, the doors to the exit pool had already closed by the time he arrived. A red light flashed above to alert him that the doors had locked and wouldn't open until exit was achieved. He pressed his face to the transparent material. Though the water of the pool lapped strongly against the edges, there was no sign of the men.
Discarded jeans and T-shirts littered the benches to the left of the pool.
Since those clothes had all fit the men, they'd either had them in storage on Ryujin all along--or they'd somehow swum down with them. BlackSea changelings had to have come up with ways to carry a change or other items; otherwise, they'd have to build clothes-and-money caches along every shoreline.
Spinning away from the pool, Bo ran to the closest seaward wall, having calculated exactly where the men would come out once they exited the habitat. But he was too late. Water rippled in the lights from the habitat and he caught the silvery flash of a sleekly powerful creature moving up above, but it was only the slightest glimpse and nowhere near enough to confirm or deny his guess.
Groaning, he leaned down with his hands on his thighs and tried to catch his breath. His heart thundered, but it was holding strong. It was the rest of his post-coma body that wasn't impressed with his sudden headlong run.
"They'll drive you crazy," a male voice said.
Bo wasn't startled, having sensed George walking up to him. "I'm starting to get that feeling," he said before rising to his full height and turning to face the thin male.
For once, the dour-faced man was smiling. "It's a game the Kahananuis play," he said, "not telling people their other self. They do it to unfamiliar clanmates, too."
Bo took in George's face and body and could come up with no creature he might resemble. "Will you answer about your own other self if I ask?"
A sly smile. "No, I like it to be a secret, too." Something in the way he spoke made Bowen pause, but when George simply stared out at the water with a half smile that shouted wonder, he shook off the sensation. Clearly, Dr. Kahananui's assistant enjoyed being inscrutable as much as Kaia liked being mischievous.
BlackSea's motto should be: Secretive R Us.
* * *
*
EXACTLY forty-four hours later and Bo was sick to the pit of his stomach. "You're sure?" he said to Cassius and Lily.
They both nodded. "Orders definitely came from Heenali." Cassius's grim voice. "Lily was able to track the calls the Fleet captains say they received. All were from her direct line."
"Any chance a skilled hacker could have hacked her codes?" Bo struggled to believe that Heenali would scupper their alliance with BlackSea--what possible reason could she have for such a massive betrayal?
And the missing Hugo was a hacker who'd lied once already.
Bowen felt disloyal to Kaia for considering that option, but he had to consider it. Hugo was an unknown to him, while Heenali was a trusted friend and compatriot.
"The captains were adamant it was her voice on the line, her way of speaking." Cassius folded his arms across his chest. "We have to find her, ask her."
"Yes." It was the least she deserved. "You lost track of her in Ireland?"
"Last fix was a place called Cork. She must've discovered the tracker and gotten rid of it."
"And she's too smart to give herself away by using electronics that can be tracked, or tapping her accounts," Lily pointed out. "She might have cash but it's more likely she's using an unregistered card."
The latter wasn't a problem in itself--they all had unregistered cards, a safety feature that had sprung up in the aftermath of the previous leadership's betrayal. Lily herself had helped Bowen and the knights skirt the registration system, but she was scrupulous about never knowing any details that could be used to track those cards.
Their whole point was to turn the
runner into a ghost.
"Track her ex," Bo ordered. "Only reason Heenali probably hasn't already found him is because she's trying to do it on her own." Heenali had many skills, but she was no expert in Lily's field. "We find him, we find her."
Lily picked up an organizer. "I know where he stayed while in Venice. I should be able to unearth a financial trail."
After ending the troubling conversation with Lily and Cassius, Bo went directly to his scheduled appointment with Dr. Kahananui. She proved to be cautiously optimistic. "The changes are progressing exactly as modeled. I feel comfortable in saying the third injection will permanently stabilize the chip."
"What about my brain?"
"It could still go either way."
Bo shoved his hands through his hair and stared at the ground before getting to his feet. "Thank you, Doctor." There was only one place to go, only one person he wanted to see.
Kaia took one look at him and tugged him into a quiet corner of her busy kitchen. "What did Attie say?"
He told her, then said, "I haven't spoken to my parents yet." A lack that tore at him. "I figured they'd already mourned me once. Why give them hope when it could all be over in three more days? Two, since I won't have much time on that last day."
The lack of time was a freight train rushing at him.
Kaia searched his face. "Talk to them," she said softly. "Last time, it was an act of violence that brought you to the edge of death. This time around, you've taken hold of your own destiny--and your parents know their son, will understand the choice you've made." Her hand, warm and strong, pressing against his cheek. "If I could speak to my parents again, even if only for a single minute, I'd take it."
The raw hunger in her voice shattered Bo. Enfolding her in his arms, he held her until one of her assistants called for her.
Kaia told her younger clanmate she'd be there in a moment, then kissed Bo sweet and infinite. "You need this, too. Go, talk to them."
Bo contacted Lily first, so she could warn Leah and Jerard Knight. Five minutes later, he took a deep breath and placed his call. Smiles cracked two grief-worn faces. Their joy was piercing, their sadness a punishing heartbreak, and their pride in his choice to be used as an experiment an open thing.
